them before we go any farther CHAP. II. That the State of the Government of the Latin Church some Ages ago gave to our Fathers Prejudices of its Corruption in Doctrine and Worship sufficient to drive them more nearly to Examine their Religion AS our Fathers did not Reform themselves but by following the Examination which they made of Religion such as it was in their days and as they did not enter upon that Examination but by the Prejudices which they received that its state was extreamly corrupted it is necessary to our judging of their Conduct to consider in the first place of what nature and force those Prejudices were whether they were just or unjust rash or reasonable and whether they justly led our Fathers to make a more particular Reflection upon that which they taught them It shall be then by this Fundamental Question that we will begin and first propose the Prejudices that the corrupted estate of the Ecclesiastical Government gave them some Ages before and afterwards we shall consider those that the same External State of Religion furnisht them with But because this matter will engage us to declare those Truths which it may be will not be agreeable to all the World they ought to remember that we are within the bounds of a just and natural defence having been publickly provoked to it by a Famous Book which is alledged on all occasions with great boasting and that that Book in assaulting us with Prejudices has furnisht us with the very same Example to defend our Ancestours likewise by Prejudices and that it will be a strange injustice if while on the one side they charge us with such foul accusations they will not allow us on the other side to declare those things that are essential to our justification We will declare them then but no otherwise then Historically and upon the proper Testimony of those Authors which the Church of Rome approves with a design rather nakedly to shew them then subtilly to represent or exaggerate them In the first place Our Fathers beheld that instead of having kept that Evangelical simplicity which Jesus Christ and his Apostles had so much recommended by their Sermons and their Examples they had on the contrary framed the Government of the Church according to the Platform and Model of Secular Empires They saw an almost innumerable Company of Dignities elevated by Pompous Titles Canons Honours Preeminencies and Priviledges upheld by the vast Riches and the Splendor of the World and all of them together depending on a Soveraign High-Priest who had lifted himself up above the whole Church as its rightful Monarch yea as a Divine Monarch whose words must be Laws and whose Laws Oracles who pretended to reign not only over the external Actions of men but to Lord it also over their Souls and their Consciences and who left nothing so reserved in the deepest and most inward motions of the Soul of which he did not demand its Subjection It had been very hard if our Fathers had not found in the midst of the Grandeur of this Body so ordered somthing very much alien to the natural Aspect of the Church of Jesus Christ which is much rather a Ministry then an Empire in respect of its External Government Indeed if Jesus Christ had had a design to have established such a Dominion as our Fathers beheld established he had never told his Disciples that which he said to them The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactours But it shall not be so with you but he that is great among you let him be as the less and he that is chief as he that doth serve St. Peter would never have said to the Pastors of the Church that which he told them Feed the stock of Jesus Christ which is committed to you not as being Lords over God's Heritage It had then already from thence in that very Dominion a great sign of its Corruption It was an evil but an evil that discover'd divers others For it had this appearance with it that the Spirit of the World had got possession of the Ministers of the Church till it made them forget what they were in their first Institution beyond which it had made them often commit many outrages 2. They had not contented themselves to establish a Spiritual Dominion upon the plat-from of Secular ones unless they joyned the very Temporal one it self to it The greater part of the Bishops were become Lords properly so called and even some of them had got to be Soveraign Princes with the Titles and Preregatives of other Princes and Lords without any difference had not the Popes themselves done far better if they had put themselves in possession of that which they now call the State of the Church under the quality of Temporal Lords and Monarchs I will not mention by piece-meal the Disorders the Complaints the Contentions the Wars that this Spirit of Temporal Dominion has raised This is not my design It is sufficient for me to remark that one can scarce give a more certain Character of the Corruption of a Church then that For where that Spirit reigns it is by that that men will easily bring in Errors and Superstitions at least those that can bring them any advantage and those that have a tendency to adjust the Crown with the Miter and the worldly Grandeur with the Dignities of the Church It is not very easy in such a state to be studiously watchful over the Flock and much less to repel the Doctrines the Customes and the Maximes that can any ways advance or favour that Elevation 3. Covetousness is almost always inseparable from Ambition They are those two things that nourish and mutually sustain one another So our Fathers saw them reigning together through a long tract of time among the Church-men I will not here speak of the complaints which they made many Ages ago of the Avarice of the Court of Rome because I shall mention something about them hereafter in this Discourse I will only say that those Complaints were universally extended to all the Clergy whom they reproacht with an insatiable greediness of heaping up of Riches The vast stocks they had gained the great Cares they took to hinder an Alienation and procure an increase would not possibly be the worst proofs But as that evil spread it self very far so it was lamented for a long time after They feed on the sins of my people said St. Bernard who lived in the twelfth Century that is to say they require money for their sins without making any other account of the Sinuers Who of the Clergy may you not observe far more careful to empty the Purses of those set under them then to destroy their Vices A disorderly Appetite of those Lands that are annexed to the Churches said Cardinal Cusanus dwells at this day in the hearts of the aspiring Bishops
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
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
Mystery of Iniquity which had began to work or to form it self could not be conceiv'd of but under the Idea of a secret Plot whose lowest Foundations were laid in the very days of the Apostles and which must at length after a long Train of Ages have come to its utmost pitch and be manifested And as to that other Passage it supposes in the first place a Captivity of the People of God Go out says it of Babylon Secondly a Captivity of that People who did not yet fail to be the People of God Go out of her says it my People And in the third place a Captivity in which while they abode they were in danger of partaking of the sins of their Oppressours Least it adds in partaking of its sins Yee partake also of its plagues All that formed an Idea of a Church that groan'd under the weight of a great Corruption which easily gave way to that thought that it might possibly be the Latin Church as soon as any other and that it might as well fall out in the times of our Fathers as in any other season CHAP. V. More Particular Reflections upon that Priviledge of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Church and of its Authority ANy one may now see methinks from what I have laid down what Judgment ought to be made of that pretended Infallibility that the Latin Church ascribed to it self and by what means they would shut our eyes and reduce us to a slavish Obedience We shall yet nevertheless make here some reflexions upon it and see whether it has any solid Foundation and any Justice in that claim 1. But before we proceed farther it