there is in the Premises The only use I shall make of it at present is this That we can at least be as certain of the meaning of Scripture as the Papists are that their Church is infallible for they can be no more infallibly assured of this than we are of our interpretations of Scripture and therefore if the diversity of Opinions about the sense of Scriptures proves that we cannot be certain what the true Sense of it t is the same Argument proves that they cannot be certain that their Church is infallible because this is not only doubted but absolutely denied by the greatest part of the Christian World and was never thought of by the best and purest Ages of it So that this Argument proves too much and recoils upon themselves like a Gun which is over-charged and if for their own sakes they will grant that we may be certain of some things which are as confidently denied and disputed by others then the diversity of Opinions in the Church is no Argument that we cannot be certain of our Religion but only teaches us greater Caution and Diligence and Honesty in our inquiries after Truth 3. These Divisions and Heresies that are in the Christian Church are no better Argument against the truth and certainty of our Religion than the diversities of Religions that are in the World are against the truth of Christianity The whole World is far enough from being Christian great part of it are Jews or Pagans or Mahumetanes still and this is as good an Argument to prove the uncertainty of all Religions as the different Parties and Professions of Christians are to prove that we cannot be certain what the true Christian Church nor what true Christianity is The Gospel of our Saviour was not designed to offer any force or violence to mens Faith or Understanding no more than to their Wills Were there such an irresistible and compulsory Evidence in the Gospel that wherever it were Preach'd it should be impossible for any man though never so wicked and ill disposed to continue an Infidel or to prove a Heretick Faith would be no greater a Virtue than forc'd Obedience and Compliance is The Gospel has Evidence enough to Convince honest Minds and is plain enough to be understood by those who are honest and teachable and therefore has its Effects upon those who are Curable which is all that it was designed for Those who will not believe may continue Infidels and those who will not understand may fall into Errors and believe a Lye and yet there is Evidence enough to Convince and Plainness enough to Instruct well disposed minds and certainty enough in each to be the foundation of a Divine Faith The sum is this Though the Instructions of the Church are a very good means for the understanding of the sense of Scripture yet they are not the only means the Holy Scripture is a very intelligible Book in such matters as are absolutely necessary to Salvation and could we suppose that a man who had never heard of a Church should have the use of the Bible in a Language which he understood by a diligent reading of it he might understand enough to be saved 2. If by Church is meant any particular Church as suppose the Roman Catholick Church or the Church of the present Age it is absolutely false to say that the Church in this sense is always a sure and safe means of understanding the Scripture What has been Unversally believed by all Christian Churches in all Ages or at least by all Churches of the first and purest Ages of Christianity which were nearest the times of the Apostles and might be presumed best to understand the sense of the Apostles in the great Articles of our Faith is a very safe Rule for the interpretation of Scripture and the general Practice of those Primitive Apostolick Churches in matters of Government and Discipline before they were corrupted by worldly Ambition and secular Interest is a very safe Rule for our Practice also and this is the Rule whereby our Church is reformed and to which we appeal There are but three things necessary to be understood by Christians either the Articles of Faith or the Rules of Life or the external Order and Discipline of the Church and Administration of Religious Offices 1. As for the Rules of Life all those Duties which we owe to God and Men they are so plainly contained in the Holy Scriptures that no honest man can mistake them I suppose the Church of Rome her self will not pretend that there is any need of an infallible Interpreter to teach men what is meant by Loving God with all our Heart and our Neighbour as our selves 2. As for the Articles of Faith those which are fundamental to the Christian Religion and which every Christian ought to believe are so plain in Scripture that every honest and unprejudiced man may understand them but however as I observed before we govern our selves in these things by the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church of the first and purest Ages and if this be not a safe Rule we can be certain of nothing And what the Catholick Faith was we learn from those short summaries of Faith which were universally owned by all Catholick Churches For what we now call the Apostles Creed was very anciently received in all Churches with some little variety indeed of Words and Phrase but without any difference of sense and the Catholick Faith was not only preserved in such short Summaries and Creeds which were as liable to be perverted by Hereticks as the Scriptures themselves but was more largely explained in the Writings of the ancient Fathers and though this will not inable us to understand every Phrase and Expression of Scripture but we must use other means to do that as Skill in the Original Languages a knowledge of ancient Customs and ancient Disputes to which the Apostles frequently allude a consideration of the Scope and Design of the place c. Yet the Catholick Faith received and owned by the Primitive Church is so far a Rule as it directs us to Expound Scripture to a true Catholick sense As St. Paul commands the Romans that those who prophesie should Prophesie according to the proportion of Faith Rom. 12. