the Fathers were not against them what need these Arts Why should they use them thus Their own expurgatory indices are infinite testimony against them both that they do so and that they need it But besides these things we have thought it fit to represent in one aspect some of their chief Doctrines of difference from the Church of England and make it evident that they are indeed new and brought into the Church first by way of opinion and afterwards by power and at last by their own authority decreed into Laws and Articles SECT II. FIRST We alledge that that this very power of making new Articles is a Novelty and expresly against the Doctrine of the Primitive Church and we prove it first by the words of the Apostle saying If we or an Angel from Heaven shall preach unto you any other Gospel viz. in whole or in part for there is the same reason of them both than that which we have preached let him be Anathema and secondly by the sentence of the Fathers in the third General Council that at Ephesus That it should not be lawful for any Man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defin'd by the Nicene Council and that whosoever shall dare to compose or offer any such to any Persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks they should be depos'd if Lay-men they should be accursed And yet in the Church of Rome Faith and Christianity increase like the Moon Bromyard complain'd of it long since and the mischief increases daily They have now a new Article of Faith ready for the stamp which may very shortly become necessary to salvation we mean that of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Whether the Pope be above a Council or no we are not sure whether it be an Article of Faith amongst them or not It is very near one if it be not Bellarmine would fain have us believe that the Council of Constance approving the Bull of Pope Martin the fifth declar'd for the Popes Supremacy But John Gerson who was at the Council sayes that the Council did abate those heights to which flattery had advanc'd the Pope and that before that Council they spoke such great things of the Pope which afterwards moderate Men durst not speak but yet some others spake them so confidently before it that he that should then have spoken to the contrary would hardly have escap'd the note of Heresie and that these Men continued the same pretensions even after the Council But the Council of Basil decreed for the Council against the Pope and the Council of Lateran under Leo the tenth decreed for the Pope against the Council So that it is cross and pile and whether for a penny when it can be done it is now a known case it shall become an Article of Faith But for the present it is a probationary Article and according to Bellarmine's expression is serè de fide it is almost an Article of Faith they want a little age and then they may go alone But the Council of Trent hath produc'd a strange new Article but it is sine controversiâ credendum it must be believ'd and must not be controverted that although the ancient Fathers did give the Communion to Infants yet they did not believe it necessary to salvation Now this being a matter of fact whether they did or did not believe it every man that reads their writings can be able to inform himself and besides that it is strange that this should be determin'd by a Council and determin'd against evident truth it being notorious that divers of the Fathers did say it is necessary to salvation the decree it self is beyond all bounds of modesty and a strange pretension of Empire over the Christian belief But we proceed to other Instances SECT III. THE Roman Doctrine of Indulgences was the first occasion of the great change and Reformation of the Western Churches begun by the Preachings of Martyn Luther and others and besides that it grew to that intolerable abuse that it became a shame to it self and a reproach to Christendom it was also so very an Innovation that their great Antoninus confesses that concerning them we have nothing expresly either in the Scriptures or in the sayings of the ancient Doctors And the same is affirmed by Sylvester Prierias Bishop Fisher of Rochester sayes that in the beginning of the Church there was no use of Indulgences and that they began after the people were a while affrighted with the torments of Purgatory and many of the School-men confess that the use of Indulgences began in the time of Pope Alexander the third towards the end of the twelfth Century but Agrippa imputes the beginning of them to Boniface the eighth who liv'd in the Reign of King Edward the first of England 1300. years after Christ. But that in his time the first Jubilee was kept we are assur'd by Crantzius This Pope lived and died with great infamy and therefore was not likely from himself to transfer much honour and reputation to the new institution But that about this time Indulgences began is more than probable much before it is certain they were not For in the whole Canon Law written by Gratian and in the sentences of Peter Lombard there is nothing spoken of Indulgences Now because they liv'd in the time of Pope Alexander the third if he had introduc'd them and much rather if they had been as ancient as Saint Gregory as some vainly and weakly pretend from no greater authority than their own Legends it is probable that these great Men writing Bodies of Divinity and Law would have made mention of so considerable a Point and so great a part of the Roman Religion as things are now order'd If they had been Doctrines of the Church then as they are now it is certain they must have come under their cognisance and discourses Now lest the Roman Emissaries should deceive any of the good Sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the Primitive Church when the Bishops impos'd severe penances and that they were almost quite perform'd and a great cause of pity intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Bishop did sometimes indulge the penitent and relax some of the remaining parts of his penance and according to the example of Saint Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease lest they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow But the Roman Doctrine of Indulgences is wholly another thing nothing of it but the abused name remains For in the Church of Rome they now pretend that there is an infinite of degrees of Christ's merits and satisfaction beyond what is necessary for the salvation of his servants and for fear Christ should not have enough the Saints have a surplusage of
does implicitely believe all the Articles contained in it and then it is better the implication should still continue than that by any explication which is simply unnecessary the Church should be troubled with questions and uncertain determinations and factions enkindled and animosities set on foot and mens souls endangered who before were secured by the explicite belief of all that the Apostles required as necessary which belief also did secure them from all the rest because it implyed the belief of whatsoever was virtually in the first Articles if such belief should by chance be necessary 41. The summe of this Discourse is this if we take an estimate of the nature of Faith from the dictates and Promises Evangelical and from the Practice Apostolical the nature of Faith and its integrity consists in such propositions which make the foundation of hope and charity that which is sufficient to make us to doe honour to Christ and to obey him and to encourage us in both and this is compleated in the Apostles Creed And since contraries are of the same extent heresy is to be judged by its proportion and analogie to Faith and that is heresy only which is against Faith Now because Faith is not only a precept of Doctrines but of manners and holy life whatsoever is either opposite to an Article of Creed or teaches ill life that 's heresy but all those propositions which are extrinsecal to these two considerations be they true or be they false make not heresy nor the man an Heretick and therefore however he may be an erring person yet he is to be used accordingly pittied and instructed not condemned or Excommunicated And this is the result of the first ground the consideration of the nature of Faith and heresy SECT III. Of the difficulty and uncertainty of Arguments from Scripture in Questions not simply necessary not literally determined 1. GOD who disposes of all things sweetly and according to the nature and capacity of things and persons had made those only necessary which he had taken care should be sufficiently propounded to all persons of whom he required the explicite belief And therefore all the Articles of Faith are clearly and plainly set down in Scripture and the Gospel is not hid nisi pereuntibus saith S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Damascen and that so manifestly that no man can be ignorant of the foundation of Faith without his own apparent fault And this is acknowledged by all wise and good men and is evident besides the reasonableness of the thing in the testimonies of Saints Austin Hierom Chrysostome Fulgentius Hugo de Sancto Victore Thedoret Lactantius Theophilus Antiochenus Aquinas and the later School-men And God hath done more for many things which are only profitable are also set down so plainly that as S. Austin says nemo inde haurire non possit si modò ad hauriendum devotè ac piè accedat ubi supra de util cred c. 6. but of such things there is no Question commenced in Christendome and if there were it cannot but be a crime and humane interest that are the Authors of such disputes and therefore these cannot be simple errours but always heresies because the principle of them is a personal sin 2. But besides these things which are so plainly set down some for doctrine as Saint Paul says that is for Articles and foundation of Faith some for instruction some for reproof some for comfort that is in matters practical and speculative of several tempers and constitutions there are innumerable places containing in them great mysteries but yet either so enwrapped with a cloud or so darkned with umbrages or heightened with expressions or so covered with allegories and garments of Rhetorick so profound in the matter or so altered or made intricate in the manner in the cloathing and in the dressing that God may seem to have left them as tryals of our industry and Arguments of our imperfections and incentives to the longings after Heaven and the clearest revelations of eternity and as occasions and opportunities of our mutual charity and toleration to each other and humility in our selves rather than the repositories of Faith and furniture of Creeds and Articles of belief 3. For wherever the word of God is kept whether in Scripture alone or also in Tradition he that considers that the meaning of the one and the truth or certainty of the other are things of great Question will see a necessity in these things which are the subject matter of most of the Questions of Christendome that men should hope to be excused by an implicite faith in God Almighty For when there are in the Explications of Scripture so many Commentaries so many sences and Interpretations so many Volumes in all Ages and all like mens faces exactly none like another either this difference and inconvenience is absolutely no fault at all or if it be it is excusable by a mind prepared to consent in that truth which God intended And this I call an implicite Faith in God which is certainly of as great excellency as an implicite Faith in any man or company of men Because they who do require an implicite Faith in the Church for Articles less necessary and excuse the want of explicite Faith by the implicite do require an implicite Faith in the Church because they believe that God hath required of them to have a mind prepared to believe whatever the Church says which because it is a proposition of no absolute certainty whosoever does in readiness of mind believe all that God spake does also believe that sufficiently if it be fitting to be believed that is if it be true and if God hath said so for he hath the same obedience of understanding in this as in the other But because it is not so certain God hath tied him in all things to believe that which is called the Church and that it is certain we must believe God in all things and yet neither know all that either God hath revealed or the Church taught it is better to take the certain than the uncertain to believe God rather than men especially since if God hath bound us to believe men our absolute submission to God does involve that and there is no inconvenience in the world this way but that we implicitely believe one Article more viz. the Churches Authority or infallibility which may well be pardoned because it secures our belief of all the rest and we are sure if we believe all that God said explicitely or implicitely we also believe the Church implicitely in case we are bound to it but we are not certain that if we believe any company of men whom we call the Church that we therefore obey God and believe what he hath said But however if this will not help us there is no help for us but good fortune or absolute predestination for by choice and industry no man can
for matters of question which have not in them an enmity to the publick tranquillity as the Republick hath nothing to doe upon the ground of all the former discourses so if the Church meddles with them where they do not derive into ill life either in the person or in the consequent or else are destructions of the foundation of Religion which is all one for that those fundamental Articles are of greatest necessity in order to a vertuous and godly life which is wholly built upon them and therefore are principally necessary if she meddles farther otherwise then by preaching and conferring and exhortation she becomes tyrannical in her government makes herself an immediate judge of Consciences and perswasions lords it over their Faith destroys unity and charity and as he that dogmatizes the Opinion becomes criminal if he troubles the Church with an immodest peevish and pertinacious proposall of his Article not simply necessary so the Church does not do her duty if she so condemns it pro tribunali as to enjoyn him and all her subjects to believe the contrary And as there may be pertinacy in Doctrine so there may be pertinacy in judging and both are faults The peace of the Church and the unity of her Doctrine is best conserved when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the Apostles gave that is the Creed for Articles of mere belief and the precepts of Jesus Christ and the practicall rules of piety which are most plain and easie and without controversie set down in the Gospels and writings of the Apostles But to multiply Articles and adopt them into the family of the Faith and to require assent to such Articles which as Saint Paul's phrase is are of doubtfull disputation equal to that assent we give to matters of Faith is to build a tower upon the top of a Bulrush and the farther the effect of such proceedings does extend the worse they are the very making such a Law is unreasonable the inflicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot doe so much violence to their understanding as to obey it is unjust and ineffectuall but to punish the person with death or with corporal infliction indeed it is effectuall but it is therefore tyrannicall We have seen what the Church may doe towards restraining false or differing Opinions next I shall consider by way of Corollary what the Prince may doe as for his interest and onely in securing his people and serving the ends of true Religion SECT XVI Whether it be lawfull for a Prince to give Toleration to severall Religions 1. FOR upon these very grounds we may easily give account of that great Question Whether it be lawfull for a Prince to give Toleration to several Religions For first It is a great fault that men will call the several Sects of Christians by the names of several Religions The Religion of Jesus Christ is the form of sound Doctrine and wholsome words which is set down in Scripture indefinitely actually conveyed to us by plain places and separated as for the question of necessary or not necessary by the Symbol of the Apostles Those impertinencies which the wantonnesse and vanity of men hath commenced which their interests have promoted which serve not Truth so much as their own ends are far from being distinct Religions for matters of Opinion are no parts of the Worship of God nor in order to it but as they promote obedience to his Commandments and when they contribute towards it are in that proportion as they contribute parts and actions and minute particulars of that Religion to whose end they do or pretend to serve And such are all the Sects and all the pretences of Christians but pieces and minutes of Christianity if they do serve the great end as every man for his own Sect and interest believes for his share it does 2. Toleration hath a double sense or purpose For sometimes by it men understand a publick licence and exercise of a Sect sometimes it is onely an indemnity of the persons privately to convene and to opine as they see cause and as they mean to answer to God Both these are very much to the same purpose unlesse some persons whom we are bound to satisfie be scandalized and then the Prince is bound to doe as he is bound to satisfie To God it is all one For abstracting from the offence of persons which is to be considered just as our obligation is to content the persons it is all one whether we indulge to them to meet publickly or privately to doe actions of Religion concerning which we are not perswaded that they are truly holy To God it is just one to be in the dark and in the light the thing is the same onely the Circumstance of publick and private is different which cannot be concerned in any thing nor can it concern any thing but the matter of Scandal and relation to the minds and fantasies of certain persons 3. So that to tolerate is not to persecute And the Question whether the Prince may tolerate divers perswasions is no more then whether he may lawfully persecute any man for not being of his Opinion Now in this case he is just so to tolerate diversity of perswasions as he is to tolerate publick actions for no Opinion is judicable nor no person punishable but for a sin and if his Opinion by reason of its managing or its effect be a sin in itself or becomes a sin to the person then as he is to doe towards other sins so to that Opinion or man so opining But to believe so or not so when there is no more but mere believing is not in his power to enjoyn therefore not to punish And it is not onely lawfull to tolerate disagreeing Perswasions but the Authority of God onely is competent to take notice of it and infallible to determine it and fit to judge and therefore no humane Authority is sufficient to doe all those things which can justifie the inflicting temporal punishments upon such as doe not conform in their perswasions to a Rule or Authority which is not onely fallible but supposed by the disagreeing person to be actually deceived 4. But I consider that in the Toleration of a different Opinion Religion is not properly and immediately concerned so as in any degree to be endangered For it may be safe in diversity of perswasions and it is also a part of Christian Religion that the liberty of mens Consciences should be preserved in all things where God hath not set a limit and made a restraint that the Soul of man should be free and acknowledge no Master but Jesus Christ that matters spiritual should not be restrained by punishments corporal that the same meekness and charity should be preserved in the promotion of Christianity that gave it foundation and increment and firmness in its first publication that Conclusions should not be more dogmatical then the virtual resolution
Gentiles 601 n. 6 7. Two kinds of Conversion one the same with Repentance the other different from it 602 n. 10. The synonymal terms by which Repentance is signified in Scripture 602 n. 11 12. Every relapse after Repentance makes the sin less pardonable 815 n. 11 61 64. Repentance is not true unless the sinner be brought to that pass that he seriously wishes he had never done the sin 827 n. 21. The method and progression of Repentance 827 n. 22. The method of Repentance in the Primitive Church 832 833. The usual acts of Repentance what they are 845 n. 74. Tertullian's description of Repentance 848 n. 80. The penitent must take care that his Repentance injure not his health 852 n. 94. and 858 n. 112. Restitution Considered as a part of Repentance 849 n. 84. No Repentance is entire without Restitution where it is required 648 n. 50. Book of the Revelation Chap. 19. v. 9. Blessed are they that are called to the marriage of the Lamb explained 679 n. 62. Righteousness What was the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees 673 n. 45. The Righteousness of the Law and Gospel how they differ 673 n. 46. Romanists The arts by which they have managed the Article of Transubstantiation Ep. Ded. to Real pres 174. It is acknowledged by them that Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of Scripture 187 § 2. and 298. They and the Non-conformists have always in England encreased alternately as the State minded the reducing either Pref. to Diss. pag. 2 3. They make Propositions which are not in Scripture to be Articles of Faith which is condemned by the Fathers Pref. pag. 4 5. The Character of the Roman Catholick Religion as it is professed by the Irish Pref. to Diss. pag. 6 7 8. Where the Doctrine of the Roman Church is to be found 313 c. 2. § 1. How that Church abuseth Contrition 314. The Roman Doctors prevaricate in the whole Doctrine of Repentance 321. They teach the habit of the sin is not a distinct evil from the act of it 322. That one man may satisfie for the sins of another is their Doctrine 322 c. 2. § 6. They hold that habits of sin are no sins 322 c. 2. § 6. It is no excuse for them to say This is the opinion but of one Doctor 325 c. 2. § 7. They teach that neither Attention nor Devotion are required in our Prayers 327 c. 2. § 8. The difference between the Church of England and Rome in the use of publick Prayers 328 c. 2. § 8. They teach the Invocation of Saints 329 332. and that with the same style as they pray to God ibid. They teach that Christ being our Judge is not fit to be our Advocate 329 c. 2. § 9. They interpret the Blessed Virgin to be the Throne of Grace 329. Of their Exorcisms 333 § 10. They attribute the conveying of Grace to things of their own inventing 337 § 11. The Sacraments they teach do not onely convey Grace but supply the defect of it 337. They teach Lying and Equivocation 340. They teach that a man may steal or lie for a good end 341 c. 3. § 1. They keep no Faith with Hereticks 341. They teach the Pope hath power to dispense with all the Laws of God 342. The seal of Confession they will not suffer to be broken to save the life of a King or the whole State 343 c. 3. § 2. The Pope hath power as they teach to dispose of the temporal things of all Christians 344. An Excommunicate King they teach may be deposed or killed 344 c. 3. § 3. A Son or Wife they absolve from their duty to Husband or Father if the Husband or Father be heretical 345. Their Religion no friend to Kings 345. Their Opinions so injurious to Kings are not the Doctrines of private men onely 345. They have no Tradition to assure them the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical 361. Of what Authority the opinion of the Fathers is with some Romanists 376 377. They hold the Scripture for no infallible Rule 381 § 1. Even among them the Authority of General Councils is but precarious 391. The great uncertainties the Romanists do relie upon 397 400. Instances of some Doctrines that are held by some Romanists to be de fide by others not to be de fide 398. Of the Divisions in the Church of Rome 403. The Character of the Church of Rome 403. Neither the Church of Rome nor the Fathers nor School-men are agreed upon the definition of a Sacrament 404. The Romanists by their doctrine of Tradition gave great advantage to the Socinians 425. They impute greater virtue to their Sacramentals then to their Sacraments 429. The Romanists have corrupted the Creed in that Article of the Catholick Church by restraining it to the Roman 448. The Roman is not the Mother of all Churches 449. They teach that the Pope can make new Articles of Faith and new Scripture 450. The Authority of the Church of Rome they teach is greater then that of the Scripture 450. Their Writers reckon the Decretal Epistles of the Popes among the Holy Scriptures 451. Of the Miracles wrought now-a-days by the Romanists 452. The uncharitableness of that Church 460. That Church arrogates to her self an Empire over Consciences 461. The Church of Rome imposes Articles of her own devising as necessary to Salvation 461. The faith of unlearned men in the Roman Church ibid. The Church of Rome adopts uncertain and trifling Propositions into their Faith 462. Upon what ground we put Roman Priests to death 464. The dangers in which they are that live in the Roman Communion 466 467. Of their worshipping the Host 467. Their doctrine about the seal of Confession is one instance of their teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men 473 477. Divers other instances wherein they teach for doctrines the Commandments of men 494. The Roman Churche's consecrating a Wafer is a mere Innovation 531 532. That Church would have sold the Rite of Confirmation to the Greek but they would not buy it Ep. Ded. to the Treatise of Confirmation pag. 5. They teach that Confirmation is a Sacrament and yet hold it not necessary 3. b. Epistle to the Romans Chap. 5. v. 12. ad 19. explained 887 888 889 900 901 903. Chap. 5. v. 12. largely explained 885 887 888 889. Chap. 6.23 The wages of sin is death explained 621 n. 33. Chap. 6.13 20. explained 667 n. 27. Chap. 7.23 explained 723 n. 52. Chap. 7.14 explained 671 n. 40. Chap. 6.7 explained 672 n. 44. Chap. 7.7 explained 689 n. 5. Chap. 5.12 explained 709 710. Chap. 5.13 14. explained 710 n. 7 11. Chap. 7.23 explained 773 and 772. Chap. 7.15 19. explained 772 773. Saint Augustine restrained the words of this Apostle Rom. 7.15 to the matter of Desires and Concupiscence and excluded all evil actions from the meaning of that Text 775 n. 18. Reasons against that Interpretation given by that Father 776 n. 19. Chap. 7.9