will be necessary to know what they understand by that Infallible Church and examine all the Sences that may be given to this Proposition that the Church cannot err For our Adversaries themselves very differently understand it In the first place then if they would plainly say That that which has been believ'd and universally practis'd by all those who have compos'd the Body of the visible Church throughout the extent of all Ages is Infallibly true I say that it is a very useless Principle since to speak according to men it is impossible to know that which has been so believ'd and universally practis'd So that one need say no more against it but to send back those men to an Infallibility of that nature Who could make a search so just so clear and so general as he ought to assure himself of the unanimous consent of all the particular Members unless he could raise all that were dead and understand them one after another I acknowledge that we have the Books of the Antients but all have not wrote and who can warrant us that those who have not wrote had the same Sentiments with those that have Who can warrant that the many Books that are lost were not in very many points contrary to those that are extant Who can teach us nicely to distingush what those Authors have wrote in Copying out of or in imitating one another from their true and natural Sentiments and that which they have wrote on their own heads from that which they have wrote as Witnesses of the general Belief of their Ages Who can assure us that they were not sometimes deceived in taking for the general Belief or Practise of the Church those things which were not so For the same Case happens in these very days that as to those things that seem so exceeding clear there are yet a sort of men who would perswade us that we do not very well and perfectly know what the General belief of the Church of Rome is and that we may very easily deceive our selves and deceive others how much more then heretofore when those things were by nothing near so clearly decided and so manifest as they are now at this day Who can exactly enough tell us what those Articles were wherein all the Antients were universally agreed and those wherein they did not agree since it has very often fell out that one and the same Author has wrote things very contrary upon one and the same Subject Who can assure us that what three or four Antient Authors had wrote after an agreeable manner was not one of those particular deviations from the Truth which one may often discover in them which does not at all hinder but that the contrary Opinion may be more received and more general In fine there is nothing so vain and so fallacious as that pretended Infallibility of the Church if they restrain it to those Doctrines which shall be found established by the unanimous consent of all Persons and of all Ages Moreover Such a kind of Infallibility would not only have been no hindrance to our Fathers from entring on an examination of the matters of Religion but it would also have obliged them to it For they must always have known whether that which was taught and practis'd in the Church in their days concerning Faith and Worship had been confirm'd by the consent of all the foregoing Ages which they could never have known but by such an examination So that those who in these days dispute with us about the right of the Reformation will never find any reason on their side The Church of Rome must needs be very Infallible with them but it can be so but in one respect I would say in those matters wherein She agrees with the Church throughout all Ages and with all those Persons who Compose it which could not in the least have taken away her possibility of erring in those matters wherein she should withdraw her self from the Antient Church and by consequence she must submit her self her decisions her Doctrines and her Customs to a Rule and an Authority that was superiour according to which they ought to be examined 2. If they understand by it That the Church in every Age cannot err that is to say for Example That that which was believed and generally practis'd and beyond all controversy in the Church in the days of our Fathers could not be otherwise then true and good I say that they make this a Principle which cannot be to any purpose and from which they cannot draw any advantage For how could they assure themselves that all those who made up the Body of the Visible Church a little before the Reformation did well approve of the Doctrines that they then taught and the Worship that was then practis'd and how could they distinctly and precisely affirm that any such thing had been generally received For it cannot be imagin'd under a pretence that some certain Opinions had been ordinarily taught in the Schools or that certain Devotions had been commonly used that they should be brought into the publick Service and spread over their Books under that same pretence It cannot I say be imagin'd that there had not been many in the World who disapprov'd them and look'd on them as errours and abuses altho' they
those who demanded of Pilate his Death by crying against him away with him away with him Crucify him and those in fine who rejected the word of his Apostles and who instead of being converted by them persecuted them would be sufficiently justified in their bold unbeleif and that detestable Parricide which they committed on the Person of the Son of God For what were all those things but just consequences of that Principle They would not hearken to the Censures that Jesus Christ made of the Traditions and Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees their Church admitted those Traditions They would not believe that Jesus was the true Messiah their Church had determined that whosoever did believe it should be cast out of their Synagogues They rejected the Proofs that he gave them from the Scripture it was not for them to judge of the true meaning of the Scripture and the Church understood it otherwise They demanded that he might be Crucified the Church had condemned him for a Seducer as an Enemy to Moses and the Law it was not for them to inform themselves any farther They rejected his Miracles the Church did so too and said that he cast out Devils by the power of Beelzebub They would not hearken to his Apostles the Authority of the Church forbad them Hitherto their conduct is within due Rules supposing that the Principle of the Author of prejudices might be just and lawful and those miserable People are very much obliged to him for furnishing them with arms wherewith to defend themselves 4. That Maxim of the Author of those Prejudices draws yet far greater absurdities after it It ministers accusations against Jesus Christ himself against his Apostles and all those who were converted by their Words If the Faithful by those Laws of their submission to the Church ought not to have any other Eyes than hers why did Jesus Christ present himself immediatly to the People when he should first of all have made known his call from Heaven the Glory of his Person and the Dignity of his Office to the Church to have made them own it by proving it to them before he Preach't to the People He was they will say her Lord and the Church her self would have had no Authority but by him that is true But if the People owed the Church an absolute obedience they would have owed it all that time that the Lord would have remained unknown He ought then to have began to make himself known to her and to have opened her Eyes that he might at the same time have opened those of all the People If Jesus Christ had been known to have been indeed what he was there is no doubt to be made but that he would alone have been heard without any dependance on the Church of which he is the Soveraign Lord but as yet he was not and till that knowledge had obtained the People would have been always bound according to the Principle of the Author of Prejudices not to have seen but by the Eyes of the Church to which God had subjected them To speak then home to this Question whether Jesus Christ was the Son of God the promised Messiah or whether he was not the Faithful being bound to believe nothing but what the Church should tell them he could not but have addrest himself to her and not to the Faithful