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the Analogie of Faith That is that in the interpreting the Scriptures of the Old Testament they should expound them to a Christian sense according to those Doctrines of the Christian Faith which he had taught them and this was a safe Rule for expounding the Old Testament which contained the Types and Figures and Prophesies of the Gospel-State And thus in expounding the new Testament now it is committed to writing we must Prophesie according to the Analogie of Faith or as he commands Timothy in his Preaching Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard from me 2 Tim. 1. 13. It seems the Apostle had given him a form of
Faith of the Primitive Church in these matters And therefore the great Advocates for the Church of Rome are forc'd to take the same course in confuting Heresies as they call them that we do They alledge the Authority of Scripture the Authority of Fathers and Councils to justifie their Innovations and here we willingly joyn issue with them and are ready to prove that Scripture and all true Antiquity is on our side and this has been often and unanswerably proved by the Learned Patrons of the Reformation But there are some very material things to be observed from hence for our present purpose For either they think this a good way to prove what they intend and to convince Gain-sayers by the Authority of Scripture and Primitive Antiquity or they do not If they do not think this a good way to what purpose are there so many Volumes of Controversie written Why do they produce Scripture and Fathers and Councils to justifie the Usurpations of their Church and those new Additions they have made to the Christian Faith and Worship If this be not a good way to Convince a Heretick why do they give themselves and us such an impertinent trouble If this be a good way then we are in a good way already we take that very way for our satisfaction which by their own Confession and Practice is a very proper means for the Conviction of Hereticks and to discover the Truth and after the most diligent inquiries we can make we are satisfied that the Truth is on our side If the Authority of Scripture signifie any thing in this matter then it seems Hereticks who reject the Authority of an Infallible Judge may understand Scripture without an Infallible Interpreter by the Exercise of Reason and Judgment in studying of them otherwise why do they pretend to expound Scripture to us and to Convince us by Reason and Argument what the true sense of Scripture is If the Authority of the Primitive Church and first Christian Writers be considerable as they acknowledge it is by their appeals to them then at least the present Pope or Church is not the sole infallible Judge of Controversies unless they will say that we must not judge of the Doctrine or Practice of the Primitive Church by ancient Records and then Baronius his Annals are worth nothing but by the Judgment and Practice of the present Church The sum is this There is great reason to suspect that the Church of Rome her self does not believe her own Infallibility no more than we Protestants do for if she does she ought not to suffer her Doctors to dispute with Hereticks from any other Topick but her own Authority when they vie Reasons and Arguments with us and dispute from Scripture and Antiquity they appeal from the infallibility of the present Church to every mans private Reason and Judgment as much as any Protestant does and if the Articles of the Christian Faith may be establish'd by Scripture and Antiquity without an infallible Judge as they suppose they may be by their frequent attempts to do it this plainly overthrows the necessity of an infallible Judge In a word not to take notice now how weak and groundless this pretence of Infallibility is it is evident that it is a very useless Doctrine for those who believe the Churches Infallibility have no greater assurance of their Faith than we have who do not believe it and those who do not believe the Churches Infallibility can never be Confuted by it So that it can neither establish any mans Faith nor confute any Heresies that is it is of no use at all The Church of England Reverences the Authority of the Primitive Church as the best witness of the Apostolical Faith and Practice but yet resolves her Faith at last into the Authority of the Scriptures She receives nothing for an Article of Faith which she does not find plainly enough taught in Scripture but it is a great confirmation of her interpretation of Scripture that the Primitive Church owned the same Doctrines which she does and she looks upon it as a just prejudice against any Expositions of Scripture if they contradict the common Faith of the first Christians and therefore when the words of Scripture are fairly capable of different senses she chuses that sense which is most agreeable with the Catholick Faith and practice of