Disswasive from Popery The First Part. THE Introduction 285 Chap. I. The doctrine of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholick Apostolick nor Primitive 286 Sect. 1. That our Religion is but that their Religion is not such is proved in general first from their challenging power of making new Articles and secondly from the practice of their Indices Expurgatory with some instances of their Innovating 286 2. They Innovate in pretending power to make new Articles 290 3. They did Innovate in their doctrine of Indulgences 291 4. In their doctrine and practice about Purgatory 294 5. In their doctrine of Transubstantiation 297 6. They Innovate in their doctrine of the Half-Communion 30◠7. In that they suffer not their publick Prayers to be in a language vulgarly understood 303 8. In requiring the adoration of Images 305 9. In picturing God the Father and the Bl. Trinity 307 10. In arrogating to the Pope an universal Bishoprick 308 11. A Miscellany of many other doctrines and practices wherein that Church has Innovated Chap. II. They maintain Doctrines and Practices in opposition to us that are direct impieties and certainly destroy good life 312 Sect. 1. Such is their doctrine of Repentance 312 2. And Confession 315 3. Of Penances and Satisfactions 316 4 5. Their doctrine about Pardon and Indulgences Contrition and Satisfaction 318 6. Satisfaction and habitual sins distinction of Mortal and Venial sins by which they contract their Repentance and their Sins and mistake in cases of Conscience 322 7. Their teaching now of late that a probable opinion for which the authority of one Doctor is sufficient may in practice be safely followed 324 8. That Prayers are accepted by God ex opere operato 327 9. Such is their practice of Invocating dead Saints as Deliverers 329 10. And of Exorcising possessed persons 333 11. Sacramentals such as Holy-water Paschal-wax Agnus Dei c. 336 12. The worship of Images is Idolatry and to worship the Host. 337 13. The Summ and Conclusion of the whole Chapter 337 Chap. III. Their Docrines are such as destroy Christian Society in general and Monarchy in particular 340 Sect. 1. As equivocation mental reservation taught and defended by them c. 340 Their teaching that faith is not to be kept with Hereticks dispensing with Oaths Dissolving the bonds of duty 341 They teach the Pope has power to dispense with all the Laws of God and to dissolve contracts 2. Their Exemption of the Clergie from the secular authority as to their Estates and Persons even in matters of Theft Murder and Treason c. and the divine right of the seal of Confession 343 3. By subjecting all Christian Kings to the Pope who can as they teach depose and excommunicate Kings and that Subjects are bound to expel Heretical Kings The Second Part of the Disswasive THe Introduction containing an answer to the Fourth Appendix of J. S. his Sure-footing 351 Lib. I. Sect. 1. Of the Church that the Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their Faith Of Councils and their authority the Canon Law and the great contrariety in it Of the Pope of the notes of the Church 381 2. Of the sufficiency of H. Scripture to Salvation which is the foundation and ground of the Protestant Religion The sufficiency of Scripture proved by Tradition 405 3. Of Traditions and those doctrines and practices that most need the help of that Topick as of the Trinity Paedo-Baptism Baptism by Hereticks and the Lords day 420 4. There is nothing of necessity to be believed which the Apostolical Churches did not believe 436 5. That the Church of Rome pretends to a power of introducing into the Confession of the Church new Articles of Faith and endeavours to alter and suppress the old Catholick doctrine 446 First They do it and pretend to a power of doing it Secondly That it agrees with their interest so to do 452 6. They use indirect ways to bring their new Articles into credit e. g. the device of Indices Expurgatorii 454 First That the King of Spain gave a Commission to the Inquisitors to purge Catholick Authors Secondly That they purged the very Indices of the Father's works Thirdly They did purge the Writings of the Fathers too 7. While they enlarge the Faith they destroy Charity 459 8. The insecurity of the Roman Religion 466 9. That the Church of Rome does teach for doctrines the commandments of men 471 10. Of the Seal of Confession the First Instance 473 11. The Second Instance is the imposing Auricular Confession upon Consciences as a Commandment of God 477 First For which there is no ground in holy Scripture 479 Secondly Nor in Ecclesiastical Tradition either of the Latin or Greek Church 491 Lib. II. Sect. 1. Of Indulgences and Pilgrimages 495 2. Of Purgatory The testimonies of Roffensis Polyd. Virgil c. Alphonsus à Castro are vindicated 500 It is proved that Purgatory is not a consequent to the doctrine of Prayer for the dead 501 The Fathers made Prayers for those whom they believed not to be in Purgatory 502 And such Prayers are in the Roman Missal 505. The Greek and Latin Fathers teach that no Soul enters Heaven till the day of Judgment The doctrine of Purgatory was no Article in S. Austin's time 506. It was not owned by the Greek Fathers 510. It is directly contrary to the ancient Fathers of the Latin Church 512 3. Of Transubstantiation wherein the authorities out of Scotus Odo Cameracensis Roffensis Biel Alph. à Castro Pet. Lombard Durandus Justine Martyr Eusebius S. Augustine are justified from the exceptions of the Adversaries And it is proved that the Council of Laterane did not determine the Article of Transubstantiation but brake up abruptly without making any Canons at all 516 4. Of the Half-Communion 528 Of the Decree of the Council of Constance 528. The authority of S. Ambrose 530. and S. Cyprian 531 5. Of the Scriptures and Service in an unknown tongue 532 S. Basils authority S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose S. Austin Aquinas Lyra. 6. Of the Worship of Images 535 1o. The Quotations vindicated 536. of S. Cyril Chrysostom Epiphanius Austin Council of Eliberis Nicene II. Francfort First The Council of Francfort condemned the Nicene II. 540 Secondly They commanded that it should not be called a General Council ibid. Thirdly The acts of it are in the Capitular of the Emperor written in the time of the Synod 541 Of Tertullian 541. Clemens Alexandrinus 542. Origen 543. 2o. The Quotations alledged by them answered as of S. Basil S. Athanasius 544. S. Chrysostom 545. 3o. The truth confirmed 545 First Image-worship came from Simon Magus ibid. Secondly Heathens spake against it 546 Thirdly Christians did abominate it ibid. Fourthly The Heathens never charged the Christians with it ibid. Fifthly The Primitive Fathers never taught those distinctions that the Papists use to discern lawful Idolatry from Heathen Idolatry 547 Sixthly The Second Commandment is against it ibid.
Seventhly It is a scandal and makes way for Heathen Idolatry 549 7. Of picturing God the Father and the H. Trinity 550 The testimonies of Tertullian Eusebius and S. Hierome alledged in the Dissuasive vindicated from the Romanists exceptions as also the testimonies of S. Austin Theodoret Damascen Nicephorus 552 553. An answer to that reply of theirs of painting the Essence of God the Father 550 551. The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance Chap. I. THE Foundation and Necessity of Repentance 573 Sect. 1. Of the indispensable Necessity of Repentance in remedy to the unavoidable transgressing of the Covenant of Works 573 2. Of the possibility or impossibility of keeping the Precepts of the Gospel 576 First The Law of God is naturally possible to be kept but not morally 576. n. 15. ad 32. Secondly How we are to understand the Divine Justice in exacting a Law so impossible 580. n. 32. ad 35. Thirdly Since God exacteth not an impossible Law how does it consist with his wisdom to impose what in justice he does not exact 581. n. 35. c sequ 3. How Repentance and the Precept of perfection Evangelical can stand together 582 4. The former doctrine reduced to practice The new and old Covenant as they are expressed in the words of Scripture 587 Chap. II. Of the nature and definition of Repentance and what parts of duty are signified by it in Scripture 596 Sect. 1. The notion of those words that in the Greek and Latin languages express Repentance with the definition and parts of it 596 2. Of Repentance in general or Conversion 599 3. Descriptions of Repentance taken from the H. Scriptures 604 The indispensable necessity of a good life represented in the words of Scripture 606 Chap. III. Of the distinction of Sins Mortal and Venial in what sence to be admitted and how the smallest Sins are to be repented of and expiated 610 Sect. 1. The inconvenience as to the conduct of Conscience in distinguishing Sins into Mortal and Venial in their own nature or kind ibid. 2. Of the difference of sins and their measures 611 3. That all sins are punishable if God please even with the pains of Hell 614 4. The former doctrine reduced to practice 623. n. 36. 5. To deny that there is a sort of sins that are Venial in their own nature how it is consistent with that doctrine which teaches the possibility of keeping the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and with the righteousness of David Zechary and Elizabeth 625. n. 4. Some more particular measures of practice 626. n. 46. 6. What Repentance is necessary for the more Venial sins 630 Chap. IV. Of actual single sins and what Repentance is proper for them 635 Sect. 1. A Catalogue of sins that are severely threatned in Scripture of which men commonly believe not such hard things 635 2. Whether every single act of the fore-enumerated sins puts a man out of Gods favour 640 3. What Repentance is necessary for single acts of sin 646 Chap. V. Of Habitual Sins and manner of eradication or cure and their proper instruments of pardon 652 Sect. 1. The state of the Question ibid. 2. Every man is bound to Repent of his sin assoon as he hath committed it 654 3. A sinful habit hath in it proper evils and a proper guiltiness of its own besides all that which came directly from the single actions 658 Of sinful habits 1o. in their natural capacity 659 2o. in their moral capacity 661 First they add many degrees of aversation from God ibid. Secondly they imply not only a facility but a necessity of sinning 662 Thirdly they make our Repentance more difficult 663 Fourthly they make us swallow a great sin as easily as a smaller 664 Fifthly they keep us always out of Gods favour 665 3o. in their relative capacity in reference to our aversation from God 665 4. Sinful habits do require a distinct manner of Repentance and have no promise to be pardoned but by the introduction of the contrary 669. n. 32. Against the repentance of Clinicks ibid. 5. Consideration of seven objections against the doctrine in the foregoing Section 675 6. The former doctrine reduced to practice 687 1o. The Repentance of habitual sinners who return in their vigorous years ibid. 2o. The Repentance of sinners that return not till their old age 692 3o. How sinners are to be treated who Repent not till their death-bed 695 First what hopes are left to an ill-liv'd man that Repents in his death-bed and not before ibid. Secondly what advices can bring such a one most advantage 700 Chap. VI. Of Concupiscence and Original Sin whether or no and how far we are bound to repent of it 709 Sect. 1. The doctrine explained and proved out of the Scripture ibid. 2. Consideration of the objections against the former doctrine 720 3. How God punisheth the Fathers sin upon the children 725 4. Of the causes of the universal wickedness of mankind n. 66. 727 5. Of liberty of Election remaining after Adams fall n. 71. 730 6. The practical Question 733 7. Advices relating to the matter of Original sin 714 8. Rules and measures of deportment when a curse is feared to descend upon children for their Parents fault 738 Chap. VII A farther explication of the doctrine of Original Sin 747 Sect. 1. Of the fall of Adam and the effects of it upon him and us 747 2. Adams sin is in us no more than an imputed sin and how it is so 751 3. The doctrine of the ancient Father's was that free will remained in us after the fall 753 4. Adams sin is not imputed to us to our damnation 755 5. The doctrine of antiquity in this whole matter 757 6. An exposition of the Ninth Article of the Church of England which is of Original Sin shewing that the former doctrine contradicts not that Article 763 Chap. VIII Of sins of Infirmity and their remedy 770 Sect. 1. Of the state of Infirmity and its first remedy ibid. 2. An exposition and vindication of that Text Rom. 7.15 ad 20. which by the mistake of some is thought to mean the state of Infirmity in the regenerate 772 3. S. Augustines exposition of those words taken up after his retractation considered 775 4. The true meaning of that Text of the Apostle fully decreed and vindicated 777 1o. That S. Paul speaks not in his own person but of one unregenerate by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. 2o. that the state he describes is the state of a carnal man under the corruption of his nature ibid. 3o. from this state we are redeemed by Christ and his grace which is the second remedy 779 5. How far an unregenerate man may go in the ways of piety and religion 779 1o. An unregenerate man may be instructed in and convinced of his duty and approve the Law and confâ—ss the obligation 780 2o. he may in his will delight in goodness and desire it earnestly 781 3o. he may not only
desire to do natural or moral good things but even spiritual 784 4o. he may leave many sins which he is commanded to forsake 785 5o. he may leave some sins not only for temporal interest but out of fear of God and regard to his Law ibid. 6o. he may besides abstinence from evil do many good things 786 7 o he may have received the Spirit of God and yet be in a state of distance from God ibid. 6. The character of the unregenerate state or person n. 42.787 7. What are properly and truly sins of infirmity and how far they can consist with the regenerate estate 789 8. Practical advices to be added to the foregoing considerations 795. n. 65. Chap. IX Of the effect of Repentance viz. remission of Sins 800 Sect. 1. There is no sin but with Repentance may be pardoned ibid. 2. Of pardon of sins committed after baptism 802 3. Of the difficulty of obtaining pardon The doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church in this Article 803 4. Of the sin against the H. Ghost and in what sence it may be unpardonable 808 5. What sin is spoken of by our Lord Matth. 12.32 and that final impenitence is not it 810 6. The former doctrines reduced to practice 815 Chap. X. Of Ecclesiastical Penance or the fruits of Repentance 820 Sect. 1. What the fruits of Repentance are in general ibid. 2. Of Contrition or godly sorrow the reasons measures and constitution of it 821 3. Of the nature and differences of Attrition and Contrition 828 4. Of Confession 830 1o. Confession is necessary to Repentance ibid. 2o. It is due only to God 831 3o. In the Primitive Church there was no judicial absolution used in their Liturgies n. 54.838 4o. The judicial absolution of a Priest does effect no material change in the Penitent as to giving of pardon 841. n. 60 5. Attrition or imperfect Repentance though with absolution is not sufficient 842 6. Of Penance or satisfactions 844. 1o. sorrow and mourning 2o. Corporal austerities 3o. Prayers 847. 4o. Alms 848. 5o. forgiving injuries 6 o restitution 849 7. The former doctrine reduced to practice 850 8. The practice of Confession 854 9. The practice of Penances and corporal austerities 858 A Discourse in Vindication of Gods Attributes of Goodness and Justice in the matter of Original Sin against the Calvinists way of understanding it 1o. THe truth of the Article with the errors and mistakes about it 869 2o. Arguments to prove the truth 872 3o. Objections answered 881 4o. An Explication of Rom. 5.12 ad 19. 887 An Answer to the Bishop of Rochesters First Letter written concerning the Sixth Chapter of Original Sin in the Discourse of Repentance 895 The Bishop of Rochesters Second Letter upon the same subject 907 An Answer to the Second Letter from the Bishop of Rochester 909 The Liberty of Prophesying EPist Dedicatory Introduction Sect. 1. Of the nature of Faith and that the duty of it is compleated in believing the Articles of the Apostles Creed 941 2. Of Heresie its nature and measures That it is to be accounted according to the stricter capacity of the Christian Faith and not in opinions speculative nor ever to pious persons 947 3. Of the difficulty and uncertainty of arguments from Scripture in Questions not simply necessary nor literally determined 965 4. Of the difficulty of expounding Scripture 971 5. Of the insufficiency and uncertainty of Tradition to expound Scripture or determine questions 976 6. Of the insufficiency and uncertainty of Councils Ecclesiastical to expound Scripture or determine questions 984 7. Of the fallibility of the Pope and the uncertainty of his expounding Scripture and resolving Questions 995 8. How unable the Fathers or Writers Ecclesiastical are to determine our questions with certainty and truth 1007 9. How incompetent the Church in its diffusive capacity is to be Judge of controversies and how impertinent that pretence of the Spirit is 1011 10. Of the authority of reason and that it proceeding on the best grounds is the best Judge 1013 11. Of some causes of error in the exercise of reason which are in themselves inculpable 1016 12. How innocent error of mere opinion is in a pious person 1022 13. Of the deportment to be used toward persons disagreeing and reasons why they are not to be punished with death 1025 14. Of the practice of Christian Churches toward persons disagreeing and when persecution first came in use 1031 15. How far the Church or Governours may act to the restraining false or differing opinions 1034 16. Whether it be lawful for a Prince to give toleration to several Religions 1036 17. Of complying with disagreeing persons or weak Consciences in general 1038 18. A particular instance in the opinion of the Anabaptists to shew that there is so much reason on both sides of the Question that a pious person mistaking may be innocent in his error 1040 1o. The arguments usually alledged for baptizing Infants n. 3. ad 12.1041 1042 2o. How much the Anabaptists have to say in opposition to those arguments and to justifie their own tenent n. 12. ad 34.1043 ad 1051 3o. A reply to the arguments of the Anabaptists by the Author since the first Edition wherein the lawfulness of the Churches practice is established n. 34. ad fin Sect. 1051. ad 1068 19. That there ought not to be any toleration of doctrines inconsistent with piety or the publick good 1069 20. How far the Religion of the Church of Rome may be tolerated 1070 21. Of the duty of particular Churches in allowing Communion 1076 22. That particular men may communicate with Churches of different perswasions and how far they may do it 1077 The Discourse of Confirmation INtroduction Sect. 1. Of the Divine Original Warranty and Institution of the Rite of Confirmation 3 2. The Rite of Confirmation is a perpetual and never-ceasing Ministery 12 3. That Confirmation which by laying on of Hands gives the H. Spirit was actually continued and practised by all succeeding Ages of the Primitive Church 15 4. The Bishops were always and are still the only Ministers of Confirmation 18 5. The whole procedure of Confirmation is by prayer and laying on of Hands 22 6. Many great Graces and Blessings are consequent to the worthy reception and due ministery of Confirmation 24 7. Of preparation to Confirmation and the circumstances of receiving it 28 A Discourse of Friendship 1. HOw far a perfect Friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity 35 2. What are the requisites of Friendship 38 3. What are the lawful expressions and acts of Friendship 42 4. Whether a Friend may be dearer than a Husband or Wife 47 5. What are the duties of Friendship 49 6. Ten Rules to be observed in the conduct of Friendship 50 Five Letters about change of Religion 53 THE AUTHORS PREFACE TO THE APOLOGY FOR AUTHORIZED and SET FORMS OF LITURGY WHEN Judges were instead of Kings and Hophni and Phinehas were among the Priests every