People immediatly Nevertheless it is most true that he addressed himself neither to the Priests nor to the Scribes nor to the Pharisees nor to the Doctors he Preached his Gospel to the simple People out of them he took his Disciples and it was among them that he did almost all his Miracles in fine he himself gives thanks to his Father for that he had hid his Mysteries from the Wise and Prudent and had revealed them unto Babes Whence could such a conduct proceed so contrary to that Soveraign Authority wherewith at this day they would invest the Church that is the Pastors in respect of the Lay-men It is not difficult to understand that it was because Jesus Christ did no ways act from that Principle nor owned it for a good one for if he had owned it he had never suffered the People to have violated it he had made use of another way to make himself known to them and he would have employed the Ministry of the Church for that end 5. One may see the same thing of the Apostles if the People ought entirely to refer themselves to the Church in matters of Faith and Religion Why did the Apostles sollicit the Jews to embrace their Doctrine when they could not so much as hear them without being criminal They will say they had a commandment from their Master to Preach this Gospel I confess it but the Jews lived under a Church that had openly declared it self against their Preaching and they might tell them according to the Maxim of those Gentlemen It is vain that you Preach to us that you work Miracles that you alledge the Scriptures We see by the Eyes of the Church we hear by her Ears we march after her Steps and we devest our selves of our own guidance to rest our selves upon hers This is our Duty and the Law that is imposed on us why do you go about to tempt us to violate it Suppose we that a Jew after having heard one of those Divine and admirable Sermons of Saint Paul should have addrest himself to him and have demanded of him what Authority he pretended to give to that new Christian Church which he took such care to establish whether he did not mean that its Children should render a blind Obedience to it and that they should refer themselves wholly to their Pastors for deciding matters of Faith without intermedling themselves to search out the true sence of the Scripture Suppose yet that that great Apostle should have answered him according to that Maxim of the Author of Prejudices That it was true that the darkness of our understandings and our prejudices might be able to hinder us from seeing in the Scriptures those Truths that are clearly contained in them that a man could not assure himself that he was not of the number of those who deceived themselves That that doubt is terrible but that which yet infinitely heightens that dread which it must needs cause is that men are necessarily bound to chuse their Party and to make so weighty a choice to wit of that Religion that they ought to follow amidst the cumbrances of a thousand cares and a thousand worldly necessities that almost wholly take them up and that will allow them but a very little time to examine the Truths of that Religion That the greatest part of Mankind wanted necessary helps that the half of Christians could not tell how to read that others did not understand any Language but their own that others had so narrow and limited a Capacity that they could but very difficultly conceive the most easie
its greatest contests with the Latin was always a Catholick Church she was of as great Antiquity as the Roman she had an uninterrupted duration from many Ages ago she had her large extent and her multitude as well as the Roman she had a Personal Succession of her Bishops down from the Apostles she gloried in a Conformity to the Doctrine of the Fathers she had her members united among themselves and with her Patriarchs she did no less then the Roman affirm her Doctrine to be Holy and her word to be Efficacious and that her Authors were holy men she has yet at this day her Miracles which she boasts of she had her Prophets and Temporal Prosperity in a word she might propound all that which the Church of Rome alleadges The Aethiopian Church on her side may do it as much and yet nevertheless those Marks no ways conclude a Soveraign and Infallible Authority for them they do not therefore conclude it for the Roman Church The Second Reason is that of all those pretended marks some are disputed with the Church of Rome others are fallaciously attributed to it and others conclude nothing less then that which they pretend We dispute with her her Conformity to the Fathers the Unity of her Members between themselves and with their Head the Holiness of her Doctrine and the Efficacy of her Word It is true that she boasts of these advantages but if we should come to examine them we should find they would have nothing of Solidity in them she fallaciously ascribes to her self the name of the Catholick The Antiquity and Holiness of her Authors Miracles Prophecy and the Personal Succession of her Bishops For before they can make any advantage of those marks they ought to shew that she is a Catholick not only in name but in deed that she has chang'd nothing in the Antient Doctrine nor in the Antient worship that she has in nothing degenerated from her first Authors that she is conformable to her first Christians whose Miracles and Prophecys are beyond all question that her Bishops are the Successors of the Mind and Doctrine as well as of the Sees of the Antient Bishops and unless they do so those marks are an Illusion She produces others which conclude nothing less then that which she should conclude as the Multitude of her Children or the largeness of her extent and Temporal Prosperity which are wordly advantages more proper to denote a corruption then an Infallibility The third Reason is That there are contrary Characters in the Church of Rome which note not only that she has been and that she is yet subject to err but that she has actually err'd and we have propos'd some in the beginning of this Treatise which it may be deserve to be better consider'd No man can therefore establish any thing of certainty upon those pretended external marks and in general that principle of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Church of Rome cannot be a matter of divine Faith on which side soever he takes it nor by Consequence can any of those things be so which depend upon that Authority See here then the Obligation which lies upon those in the Roman Communion to the Author of the Prejudices for having thus Abolish'd all manner of Divine Faith for those things which that Church teaches by her Authority in shutting up as he has done the way of the Scripture with his Obstacles and unconquerable Difficulties he has reduc'd all to meer Conjectures or almost all to humane Testimonies Is it therefore after that manner that he would have us believe Transubstantiation the Real presence Purgatory The Sacrifice of the Mass Is it upon the Foundations of that nature that he would have us to Invocate Saints that we should worship Images That we should adore the Host and receive the Indulgences of the Pope and Absolutions of their Confessors But he has done yet worse for it is not only the Laity and private men from whom he has taken away a divine Faith he has torn it away even from the whole Body of his Church from her Prelats her Popes and her Councils since if this Point of their Soveraign and Infallible Authority is founded upon nothing but Conjectures and humane Testimonies They can neither have a Divine Faith for those Conjectures and those humane Testimonies nor for all those other things which depend upon them Have they a Revelation an immediate Illumination that instructs them There is no more either for the Popes or Councils Should they have it from the Scripture The Author of the Prejudices has told them that it is an Infinite a Ridiculous way to Instruct men in the Truth a path which we cannot know how to find an end of whatsoever Diligence we use But it may be he says that only for the Laity and not for the Clergy Let us see his words Even those says he who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their Abilities The Church of Rome the Body of her Prelats the Councils cannot at furthest but be made up of those