the Primitive Church but should any Doctrines be imposed upon her as Articles of Faith which are no where to be found in Scripture or which are plainly contrary to it as the new Trent Creed is whatever pretence there be for the Antiquity of such Doctrines she utterly rejects them she will not put out her own Eyes to follow any other Guide and thanks be to God she needs not reject any truly Catholick Doctrine in this way We still retain the Faith of the Primitive Church and are greatly confirmed in it from that admirable consent there is between the Scriptures as Expounded by us and that Faith which was anciently owned and received by all Christians Having thus shewn in what sense the Church is the Interpreter of Scripture I proceed now to the Second thing contained in this Paper That this Church must be known to be the true Church by its continual visible Succession from Christ till our days Now these few words contain a great many and very great mistakes The subject of the Inquiry is how we may find out such a Church whose word we may safely take for the true sense and meaning of Scripture Now 1. The Author of this Paper whether ignorantly or designedly I know not alters the state of the Question and instead of a Church which is an unerring and infallible Interpreter of Scripture which would be very well worth finding he tells us how we may know a true Church now I take a true Church and an infallible Interpreter of Scripture to be very different things A Church may be guilty of Schism and Heresie and yet may be a true Church though not a sound Orthodox and Catholick Church for a true Church is such a Church as has all things necessary and essential to the Being and Constitution of a Church this a Church may have and superadd other things which are destructive of the Christian Faith and very dangerous and fatal mistakes as we believe and are able to prove the Church of Rome has done and yet we acknowledge her a true Church because she retains the true Christian Faith though miserably Corrupted by Additions of her own as a man is a true man though he be sick of a mortal Disease Now if a true Church may corrupt the Christian Faith we have no reason to rely on the Authority of every true Church for the true sense and meaning of Scripture 2. Let us suppose that by a true Church he means an Infallible Church whose Authority we may safely rely on in Expounding Scriptures this Church he says is to be known by a continual visible
the Succession of the Church of England till the Reformation and I pray how came we to lose our Succession then Did the Reformation of those Abuses and Corruptions which had crept into the Church unchurch us Just as much as a man ceases to be the same man when he is cured of some mortal Disease Did not the Church of England consist of the same Persons before the Reformation and after A great many indeed disowned the Reformation but were not at all those Persons who were so active and zealous in the Reformation formerly of the Roman Communion And did they lose their Succession too when they became Reformers When a Church consists of the same Bishops Priests and People which she had before though she have not all the same that she had when she retains the same ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith which she did before only renounces some Errors and Innovations which she owned before how does this forfeit her Succession The Church of England is the very same Church now since the Reformation which she was before and therefore has the very same Succession though not the same Errors to this day that ever she had and that I think is as good a Succession as the Church of Rome has There are but two things to be considered in the case of Succession Either a Succession of Church Officers or a Succession of the Faith and Doctrines of the Church 1. As for a Succession of Church Officers we have the same that the Church of Rome has Those English Bishops who embraced the Reformation received their Orders in the Communion of the Church of Rome and therefore they had as good Orders as any are in the Church of Rome and these were the Persons who Consecrated other Bishops and so in Succession to this day For as for the story of the Nags-head Ordination that is so transparent a Forgery invented many years after to reproach the Reformation that I presume no sober Roman Catholick will insist on it But we are Hereticks and Schismaticks and this forseits our Orders and our Succession together But 1. This charge ought first to be proved against us that we are Hereticks and Schismaticks we deny and abhor both the name and thing and if we be not Hereticks and Schismaticks as we are sure we are not and as the Church of Rome can never prove us to be then according to their own Confession our Orders must be good 2. However be we Hereticks or Schismaticks or whatever they please to call us how does this destroy our Orders and Succession The Catholick Church would not allow in former Ages that Heresie or Schism destroyed the validity of Orders St. Jerome disputes against this at large in his Book Contra Luciferianos And St. Austin allows the Donatists Bishops to have valid Orders though they were Schismaticsk and therefore that the Sacraments administred by them were valid And indeed if Heresie will destroy Orders and Succession the Church of Rome will be as much to seek for their Orders and Succession as we are which by their own Confession have had several Heretical Popes and no