after absolution they never impos'd or oblig'd to punishment unless it were to sick persons of whose recovery they despaired not of them indeed in case they had not finished their Canonical punishments they expected they should perform what was injoyn'd them formerly But because all sin is a blot to a mans soul and a foul stain to his reputation we demand In what does this stain consist in the guilt or in the punishment If it be said that it consists in the punishment then what does the guilt signifie when the removing of it does neither remove the stain nor the punishment which both remain and abide together But if the stain and the guilt be all one or alwayes together then when the guilt is taken away there can no stain remain and if so what need is there any more of Purgatory For since this is pretended to be necessary only lest any stain'd or unclean thing should enter into Heaven if the guilt and the pain be removed what uncleanness can there be left behind Indeed Simon Magus as Epiphanius reports Haeres 20. did teach That after the death of the body there remain'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a purgation of souls But whether the Church of Rome will own him for an Authentick Doctor themselves can best tell 3. It relies upon this also That God requires of us a full exchange of penances and satisfactions which must regularly be paid here or hereafter even by them who are pardon'd here which if it were true we were all undone 4. That the death of Christ his Merits and Satisfaction do not procure for us a full remission before we dye nor as it may happen of a long time after All which being Propositions new and uncertain invented by the School Divines and brought ex post facto to dress this Opinion and make it to seem reasonable and being the products of ignorance concerning remission of sins by Grace of the righteousness of Faith and the infinite value of Christ's Death must needs lay a great prejudice of novelty upon the Doctrine it self which but by these cannot be supported But to put it past suspicion and conjectures Roffensis and Polydor Virgil affirm That who so searcheth the Writings of the Greek Fathers shall find that none or very rarely any one of them ever makes mention of Purgatory and that the Latine Fathers did not all believe it but by degrees came to entertain opinions of it But for the Catholick Church it was but lately known to her But before we say any more in this Question we are to premonish That there are two great causes of their mistaken pretensions in this Article from Antiquity The first is That the Ancient Churches in their Offices and the Fathers in their Writings did teach and practise respectively prayer for the dead Now because the Church of Rome does so too and more than so relates her prayers to the Doctrine of Purgatory and for the souls there detaind her Doctors vainly suppose that when ever the Holy Fathers speak of prayer for the dead that they conclude for Purgatory which vain conjecture is as false as it is unreasonable For it is true the Fathers did pray for the dead but how That God would shew them mercy and hasten the Resurrection and give a blessed Sentence in the great day But then it is also to be remembred that they made prayers and offered for those who by the confession of all sides never were in Purgatory even for the Patriarchs and Prophets for the Apostles and Evangelists for Martyrs and Confessors and especially for the blessed Virgin Mary So we find it in Epiphanius Saint Cyril and in the Canon of the Greeks and so it is acknowledged by their own Durandus and in their Mass-book anciently they prayed for the soul of Saint Leo Of which because by their latter Doctrines they grew asham'd they have chang'd the prayer for him into a prayer to God by the intercession of Saint Leo in behalf of themselves so by their new doctrine making him an Intercessor for us who by their old Doctrine was suppos'd to need our prayers to intercede for him of which Pope Innocent being askâ—d a reason makes a most pitiful excuse Upon what accounts the Fathers did pray for the Saints departed and indeed generally for all it is not now seasonable to discourse but to say this only that such general prayers for the dead as those above reckon'd the Church of England never did condemn by any express Article but left it in the middle and by her practice declares her faith of the Resurrection of the dead and her interest in the communion of Saints and that the Saints departed are a portion of the Catholick Church parts and members of the Body of Christ but expresly condemns the Doctrine of Purgatory and consequently all prayers for the dead relating to it And how vainly the Church of Rome from prayer for the dead infers the belief of Purgatory every man may satisfie himself by seeing the Writings of the Fathers where they cannot meet with one Collect or Clause for praying for the delivery of souls out of that imaginary place Which thing is so certain that in the very Roman Offices we mean the Vigils said for the dead which are Psalms and Lessons taken from the Scripture speaking of the miseries of this World Repentance and Reconciliation with God the bliss after this life of them that die in Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead and in the Anthems Versicles and Responses there are Prayers made recommending to God the Soul of the newly defunct praying he may be freed from Hell and eternal death that in the day of Judgment he be not judged and condemned according to his sins but that he may appear among the Elect in the glory of the Resurrection but not one word of Purgatory or its pains The other cause of their mistake is That the Fathers often speak of a fire of Purgation after this life but such a one that is not to be kindled until the day of Judgment and it is such a fire that destroyes the Doctrine of the intermedial Purgatory We suppose that Origen was the first that spoke plainly of it and so Saint Ambrose follows him in the Opinion for it was no more so does Saint Basil Saint Hilary Saint Hierom and Lactantius as their words plainly prove as they are cited by Sixtus Senensis affirming that all men Christ only excepted shall be burned with the fire of the worlds conflagration at the day of Judgment even the Blessed Virgin her self is to pass through this fire There was also another Doctrine very generally receiv'd by the Fathers which greatly destroyes the Roman Purgatory Sixtus Senensis sayes and he sayes very true that Justin Martyr Tertullian Victorinus Martyr Prudentius Saint Chrysostom Arethas Euthimius and Saint Bernard did all affirm that before the day of Judgment the souls of men are
kept in secret receptacles reserved unto the sentence of the great day and that before then no man receives according to his works done in this life We do not interpose in this Opinion to say that it is true or false probable or improbable for these Fathers intended it not as a matter of faith or necessary belief so far as we find But we observe from hence that if their opinion be true then the Doctrine of Purgatory is false If it be not true yet the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory which is inconsistent with this so generally receiv'd Opinion of the Fathers is at least new no Catholick Doctrine not belived in the Primitive Church and therefore the Roman Writers are much troubled to excuse the Fathers in this Article and to reconcile them to some seeming concord with their new Doctrine But besides these things it is certain that the Doctrine of Purgatory before the day of Judgment in Saint Augustine's time was not the Doctrine of the Church it was not the Catholick Doctrine for himself did doubt of it Whether it be so or not it may be inquired and possibly it may be found so and possibly it may never so Saint Augustine In his time therefore it was no Doctrine of the Church and it continued much longer in uncertainty for in the time of Otho Frisingensis who liv'd in the year 1146. it was gotten no further than to a Quidam asserunt some do affirm that there is a place of Purgatory after death And although it is not to be denied but that many of the ancient Doctors had strange Opinions concerning Purgations and Fires and Intermedial states and common Receptacles and liberations of Souls and Spirits after this life yet we can truly affirm it and can never be convinc'd to erre in this affirmation that there is not any one of the Ancients within five hundred years whose opinion in this Article throughout the Church of Rome at this day follows But the people of the Roman Communion have been principally led into a belief of Purgatory by their fear and by their credulity they have been softned and intic'd into this belief by perpetual tales and legends by which they lov'd to be abus'd To this purpose their Priests and Friers have made great use of the apparition of Saint Hierom after death to Eusebius commanding him to lay his fack upon the corps of three dead men that they arising from death might confess Purgatory which formerly they had denied The story is written in an Epistle imputed to Saint Cyril but the ill luck of it was that Saint Hierom out-lived Saint Cyril and wrote his life and so confuted that story but all is one for that they believe it nevertheless But there are enough to help it out and if they be not firmly true yet if they be firmly believ'd all is well enough In the Speculum exemplorum it is said That a certain Priest in an extasie saw the soul of Constantinus Turritanus in the eves of his house tormented with frosts and cold rains and afterwards climbing up to Heaven upon a shining Pillar And a certain Monk saw some souls roasted upon spits like Pigs and some Devils basting them with scalding Lard but a while after they were carried to a cool place and so prov'd Purgatory But Bishop Theobald standing upon a piece of Ice to cool his feet was nearer Purgatory than he was aware and was convinc'd of it when he heard a poor soul telling him that under that Ice he was tormented and that he should be delivered if for thirty dayes continual he would say for him thirty Masses and some such thing was seen by Conrade and Vdalric in a Pool of water For the place of Purgatory was not yet resolv'd on till Saint Patrick had the key of it delivered to him which when one Nicholas borrowed of him he saw as strange and true things there as ever Virgil dreamed of in his Purgatory or Cicero in his dream of Scipio or Plato in his Gorgias or Phaedo who indeed are the surest Authors to prove Purgatory But because to preach false stories was forbidden by the Council of Trent there are yet remaining more certain Arguments even revelations made by Angels and the testimony of Saint Odilio himself who heard the Devil complain and he had great reason surely that the souls of dead men were daily snatch'd out of his hands by the Alms and Prayers of the living and the Sister of Saint Damianus being too much pleas'd with hearing of a Piper told her Brother that she was to be tormented for fifteen dayes in Purgatory We do not think that the wise men in the Church of Rome believe these Narratives for if they did they were not wise But this we know that by such stories the people were brought into a belief of it and having served their turn of them the Master-builders used them as false Arches and Centries taking them away when the parts of the building were made firm and stable by Authority But even the better sort of them do believe them or else they do worse for they urge and cite the Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Oration of Saint John Damascen de Defunctis the Sermons of Saint Augustine upon the Feast of the Commemoration of All-souls which nevertheless was instituted after Saint Augustine's death and divers other citations which the Greeks in their Apology call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holds and the Castles the corruptions and insinuations of Heretical persons But in this they are the less to be blamed because better Arguments than they have no men are tied to make use of But against this way of proceeding we think fit to admonish the people of our charges that besides that the Scriptures expresly forbid us to enquire of the dead for truth the Holy Doctors of the Church particularly Tertullian Saint Athanasius Saint Chrysostom Isidor and Theophylact deny that the souls of the dead ever do appear and bring many reasons to prove that it is unfitting they should saying If they did it would be the cause of many errors and the Devils under that pretence might easily abuse the World with notices and revelations of their own and because Christ would have us content with Moses and the Prophets and especially to hear that Prophet whom the Lord our God hath raised up amongst us our blessed Jesus who never taught any such Doctrine to his Church But because we are now representing the Novelty of this Doctrine and proving that anciently it was not the Doctrine of the Church nor at all esteemed a matter of Faith whether there was or was not any such place or state we add this That the Greek Church did alwayes dissent from the Latins in this particular since they had forg'd this new Doctrine in the Laboratories of Rome and in the Council of Basil publish'd an Apology directly disapproving the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory How afterwards they
of their Goods Ridiculous What then Saint Austin himself tells us by so much as they lov'd their goods more or less by so much sooner or later they shall be sav'd And what he said of this kind of sin viz. too much worldliness with the same Reason he might suppose of others this he thought possible but of this he was not sure and therefore it was not then an Article of Faith and though now the Church of Rome hath made it so yet it appears that it was not so from the beginning but is part of their new fashion'd faith And E. W. striving so impossibly and so weakly to avoid the pressure of this Argument should do well to consider whether he have not more strained his Conscience than the words of Saint Austin But this matter must not pass thus Saint Austin repeats this whole passage verbatim in his Answer to the 8. Quest. of Dulcitius Quest. 1. and still answers in this and other appendant Questions of the same nature viz. Whether Prayers for the dead be available c. Quest. 2. And whether upon the instant of Christ's appearing he will pass to judgment Quest 3. In these things which we have describ'd our and the infirmity of others may be so exercis'd and instructed nevertheless that they pass not for Canonical Authority And in the Answer to the first Question he speaks in the style of a doubtful person Whether men suffer such things in this life only or also such certain judgments follow even after this life this Understanding of this sentence is not as I suppose abhorrent from truth The same words he also repeats in his Book de fide operibus Chap. 16. There is yet another place of S. Austin in which it is plain he still is a doubting person in the Question of Purgatory His sence is this After the death of the body until the resurrection if in the interval the spirits of the dead are said to suffer that kind of fire which they feel not who had not such manners and loves in their life-time that their wood hay and stubble ought to be consum'd but others feel who brought such buildings along with them whether there only or whether here and there or whether therefore here that it might not be there that they feel a fire of a transitory tribulation burning their secular buildings though escaping from damnation I reprove it not for peradventure it is true So Saint Austin's peradventure yea is alwayes peradventure nay and will the Bigots of the Roman Church be content with such a confession of faith as this of Saint Austin in the present Article I believe not But now after all this I will not deny but Saint Austin was much inclin'd to believe Purgatory fire and therefore I shall not trouble my self to answer the citations to that purpose which Bellarmine and from him these Transcribers bring out of this Father though most of them are drawn out of Apocryphal spurious and suspected pieces as his Homilies de S. S. c. yet that which I urge is this that Saint Austin did not esteem this to be a Doctrine of the Church no Article of Faith but a disputable Opinion and yet though he did incline to the wrong part of the Opinion yet it is very certain that he sometimes speaks expresly against this Doctrine and other times speaks things absolutely inconsistent with the Opinion of Purgatory which is more than an Argument of his confessed doubting for it is a declaration that he understood nothing certain in this affair but that the contrary to his Opinion was the more probable And this appears in these few following words Saint Austin hath these words Some suffer temporary punishments in this life only others after death others both now and then Bellarmine and from him Diaphanta urges this as a great proof of Saint Austin's Doctrine But he destroyes it in the words immediately following and makes it useless to the hypothesis of the Roman Church This shall be before they suffer the last and severest judgment meaning as Saint Austin frequently does such sayings of the General conflagration at the end of the world But whether he does so or no yet he adds But all of them come not into the everlasting punishments which after the Judgment shall be to them who after death suffer the temporary By which Doctrine of Saint Austin viz. that those who are in his Purgatory shall many of them be damn'd and the temporary punishments after death do but usher in the Eternal after judgment he destroyes the salt of the Roman fire who imagines that all that go to Purgatory shall be sav'd Therefore this testimony of Saint Austin as it is nothing for the avail of the Roman Purgatory so by the appendage it is much against it which Coquaeus Torrensis and especially Cardinal Perron observing have most violently corrupted these words by falsely translating them So Perron Tous ceux qui souffrent des peines temporelles apres lâ— mort ne viennent pas aux peines Eternelles qui auront tien apres le judgement which reddition is expresly against the sence of Saint Austin's words 2. But another hypothesis there is in Saint Austin to which without dubitation he does peremptorily adhere which I before intimated viz. that although he admit of Purgatory pains after this life yet none but such as shall be at the day of Judgment Whoever therefore desires to avoid the eternal pains let him be not only baptiz'd but also justified in Christ and truly pass from the Devil unto Christ. But let him not think that there shall be any Purgatory pains but before that last and dreadful Judgment meaning not only that there shall be none to cleanse them after the day of Judgment but that then at the approach of that day the General fire shall try and purge And so himself declares his own sence All they that have not Christ in the foundation are argued or reproved when in the day of Judgment but they that have Christ in the foundation are chang'd that is purg'd who build upon this foundation wood hay stubble So that in the day of Judgment the trial and escape shall be for then shall the trial and the condemnation be But yet more clear are his words in other places So at the setting of the Sun that is at the end viz. of the world the day of judgment is signified by that fire dividing the carnal which are to be sav'd by fire and those who are to be damned in the fire nothing is plainer than that Saint Austin understood that those who are to be sav'd so as by fire are to be sav'd by passing through the fire at the day of judgment that was his Opinion of Purgatory And again out of these things which are spoken it seems more evidently to appear that there shall be certain purgatory pains of some persons in that judgment For what thing else
then I quoted Otho according to my own sence and his but if he means it to be after the day of judgment then the limbus infantum of the Roman Church is vanish'd for the scruple was mov'd about Infants Quid de parvulis qui solo Originali delicto tenentur fiet And there is none such till after dooms day so that let it be as it will the Roman Church is a loser and therefore let them take their choice on which side they will fall But now after Saint Austin's time especially in the time of Saint Gregory and since there were many strange stories told of souls appearing after death and telling strange things of their torments below many of which being gather'd together by the speculum exemplorum the Legend of Lombardy and others some of them were noted by the Dissuasive to this purpose to shew that in the time when these stories were told the fire of Purgatory did not burn clear but they found Purgatory in Baths in Eves of Houses in Frosts and cold Rains upon Spits rosting like Pigs or Geese upon pieces of Ice Now to this there is nothing said but that in the place quoted in the speculum there is no such thing which saying as it was spoken invidiously so it was to no purpose for if the Objector ever hath read the distinction which is quoted throughout he should have found the whole story at large It is the 31 example page 205. Col. 1. printed at Doway 1603. And the same words are exactly in an ancienter Edition printed at the Imperial Town of Hagenaw 1519. Impensis Johannis Rynman But these Gentlemen care not for the force of any Argument if they can any way put it off from being believ'd upon any foolish pretence But then as to the thing it self though learned men deny the Dialogues of Saint Gregory from whence many of the like stories are deriv'd to be his as Possevine confesses and Melchior Canus though a little timorously affirms yet I am willing to admit them for his but yet I cannot but note that those Dialogues have in them many foolish ridiculous and improbable stories but yet they and their like are made a great ground of Purgatory but then the right also may be done to Saint Gregory his Doctrine of Purgatory cannot consist with the present Article of the Church of Rome so fond they are in the alledging of Authorities that they destroy their own hypothesis by their undiscerning quotations For 1. Saint Gregory Pope affirms that which is perfectly inconsistent with the whole Doctrine of Purgatory For he sayes That it is a fruit of our redemption by the grace of Christ our Author that when we are drawn from our dwelling in the body Mox forthwith we are lead to câ—lestial rewards and a little after speaking of those words of Job In profundissimum infernum descendunt omnia mea he sayes thus Since it is certain that in the lower region the just are not in penal places but are held in the superior bosom of rest a great question arises what is the meaning of Blessed Job If Purgatory can stand with this hypothesis of Saint Gregory then fire and water can be reconcil'd This is the Doctrine of Saint Gregory in his own works for whether the Dialogues under his name be his or no I shall not dispute but if I were studying to do honour to his memory I should never admit them to be his and so much the rather because the Doctrine of the Dialogues contradicts the Doctrine of his Commentaries and yet even the Purgatory which is in the Dialogues is unlike that which was declar'd at Basil for the Gregorian Purgatory supposed only an expiation of small and light faults as immoderate laughter impertinent talking which nevertheless he himself sayes are expiable by fear of death and Victoria and Jacobus de Graffis say are to be taken away by beating the breast holy water the Bishops blessing and Saint Austin sayes they are to be taken off by daily saying the Lords prayer and therefore being so easily so readily so many wayes to be purg'd here it will not be worth establishing a Purgatory for such alone but he admits not of any remaining punishment due to greater sins forgiven by the blood of Christ. But concerning Saint Gregory I shall say no more but refer the Reader to the Apology of the Greeks who affirm that Saint Gregory admitted a kind of Purgatory but whether allegorically or no or thinking so really they know not but what he said was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by way of dispensation and as it were constrained to it by the Arguments of those who would have all sins expiable after death against whom he could not so likely prevail if he had said that none was and therefore he thought himself forc'd to go a middle way and admit a Purgatory only for little or venial sins which yet will do no advantage to the Church of Rome And besides all this Saint Gregory or whoever is the Author of these Dialogues hath nothing definite or determin'd concerning the time manner measure or place so wholly new was this Doctrine then that it had not gotten any shape or feature Next I am to account concerning the Greeks whom I affirm alwayes to have differed from the Latins since they had forg'd this new Doctrine of Purgatory in the Roman Laboratories and to prove something of this I affirm'd that in the Council of Basil they publish'd an Apology directly disapproving the Doctrine of Purgatory Against this up starts a man fierce and angry and sayes there was no such Apology publish'd in the Council of Basil for he had examined it all over and can find no such Apology I am sorry for the Gentlemans loss of his labour but if he had taken me along with him I could have help'd the learned man This Apology was written by Marcus Metropolitan of Ephesus as Sixtus Senensis confesses and that he offered it to the Council of Basil. That it was given and read to the Deputies of the Council June 14. 1438. is attested by Cusanus and Martinus Crusius in his Turco-Graecia But it is no wonder if this over-learned Author of the Letter miss'd this Apology in his search of the Council of Basil for this is not the only material thing that is missing in the Editions of the Council of Basil for Linwood that great and excellent English Canonist made an Appeal in that Council and prosecuted it with effect in behalf of King Henry of England Cum in temporalibus non recognoscat superiorem in terris c. But nothing of this now appears though it was then registred but it is no new thing to forge or to suppress Acts of Councils But besides this I did not suppose he would have been so indiscreet as to have look'd for that Apology in the Editions of the Council of Basil but it was deliver'd to the