men who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity and that Examination is above all their Abilities He ought not to say that they can altogether do that which it would be impossible for each one to do in particular For when they go about to decide the matters of Faith by their Soveraign Authority as they pretend that Councils should do each particular man ought to be assured by himself of the Truth and not to refer himself to the knowledge of his Brethren With what Conscience therefore can they exercise their Authority With what Conscience can they decide the points of the Faith and propose them to be believed as points of a Divine Faith With what Conscience can they retain men in their Dependance And with what Conscience can men remain therein The Author of the Prejudices may disintangle this Business with his Church as it shall please him we have no peculiar Interest in it but only to let him see more and more the Truth of that which I have said elsewhere that he does not sufficiently consider what he has wrote Let us grant him that there is no necessity of a Divine Faith for the establishing of that Article of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church let us yield if he will have it so that he may be contented with the having a humane certainty such as he may have it is clear that whether he takes the way of Tradition or that of the Examination of the External marks we shall find the same Difficulties there thes me Obstacles the same Hindrances the same length that the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have discovered in the way of the Scripture And as the External Marks themselves cannot be otherwise justified then by Tradition it shall suffice to shew what I have
shall be shaken because many in whom grace seem'd to be resplendent shall yield to the persecutors and some of the most firm among the faithful shall be troubled The Church sayes he shall not appear Ecclesia non apparebit She will not therefore have then that visible extension which the Author of the Prejudices would have to be her perpetual mark for all Ages He further acknowledges the same thing in his Epistle to Vincentius where he treats of the state of the Church under the Arians There he teaches in express terms That the Church is sometimes obscured and covered with clouds through the great number of offences that she is then only eminent in her most firm defenders while the multitude of the weak and carnal is overwhelmed with the floods of temptation That under the reign of the Arians the simple suffered themselves to be deceiv'd that others yielding through fear dissembled and in appearance consented to Arianism That indeed some of the most firm escaped the snares of those Hereticks but that they were but few in number in comparison of the rest That nevertheless some of them generously suffer'd banishment and some others lay hid here and there throughout the Earth I pray tell me what visible extension could the Orthodox communion have then which subsisted only in a small number of the firm of whom even the greatest part had suffered exile or lay hid here and there throughout all the Earth I confess that History notes that there were yet some small flocks in some places of the East and of the West who set up their Assemblies apart as at Edessa at Nazianzen at Antioch and in some Provinces of France and Germany but what was this in comparison of the Arian communion which had fill'd the Churches and held Councils as we have so often proved We must therefore seriously profess that this visible extension is a vain and deceitful mark when they would make it perpetual to the true Church as the Author of the Prejudices would make it and that no one could abuse with greater injustice the Authority of S. Augustine than he has done We must profess also that a small handful of the Faithful a little party have right to separate themselves from the whole multitude I mean from a communion spread over all the world which has on its side the Ministry the Pulpits the Councils the Schools Titles Dignities and all that retinue of temporal splendour when it has not the true Faith For the rest that which I have handled in this Chapter about the two former Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices already sufficiently lets us see the falseness of his argument For if he would take the pains to read this Chapter with never so little application he will see all these following Propositions well establish'd there 1. That in General this Author has not compris'd the true Hypothesis of S. Augustine nor the state of his dispute against the Donatists 2. That he can draw no advantage from the divers wayes in which that Father conceived the word Church 3. That the separation which that Father judg'd to be fit to be condemned and wicked under what pretence soever it should be made is wholly different from that which is between the Church of Rome and us 4. That there is not any Christian Society from which one may not lawfully separate ones self in a certain case and manner 5. That that which is disputed between the Church of Rome and us being of this number they must consider the causes and circumstances of it rightly to judge of it and not pretend to convince us of Schism without entring upon any other discussion 6. That according to the principles of S. Augustine the Church of Rome is Schismatical in respect of us supposing that she is in error because it is she that has broken Christian Unity and that we are in respect of her in a passive separation 7. That it is absurd to make that visible extension a perpetual mark of the true Church which way soever they take it 8. That this pretended mark is contrary to the experience of our Age and does not properly agree to any one of these Societies that at this day divide Christianity 9. That it is contrary to the experience of the Ages past and to the Doctrine of the Fathers 10. That it is rejected in the sense of the Author of the Prejudices by the famous Doctors of the Roman communion 11. That it has no foundation in the dispute of S. Augustine against the Donatists 12. That it is even directly opposite to the Doctrine of that Father These are the just and natural consequences that are drawn from the things which I have handled in this Chapter I will examine in the following the other Propositions of the Author of the Prejudices CHAP. V. A further Examination of the Reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices upon the subject of our Separation THe Third Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices is already sufficiently confuted by what I have said He sayes that since our Society is not visibly extended throughout all Nations therefore it cannot be the True Church But we have shewn him that we cannot at this day rationally attribute that visible extension throughout all Nations to any of the Societies that divide Christianity and by consequence that it is a chimerical mark by which we may conclude that there is no true Church in the world since there is none which is not visibly excluded from many Nations We have shewn him also that his pretended mark does not agree either with the experience of the Ages past nor with the doctrine of the Fathers nor even with that of the Doctors of the Roman Church and that instead of having any foundation in the Doctrine of S. Augustine it is evidently contrary to him So that we have nothing to do at present but to go on to the Examination of the Fourth and Fifth Proposition They bear this sense That the Calvinists urge the principle of the Donatists far higher than ever those Schismaticks did For as for them they did not say that there was any time wherein the whole Church had fallen into Apostasy and they excepted the Communion of Donatus whereas the Calvinists would have it that there have been whole Ages wherein all the Earth had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation That the Societies of the Berengarians the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in which he sayes that some of us include the Church could not be that Catholick Church whereof S. Augustine speaks To establish that which he layes to our Charge concerning the entire extinction of the Church he first produces the testimony of Calvin This is sayes he that which Calvin has distinctly declared in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans where after having pretended that the threatning that S. Paul uses against those who do not remain in