body knows how many Bishops Ordained by them 2. As for Succession of Doctrine which is as considerable to the full as Succession of Orders the great Articles of our Faith are not only plainly contained in Scripture but have been delivered down to us through all ages of the Church by an uninterrupted Succession The Church of Rome her self in her greatest Degeneracy did own all that we do in pure matters of Faith When we reformed the Church we did not make a new Religion but only separated the old Faith from new and corrupt Additions and therefore the quarrel of the Church of Rome with us is not that we believe any thing which they do not believe but that we do not believe all that they would have us The Doctrine of the Church of England is truly Primitive and Catholick taught by Christ and his Apostles owned by the Primitive Church and excepting the Dispute between the Latin and Greek Church about the Filioque or the Holy Spirits proceeding from the Father and the Son received by all Catholick Churches to this day which is as compleat and perfect Succession as any Doctrine can have therefore when the Church of Rome asks us Where was our Religion before Luther we tell them it was all the World over all Catholick Churches believed what we do though we do not believe all that they do they themselves did and do to this Day own our Creeds and Articles of Faith excepting such of them as are directly opposed to their Innovations So that we are on a sure Foundation our Faith has been received in the Catholick Church in all Ages But now the Church of Rome cannot shew such a Succession for her new Doctrines and Articles of Faith which were unknown to the Primitive Church for many Ages which were rejected by many flourishing Churches since the first appearance of them which never had a quiet possession in her own Communion and were never formed into Articles of Faith till the packt Conventicle of Trent This I think is a sufficient Answer to this Paper and it pities me to see so many well-meaning Persons abused with such transparent Sophistry FINIS Books Printed for FINCHAM GARDINER A Continuation and Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stilling fleet 's Unreasonableness of Separation in Answer to Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lâ—b c. Considerations of present use considering the Danger Resulting from the Change of our Church-Government 1. A Perswasive to Communion with the Church of England 2. A Resolution of some Cases of Conscience which Respect Church Communion 3. The Case of Indifferent things used in the Worship of God Proposed and Stated by considering these Questions c. 4. A Discourse about Edification 5. The Resolution of this Case of Conscience Whether the Church of England's Symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it unlawful to hold Communion with the Church of England 6. A Letter to Anonymus in Answer to his Three Letters to Dr. Sherlock about Church-Communion 7. Certain Cases of Conscience Resolved concerning the Lawfulness of joyning with Forms of Prayer in Publick Worship In two Parts 8. The Case of mixt Communion Whether it be Lawful to separate from a Church upon the Account of promiscuous Congregations and Mixt Communions 9. An Answer to the Dissenters Objections against the Common Prayers and some other parts of Divine Service Prescribed in the Liturgy of the Church of England 10. The Case of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament Stated and Resolved c. The first Part. 11. Certain Cases of Conscience c. The Second Part. 12. A Discourse of Profiting by Sermons and of going to hear where men think they can profit most 13. A serious Exhortation with some Important Advices Relating to the late Cases about Conformity Recommended to the Present Dissenters from the Church of England 14. An Argument for Union c. 15. The Case of Kneeling c. The Second Part. 1. A Discourse about the charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking of us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 2. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be Rejected 3. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England
Church in those days which pretended to be the Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures We Protestants have the same way to understand the Scriptures have the same Reason and Foundation of our Faith which the Nicene Fathers themselves had or which any Christian could have before there was any general Council and if the Church of Rome do not think this enough we cannot help that we are abundantly satisfied with it The Authority of a general Council in those days was deservedly sacred and venerable not as an Infallible Judge which they never pretended to but as the most certain means they could possibly have to understand what was and in all Ages had been the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church They met together not to make new Articles of Faith which no Council in the World ever had any Authority to do but to declare what was the truly ancient and Apostolick Faith and to put it into such Words as might plainly express the Catholick sense and meet with the Distempers of that Age. For this end Grave and Reverend Bishops assembled from all parts of the Christian World not meerly to give their private Opinions of things but to Declare what was the received Doctrine of those Churches over which they presided and I know no better Argument of an Apostolick Tradition