Article of Transubstantiation All those words are true in a very good sence and they are in that sence believ'd in the Church of England but that the bread is no more bread in the Natural sence and that it is naturally nothing but the natural body of Christ that the substance of one is passed into the substance of the other this is not affirmed by the Fathers neither can it be inferred from the former propositions if they had been truly alledged and therefore all that is for nothing and must be intended only to cosen and amuse the Reader that understands not all the windings of this labyrinth In the next place I am to give an account of what passed in the Lateran Council upon this Article For says E. W. the doctrine of Transubstantiation was ever believed in the Church though more fully and explicitely declared in the Lateran Council But in the Dissuasive it was said that it was but pretended to be determined in that Council where many things indeed came then in consultation yet nothing could be openly decreed Nothing says Platina that is says my Adversary nothing concerning the holy land and the aids to be raised for it but for all this there might be a decree concerning Transubstantiation To this I reply that it is as true that nothing was done in this question as that nothing was done in the matter of the Holy War for one was as much decreed as the other For if we admit the acts of the Council that of giving aid to the Holy Land was decreed in the 69. â—anon alias 71. So that this answer is not true But the truth is neither the one nor the other was decreed in that Council For that I may inform this Gentleman in a thing which possibly he never heard of this Council of Lateran was never published nor any acts of it till Cochlaeus published them A. D. 1538. For three years before this John Martin published the Councils and then there was no such thing as the acts of the Lateran Council to be found But you will say how came Cochlaeus by them To this the answer is easie There were read in the Council sixty Chapters which to some did seem easie to others burthensome but these were never approved but the Council ended in scorn and mockery and nothing was concluded neither of faith nor manners nor war nor aid for the Holy Land but only the Pope got mony of the Prelates to give them leave to depart But afterwards Pope Gregory IX put these Chapters or some of them into the Decretals but doth not intitle any of these to the Council of Lateran but only to Pope Innocent in the Council which Cardinal Perron ignorantly or wilfully mistaking affirms the contrary But so it is that Platina affirms of the Pope plurima decreta retulit improbavit Joachimi libellum damnavit errores Almerici The Pope recited 60. heads of decrees in the Council but no man says the Council decreed those heads Now these heads Cochlaeus says he found in an old book in Germany And it is no ways probable that if the Council had decreed those heads that Gregory IX who published his Uncles decretal Epistles which make up so great a part of the Canon Law should omit to publish the decrees of this Council or that there should be no acts of this great Council in the Vatican and that there should be no publication of them till about 300. years after the Council and that out of a blind corner and an old unknown Manuscript But the Book shews its original it was taken from the Decretals for it contains just so many heads viz. LXXII and is not any thing of the Council in which only were recited LX. heads and they have the same beginnings and endings and the same notes and observations in the middle of the Chapters which shews plainly they were a meer force of the Decretals The consequent of all which is plainly this that there was no decree made in the Council but every thing was left unfinished and the Council was affrighted by the warlike preparations of them of Genoa and Pisa and all retir'd Concerning which affair the Reader that desires it may receive further satisfaction if he read the Antiquitates Britannicae in the life of Stephen Lancton out of the lesser History of Matthew Paris as also Sabellicus and Godfride the Monk But since it is become a question what was or was not determined in this Lateran Council I am content to tell them that the same authority whether of Pope or Council which made Transubstantiation an article of faith made Rebellion and Treason to be a duty of Subjects for in the same collection of Canons they are both decreed and warranted under the same signature the one being the first Canon and the other the third The use I shall make of all is this Scotus was observed above to say that in Scripture there is nothing so express as to compel us to believe Transubstantiation meaning that without the decree and authority of the Church the Scripture was of it self insufficient And some others as Salmeron notes affirm that Scripture and Reason are both insufficient to convince a heretick in this article this is to be prov'd ex Conciliorum definitione Patrum traditione c. by the definition of Councils and tradition of the Fathers for it were easie to answer the places of Scripture which are cited and the reasons Now then since Scripture alone is not thought sufficient nor reasons alone if the definitions of Councils also shall fail them they will be strangely to seek for their new article Now for this their only Castle of defence is the Lateran Council Indeed Bellarmine produces the Roman Council under Pope Nicholas the second in which Berengarius was forc'd to recant his error about the Sacrament but he recanted it into a worse error and such which the Church of Rome disavows at this day And therefore ought not to pretend it as a patron of that doctrine which she approves not And for the little Council under Greg. 7. it is just so a general Council as the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church or a particular is an Universal But suppose it so for this once yet this Council medled not with the modus viz. Transubstantiation or the ceasing of its being bread but of the Real Presence of Christ under the Elements which is no part of our question Berengarius denied it but we do not when it is rightly understood Pope Nicholaus himself did not understand the new article for it was not fitted for publication until the time of the Lateran Council and how nothing of this was in that Council determin'd I have already made appear and therefore as Scotus said the Scripture alone could not evict this article so he also said in his argument made for the Doctors that held the first opinion mentioned before out of
which Pope John the Eighth severely reprov'd them and commanded them to do so no more but being better inform'd he wrote a letter to their Prince Sfentoputero in which he affirms that it is not contrary to faith and found doctrine to say Mass and other prayers in the Slavonian tongue and adds this reason because he that Hebrew Greek and Latin hath made the others also for his glory and this also he confirms with the authority of S. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians and some other Scriptures only he commanded for the decorum of the business the Gospel should first be said in Latin and then in the Slavonian tongue But just two hundred years after this the Tables were turned and though formerly these things were permitted yet so were many things in the Primitive Church but upon better examination they have been corrected And therefore P. Gregory the seventh wrote to Vratislaus of Bohemia that he could not permit the celebration of the divine offices in the Slavonian tongue and he commanded the Prince to oppose the people herein with all his forces Here the world was strangely altered and yet S. Paul's Epistle was not condemned of heresie and no Council had decreed that all vulgar languages were prophane and no reason can yet be imagined why the change was made unless it were to separate the Priest from the people by a wall of Latin and to nurse stupendious ignorance in them by not permitting to them learning enough to understand their publick prayers in which every man was greatly concerned Neither may this be called a slight matter for besides that Gregory the seventh thought it so considerable that it was a just cause of a war or persecution for he commanded the Prince of Bohemia to oppose the people in it with all his forces besides this I say to pray to God with the understanding is much better than praying with the tongue that alone can be a good prayer this alone can never and then the loss of all those advantages which are in prayers truly understood the excellency of devotion the passion of desires the ascent of the mind to God the adherence to and acts of confidence in him the intellectual conversation with God most agreeable to a rational being the melting affections the pulses of the heart to and from God to and from our selves the promoting and exercising of our hopes all these and very many more which can never be intire but in the prayers and devotions of the heart and can never be in any degree but in the same in which the prayers are acts of love and wisdom of the will and the understanding will be lost to the greatest part of the Catholick Church if the mouth be set open and the soul be gag'd so that it shall be the word of the mouth but not the word of the mind All these things being added to what was said in this article by the Disswasive will more than make it clear that in this article the consequents of which are very great the Church of Rome hath causelesly troubled Christendom and innovated against the Primitive Church and against her own ancient doctrines and practices and even against the Apostle But they care for none of these things Some of their own Bigots profess the thing in the very worst of all these expressions for so Reynolds and Gifford in their Calvino Turcismus complain that such horrid and stupendious evils have followed the translation of Scriptures into vulgar languages that they are of force enough ad istas translationes penitus supprimendas etiamsi Divina vel Apostolica authoritate niterentur Although they did rely upon the authority Apostolical or Divine yet they ought to be taken away So that it is to no purpose to urge Scripture or any argument in the world against the Roman Church in this article for if God himself command it to be translated yet it is not sufficient and therefore these men must be left to their own way of understanding for beyond the law of God we have no argument I will only remind them that it is a curse which God threatens to his rebellious people I will speak to this people with men of another tongue and by strange lips and they shall not understand This is the curse which the Church of Rome contends earnestly for in behalf of their people SECT VI. Of the Worship of Images THAT society of Christians will not easily be reformed that think themselves oblig'd to dispute for the worship of Images the prohibition of which was so great a part of the Mosaick Religion and is so infinitely against the nature and spirituality of the Christian a thing which every understanding can see condemned in the Decalogue and no man can excuse but witty persons that can be bound by no words which they can interpret to a sence contradictory to the design of the common a thing for the hating of and abstaining from which the Jews were so remark'd by all the world and by which as by a distinctive cognizance they were separated from all other Nations and which with perfect resolution they keep to this very day and for the not observing of which they are intolerably scandaliz'd at those societies of Christians who without any necessity in the thing without any pretence of any Law of God for no good and for no wise end and not without infinite danger at least of idolatry retain a worship and veneration to some stocks and stones Such men as these are too hard for all laws and for all arguments so certain it is that faith is an obedience of the will in a conviction of the understanding that if in the will and interests of men there be a perverseness and a non-compliance and that it is not bent by prudent and wise â—lexures and obedience to God and the plain words of God in Scripture nothing can ever prevail neither David nor his Sling nor all the worthies of his army In this question I have said enough in the Disswasive and also in the Ductor Dubitantium but to the arguments and fulness of the perswasion they neither have nor can they say any thing that is material but according to their usual method like flies they search up and down and light upon any place which they suppose to be sore or would make their proselytes believe so I shall therefore first vindicate those few quotations which the Epistles of his brethren except against for there are many and those most pregnant which they take no notice of as bearing in them too clear a conviction 2. I shall answer such testimonies which some of them steal out of Bellarmine and which they esteem as absolutely their best And 3. I shall add something in confirmation of that truth of God which I here have undertaken to defend First for the questioned quotations against the worship of Images S. Cyril was nam'd in the Disswasive as denying that the Christians
their own Preachers and holiness of life was not so severely demanded but that men believe their Country Articles and Heaven gates at no hand might be permitted to stand open to any one else Thence came hatred variance emulation and strifes and the Wars of Christendom which have been kindled by Disputers and the evil lives which were occasioned and encouraged by those proceedings are the best confutation in the world of all such disputations But now when we come to search into that part of Theologie which is most necessary in which the life of Christianity and the interest of Souls the peace of Christendom and the union of Minds the sweetness of Society and the support of Government the usefulness and comfort of our lives the advancement of Vertue and the just measures of Honour we find many things disordered the Tables of the Commandments broken in pieces and some parts are lost and some disorder'd and into the very practice of Christians there are crept so many material errors that although God made nothing plainer yet now nothing is more difficult and involv'd uncertain and discompos'd than many of the great lines and propositions in Moral Theologie Nothing is more neglected more necessary or more mistaken For although very many run into holy Orders without just abilities and think their Province is well discharged if they can preach upon Sundays and men observing the ordinary preaching to be little better than ordinary talk have been made bold to venture into the Holy Sept and invade the secrets of the Temple as thinking they can talk at the same rate which they observe to be the manner of vulgar Sermons yet they who know to give a just value to the best things know that the Sacred Office of a Priest a Minister of Religion does not only require great holiness that they may acceptably offer the Christian Sacrifices and Oblations of Prayer and Eucharist for the people and become their fairest examples but also great abilities and wise notices of things and persons strict observation deep remembrances prudent applications courage and caution severity and mercy diligence and wisdom that they may dispence the excellent things of Christianity to the same effect whither they were design'd in the Counsels of Eternity that is to the glory of God and the benefit of Souls But it is a sad thing to observe how weakly the Souls of men and women are guided with what false measures they are instructed how their guides oftentimes strive to please men rather than to save them and accordingly have fitted their Discourses and Sermons with easie theoremes such which the Schools of learning have fallen upon by chance or interest or flattery or vicious necessities or superinduc'd arts or weak compliances But from whatsoever cause it does proceed we feel the thing There are so many false principles in the institutions and systemes of moral or Casuistical Divinity and they taught so generally and believed so unquestionably and so fitted to the dispositions of men so complying with their evil inclinations so apt to produce error and confidence security and a careless conversation that neither can there be any way better to promote the interest of souls nor to vindicate truth nor to adorn the science it self or to make Religion reasonable and intelligible or to promote holy life than by rescuing our Schools and Pulpits and private perswasions from the believing such propositions which have prevailed very much and very long but yet which are not only false but have immediate influence upon the lives of men so as to become to them a state of universal temptation from the severities and wisdom of Holiness When therefore I had observed concerning the Church of England which is the most excellently instructed with a body of true Articles and doctrines of Holiness with a discipline material and prudent with a Government Apostolical with dignities neither splendid nor sordid too great for contempt and too little for envy unless she had met with little people greatly malicious and indeed with every thing that could instruct or adorn a Christian Church so that she wanted nothing but the continuance of peace and what she already was that amongst all her heaps of excellent things and Books by which her sons have ministred to piety learning both at home and abroad there was the greatest scarcity of Books of Cases of Conscience and that while I stood watching that some or other should undertake it according to the ability which God gave them and yet every one found himself hindred or diverted persecuted or disabled and still the work was left undone I suffered my self to be invited to put my weak hand to this work rather than that it should not be done at all But by that time I had made some progression in the first preparatory discourses to the work I found that a great part of that learning was supported by principles very weak and very false and that it was in vain to dispute concerning a single case whether it were lawful or no when by the general discoursings of men it might be permitted to live in states of sin without danger or reproof as to the final event of souls I thought it therefore necessary by way of address and preparation to the publication of the particulars that it should appear to be necessary for a man to live a holy life and that it could be of concern to him to inquire into the very minutes of his conscience For if it be no matter how men live and if the hopes of Heaven can well stand with a wicked life there is nothing in the world more unnecessary than to enquire after cases of Conscience And if it be sufficient for a man at the last to cry for pardon for having all his life time neither regarded Laws nor Conscience certainly they have found out a better compendium of Religion and need not be troubled with variety of rules and cautions of carefulness and a lasting holiness nor think concerning any action or state of life whether it be lawful or not lawful for it is all one whether it be or no since neither one nor the other will easily change the event of things For let it be imagined what need there can be that any man should write cases of Conscience or read them if it be lawful for a man thus to believe and speak I have indeed often in my younger years been affrighted with the fearful noises of damnation and the Ministers of Religion for what reasons they best know did call upon me to deny my appetite to cross my desires to destroy my pleasures to live against my nature and I was afraid as long as I could not consider the secrets of things but now I find that in their own Books there are for me so many confidences and securities that those fears were most unreasonable and that as long as I live by the rules and measures of nature I do not offend