to our Children as well as to us it ought to be given not only to us but to our Children So that without going any further I have in that respect all the Certainty that I can reasonably desire As to the second I say that the Word Baptise equally signifying in the Original Tongue to plunge and to wash and being used divers times in this latter sence as it may appear in the Translation of Mons in the seventh of Saint Mark and eleventh of Saint Luke and there being moreover nothing in the Scripture that precisely enjoins Immersion or forbids Aspersion it is my part to believe that in the Thoughts of Jesus Christ those two wayes of Baptizing are indifferent and that so much the more as I know the Spirit of the Gospel is not so nice and punctual about forms or the manners of External Actions which is proper to Superstition So that I have further for that all the Assurance that I ought to have For the third being certain as I am by the Promises of Jesus Christ that God has alwayes Preserved a True Church in the World that is to say the Truly Faithful howsoever mixt they may have been with the Worldly I am assured also that the Baptism which was Administred not only before the Reformation but since in the Latin Church and in other Christian-Societies where the Essence of Baptism remains is good because that being made in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost it is the Baptism of the True Church although it be administred by Persons filled with Errors and Superstitions Baptism is not theirs they are only the Ministers of it That Sacrament belongs to God and his Truly Faithful ones in what Quarter of the World soever they be That same Scripture that sayes That the Promise is made to us and to our Children and to all that are a far of even as many as the Lord shall call says by a necessary Consequence that the Seal of that Promise which is Baptism and all the other Rights of the Covenant of Jesus Christ belongs to us and to our Children that is to say to the Truly Faithful The Hereticks who Administer it do not do it as a good that belongs to them under that Quality for in that respect nothing belongs to them but as a good that belongs to the True Church the Dispensation whereof they have by the part which they have yet with her For they Baptise not by that which divides them from the truly Faithful but by that which after some manner Associates and unites them with them It is therefore the Baptism of the True Church which they give and not that of Heresy it is the Church that Baptises by them and in that respect they are yet as I have said the Dispensers of its goods If the Author of the Prejudices desires yet further to see a greater Number ot proofs drawn from the same Scripture that should Establish this Truth he needs but to read what Saint Augustine has wrote in his Treatise against the Epistle of Parmenio and that of Baptism against the Donatists and he will learn there not to make any more Questions of that Nature I know not for the rest whether he as well as the others of his Communion who shall take the pains to read this work will be satisfied But I dare say at least that I have done all that was possible for me to do to set before them without Offence the Truths that are most Important for them to know It belongs to them to make a serious Reflection upon that which I have represented to them and upon the present State of Christianity which the prophaneness Impiety and Debauchery of mens Minds do every day reduce into an Evident danger of ruine if we do not bring a Remedy both on the one and the other side Nevertheless instead of having in view that grand Interest upon which the Glory of God wholly depends and the Salvation of men they apply themselves only to destroy us and their Passion prevails to that height that they do not take heed of making irreparable Breaches in Religion as that is of bringing the Use and Authority of the Holy Scripture to nothing provided they can but do us any Mischief But although they should do whatsoever they pleas'd God would alwayes be a Witness on our Side that in the Foundation of the Cause that upon which we have Separated from them is the Love which we have for the Truth and the Desire that we have to Work out our own Salvation And to let them see that it is not a false Prejudice that Corrupts us let them go through all the Christian Communions that are in the world Let them Judg in cold blood and I am assured that they will come to a serious Agreement that ours is the purest Church nd the most approaching to the Primitive one Our Opinions are the Fundamental Opinions of Religion which are great Solid and Convincing our Worship has nothing that is not Evangelical for it consists in Prayers to God in Thanksgivings in Singing of Psalms in Celebration of Fasts in Humiliation in Acts of Repentance in tears and groans when we are prest with the thoughts of our Sins and the Wrath of God our Morals consist more in Exhortations in Censures in Corrections in Threatnings on Gods side in Representations of the Motives that bind us to do good Works then in unprofitable decisions of Cases of Conscience Our Government is plain remote from the Formalities of the Bar founded as much as can be upon good Reason Justice and Charity but very opposite to the Maximes of Humane Policy and especially to Ambition Covetousness and Vanity which we believe to be the Mortal Enemies of Religion Every one in the World knows that and yet notwithstanding the Author of the Prejudices and all those who with him take false lights have not fail'd to cry out against us not only after a very uncharitable but an unchristian manner As for us we shall alwayes pray to God for those who will not Love us we shall bless them that Curse us but we shall also with Gamaliel give them this Advice Take heed that in Tormenting us you do not fight against God instead of fighting with him Let us pray on both sides that he would give us his Blessing and his Peace and that he would make us to do his Will FINIS A TABLE OF THE CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS The First Part. Wherein it is shewn that our Ancestors were obliged to Examine by themselves the State of Religion and of the Church in their Days CHap. I. General Considerations upon this Controversy The Division of this Treatise Page 1. Chap. II. That the State of the Government of the Latin Church some Ages ago gave to our Fathers Prejudices of its Corruption in Doctrine and Worship sufficient to drive them more nearly to Examine their Religion Page 8. Chap. III. That
with a sensible displeasure that I mention the lives that we have led We are the causes that have swell'd this storm so high let us cast our selves into the Sea and since you have our Confession punish us after what manner you please A little before that he had said That the Troubles wherewith France was found to be agitated were the effect of a just Judgment of God and that they had drawn that judgment upon themselves by that Corruption of manners which was to be found among all Orders of men and by the subversion of all Ecclesiastical Discipline Charles the ninth also in those Memoirs that he gave to that Cardinal for the Council had expresly set down this Article That his Majesty with the most extreme regret was constrained to complain of the unclean lives of the Ecclesiasticks who brought so much Scandal and Corruption amongst the Common people beyond the scandal they took at their Ministers that to him it seemed necessary that it should be very speedily provided against Tell me I beseech you what could any justly conclude from the so licentious lives of Persons who for so long a time since had made themselves Masters of that Religion but that there was very little appearance that that Religion was preserv'd in its Antient Purity I acknowledge the ill life of the Pastour is not of its self a sufficient reason to separate from him but I affirm that when that wicked life is found to be so general in the Clergy and remains there for some Ages without amendment it gives a prejudice exceeding