than the consent of all Churches as remote from each other as East and West which were planted by several Apostles and differed very much from each other in some External Rites and Usages but yet all agreed in the same Faith And this is the true Authority of those ancient Councils that they were most likely to understand the true sense of Scripture and of the Catholick Church This is the Protestant Resolution of Faith and the Nicene Fathers themselves had no other way nor pretended to any other Nay the Church of Rome her self as much as she talks of Infallibility makes very little use of it She has never given us an infallible Comment on Scripture but suffers her Doctors to write as fallible Comments and in many things as contrary to each other as any Protestant Divines do And I cannot imagine what good Infallibility does if an infallible Church has no better means of understanding Scripture than the Comments of fallible men that is no better means than every fallible Church has for no man can understand the Scripture ever the better for the Churches being infallible unless this infallible Church improve this glorious Talent of Infallibility in Expounding Scripture which she has not done to this day and I believe never will Indeed it is apparent that Infallibility as it is pretended to by the Church of Rome can be of no use either in the Resolution of Faith or in Confuting Hereticks who deny this Infallibility and then I cannot imagine what it is good for but to multiply Disputes instead of ending them As for the Resolution of Faith suppose I ask a Papist why he believes such Articles as the Divinity of Christ or the Resurrection of the dead to be contained in Scripture if he answer as he must do Because he is taught so by the Church which is infallible my next Question is How he knows the Church to be infallible If he says he learns this from Scripture I ask him how he comes to understand the Scripture and how he knows that this is the sense of it If he know this by the infallible interpretation of the Church then he runs round in a Circle and knows the Scripture by the Church and the Church by the Scripture as I observed before if he can find out the Churches infallibility by the Scripture without the help of an infallible Judge then it seems the Scripture is to be understood without the infallible interpretation of the Church and if men can find out infallibility in Scripture without the Church I am confident they may find out any thing else in Scripture as well without the Churches infallibility For there is no Article of our Creed so hard to be found there as the Churches infallibility is But however that be after all this boast of infallibility a Papist has no more infallible Foundation for his Faith than a Protestant has nor half so much We believe the Articles of the Christian Faith because we find them plainly taught in Scripture and universally received as the sense of Scripture by the Catholick Church in the best and purest Ages of it A Papist believes the Church to be infallible because he thinks he finds it in Scripture though the Catholick Church for many Ages never found it there and the greatest part of the Christian Church to this day cannot find it there Now if they will but allow that a Protestant though a poor fallible Creature may reason about the sense of Scripture as well as a Papist and that the Evidence of reason is the â—â—me to both then we Protestants stand upon as firm ground as the Papists here and are at least as certain of all those Doctrines of Faith which we find in the Scripture and are ready to prove by it as they are of their Churches infallibility but then we have an additional Security that we Expound the Scriptures right which they want and that is the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church which confirms all the Articles of our Faith and Rules of Worship and Discipline but gives not the least intimation that the Pope or Church of Rome was thought infallible by them and if the Primitive Church was ignorant of this which is the best witness of Apostolical Tradition it is most probable that no such thing is contained in Scripture though some mercenary Flatterers of the Pope have indeavoured to perswade the World that they found it there So that we have a greater assurance of all the Articles of our Religion from Scripture and Catholick Tradition than a Papist can have of the Churches Infallibility and yet he can have no greater assurance of any other Doctrines of Religion which he believes upon the Churches Infallibility than he has of Infallibility it self So that in the last Resolution of Faith the Protestant has much the advantage of the Papist for the Protestant resolves his Faith into the Authority of the Scriptures Expounded by the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church the Papist resolves his into the Infallibility of the Church which he finds out only by Expounding Scripture by a private Spirit without the Authority of any Church but that whose Authority is under dispute And as the Doctrine of Infallibility is of no use in the last Resolution of Faith so it is wholly useless in disputing with such Hereticks as we are who deny Infallibility for it is a vain thing to attempt to impose any absurd or groundless and uncatholick Doctrines upon us by the Churches infallible Authority who believe there is no such infallible Judge but are resolved to trust our own Eyes and to adhere to Scripture and the Catholick