that those who are under our Charges should know the force of the Resurrection of Christ and the conduct of the Spirit and live according to the purity of God and the light of the Gospel To this let us cooperate with all wisdom and earnestness and knowledge and spiritual understanding And there is no better way in the world to do this than by ministring to persons singly in the conduct of their Repentance which as it is the work of every man so there are but few persons who need not the conduct of a spiritual guide in the beginnings and progressions of it To the assistance of this work I have now put my Symbol having by the sad experience of my own miseries and the calamities of others to whose restitution I have been called to minister been taught something of the secret of Souls and I have reason to think that the words of our dearest Lord to S. Peter were also spoken to me Tu autem conversus confirma fratres I hope I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual entercourses and I have often observed the advantages in ministring to others and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may with best effect be communicated to souls in personal and particular Ministrations In the following book I have given advices and have asserted many truths in order to all this I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living I have cancell'd some false grounds upon which many answers in Moral Theologie us'd to be made to inquiries in Cases of Conscience I have according to my weak ability described all the necessities and great inducement of a holy life and have endeavoured to do it so plainly that it may be useful to every man and so inoffensively that it may hurt no man I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withall excepting those of my infirmity and disability which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes but this only that in the Chapter of Original sin I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England whos 's ninth Article affirms that the natural propensity to evil and the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the spirit deserves the anger of God and damnation against which I so earnestly seem to dispute in the sixth Chapter of my Book To this I answer that it is one thing to say a thing in its own nature deserves damnation and another to say it is damnable to all those persons in whom it is subjected The thing it self that is our corrupted nature or our nature of corruption does leave us in the state of separation from God by being unable to bear us to Heaven imperfection of nature can never carry us to the perfections of glory and this I conceive to be all that our Church intends for that in the state of nature we can only fall short of Heaven and be condemn'd to a poena damni is the severest thing that any sober person owns and this I say that Nature alone cannot bring us to God without the regeneration of the Spirit and the grace of God we can never go to Heaven but because this Nature was not spoil'd by Infants but by persons of reason and we are all admitted to a new Covenant of Mercy and Grace made with Adam presently after his fall that is even before we were born as much as we were to a participation of sin before we were born no man can perish actually for that because he is reconcil'd by this He that says every sin is damnable and deserves the anger of God says true but yet some persons that sin of mere infirmity are accounted by God in the rank of innocent persons So it is in this Article Concupiscence remains in the regenerate and yet concupiscence hath the nature of sin but it brings not condemnation These words explain the 〈◊〉 Original imperfection is such a thing as is even in the regenerate and it is of the nature of sin that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many but yet it is not daâ—â—ing because as it is subjected in unconsenting persons it loses its own natural venome and relation to guiltiness that is it may of it self in its abstracted nature be a sin and deserve Gods anger viz. in some persons in all them that consent to it but that which will always be in persons that shall never be damned that is in infants and regenerate shall 〈◊〉 damn them And this is the main of what I affirm And since the Church of England intended that Article against the Doctrine of the Pelagians I suppose I shall not be thought to recede from the spirit and sence of the Article though I use differing manners of expression because my way of explicating this question does most of all destroy the Pelagian Heresie since although I am desirous to acquit the dispensation of God and his Justice from my imputation or suspicion of wrong and am loth to put our sins upon the account of another yet I impute all our evils to the imperfections of our nature and the malice of our choice which does most of all demonstrate not only the necessity of Grace but also of Infant Baptism and then to accuse this Doctrine of Pelagianism or any newer name of Heresie will seem like impotency and weakness of spirit but there will be nothing of truth or learning in it And although this Article was penn'd according to the style of the Schools as they then did loâ—e to speak yet the hardest word in it is capable of such a sence as complies with the intendment of that whole sixth Chapter For though the Church of England professes her self fallible and consequently that all her truths may be peaceably improved yet I do think that she is not actually deceiv'd and also that divers eminently learned do consent in my sence of that Article However I am so truly zealous for her honour and peace that I wholly submit all that I say there or any where else to her most prudent judgment And though I may most easily be deceived yet I have given my reasons for what I say and desire to be tried by them not by prejudice and numbers and zeal and if any man resolves to understand the Article in any other sence than what I have now explicated all that I shall say is that it may be I cannot reconcile my Doctrine to his explication it is enough that it is consistent with the Article it self in its best understanding and compliance with the truth it self and the justification of God However he that explicates the Article and thinks it means as he says does all the honour he can to the Authority whose words if he does not understand yet the sanction
I explicate it is wholly against the Pelagians for they wholly deny Original sin affirming that Adam did us no hurt by his sin except only by his example These Men are also followed by the Anabaptists who say that death is so natural that it is not by Adam's fall so much as made actual The Albigenses were of the same opinion The Socinians affirm that Adam's sin was the occasion of bringing eternal death into the World but that it no way relates to us not so much as by imputation But I having shewed in what sence Adam's sin is imputed to us am so far either from agreeing with any of these or from being singular that I have the acknowledgment of an adversary even of Bellarmine himself that it is the doctrine of the Church and he laboriously endeavours to prove that Original sin is meerly ours by imputation Add to this that he also affirms that when Zuinglius says that Original sin is not properly a sin but metonymically that is the effect of one sin and the cause of many that in so saying he agrees with the Catholicks Now these being the main affirmatives of my discourse it is plain that I am not alone but more are with me than against me Now though he is pleased afterwards to contradict himself and say it is veri nominis peccatum yet because I understood not how to reconcile the opposite parts of a contradiction or tell how the same thing should be really a sin and yet be so but by a figure onely how it should be properly a sin and yet onely metonymically and how it should be the effect of sin and yet that sin whereof it is an effect I confess here I stick to my reason and my proposition and leave Bellarmine and his Catholicks to themselves 25. And indeed they that say Original sin is any thing really any thing besides Adam's sin imputed to us to certain purposes that is effecting in us certain evils which dispose to worse they are according to the nature of error infinitely divided and agree in nothing but in this that none of them can prove what they say Anselme Bonaventure Gabriel and others say that Original sin is nothing but a want of Original righteousness Others say that they say something of truth but not enough for a privation can never be a positive sin and if it be not positive it cannot be inherent and therefore that it is necessary that they add indignitatem habendi a certain unworthiness to have it being in every man that is the sin But then if it be asked what makes them unworthy if it be not the want of Original righteousness and that then they are not two things but one seemingly and none really they are not yet agreed upon an answer Aquinas and his Scholars say Original sin is a certain spot upon the soul. Melancthon considering that concupiscence or the faculty of desiring or the tendency to an object could not be a sin fancied Original sin to be an actual depraved desire Illyrious says it is the substantial image of the Devil Scotus and Durandus say it is nothing but a meer guilt that is an obligation passed upon us to suffer the evil effects of it which indeed is most moderate of all the opinions of the School and differs not at all or scarce discernibly from that of Albertus Pighius and Catharinus who say that Original sin is nothing but the disobedience of Adam imputed to us But the Lutherans affirm it to be the depravation of humane nature without relation to the sin of Adam but a vileness that is in us The Church of Rome of late sayes that besides the want of Original righteousness with an habitual aversion from God it is a guiltiness and a spot but it is nothing of Concupiscence that being the effect of it only But the Protestants of Mr. Calvin's perswasion affirm that concupiscence is the main of it and is a sin before and after Baptism but amongst all this infinite uncertainty the Church of England speaks moderate words apt to be construed to the purposes of all peaceable men that desire her communion 26. Thus every one talks of Original sin and agree that there is such a thing but what it is they agree not and therefore in such infinite Variety he were of a strange imperious spirit that would confine others to his particular fancy For my own part now that I have shown what the Doctrine of the purest Ages was what uncertainty there is of late in the Question what great consent there is in some of the main parts of what I affirm and that in the contrary particulars Men cannot agree I shall not be ashamed to profess what company I now keep in my opinion of the Article no worse Men than Zuinglius Stapulensis the great Erasmus and the incomparable Hugo Grotius who also says there are multi in Gallia qui eandem sententiam magnis same argumentis tuentur many in France which with great argument defend the same sentence that is who explicate the article intirely as I do and as S. Chrysostome and Theodoret did of old in compliance with those H. Fathers that went before them with whom although I do not desire to erre yet I suppose their great names are guard sufficient against prejudices and trifling noises and an amulet against the Names of Arminian Socinian Pelagian and I cannot tell what Monsters of appellatives But these are but Boyes tricks and arguments of Women I expect from all that are wiser to examine whether this Opinion does not or whether the contrary does better explicate the truth with greater reason and to better purposes of Piety let it be examined which best glorifies God and does honour to his justice and the reputation of his Goodness which does with more advantage serve the interest of holy living and which is more apt to patronize carelesness and sin These are the measures of wise and good men the other are the measures of Faires and Markets where fancy and noise do govern SECT VI. An Exposition of the Ninth Article of the Church of England concerning Original sin according to Scripture and Reason 27. AFter all this it is pretended and talked of that my Doctrine of Original sin is against the Ninth Article of the Church of England and that my attempt to reconcile them was ineffective Now although this be nothing to the truth or falshood of my Doctrine yet it is much concerning the reputation of it Concerning which I cannot be so much displeased that any man should so undervalue my reason as I am highly content that they do so very much value her Authority But then to acquit my self and my Doctrine from being contrary to the Article all that I can do is to expound the Article and make it appear that not only the words of it are capable of a fair construction but also that it is reasonable they should be expounded so
as to agree with Scripture and reason and as may best glorifie God and that they require it I will not pretend to believe that those Doctors who first fram'd the Article did all of them mean as I mean I am not sure they did or that they did not but this I am sure that they fram'd the words with much caution and prudence and so as might abstain from grieving the contrary minds of differing men And I find that in the Harmony of confessions printed in Cambridge 1586 and allowed by publick Authority there is no other account given of the English confession in this Article but that every Person is born in sin and leadeth his life in sin and that no body is able truly to say his heart is clean That the most righteous person is but an unprofitable servant That the Law of God is perfect and requireth of us perfect and full obedience that we are able by no means to fulfill that Law in this worldly life that there is no mortal Creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God's sight Now this was taken out of the English Confession inserted in the General Apology written in the year 1562 in the very year the Articles were fram'd I therefore have reason to believe that the excellent men of our Church Bishops and Priests did with more Candor and Moderation opine in this Question and therefore when by the violence and noises of some parties they were forced to declare something they spake warily and so as might be expounded to that Doctrine which in the General Apology was their allowed sence However it is not unusual for Churches in matters of difficulty to frame their Articles so as to serve the ends of peace and yet not to endanger truth or to destroy liberty of improving truth or a further reformation And since there are so very many Questions and Opinions in this point either all the Dissenters must be allowed to reconcile the Article and their Opinion or must refuse her Communion which whosoever shall inforce is a great Schismatick and an Uncharitable Man This only is certain that to tye the Article and our Doctrine together is an excellent art of peace and a certain signification of obedience and yet is a security of truth and that just liberty of Understanding which because it is only God's subject is then sufficiently submitted to Men when we consent in the same form of words The Article is this Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk 28. THE following of Adam that is the doing as he did is actual sin and in no sence can it be Original sin for that is as vain as if the Pelagians had said the second is the first and it is as impossible that what we do should be Adam's sin as it is unreasonable to say that his should be really and formally our sin Imitation supposes a Copy and those are two termes of a Relation and cannot be coincident as like is not the same But then if we speak of Original sin as we have our share in it yet cannot our imitation of Adam be it possibly it may be an effect of it or a Consequent But therefore Adam's sin did not introduce a necessity of sinning upon us for if it did Original sin would be a fatal curse by which is brought to pass not only that we do but that we cannot choose but follow him and then the following of Adam would be the greatest part of Original sin expresly against the Article 29. But it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every Man The fault vitium Naturae so it is in the Latine Copyes not a sin properly Non talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt but a disease of the Soul as blindness or crookedness that is it is an imperfection or state of deficiency from the end whither God did design us we cannot with this nature alone go to Heaven for it having been debauch'd by Adam and disrobed of all its extraordinaries and graces whereby it was or might have been made fit for Heaven it is returned to its own state which is perfect in its kind that is in order to all natural purposes but imperfect in order to supernatural whither it was design'd The case is this The eldest Son of Craesus the Lydian was born dumb and by the fault of his Nature was unfit to govern the Kingdom therefore his Father passing him by appointed the Crown to his younger Brother But he in a Battail seeing his Father in danger to be slain in Zeal to save his Fathers life strain'd the ligatures of his tongue till that broke which bound him by returning to his speech he returned to his title We are born thus imperfect unfit to raign with God for ever and can never return to a title to our inheritance till we by the grace of God be redintegrate and made perfect like Adam that is freed from this state of imperfection by supernatural aides and by the grace of God be born again Corruption This word is exegetical of the other and though it ought not to signifie the diminution of the powers of the soul not only because the powers of the soul are not corruptible but because if they were yet Adams sin could not do it since it is impossible that an act proper to a faculty should spoil it of which it is rather perfective and an act of the will can no more spoil the will than an act of understanding can lessen the understanding Yet this word Corruption may mean a spoiling or disrobing our Nature of all its extraordinary investitures that is supernatural gifts and graces a Comparative Corruption so as Moses's face when the light was taken from it or a Diamond which is more glorious by a reflex ray of the Sun when the light was taken off falls into darkness and yet loses nothing of its Nature But Corruption relates to the body not to the soul and in this Article may very properly and aptly be taken in the same sence as it is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. The body is sown in Corruption that is in all the effects of its mortality and this indeed is a part of Original sin or the effect of Adams sin it introduc'd Natural Corruption or the affections of mortality the solemnities of death for indeed this is the greatest parth of Original sin Fault and Corruption mean the Concupiscence and Mortality Of the Nature of every man This gives light to the other and makes it clear it cannot be in us properly a sin for sin is an affection of persons not of the whole Nature for an Universal cannot be the subject of circumstances and particular actions and personal proprieties as humane Nature cannot be said to be drunk or to commit adultery now because sin is an action or omission and it is made up of many particularities it cannot be
Popery and Faction did teach indifferency For I have shewn that Christianity does not punish corporally persons erring spiritually but indeed Popery does the Donatists and Circumcellians and Arrians and the Itaciani they of old did in the middle Ages the patrons of Images did and the Papists at this day doe and have done ever since they were taught it by their St. Dominick Seventhly And yet after all this I have something more to exempt my self from the clamour of this Objection For let all Errours be as much and as zealously suppressed as may be the Doctrine of the following Discourse contradicts not that but let it be done by such means as are proper instruments of their suppression by Preaching and Disputation so that neither of them breed disturbance by charity and sweetness by holiness of life assiduity of exhortation by the word of God and prayer For these ways are most natural most prudent most peaceable and effectual Onely let not men be hasty in calling every dislik'd Opinion by the name of Heresie and when they have resolved that they will call it so let them use the erring person like a brother not beat him like a dog or convince him with a gibbet or vex him out of his understanding and perswasions And now if men will still say I perswade to indifferency there is no help for me for I have given reasons against it I must bear it as well as I can I am not yet without remedy as they are for patience will help me and reason will not cure them let them take their course and I 'le take mine Only I will take leave to consider this and they would do well to do so too that unless Faith be kept within its own latitude and not call'd out to patrocinate every less necessary Opinion and the interest of every Sect or peevish person and if damnation be pronounced against Christians believing the Creed and living good lives because they are deceived or are said to be deceived in some Opinions less necessary there is no way in the world to satisfie unlearned persons in the choice of their Religion or to appease the unquietness of a scrupulous Conscience For suppose an honest Citizen whose imployment and parts will not enable him to judge the disputes and arguings of great Clerks sees Factions commenced and managed with much bitterness by persons who might on either hand be fit enough to guide him when if he follows either he is disquieted and pronounced damned by the other who also if he be the most unreasonable in his Opinion will perhaps be more furious in his sentence what shall this man do where shall he rest the soal of his foot Vpon the Doctrine of the Church where he lives Well but that he hears declaimed against perpetually and other Churches claim highly and pretend fairly for truth and condemn his Church If I tell him that he must live a good life and believe the Creed and not trouble himself with their disputes or interest himself in Sects and Factions I speak reason because no Law of God ties him to believe more then what is of essential necessity and whatsoever he shall come to know to be revealed by God Now if he believes his Creed he believes all that is necessary to all or of it self and if he do his moral endeavour beside he can do no more toward finding out all the rest and then he is secured But then if this will secure him why do men press farther and pretend every Opinion as necessary and that in so high a degree that if they all said true or any two indeed of them in 500 Sects which are in the world and for ought I know there may be 5000 it is 500 to one but that every man is damned for every Sect damns all but itself and that is damn'd of 499 and it is excellent fortune then if that escape And there is the same reason in every one of them that is it is extreme unreasonableness in all of them to pronounce damnation against such persons against whom clearly and dogmatically Holy Scripture hath not In odiosis quod minimum est sequimur in favoribus quod est maximum saith the Law and therefore we should say any thing or make any excuse that is in any degree reasonable rather then condemn all the world to Hell especially if we consider these two things that we ourselves are as apt to be deceived as any are and that they who are deceived when they used their moral industry that they might not be deceived if they perish for this they perish for what they could not help But however if the best security in the World be not in neglecting all Sects and subdivisions of men and fixing ourselves on points necessary and plain and on honest and pious endeavours according to our several capacities and opportunities for all the rest if I say all this be not through the mercies of God the best security to all unlearned persons and learned too where shall we fix where shall we either have peace or security If you bid me follow your Doctrine you must tell me why and perhaps when you have I am not able to judge or if I be as able as other people are yet when I have judged I may be deceived too and so may you or any man else you bid me follow so that I am not whit the nearer truth or peace And then if we look abroad and consider how there is scarce any Church but is highly charg'd by many adversaries in many things possibly we may see a reason to charge every one of them in some things and what shall we doe then The Church of Rome hath spots enough and all the world is inquisitive enough to find out more and to represent these to her greatest disadvantage The Greek Churches denies the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son If that be false Doctrine she is highly to blame if it be not then all the Western Churches are to blame for saying the contrary And there is no Church that is in prosperity but alters her Doctrine every Age either by bringing in new Doctrines or by contradicting her old which shews that none are satisfied with themselves or with their own Confessions And since all Churches believe themselves fallible that only excepted which all other Churches say is most of all deceived it were strange if in so many Articles which make up their several bodies of Confessions they had not mistaken every one of them in some thing or other The Lutheran Churches maintain Consubstantiation the Zuinglians are Sacramentaries the Calvinists are fierce in the matters of absolute Predetermination and all these reject Episcopacy which the Primitive Church would have made no doubt to have called Heresie The Socinians profess a portentous number of strange Opinions they deny the Holy Trinity and the Satisfaction of our Blessed Saviour The Anabaptists laugh at Paedo-baptism the Ethiopian Churches