reasonable of some great corruption in that very Religion it self For Men of such impure manners can be but very ill Guardians of Faith and Piety 7. The Corruption of the Church of Rome in particular that is to say of that Church which calls her self the Mother and Mistress of all others and which had in possession the Government of them according to her own will confirmed our Fathers in this prejudice For by this means they saw the Evil did not confine it self only to the borders but that it was got into the very heart it self that is into that Church which as the Chief shed its influence on the others Further I think I need not prove that Corruption where every one will yield it as a thing that cannot be contested Those who have read the Histories of Luitprand of Glaber of Matthew Paris of Platina of Baronius and Onuphrius and of many others cannot deny that since the ninth Century the See of Rome has been most frequently filled with Popes whose Lives and Government have not very much edified the World Every one knows the Complaints that all the Earth had made and which it made yet in the days of our Fathers not only against the Popes but against all that they call the Court of Rome the Corruption whereof was looked on as the Cause of that in all the other Churches I shall not urge this matter further but it seems to me that our Fathers did not deserve the least blame if they could not believe that such a sort of men could have a great zeal for the glory of God and the Salvation of men or that they were so fit and likely to preserve Christianity intire amongst them nor in fine that whereas it was for so many Ages accused to be the very Center of all Vices it could be the Centre of all the Doctrines of Faith and Holiness 8. But altho' our Fathers should not have reflected on the persons of such men yet it is very certain that they found enough Characters of Irregularity in the Maxims in the pretensions and the Government of the Popes to make them justly conclude That they could not but be very ill Conservators of the purity of Religion What else could they gather from that excessive Pride so intolerable to all Christians that consisted in making their Feet to be Kissed with a submission far beyond what was yeilded to Kings in making themselves to be born on the shoulders of men and to be served by the greatest Princes or by their Ambassadors to wear three Crowns and to be Adored upon the Altar after their Election c 9. What could they say to those proud Titles which they with the greatest scandal affected to have given them as that of God in the Canon Law whereof see the words It evidently appears that the Pope who was called God by Constantine can be neither bound to any thing nor loosed by any Secular Power For it is manifest that a God cannot be judged by men To the same purpose Augustin Steuchus says That Constantine called the Pope God and that he acknowledged him to be so and he assures us that from thence it was that he made that Excellent Edict in his Favour he would say that false Donation He adored him says he as God as the successour of Christ and of Peter and rendred him all the ways that he could Divine Honours Worshipping him as the living Image of Jesus Christ So Clement the seventh Anti Pope with his Cardinals at Avignon in a Letter which they wrote to Charles the sixth which is set down by Froissard they make no scruple of calling him a God upon Earth seeing as there is say they but one only God in the Heavens there cannot and ought not of right to be more then one God on Earth After the same manner Angelus Politianus in an Oration that he made for those that were sent as Deputies from the City Sienna to Alexander the sixth ascribes Divinity to him We rejoyce among our selves says he to behold you raised above all humane things and elevated even to Divinity it self seeing nothing next unto God which is not set under you He was not the only person that treated that Pope as God for Raynaldus relates that amidst the Pomps of his Coronation one might see in divers places of the streets of Rome the Arms of the Pope with Verses and Epigrams underneath among which this Distich might be Read Caesare magna fuit nunc Roma est maxima sextus Regnat Alexander ille vir iste DEVS 10. What could our Fathers say to that Divine power that the Flatterers of the Popes attributed to them As the Glossary of the Decretals which remarks That every one said of the Pope that he had all Divine power caeleste arbitrium That by reason of that he could change the nature of things applying the essential properties of one thing to another That he could make something of nothing that a Proposition which was nothing he could make to be something That in all things that he should please to do his will might serve for a Reason That there is none that could say to him why dost thou do that That he could dispence with whatsoever was right and make injustice to become Justice by changing and altering of that which was right And in fine that he
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
follows not only that God had the same concern in the preservation of the purity of that Church as of that of the Latin Church but that he had yet a far greater For above this that Church had external help for the Conversation of its purity far greater than the Latin Church ever had For it was shut up in one only people and in one Country only It had one Language only one only Tabernacle one only Temple but one civil Government but one only Political Law and but one King where the Western Church had all those apart in many places And yet notwithstanding all that it could not be kept from Corruptions not only at one but divers times not only in matters of small Consequence but after a strange manner by a heap of depraved Traditions by false glosses on the Law by open Idolatries and by a multitude of other things wherewith their Prophets reproached them Had they not then very great reason to think that the Latin Church which had no peculiar promises that it should be kept from Corruption in being distinguisht from that of Israel was not more happy then that in the Conservation of its Purity 4. To this example of the Church of Israel our Fathers adjoyn'd that of the Greek and other Eastern Churches which God had at first honour'd with Christianity as well as the Latin and that the times had nevertheless so dissigur'd them that they did not any farther appear to be what they were heretofore Indeed into what errours and superstitions did not those Churches fall And in how many points does not the Church of Rome find it self to differ at this day from them Some of them observe Circumcision with Baptism others keep up the sacrificing of living creatures after the manner of the Jews some solemnly every Year Baptize their Rivers and their Horses others believe that the smoke of Incense takes away their sins others hold that the Prayers of the Faithful deliver from the pains of Damnation those Souls that are then in Hell others give Pass-ports in due Form to the dying to carry them to Paradise and a thousand other such-like impertinencies that are found to be establisht among those People Why might it not be possible that the Latin Church should have degenerated as well as those Churches Is it that their Christianity was from the beginning different from that of the Latin's or is it because the Latin Church had some peculiar priviledges beyond all others No certainly their Vocation was equal on one part and on the other and the nature of things being so if those Nations had corrupted themselves those of Rome might corrupt themselves as well as they 5. Our Fathers who were not ignorant of those Examples could not but represent all to themselves also in my judgment the times past wherein errours and corruption had visibly prevail'd over the Truth even then when those very Churches of the East and West were joyn'd together in one Body They knew that that had past in the Council of Antioch in favour of the Macedonians in the Councils of Sirmium of Milan of Ariminum at Selucia and at Constantinople in favour of the Arrians and in a Council at Ephesus in favour of the Eutychians without thinking of that which they said of those two Councils held at Constantinople in favour of the Iconoclastes