practicâ or directly destructive of the Faith or the body of Christianity such of which Saint Peter speaks bringing in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them these are the false Prophets who out of covetousness make merchandise of you through cozening words Such as these are truly heresies and such as these are certainly damnable But because there are no degrees either of truth or falshood every true proposition being alike true that an errour is more or less damnable is not told us in Scripture but is determined by the man and his manners by circumstances and accidents and therefore the censure in the Preface and end are Arguments of his zeal and strength of his perswasion but they are extrinsecal and accidental to the Articles and might as well have been spared And indeed to me it seems very hard to put uncharitableness into the Creed and so to make it become as an Article of Faith though perhaps this very thing was no Faith of Athanasius who if we may believe Aquinas made this manifestation of Faith non per modum Symboli sed per modum doctrinae that is if I understand him right not with a purpose to impose it upon others but with confidence to declare his own belief and that it was prescribed to others as a Creed was the act of the Bishops of Rome so he said nay possibly it was none of his So said the Patriarch of C. P. Meletius about one hundred and thirty years since in his Epistle to John Douza Athanasio falsò adscriptum Symbolum cum Pontificum Rom. appendice illâ adulteratum luce lucidiùs contestamur And it is more than probable that he said true because this Creed was written originally in Latine which in all reason Athanasius did not and it was translated into Greek it being apparent that the Latine Copy is but one but the Greek is various there being three Editions or Translations rather expressed by Genebrard lib. 3. de Trinit But in this particular who list may better satisfie himself in a disputation de Symbolo Athanasii printed at Wertzburg 1590. supposed to be written by Serrarius or Clencherus 37. And yet I must observe that this Symbol of Athanasius and that other of Nice offer not at any new Articles they only pretend to a further Explication of the Articles Apostolical which is a certain confirmation that they did not believe more Articles to be of belief necessary to salvation If they intended these further Explanations to be as necessary as the dogmatical Articles of the Apostles Creed I know not how to answer all that may be objected against that but the advantage that I shall gather from their not proceeding to new matters is laid out ready for me in the words of Athanasius saying of this Creed This is the Catholick Faith and if his authority be good or his saying true or he the Author then no man can say of any other Article that it is a part of the Catholick Faith or that the Catholick Faith can be enlarged beyond the contents of that Symbol and therefore it is a strange boldness in the Church of Rome first to add twelve new Articles and then to add the Appendix of Athanasius to the end of them This is the Catholick Faith without which no man can be saved 38. But so great an Example of so excellent a man hath been either mistaken or followed with too much greediness all the World in factions all damning one another each party damn'd by all the rest and there is no disagreeing in opinion from any man that is in love with his own opinion but damnation presently to all that disagree A Ceremony and a Rite hath caused several Churches to Excommunicate each other as in the matter of the Saturday Fast and keeping Easter But what the spirits of men are when they are exasperated in a Question and difference of Religion as they call it though the thing it self may be most inconsiderable is very evident in that request of Pope Innocent the Third desiring of the Greeks but reasonably a man would think that they would not so much hate the Roman manner of consecrating in unleavened bread as to wash and scrape and pare the Altars after a Roman Priest had consecrated Nothing more furious than a mistaken zeal and the actions of a scrupulous and abused conscience When men think every thing to be their Faith and their Religion commonly they are so busie in trifles and such impertinencies in which the scene of their mistake lies that they neglect the greater things of the Law charity and compliances and the gentleness of Christian Communion for this is the great principle of mischief and yet is not more pernicious than unreasonable 39. For I demand Can any man say and justifie that the Apostles did deny Communion to any man that believed the Apostles Creed and lived a good life And dare any man tax that proceeding of remissness and indifferency in Religion And since our blessed Saviour promised salvation to him that believeth and the Apostles when they gave this word the greatest extent enlarged it not beyond the borders of the Creed how can any man warrant the condemning of any man to the flames of Hell that is ready to die in attestation of this Faith so expounded and made explicite by the Apostles and lives accordingly And to this purpose it was excellently said by a wise and a pious Prelate St. Hilary Non per difficiles nos Deus ad beatam vitam quaestiones vocat c. In absoluio nobis facili est aeternitas Jesum suscitatum à mortuis per Deum credere ipsum esse Dominum confiteri c. These are the Articles which we must believe which are the sufficient and adequate object of the Faith which is required of us in order to Salvation And therefore it was that when the Bishops of Istria deserted the Communion of Pope Pelagius in causâ trium Capitulorum He gives them an account of his Faith by recitation of the Creed and by attesting the four General Councils and is confident upon this that de fidei firmitate nulla poterit esse quaestio vel suspicio generari let the Apostles Creed especially so explicated be but secured and all Faith is secured and yet that explication too was less necessary than the Articles themselves for the Explication was but accidental but the Articles even before the Explication were accounted a sufficient inlet to the Kingdome of Heaven 40. And that there was security enough in the simple believing the first Articles is very certain amongst them and by their Principles who allow of an implicite faith to serve most persons to the greatest purposes for if the Creed did contain in it the whole Faith and that other Articles were in it implicitely for such is the doctrine of the School and particularly of Aquinas then he that explicitely believes all the Creed
indearments and an habitual worthiness An old friend is like old wine which when a man hath drunk he doth not desire new because he saith the old is better But every old friend was new once and if he be worthy keep the new one till he become old 10. After all this treat thy friend nobly love to be with him do to him all the worthinesses of love and fair endearment according to thy capacity and his Bear with his infirmities till they approach towards being criminal but never dissemble with him never despise him never leave him Give him gifts and upbraid him not and refuse not his kindnesses and be sure never to despise the smallness or the impropriety of them Confirmatur amor beneficio accepto A gift saith Solomon fasteneth friendships For as an eye that dwells long upon a Star must be refreshed with lesser beauties and strengthened with greens and Looking-glasses lest the sight become amazed with too great a splendor So must the love of friends sometimes be refreshed with material and low Caresses lest by striving to be too divine it become less humane It must be allowed its share of both It is humane in giving pardon and fair construction and openness and ingenuity and keeping secrets it hath something that is divine because it is beneficent but much because it is eternal POSTSCRIPT MADAM IF you shall think it fit that these Papers pass further than your own eye and Closet I desire they may be consign'd into the hands of my worthy friend Dr. Wedderburne For I do not only expose all my sickness to his cure but I submit my weaknesses to his censure being as confident to find of him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable But indeed Madam I look upon that worthy man as an Idea of Friendship and if I had no other notices of Friendship or conversation to instruct me than His it were sufficient For whatsoever I can say of Friendship I can say of His and as all that know Him reckon Him amongst the best Physicians so I know Him worthy to be reckoned amongst the best Friends TWO LETTERS TO PERSONS Changed in their RELIGION The First to a Gentlewoman Seduced to the Church of Rome The other to a Person Returning to the Church of England Volo Solidum Perenne THE FIRST LETTER M. B. I WAS desirous of an opportunity in London to have discoursed with you concerning something of nearest concernment to you but the multitude of my little affairs hindred me and have brought upon you this trouble to read a long Letter which yet I hope you will be more willing to do because it comes from one who hath a great respect to your person and a very great charity to your soul. I must confess I was on your behalf troubled when I heard you were fallen from the Communion of the Church of England and entred into a voluntary unnecessary Schism and departure from the Laws of the King and the Communion of those with whom you have always lived in charity going against those Laws in the defence and profession of which your Husband died going from the Religion in which you were Baptized in which for so many years you lived piously and hoped for Heaven and all this without any sufficient reason without necessity or just scandal ministred to you and to aggravate all this you did it in a time when the Church of England was persecuted when she was marked with the Characterisms of her Lord the marks of the Cross of Jesus that is when she suffered for a holy cause and a holy conscience when the Church of England was more glorious than at any time before Even when she could shew more Martyrs and Confessors than any Church this day in Christendom even then when a King died in the profession of her Religion and thousands of Priests learned and pious men suffered the spoiling of their goods rather than they would forsake one Article of so excellent a Religion So that seriously it is not easily to be imagined that any thing should move you unless it be that which troubled the perverse Jews and the Heathen Greek Scandalum crucis the scandal of the Cross. You stumbled at that Rock of offence You left us because we were afflicted lessened in outward circumstances and wrapped in a cloud But give me leave only to remind you of that sad saying of the Scripture that you may avoid the consequent of it They that fall on this stone shall be broken in pieces but they on whom it shall fall shall be grinded to powder And if we should consider things but prudently it is a great argument that the sons of our Church are very conscientious and just in their perswasions when it is evident that we have no temporal end to serve nothing but the great end of our souls all our hopes of preferment are gone all secular regards only we still have Truth on our sides and we are not willing with the loss of Truth to change from a persecuted to a prosperous Church from a Reformed to a Church that will not be reformed lest we give scandal to good people that suffer for a holy conscience and weaken the hands of the afflicted of which if you had been more careful you would have remained much more innocent But I pray give me leave to consider for you because you in your change considered so little for your self What fault what false doctrine what wicked and dangerous Proposition what defect what amiss did you find in the Doctrine and Liturgy and Discipline of the Church of England For its Doctrine It is certain it professes the belief of all that is written in the Old and New Testament all that which is in the three Creeds the Apostolical the Nicene and that of Athanasius and whatsoever was decreed in the four General Councils or in any other truly such and whatsoever was condemned in these our Church hath legally declared it to be Heresie And upon these accounts above four whole Ages of the Church went to Heaven they baptized all their Catechumens into this Faith their hopes of Heaven was upon this and a good life their Saints and Martyrs lived and died in this alone they denied Communion to none that professed this Faith This is the Catholick Faith so saith the Creed of Athanasius and unless a company of men have power to alter the Faith of God whosoever live and die in this Faith are intirely Catholick and Christian. So that the Church of England hath the same Faith without dispute that the Church had for 400 or 500 years and therefore there could be nothing wanting here to Saving Faith if we live according to our belief 2. For the Liturgy of the Church of England I shall not need to say much because the case will be every evident First Because the disputers of the Church of Rome have not been very forward to object any thing against it
at Trent then we also have a question to ask and that is Where was your Religion before Trent The Council of Trent determined That the Souls departed before the day of Judgment enjoy the Beatifical Vision It is certain this Article could not be shewn in the Confession of any of the ancient Churches for most of the Fathers were of another opinion But that which is the greatest offence of Christendom is not only that these doctrines which we say are false were yet affirmed but that those things which the Church of God did always reject or held as Uncertain should be made Articles of Faith and so become parts of your Religion and of these it is that I again ask the question which none of your side shall ever be able to answer for you Where was your Religion before Trent I could instance in many particulars but I shall name one to you which because the thing of it self is of no great consequence it will appear the more unreasonable and intolerable that your Church should adopt it into the things of necessary belief especially since it was only a matter of fact and they took the false part too For in the 21. Sess. Chap. 4. it is affirmed That although the holy Fathers did give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants yet they did it without any necessity of salvation that is they did not believe it necessary to their salvation Which is notoriously false and the contrary is marked out with the black-lead of every man almost that reads their Works and yet your Council says this is sine controversiâ credendum to be believed without all controversie and all Christians forbidden to believe or teach otherwise So that here it is made an Article of Faith amongst you that a man shall neither believe his reason nor his eyes and who can shew any Confession of Faith in which all the trent-Trent-doctrine was professed and enjoyned under pain of damnation And before the Council of Constance the doctrine touching the Popes power was so new so decried that as Gerson says he hardly should have escaped the note of Heresie that would have said so much as was there defined So that in that Article which now makes a great part of your belief where was your Religion before the Council of Constance And it is notorious that your Council of Constance determined the doctrine of the Half-communion with a Non obstante to Christ's institution that is with a defiance to it or a noted observed neglect of it and with a profession it was otherwise in the Primitive Church Where then was your Religion before John Hus and Hierom of Prague's time against whom that Council was convened But by this instance it appears most certainly that your Church cannot shew her Confessions immediately after Christ and therefore if we could not shew ours immediately before Luther it were not half so much For since you receded from Christ's Doctrine we might well recede from yours and it matters not who or how many or how long they professed your doctrine if neither Christ nor his Apostles did teach it So that if these Articles constitute your Church your Church was invisible at the first and if ours was invisible afterwards it matters not For yours was invisible in the days of light and ours was invisible in the days of darkness For our Church was always visible in the reflections of Scripture and he that had his eyes of Faith and Reason might easily have seen these Truths all the way which constitute our Church But I add yet farther that our Church before Luther was there where your Church was in the same place and in the same persons For divers of the Errors which have been amongst us reformed were not the constituent Articles of your Church before Luther's time for before the last Councils of your Church a man might have been of your Communion upon easier terms and Indulgences were indeed a practice but no Article of Faith before your men made it so and that very lately and so were many other things besides So that although your men cozen the credulous and the simple by calling yours The old Religion yet the difference is vast between Truth and their affirmative even as much as between old Errors and new Articles For although Ignorance and Superstition had prepared the Oar yet the Councils of Constance and Basil and Trent especially were the Forges and the Mint Lastly If your men had not by all the vile and violent arts of the world stopped the mouths of dissenters the question would quickly have been answered or our Articles would have been so confessed so owned and so publick that the question could never have been asked But in despite of all opposition there were great numbers of professors who did protest and profess and practise our doctrines contrary to your Articles as it is demonstrated by the Divines of Germany in Illyricus his Catalogus testium veritatis and in Bishop Morton's Appeal But with your next objection you are better pleased and your men make most noise with it For you pretend that by our confession Salvation may be had in your Church but your men deny it to us and therefore by the confession of both sides you may be safe and there is no question concerning you but of us there is great question for none but our selves say that we can be saved I answer 1. That Salvation may be had in your Church is it ever the truer because we say it If it be not it can add no confidence to you for the Proposition gets no strength by our affirmative But if it be then our authority is good or else our reason and if either be then we have more reason to be believed speaking of our selves because we are concerned to see that our selves may be in a state of hope and therefore we would not venture on this side if we had not greater reason to believe well of our selves than of you And therefore believe us when it is more likely that we have greater reason because we have greater concernments and therefore greater considerations 2. As much charity as your men pretend us to speak of you yet it is a clear case our hope of your Salvation is so little that we dare not venture our selves on your side The Burger of Oldwater being to pass a River in his journey to Daventry bad his man try the ford telling him he hoped he should not be drowned for though he was afraid the River was too deep yet he thought his Horse would carry him out or at least the Boats would fetch him off Such a confidence we may have of you but you will find that but little warranty if you remember how great an interest it is that you venture 3. It would be remembred that though the best ground of your hope is not the goodness of your own faith but the greatness of our charity yet we that charitably
well as the institution it self 201 § 5. Scotus affirmed that the truth of the Eucharist may be saved without Transubstantiation 234 § 11. Some have been poisoned by receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist 249 ss 11. The wine will inebriate after consecration therefore it is not bloud 249 § 11. The Marcossians Valentinians and Marcionites though they denied Christ's having a body yet used the Eucharistical Elements 256 § 12. The Council of Trent binds all its subjects to give to the Sacrament of the Altar the same worship which they give to the true God 267 § 13. To worship the Host is Idolatry 268 § 13. They that worship the Host are many times according to their own doctrine in danger of Idolatry 268 269 § 13. Lewis IX pawned the Host to the Sultan of Egypt upon which they bear it to this day in their Escutcheons 270 § 13. The Primitive Church did excommunicate those that did not receive the Eucharist in both kinds Pref. to Diss. pag. 5. The Council of Constance decreed the half Communion with a non obstante to our Lord's institution 302 c. 1. § 6. Authorities to shew that the half Communion was not in use in the Primitive times 303 c. 1. § 6. Of their worshipping the Host 467. Of Communion in one kind onely 469 470. The word Celebrate when spoken of the Eucharist means the action of the people as well as the Priest 530. The Church of God gave the Chalice to the people for above a thousand years 531. The Roman Churche's consecrating a Wafer is a mere innovation 531 532. The Priest's pardon anciently was nothing but to admit the penitent to the Eucharist 839 n. 54. Of the change that is made in us by it 28. b. The Apostles were confirmed after 30. b. Eusebius His testimony against Transubstantiation 259 260 261 § 12. and 300. and 524. Excommunication Neither the Church nor the Presbyters in it had power to excommunicate before they had a Bishop set over them 82 § 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sometimes it was put to signifie Ecclesiastical repentance 830 n. 34. Exorcisms Their exorcisms have been so bad that the Inquisitors have been fain to put them down 333 § 10. The manner of their casting out Devils by exorcism 334 c. 2. § 10. They give Exorcists distinct ordination 336. Exorcism in the Primitive Church signified nothing but Catechizing 30. b. Ezekiel Chap. 18. v. 3. explained 726 n. 61. F. Faith THE folly of that assertion Credo quia impossibile est when applied to Transubstantiation 231 § 11. To make new Articles of faith that are not in Scripture as the Papists do is condemned by the suffrage of the Fathers Pref. to Diss. pag. 4 5. The Church of Rome adopts uncertain and trifling propositions into their faith 462. The doctrine of the Roman Purgatory was no arricle of faith in Saint Augustine's time 506. What faith is and wherein it consists 941 n. 1. New Articles cannot by the Church be decreed 945 n. 12. Faith is not an act of the understanding onely 949 n. 9. By what circumstances faith becomes moral 950 n. 9. The Romanists keep not faith with hereticks 341. Instances of doctrines that are held by some Romanists to be de fide by others to be not de fide 398. What makes a point to be de fide 399. What it is to be an Article of faith 437. Some things are necessary to be believed that are not articles of faith 437. The Apostles Creed was necessary to be believed not necessitate praecepti but medii 438. No new articles as necessary to be believed ought to be added to the Apostles Creed 438 446. The Pope hath not power to make Articles of faith 446 447. Upon what motives most men imbrace the faith 460. The faith of unlearned men in the Roman Church 461. Fasting It is one of the best Penances 860 n. 114. Father How God punisheth the Father's sin upon the Children 725. God never imputes the Father's sin to the Children so as to inflict eternal punishment but onely temporal 725 n. 56. This God doth onely in punishments of the greatest crimes 725 n. 59. and not often 726 n. 60. but before the Gospel was published 726 n. 62. Fathers When Bellarmine was to answer the authority of some Fathers brought against the Pope's universal Episcopacy he allows not the Fathers to have a vote against the Pope 310 c. 1. § 10. No man but J. S. affirms that the Fathers are infallible 372 373 374. The Fathers stile some hereticks that are not 376. Of what authority the opinion of the Fathers is with some Romanists 376 377. They complained of the dismal troubles in the Church that arose upon enlarging Creeds 441. They reproved pilgrimages 293 496. The Primitive Fathers that practised prayer for the dead thought not of Purgatory 501. They made prayer for those who by the confession of all sides were not then in Purgatory 502 503. The Roman doctrine of Purgatory is directly contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers 512. A Reply to that Answer of the Romanists That the writings of the Fathers do forbid nothing else but picturing the Divine Essence 550 554. In what sense the ancient Fathers taught the doctrine of original sin 761 n. 22. How the Fathers were divided in the question of the beatifick vision of souls before the day of Judgement 1007. The practice of Rome now is against the doctrine of S. Augustine and 217 Bishops and all their Successours for a whole age together in the question of Appeals to Rome 1008. One Father for them the Papists value more then twenty against them in that case how much they despise them 1008. Gross mistakes taught by several Fathers ibid. The writings of the Fathers adulterated of old and by modern practices 1010. particularly by the Indices Expurgatorii 1011. Fear To leave a sin out of fear is not sinful but may be accepted 785 n. 37. Figure Ambiguous and figurative words may be allowed in a Testament humane or Divine 210 § 6. A certain Athenian's enigmatical Testament ibid. The Lamb is said to be the Passeover of which deliverance it was onely the commemorative sign 211 § 6. How many figurative terms there are in the words of institution 211 212 § 6. When the figurative sense is to be chosen in Scripture 213 § 6. Flesh. The law of the flesh in man 781 n. 31. The contention between it and the Conscience no sign of Regeneration 782 n. 32. How to know which prevails in the contention 782 n. 5. Forgiving Forgiving injuries considered as a part or fruit of Repentance 849 n. 83. Free-will How the necessity of Grace is consistent with this doctrine 754 n. 15. That mankind by the fall of Adam did not lose it 874. The folly of that assertion We are free to sin but not to good 874. Liberty of action in natural things is better but in moral things it is a weakness 874. G. Galatians CHap. 5.15
suspend or depose without the presence of a Presbyter 116 117 § 36. In the Primitive Church they might not officiaâ—e without the licence of the Bishop 127 § 37. In Africk Presbyters were not by Law permitted to preach upon occasion of Arius preaching his errours 128 § 37. They had not the power of voting in Councils 136 § 41. The Council of Basil was the first in which they in their own right were admitted to vote 136 § 41. They as such did not vote in that first Oecumenical Council held Acts 15. pag. 137 § 41. Saint Cyprian's authority alledged in behalf of the Presbyters and people's interest in the government of the Church answered 145 146 § 44. Saint Cyprian did ordain and perform acts of jurisdiction without his Presbyters ibid. The Presbyter's assistence to the Bishop was never necessary and when practised was voluntary on the Bishop's part 147 § 44. In all Churches where a Bishop's seat was there was not always a College of Presbyters onely in the greater Churches 146 § 44. One Bishop alone without the concurrence of more Bishops could not depose 147 § 44. Presbyters at first had no distinct Cure 136 § 50. The signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 165 § 51. There were some Presbyters of whom it was not required to preach 167 § 51. Priest What the Penitentiary Priest was and by whom taken away 473 474 492 493. That the Priest's power to absolve is not judicial but declarative onely 483. Whether to confess all our greater sins to a Priest be necessary to salvation 477. The Priest's act in cleansing the Leper was but declarative 483 486. Celebrate when spoken of the Eucharist means the action of the people as well as the Priest 530. Whether Confirmation may be administred by Presbyters 19 20 21. b. What is the power of Priests in order to pardoning sin 838. Of the forms of Absolution given by the Priest 838. Absolution of sins by the Priest can be no more then declarative 834 n. 41. and 841. Confession to a Priest is no part of Contrition 833 n. 41. The benefit of confessing to a Priest 834 n. 43. Auricular confession to a Priest whence it descended 833 n. 41. Of confessing to a Priest or Minister 857. Absolution by a Priest is not that which Christ intended by the power of remitting and retaining sins 841 n. 60. Attrition joyned with the Priest's Absolution is not sufficient for pardon 842 n. 62 64. Primitive Traditions now held that are contrary to the Primitive Traditions 453 454. Principle First Principles are not necessary in all Discourses 356. Probable That any probable opinion may safely be followed 324 c. 2. § 7. The ill consequents of that doctrine 325. What makes an opinion probable 324 c. 2. § 7. It is no excuse for them to say This is the opinion but of one Doctor 325 c. 2. § 7. Instances to shew that to follow the opinion of a probable Doctor will make the worst sins seem lawful 326. Demonstration is not needful but where there is an aequilibrium of probabilities 362. Probability is as good as Demonstration where is no shew of reason against it 362. Prohibitions Whether the Secular power can give them against the Ecclesiastical 122 § 36. Prophane The difference in committing sin between the prophane moral and regenerate man 782. Proverb A Proverb contrary to truth is a great prejudice to a man's understanding 798. Avoid all Proverbs by which evil life is encouraged ibid. Psalms The meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Council of Laodicea 23 n. 91 92. Psalm 51.5 explained 721 n. 49. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What the word signifieth 724 n. 53. Punishment The guilt being taken away there can remain no obligation to punishment 294. God punisheth not one sin with another 859 n. 112. The least sin more evil then the greatest punishment 618 n. 24. We should by our choice make that temporal punishment penitential that God inflicts 859 n. 113. An instance of that practice out of Eusebius ibid. Purgatory An account of some false Propositions without which the doctrine of Purgatory cannot be maintained 294. The guilt being taken away there can remain no obligation to punishment 294. Simon Magus had the first notion of Purgatory 294. Those testimonies of the Fathers that prove Prayer for the dead do not prove Purgatory 295. The Fire of purgation that the Fathers speak of is not the Romanists Purgatory 295. Those silly Legends upon which they ground Purgatory 296 c. 1. § 4. The Greek Church disowns Purgatory 297. The authority of Fathers against it 297 c. 1. § 4. When the doctrine of Purgatory was first brought into the Church 495. Of Purgatory and the testimonies of Roffensis and Pol. Virgil against it justified 500. The Primitive Fathers that practised prayer for the dead thought not of Purgatory 501. The Fathers made prayers for those who by the confession of all sides were not then in Purgatory 502 503. Instances out of the Latine Missal where prayers were made for those that were dead and yet not in Purgatory 505. The doctrine of the Roman Purgatory was no Article of Faith in Saint Augustine's time 506. The testimony of Otho Frisingensis against Purgatory considered 509. The opinion of the Greek Church concerning Purgatory 510. The Roman doctrine of Purgatory is directly contrary to the faith of the ancient Fathers 512. The testimony of Saint Cyprian Saint Dionysius Saint Justin Martyr against Purgatory 513 514. Q. Questions IN those about the immaculate Conception Tradition is equally pretended on both sides 435. Those that arose in the Council of Nice were not determined by Tradition but Scripture 425. Sundry Questions as Whether the practice of the Primitive Fathers denying Ecclesiastical repentance to Idolaters and Murtherers and Adulterers and them onely be warrantable 805. Whether we derive from Adam original and natural ignorance 713 n. 22. Whether Attrition with Absolution pardoneth sin 842. Whether it be possible to keep the Law 579. Whether Perfection be consistent with Repentance 579 c. 1. ss 3. per tot Whether sinful Habits require a distinct manner of Repentance 652. Whether every single deliberate act of sin put the sinner out of God's favour c. 4. ss 2. per tot Whether disobedience that is voluntary in the cause but not in the effect is to be punished 719 n. 44. and 785. Whether if Adam had not sinned Christ had been incarnate 771. and 748 4. How we are to understand the Divine Justice in exacting an impossible Law 580 n. 32. Since God imposeth not an impossible Law how does it consist with his wisedom to impose what in justice he does not exact 581 n. 35. If so many acts of sin taken singly and alone do damn how can any man be saved 642 643 n. 28. Whether one is bound to repent of his sin as soon as he hath committed it 653. and 654 n. 7 8. sequ R. Real Presence THis like
other Mysteries is not to be searched into too curiously as to the manner of it 182 § 1. Reason The power of it in matters of Religion 230 231 § 11. It is the best Judge of Controversies 1014. Reason and authority are not things inconsistent 1015. The variety of mens understandings in apprehending the consequent of things as in the instances of Surge Petre macta comede and the trial between the two Missals of Saint Ambrose and Saint Gregory 1016. Reformed Concerning Ordination in the Reformed Churches performed without Bishops 105 § 32. Of the harmony of Confessions set out by the Reformed Churches 899. Regenerate The falseness of that proposition That natural corruption in the Regenerate still remains and is in them a sin 876. The state of unregenerate men 773. Between the regenerate and the wicked person there is a middle state 774 n. 29. An unregenerate man may be convinced of and clearly instructed in his duty and approve the Law 780. An unregenerate man may with his will delight in goodness and delight in it earnestly 781. The contention between the Flesh and the Conscience no sign of Regeneration but onely the contention between the Flesh and the Spirit 781. The difference between the Regenerate Profane and Moral man in their sinning 782 n. 33. Whence come so frequent sins in regenerate persons 783. How sin can be consistent with the regenerate estate 783 n. 35. Unwillingness to sin no sign of Regeneration 784 n. 36. An unregenerate person may not onely desire to doe things morally good but even spirituall also 784 n. 37. The difference between a regenerate and unregenerate man 786 787. An unregenerate man may leave many sins not onely for temporal interest but out of reverence of the Divine Law 785 n. 39. An unregenerate man may doe many good things for Heaven and yet never come there 786 n. 40. An unregenerate man may have received the Spirit of God and yet be in a state of distance from God 786 n. 41. It is not the propriety of the regenerate man to feel a contention within him concerning the doing good or evil 788 n. 43. The regenerate man hath not onely received the Spirit of God but is wholly led by him 788. n. 44. Arguments to prove that St. Paul Rom. 7. speaks not of the Regenerate man 773 n. 10. Religion If it be seated onely in the understanding not accepted to Salvation 780. The character and properties of perfect Religion 583 584 n. 44. ad 48. Remission of Sin What is the power of remitting and retaining sin 836 n. 47. Repentance The Roman doctrine about Repentance 312 c. 2. § 1. They teach that Repentance is not necessary till the article of death 312. Their Church enjoyns not the internal but the external ritual Repentance 313. What Contrition is 314. The Church of Rome makes Contrition unnecessary 314. According to the Roman doctrine Confession does not restrain sin and satisfies not the Conscience 315 c. 2. § 2. The Roman Doctors prevaricate in the whole Doctrine of Repentance 321. What the Penitentiary Priest was and by whom taken away 473 474 492 493. The Controversie between Monsieur Arnauld Petavius about Repentance 568. The Covenant of Repentance when it began 574 575. How Repentance and Perfection Evangelical are consistent Chap. 1. ss 3. per tot n. 47. That Proposition rejected That every sinner must in his Repentance pass under the terrours of the Law 587. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how they differ 596 597. All that was insupportable in Moses's Law was onely the want of this 580 n. 33. Of the notion of Repentance when joyned with Faith 599 n. 1. It is a whole change of state and life 597. The parts of it 599 n. 9. and 820 n. 2. The difference between the Repentance preached to the Jews and the Gentiles 601 n. 5 6 7. It may be called Conversion 602 n. 10. Repentance onely makes sins venial 622 n. 34. What Repentance single acts of sin require 646 n. 43. A general Repentance when sufficient 647 n. 47. Some acts of sin require more then a moral revocation or opposing a contrary act of vertue in Repentance 648 n. 50. That Proposition proved That no man is bound to repent of his sin instantly after the committing it 654. The danger of deferring Repentance 654 655. Deferring Repentance differs but by accident from final impenitence ibid. How the severities of Repentance were retrenched in several Ages 804 n. 14 15 16. The severity of the Primitive Church in denying Absolution to greater Criminals upon their Repentance was not their Doctrine but their Discipline 805 n. 21. Repentance of sinful Habits to be performed in a distinct manner 669 n. 31. Seven Objections against that Proposition answered 675. Objections against the Repentance of Clinicks 678 n. 57. and 677 n. 56. and 679 n. 64. Heathens newly baptized if they die immediately need no other repentance ibid. The Objection concerning the Thief on the Cross answered 681 n. 65. Testimonies of the Ancients against death-bed repentance 682 n. 66. The manner of repentance in habitual sinners who begin Repentance betimes 687 n. 1. The manner of repentance by which habitual sins must be cured in them who return not till old age 691 n. 12. The way of treating sinners who repent not till their death-bed 695 n. 25. Considerations shewing how dangerous it is to delay Repentance 853 n. 98. and 695 n. 25. Considerations to be opposed against the despair of penitent Clinicks 696 n. 29. What hopes penitent Clinicks have taken out of the Writings of the Fathers of the Church 696 697 n. 30. The manner how the Ancient Church treated penitent Clinicks 699 n. 5. The particular acts and parts of Repentance that are fittest for a dying man 700 n. 32. The penitent in the opinion of the Jewish Doctors preferred above the just and innocent 801. The practice of the Primitive Fathers about penitent Clinicks 804. The practice of the ancient Fathers excluding from repentance murtherers adulterers and idolaters 804 805. Penitential sorrow is rather in the understanding then the affections 823 n. 12. Penitential sorrow is not to be estimated by the measures of sense 823 n. 15. and 824 n. 17. A double solemn imposition of hands in Repentance 840 n. 57. As our Repentance is so is our pardon 846. A man must not judge of his Repentance by his tears nor by any one manner of expression 850 n. 99. He that suspects his Repentance should use the suspicion as a means to improve his Repentance 850. Meditations that will dispose the heart to Repentance 851 n. 88. No man can be said truly to have grieved for sin which at any time after remembers it with pleasure 851 n. 92. The Repentance of Clinicks 853 n. 96. Sorrow for sin is but a sign or instrument of Repentance 853 n. 99. That Repentance preached to the Jews was in different methods from that preached to the
or understand it we lose our labour Quomodo enim id fiat ne in mente intelligere nec linguâ dicere possumus sed silentio firmâ fide id suscipimus We can perceive the thing by faith but cannot express it in words nor understand it with our mind said S. Bernard Oportet igitur it is at last after the steps of the former progress come to be a duty nos in sumptionibus Divinorum mysteriorum indubitatam retinere fidem non quaerere quo pacto The summe is this The manner was defined but very lately there is no need at all to dispute it no advantages by it and therefore it were better it were left at liberty to every man to think as he please for so it was in the Church for above a thousand years together and yet it were better men would not at all trouble themselves concerning it for it 's a thing impossible to be understood and therefore it is not fit to be inquired after This was their sence and I suppose we do in no sence prevaricate their so pious and prudent counsel by saying the presence of Christ is reall and spirituall because this account does still leave the Article in his deepest mystery not only because spiritual formalities and perfections are undiscernable and incommensurable by natural proportions and the measures of our usual notices of things but also because the word spiritual is so general a term and operations so various and many by which the Spirit of God brings his purposes to pass and does his work upon the soul that we are in this specifick term very far from limiting the Article to a minute and special manner Our word of spiritual presence is particular in nothing but that it excludes the corporal and natural manner we say it is not this but it is to be understood figuratively that is not naturally but to the purposes and in the manner of the Spirit and spiritual things which how they operate or are effected we know no more than we know how a Cherubin sings or thinks or by what private conveyances a lost notion returns suddenly into our memory and stands placed in the eye of reason Christ is present spiritually that is by effect and blessing which in true speaking is rather the consequent of his presence than the formality For though we are taught and feel that yet this we profess we cannot understand and therefore curiously inquire not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Justin Martyr it is a manifest argument of infidelity to inquire concerning the things of God How or after what manner And in this it was that many of the Fathers of the Church laid their hands upon their mouths and revered the Mystery but like the remains of the sacrifice they burnt it that is as themselves expound the allegory it was to be adored by Faith and not to be discussed with reason knowing that as Solomon said Scrutator Majestatis opprimetur à gloriâ He that pries too far into the Majesty shall be confounded with the Glory 3. So far it was very well and if error or interest had not unravelled the secret and looked too far into the Sanctuary where they could see nothing but a cloud of fire Majesty and Secrecy indiscriminately mixt together we had kneeled before the same Altars and adored the same mystery and communicated in the same rites to this day For in the thing it self there is no difference amongst wise and sober persons nor ever was till the manner became an Article and declared or supposed to be of the substance of the thing But now the state of the question is this 4. The doctrine of the Church of England and generally of the Protestants in this Article is That after the Minister of the holy mysteries hath ritely prayed and blessed or consecrated the bread and the wine the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ after a Sacramental that is in a spiritual real manner so that all that worthily communicate do by faith recive Christ really effectually to all the purposes of his passion The wicked receive not Christ but the bare symbols only but yet to their hurt because the offer of Christ is rejected and they pollute the blood of the Covenant by using it as an unholy thing The result of which doctrine is this It is bread and it is Christs body It is bread in substance Christ in the Sacrament and Christ is as really given to all that are truly disposed as the symbols are each as they can Christ as Christ can be given the bread and wine as they can and to the same real purposes to which they are designed and Christ does as really nourish and sanctifie the soul as the elements do the body It is here as in the other Sacrament for as there natural water becomes the laver of regeneration so here bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ but there and here too the first substance is changed by grace but remains the same in nature 5. That this is the doctrine of the Church of England is apparent in the Church Catechism affirming the inward part or thing signified by the consecrated bread and wine to be The body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lords Supper and the benefit of it to be the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and blood of Christ as our bodies are by the bread and wine and the same is repeated severally in the exhortation and in the prayer of the address before the consecration in the Canon of our Communion verily and indeed is reipsâ that 's really enough that 's our sence of the Real Presence and Calvin affirms as much saying In the Supper Christ Jesus viz. his body and blood is truly given under the signs of bread and wine And Gregory de Valentiâ gives this account of the doctrine of the Protestants that although Christ be corporally in Heaven yet is he received of the faithful communicants in this Sacrament truly both spiritually by the mouth of the mind through a most near conjunction of Christ with the soul of the receiver by faith and also sacramentally with the bodily mouth c. And which is the greatest testimony of all we who best know our own minds declare it to be so 6. Now that the spiritual is also a real presence and that they are hugely consistent is easily credible to them that believe that the gifts of the holy Ghost are real graces and a Spirit is a proper substance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are amongst the Hellenists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligible things or things discerned by the mind of a man are more truly and really such and of a more excellent substance and reality than things only sensible And therefore when things spiritual are signified by materials the thing under the figure is called true