or abolishers of Images the one under the Emperour Leo Isaurious the other under Constantine Copronimus That very thing was an evident token to them that the Latin Church might be very likely in their times fallen into other corruptions and that errour had triumpht over truth For it was not at all impossible that that which had hapned frequently in respect of some errours might not yet with greater success and longer duration happen in respect of other errours 6. Moreover They observed that Councils of a great name among the Latins as those of Constance and Basil had been rejected and opposed by other Councils and that in the most weighty points of Religion to wit in the Case of the Supreme Authority that ought to govern the Church upon Earth For some rais'd the Authority of the Councils above that of the Pope and others would have it that the Popes should have an absolute and an independent and perfectly Monarchical Rule over the Church what could our Fathers conclude from so manifest a contest if not that it had a vast confusion in it and that it was exceeding necessary to the quiet setling of their Minds and Consciences to enter on an examination of that which those men taught in the business of Religion 7. Our Fathers were confirmed in that design when they set before their eyes those obscure Ages through which the Latin Church had past For who knows not what the ninth tenth and eleventh Centuries were not to speak of those that followed them As for the ninth Baronius is forc't to conclude the History of it with saying That it was an Age of affliction to the Church in general and chiefly to the Church of Rome as well by reason of the complaints it had against the Princes of the West and East and the Schism of Photius as by reason of intestine and implacable Wars which had began then to be formed within the very Bosom of that Church That this Age was the most deplorable and dismal above all the rest because those who ought to have been watchful in the Government of the Church not only slept profoundly but the very same Persons laboured all they could intirely to drown the Apostolick-Ship For the Tenth as there are very few Persons but will acknowledge that it was buried in darkness more gross then that of Aegypt so it will be needless here to produce the proofs The eleventh was scarce happier and Baronius begins the History of it with a remark of so universal a Corruption of manners cheifly among the Church-men that it had made way says he for the common beleif of the near approach of Antichrist and of the end of the world How could it be possible that during such gloomy times Religion Faith and Worship should be preserved without any alteration Saint Paul has joyn'd together Faith and a good Conscience as two things that mutually sustain one another and has taken notice that those who cast off a good Conscience make Shipwrack of the Faith In effect saith Saint Chrysostome then when men lead corrupted Lives it is impossible they should keep themselves from falling into perverse Doctrines 8. To these considerations we might joyn that of the two sorts of Philosophies which successively had reign'd in the Church to wit that of Plato and the other of Aristotle to whose principles they had strove to accomodate the Christian Religion For it is scarce to be conceiv'd but that mixture of Platonic and Peripatetic Opinions with the Doctrines of Jesus Christ should have defaced the Faith and quite alter'd his true Worship It was for this
efficacy But if they may see their Ministry to become so corrupted that their is an eminent danger of loosing their Salvation who can doubt that they ought not to be lookt on only as the Enemies of God and the Church rather then the Ministers and their Pastors and that they should not fail to take heed of them and their Doctrine as pernitious leaven in stead of blindly following them The Duties are then reciprocal between the Pastors and the People The Pastors ought to guide their Flock well to give them good pasture and the people owe them Respect Obedience Teachableness and Love on supposition that the Pastors well acquit themselves of their duty those who are under them will become guilty before God and Men of the Crimes of Rebellion Profaneness and Ingratitude if they do not acquit themselves of theirs But if the Pastors abuse their charges if they overturn the Gospel or if they do any thing coming near to it if they abuse their Titles their Sees their Dignities their Sacerdotal Ornaments all that will signify nothing they owe them no more in that regard either that Respect or that Obedience The Reason is manifest because they ought to respect nothing but the cause of God and upon the Consideration of its saving Truth when then they may see that they withdraw themselves from God and that Truth that respect also which ought to be given to God and his Truth should be withdrawn from them And as to what they say that private men would become Judges of their Pastors where of right those Pastors ought to Judge of Controversies who are above private men this is nothing but a playing with words How many of our Judges are there who Judge us every day without our finding any inconvenience or ill in it They Judge us with a Judgment of Indictment which is a publick Judgment and they Judge us with a Judgment of Distinction which is a private Judgment For they do not bind us blindly to believe that all that they declare is equitable because they so declare it we have in that respect a full liberty to examine those things as they are in themselves though we fail of always presuming in their favour But say they whatsoever liberty we have to examine their Judgments their Judgments must be executed notwithstanding when we our selves believe them unjust I confess it but it is because their Execution consists only in those things or in those external Actions which leave the thoughts of the mind always free and not in an inward acquiescence And this is that that puts a difference between their Sentences and the decisions of Pastors concerning the matters of Religion for the Execution of these latter consists in an acquiscence of the Soul and the Conscience which cannot but examine them in the end and be decided but by the knowledge we have of the Equity and Truth of those Doctrines The same thing may sometimes happen in the Civil Society where in stead of putting in Execution the Commands of Superiours one shall be bound formally to oppose and resist them as when the Sates of a Province or a Governour shall command things prejudicial to the Obedience that one owes to one's Soveraign and which would engage the people in a Rebellion Then we may not only Judge our Judges by a private Judgment but our private Judgment is a thousand times more general and publick then that of those Judges yea though it shall not be accompanied with any formality For those formalities signify nothing when the fidelity which we owe to our Prince is concerned Then neither respect of Magistrates nor consideration of Order nor the Authority of our Governours ought to turn us aside but they must all give place to that Great and Fundamental Duty It is the same thing in a Religious Society God and our Salvation are to be preferred before all things and if it fall out that the Pastors either in their Pulpits or in their Writings or in their Councils would plunge us into errors and into a worship that dishonours God and corrupts his Christian Religion we may not only judge them by a private judgment but we ought also at the same time to labour to make that private judgment to become publick and as general as it can be made and howsoever we do it we do not in any thing withdraw our selves from that fidelity which we all owe to God The Inconveniences that arise from that Conduct ought to be imputed not to private men who do but what they are obliged to do but to the Pastors who abuse their Charge and pervert the rule and natural design of their Ministry But say they Is not this to introduce a private spirit into the Church where we all ought to have but one same spirit which is that of the Church There is saith St. Paul but one Body and but one Spirit and therefore it is that he himself exhorts us to abide all in the same spirit and to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace I answer that there ought to be in the Church in effect but one and the same Spirit but that that ought to be the Spirit of God the Spirit of Truth the Spirit of Wisdom not the spirit of the World not the spirit of Errour God gives his holy Spirit immediatly to all his truly Faithful ones whether they be Pastors or whether they be Lay-men which is in all but one same Spirit though the measure according to which each receives may be different Grace says the Apostle is given unto every one of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ And in that Description of the State of the Church under the new Testament which is set down by the Prophet Joel God says That he will purer out his Spirit upon all flesh that their Sons and their Daughtes shall Prophecy and that he will give this Spirit to his Servants and to his Handmaids Elsewhere God promises his Children That he will give them a new heart and a new spirit and that he will put his Spirit within them Saint Paul teaches the same thing By one Spirit says he we are all Baptized into one Body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one spirit Because ye are Children says he to the Galatians God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts and in the Epistle which he addresses to the Saints and Faithful of Ephesus he tells them That they were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise and desiring that they might receive a more abundant measure of it he prayed God to give them the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation St. Peter tells the faithful of his age who were persecuted for the name of Jesus Christ That the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God rested upon them In fine the
whole Scripture is full of this Doctrine that the Spirit of God is immediately given to every Believer even down to that place where St. John tells them That they had an Vnction from the Holy Spirit and that they knew all things that the anointing which they had received of Jesus Christ abode in them and that they needed not that any man should teach them but that that anointing taught them all things From whence these two Truths result the one That every faithful one in particular has Fellowship with the Holy Spirit which animates and governs him immediatly and the other That that Spirit is not a meer Spirit of Docility and resting in what is taught them to make the Faithful receive the words of their Pastors but a Spirit of discerning which makes them capable of knowing things by themselves and to judge of them For this is that St. Paul means by that Spirit of Wisdom and of Revelation and St. John by that Vnction which teaches all things and frees us from the necessity of being taught by men that is to say of depending absolutely on their Authority as those men would do who should not be capable of discerning by themselves and there is this thing very considerable in that Discourse of St. John that he makes the subjects of it those false Teachers who laboured to seduce the Faithful I have says he wrote these things concerning those who seduce you But the anointing which you have received abideth in you and you have no need that any man should teach you c. Which lets us plainly see that he meant that that Unction was sufficient to secure them from that Seducing and by Consequence to make them discern by themselves the true from the false As to all the rest they do but mock when they call that Spirit a private Spirit under a pretence that it is given to each Believer for it is the same Spirit that animates the whole Mystical Body of our Saviour that Regenerates and Sanctifies them it is in one word the Spirit of the whole Church It may with far greater reason be said that they introduce a private Spirit who restrain to the Pastors alone the right of discerning the good from the bad and who would not that any Laymen should interpose For if the whole body be animated but by one only and the same Spirit why should not all the Faithful have the same right with the Pastors since they all partake of one same Light though in a different measure In fine if they would have it that to yield to every one a right to examine the matters of Religion would be to bring in a private Spirit let them tell us by what Spirit they would have one examine the question of the Church by what Spirit they would have every one know and rest assured that the Latin Church is the True Church of Jesus Christ by what Spirit they would have the Faithful chuse that side where they should refer themselves to their Pastors for in all those points they cannot deny that men ought to follow their own light since they cannot in the least make those judgments by the Eyes of their Prelates as we have noted before Behold then that private Spirit since it pleases these Gentlemen to call it so which they themselves are constrained to admit which shews us the nullity of that inconveence that they would pretend to remedy We ought then to go higher yet and to examine that great Argument which the Author of those Prejudices has chose above all others as being alone sufficient to make us acknowledge the necessity of referring ones self blindly to the Church It consists in letting us know That all the men in the world may deceive themselves that the darkness of our Vnderstandings our Prejudices and our Passions engage us to that And if M. Claude says he can propose evident falshoods as proofs of the highest certainty who can assure us that we are not in the number of those who deceive themselves and make an ill choice in the matters of Religion and that the persuasion that we have well chosen is not any effect of our Prejudices and our Passions and other secret obstinacy in our Opinions from whence he concludes that it must be a thing to be despaired of ever to be able to distinguish the true Religion amidst so many Sects who all lay claim to it or to chuse among so many Opinions which they propose as Authorised by the Scripture those which one ought to believe from those that one ought to reject unless that same impotence that lies upon us to discern the Truth by our own light and which would not open a way to find it should make us go from the way of Reason wherein we should see nothing but uncertainty to that of Authority which would draw us out of that confusion and in the end he advertises us that that Authority is that of the Catholick Church that is to say the Latin Prelates We see then that thanks to the Philosophy of this Author all must be good Pyrrhonists to become good Catholicks we ought to doubt of every thing if we would be assured of any thing But to speak what appears to me that Argument cannot make any impression on the mind because it destroys it self as usually those false subtilties do For if we cannot be assured in those judgments that we make by our own Light because that may deceive us who can assure us that that Authors Argument will be good and concluding since we cannot judg of it but by that same Light which will not give according to him any certainty If the use of our Reason produces nothing but doubts why would he yet give us a Reason the Consequence whereof can be no other than doubtful and by which he cannot also gain any thing over us It may be it is good it may be it is not so our Light deceives us in other things it may very well deceive us in that What likelyhood then is there that we should be persuaded by an Argument that combates it self and which takes away from it self the force of persuading Moreover That Argument destroys the design of the Author of those Prejudices and overthrows the Cause it would Establish For if there be no certainty in the judgments that we make by our own Light who shall secure us that we do not deceive our selves in chusing the way of Authority since we cannot make choice of that but by that same Light which is says he so deceitful We cannot less fear in that very thing the obscurity of our Understandings our Prejudices and Passions the inclination that we have to Error and who shall assure that Author who shall assure us our selves that that persuasion where it is and which he would communicate to us is not an effect of his Prejudices of his Passions or of some obstinacy in his Opinions Who shall warrant