And Saint Austin calls the Sacrament prece mysticâ consecratum But concerning this I have largely discoursed in another place But the effect of the consideration in order to the present Question is this that since the change that is made is made not naturally or by a certain number of syllables in the manner of a charm but solemnly sacredly morally and by prayer it becomes also the body of our Lord to moral effects as a consequent of a moral instrument 8. Sixthly And it is considerable that since the ministeries of the Church are but imitations of Christ's Priestood which he officiates in Heaven since he effects all the purposes of his graces and our redemption by intercession and representing in the way of prayer the Sacrifice which he offered on the Cross it follows that the ministeries of the Church must be of the same kind operating in the way of prayer morally and therefore wholly to moral purposes to which the instrument is made proportionable And if these words which are called the words of Consecration be exegetical and enunciative of the change that is made by prayers and other mystical words it cannot be possibly inferred from these words that there is any other change made than what refers to the whole mystery and action and therefore Take eat and this do are as necessary to the Sacrament as Hoc est corpus and declare that it is Christ's body only in the use and administration and therefore not natural but spiritual And this is yet more plain by the words in the Hebrew Text of Saint Matthew Take eat this which is my body plainly supposing the thing to be done already not by the exegetical words but by the precedents the mystick prayer and the words of institution and use and to this I never saw any thing pretended in answer But the force of the Argument upon supposition of the premises is acknowledged to be convincing by an Archbishop of their own Si Christus dandâ— consecravit c. If Christ giving the Eucharist did consecrate as Scotus affirmed then the Lutherans will carry the victory who maintain that the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only while it is used while it was taken and eaten And yet on the other side if it was consecrated when Christ said Take eat then he commanded them to take bread and to eat bread which is to destroy the Article of Transubstantiation So that in effect whether it was consecrated by those words or not by those words their new Doctrine is destroyed If it was not consecrated when Christ said Take eat then Christ bid them take bread and eat bread and they did so But if it was consecrated by those words Take eat then the words of consecration refer wholly to use and it is Christ's body only in the taking and eating which is the thing we contend for And into the concession of this Bellarmine is thrust by the force of our Argument For to avoid Christ's giving the Apostles that which he took and brake and blessed that is breâ—d the same case being governed by all these words he answers Dominum accepisse benedixisse panem sed dedisse panem non vulgarem sed benedictum benedictione mutatum The Lord took bread and blessed it but he gave not common bread but bread blessed and changed by blessing and yet it is certain he gave it them before the words which he calls the words of Consecration To which I add this consideration that all words spoken in the person of another are only declarative and exegetical not operative and practical for in particular if these words hoc est corpus meum were otherwise then the Priest should turn it into his own not into the body of Christ. Neither will it be easie to have an answer not only because the Greeks and Latines are divided in the ground of their argument concerning the mystical instrument of consecration But the Latines themselves have seven several opinions as the Archbishop of Caesarea de capite Fontium hath enumerated them in his nuncupatory Epistle to Pope Sixtus Quintus before his book of divers treatises and that the consecration is made by this is my body though it be now the prevailing opinion yet that by them Christ did not consecrate the elements was the express sentence of Pope Innocent 3. and Innocent 4. and of many ancient Fathers as the same Archbishop of Caesarea testifies in the book now quoted and the Scholasticks are hugely divided upon this point viz. Whether these words are to be taken materially or significatively the expression is barbarous and rude but they mean whether they be consecratory or declarative Aquinas makes them consecratory and his authority brought that opinion into credit and yet Scotus and his followers are against it and they that affirm them to be taken significatively that is to be consecratory are divided into so many opinions that they are not easie to be reckoned only Guido Brianson reckons nine and his own makes the tenth This I take upon the credit of one of their own Archbishops 9. But I proceed to follow them in their own way whether Hoc est corpus meum do effect or signify the change yet the change is not natural and proper but figurative sacramental and spiritual exhibiting what it signifies being real to all intents and purposes of the Spirit and this I shall first shew by discussing the words of institution first those which they suppose to be the consecratory words and then the other 10. Hoc est corpus meum Concerning which form of words we must know that as the Eucharist it self was in the external and ritual part an imitation of a custome and a sacramental already in use among the Jews for the major domo to break bread and distribute wine at the Passeover after supper to the eldest according to his age to the youngest according to his youth as it is notorious and known in the practice of the Jews so also were the very words which Christ spake in this changed subject an imitation of the words which were then used This is the bread of sorrow which our Fathers eat in Egypt This is the Passeover and this Passeover was called the body of the Paschal Lamb nay it was called the body of our Saviour and our Saviour himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Justin Martyr dial cum Tryph. And Esdras said to the Jews This passeover is our Saviour and This is the body of our Saviour as it is noted by others So that here the words were made ready for Christ and made his by appropriation by meum he was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world he is the true Passeover which he then affirming called that which was the Antitype of the Passeover the Lamb of God His body the body of the true Passeover to wit in the same sacramental sence in which the like words were affirmed in
and flesh hath been pull'd out of the mouths of the communicants and Plegilus the Priest saw an Angel shewing Christ to him in form of a child upon the Altar whom first he took in his arms and kissed but did eat him up presently in his other shape in the shape of a Wafer Speciosa certè pax Nebulonis ut qui oris praebuerat basium dentium inferret exitium said Berengarius It was but a Judas kiss to kiss with the lip and bite with the teeth But if such stuffe as this may go for argument we may be cloyed with them in those unanswerable Authors Simeon Metaphrastes for the Greeks and Jacobus de Voragine for the Latin who make it a trade to lye for God and for the interest of the Catholick cause But however I shall tell a piece of a true story In the time of Soter Pope of Rome there was an Impostor called Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that was his appellative and he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pretending to make the Chalice of wine and water Eucharistical saying long prayers over it made it look red or purple that it might be thought that grace which is above all things does drop the blood into the Chalice by invocation Such as these have been often done by humane artifice or by operation of the Devil said Alexander of Ales. If such things as these were done regularly it were pretence enough to say it is flesh and blood that is in the Eucharist but when nothing of this is done by God but Hereticks and Knaves Juglers and Impostors hoping to change the Sacrament into a charm by abusing the spiritual sence into a gross and carnal against the authority of Scripture and the Church reason or religion have made pretences of those things and still the Holy Sacrament in all the times of ministration hath the form and all the perceptibilities of bread and wine as we may believe those Impostors did more rely upon the pretences of sense than of other arguments and distrusting them did flye to these as the greater probation so we rely upon that way of probation which they would have counterfeited but which indeed Christ in his institution hath still left in the nature of the symbols viz. that it is that which it seems to be and that the other superinduc'd predicate of the body of Christ is to be understood only in that sence which may still consist with that substance whose proper and natural accidents remain and are perceived by the mouth and hands and eyes of all men To which this may be added that by the doctrine of the late Roman Schools all those pretences of real appearances of Christs body or blood must be necessarily concluded to be Impostures or aery phantasmes and illusions because themselves teach that Christs body is so in the Sacrament that Christs own eyes cannot see his own body in the Sacrament and in that manner by which it is there it cannot be made visible no not by the absolute power of God Nay it can be neither seen nor touched nor tasted nor felt nor imagined It is the doctrine of Suarez in 3. Tho. disp 53. Sect. 3. and disp 52. Sect. 1. and of Vasquez in 3. t. 3. disp 191. n. 22. which besides that it reproves the whole Article by making it incredible and impossible it doth also infinitely convince all these apparitions if ever there were any of deceit and fond illusion I had no more to say in this particular but that the Roman Doctors pretend certain words out of S. Cyrils fourth mystagogique Catechism against the doctrine of this Paragraph Pro certissimo habeas c. Be sure of this that this bread which is seen of us is not bread although the taste perceives it to be bread but the body of Christ For under the species of bread the body is given to thee under the species of wine the blood is given to thee Here if we will trust S. Cyrils words at least in Bellarmine's and Brerely's sence and understand of them before you will believe your own eyes you may For S. Cyril bids you not believe your sense For taste and sight tells you it is bread but it is not But here is no harm done 2. For himself plainly explains his meaning in his next Catechism Think not that you taste bread and wine saith he No what then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the antitypes of the body and blood and in this very place he calls bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a type 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore it is very ill rendred by the Roman Priests by Species which signifies accidental forms for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies no such thing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not S. Cyrils word 3. He says it is not bread though the taste feel it so that is it is not meer bread which is an usual expression among the Fathers Non est panis communis says Irenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Justin Martyr just as S. Chrysostome says of Baptismal water it is not common water and as S. Cyril himself says of the sacramental bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not meer bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Lords body For if it were not that in some sence or other it were still meer bread but that it is not But this manner of speaking is not unusual in the holy Scriptures that restrained and modificated negatives be propounded in simple and absolute forms I have given them statutes which are not good Ezek. 20.25 I will have mercy and not sacrifice Hos. 6.6 They have not rejected thee but me 1 Sam. 8.7 It is not you that speak but the Spirit of my Father I came not to send peace but a sword S. Mat. 10.20 34. He that believeth on me believeth not on me but on him that sent me And If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true S. John 5.31 which is expresly confronted by S. John 8.14 Though I bear record of my self yet my record is true which shews manifestly that the simple and absolute negative in the former place must in his signification be restrained So S. Paul speaks usually Henceforth I know no man according to the flesh 2 Cor. 5.16 We have no strife against flesh and blood Ephes. 6.12 And in the ancient Doctors nothing more ordinary than to express limited sences by unlimited words which is so known that I should lose my time and abuse the Readers patience if I should heap up instances So Irenaeus He that hath received the Spirit is no more flesh and blood but Spirit And Epiphanius affirms the same of the flesh of a temperate man It is not flesh but is changed into Spirit so we say of a drunken man and a furious person He is not a man but a beast And they speak thus particularly in the matter of the holy Sacrament as appears in the instances above
reckoned and in others respersed over this Treatise But to return to the present objection it is observable that S. Cyril does not say it is not bread though the sense suppose it to be so for that would have supposed the taste to have been deceived which he affirms not and if he had we could not have believed him but he says though the sense perceive it to be bread so that it is still bread else the taste would not perceive it to be so but it is more and the sense does not perceive it for it is the body of our Lord here then is his own answer plainly opposed to the objection he says it is not bread that is it is not meer bread and so say we he says that it is the body of our Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the antitype of the Lords body and so say we He says the sense perceives it to be bread but it is more than the sense perceives so he implies and so we affirm and yet we may trust our sense for all that it tells us and our understanding too for all it learns besides The like to this are the words of S. Chrysostome where he says We cannot be deceived by his words but our sense is often deceived look not at what is before us but observe Christs words Nothing sensible is given to us but things insensible by things sensible c. This and many higher things than this are in S. Chrysostome not only relating to this but to the other Sacrament also Think not thou receivest the body from a man but fire from the tongue of a Seraphim that for the Eucharist and for Baptism this The Priest baptizes thee not but God holds thy head In the same sence that these admit in the same sence we may understand his other words they are Tragical and high but may have a sober sence but literally they sound a contradiction that nothing sensible should be given us in the Sacrament and yet that nothing insensible should be given but what is conveyed by things sensible but it is not worth the while to stay here Only this the words of S. Chrysostome are good counsel and such as we follow for in this case we do not finally rely upon sense or resolve all into it but we trust it only for so much as it ought to be trusted for but we do not finally rest upon it but upon faith and look not on the things proposed but attend to the words of Christ and though we see it to be bread we also believe it to be his body in that sence which he intended SECT XI The doctrine of Transubstantiation is wholly without and against reason 1. WHEN we discourse of mysteries of Faith and Articles of Religion it is certain that the greatest reason in the world to which all other reasons must yield is this God hath said it therefore it is true Now if God had expresly said This which seems to be bread is my body in the natural sence or to that purpose there had been no more to be said in the affair all reasons against it had been but sophismes When Christ hath said This is my body no man that pretends to Christianity doubts of the truth of these words all men submitting their understanding to the obedience of Faith But since Christ did not affirm that he spake it in the natural sence but there are not only in Scripture many prejudices but in common sense much evidence against it if reason also protests against the Article it is the voice of God and to be heard in this question For Nunquam aliud natura aliud sapientia dicit And this the rather because there are so many ways to verifie the words of Christ without this strange and new doctrine of Transubstantiation that in vain will the words of Christ be pretended against reason whereas the words of Christ may be many ways verified if Transubstantiation be condemned as first if Picus Mirandula's proposition be true which in Rome he offered to dispute publickly that Paneitas possit suppositare corpus Domini which I suppose if it be expounded in sensible terms means that it may be bread and Christs body too or secondly if Luthers and the ancient Schoolmens way be true that Christs body be present together with the bread In that sence Christs words might be true though no Transubstantiation and this is the sence which is followed by the Greek Church 3. If Boquinus's way be true that between the bread and Christs body there were a communication of proprieties as there is between the Deity and humanity of our blessed Saviour then as we say God gave himself for us and the blessed Virgin is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mother of God and God suffered and rose again meaning that God did it according to his assumed humanity so we may say this is Christs body by the communication of the Idioms or proprieties to the bread with which it is united 4. If our way be admitted that Christ is there after a real spiritual manner the words of Christ are true without any need of admitting Transubstantiation 5. I could instance in the way of Johannes Longus in his Annotations upon the second Apology of Justin Martyr Hoc est corpus meum that is My body is this that is is nourishment spiritual as this is Natural 6. The way of Johannes Caâ—panus would afford me a sixth instance Hoc est corpus meum that is meum as it is mea creatura 7. Johannes à Lasco Bucer and the Socinians refer hoc to the whole ministery and mean that to be representative of Christs body 8. If Rupertus the Abbots way were admitted which was confuted by Algerus and is almost like that of Boquinus that between Christs body and the consecrate symbols there was an hypostatical union then both substances would remain and yet it were a true proposition to affirm of the whole hypostasis this is the body of Christ. Many more I could reckon all which or any of which if it were admitted the words of Christ stand true and uncontradicted and therefore it is a huge folly to quarrel at them that admit not Transubstantiation and to say they deny the words of Christ. And therefore it must not now be said Reason is not to be heard against an Article of Faith for that this is an Article of Faith cannot nakedly be inferred from the words of Christ which are capable of so many meanings Therefore reason in this case is to be heard by them that will give a reason of their faith as it is commanded in Scripture much less is that to be admitted which Fisher or Flued the Jesuit was bold to say to King James that because Transubstantiation seems so much against reason therefore it is to be admitted as if faith were more faith for being against reason Against this for the present I shall oppose the excellent words of S. Austin
that gave the power should be lessened and be inferiour to him that received it which because they infer impossibilities like those which are consequent to Transubstantiation S. Paul makes no more of it but to say The contrary is manifest against the unlimited literal sence of the words Now for the eviction of this these two mediums are to be taken The one that this doctrine affirms that of the essence or existence of a thing which is contrary to the essence or existence of it and yet that the same thing remains that is that the essence remains without the essence that is without it self The other that this doctrine makes a thing to be and not to be at the same time I shall use them both but promiscuously because they are reducible to one 11. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is against the nature and essence of a body Bellarmine seems afraid of this for immediately before he goes about to prevaricate about the being of a body in many places at once he says that if the essence of things were evidently and particularly known then we might know what does and what does not imply a contradiction but id non satis constat there is no certainty of that by that pretended uncertainty making way as he hopes to escape from all the pressure of contradictions that lye upon the prodigious philosophy of this Article But we shall make a shift so far to understand the essence of a body as to evince this doctrine to be full of contradictions 12. First For Christs body his Natural body is changed into a Spiritual body and it is not now a Natural body but a Spiritual and therefore cannot be now in the Sacrament after a natural manner because it is so no where and therefore not there It is sown a natural body it is raised a Spiritual body And therefore though this Spirituality be not a change of one substance into another yet it is so a change of the same substance that it hath lost all those accidents which were not perfective nor constitutive but imperfect and separable from the body and therefore in no sence of nature can it be manducated And here is the first contradiction The body of Christ is the Sacrament The same body is in Heaven In Heaven it cannot be broken naturally In the Sacrament they say it is broken naturally and properly therefore the same body is and is not it can and it cannot be broken To this they answer that this is broken under the Species of bread Not in it self Well! is it broken or is it not broken let it be broken under what it will if it be broken the thing is granted For if being broken under the Species it be meant that the Species be broken alone and not the body of Christ then they take away in one hand when they reach forth with the other This being a better argument The Species only are broken the Species are not Christs body therefore Christs body is not broken better I say than this The body of Christ is under the Species the Species alone are broken therefore the body of Christ is broken For how can the breaking of Species or accidents infer the breaking of Christs body unless the accidents be Christs body or inseparable from it or rather How can the breaking of the accidents infer the breaking of Christs body when it cannot be broken To this I desire a clear and intelligible answer Add to this how can Species that is accidents be broken but when a substance is broken for an accident properly such as smell colour taste hath of it self no solid and consistent nor indeed any fluid parts nothing whereby it can be broken and have a part divided from a part but as the substance in which the accident is subjected becomes divided so do the inherent accidents but no otherwise and if this cannot be admitted men cannot know what one another say or mean they can have no notices of things or regular propositions 13. Secondly But I demand When we speak of a body what we mean by it For in all discourses and entercourses of mankind by words we must agree concerning each others meaning when we speak of a body of a substance of an accident what does mankind agree to mean by these words All the Philosophers and all the wise men in the world when they divide a substance from an accident mean by a substance that which can subsist in it self without a subject of inherence But an accident is that whose very essence is to be in another When they speak of a body and separate it from a Spirit they mean that a Spirit is that which hath no material divisible parts physically that which hath nothing of that which makes a body that is extension limitation by lines and superficies and material measures The very first notion and conception of things teaches all men that what is circumscribed and measured by his proper place is there and no where else For if it could be there and be in another place it were two and not one A finite Spirit can be but in one place but it is there without circumscription that is it hath no parts measured by the parts of a place but is there after another manner than a body that is it is in every part of his definition or spiritual location So it is said a soul is in the whole body not that a part of it is in the hand and a part of it in the eye but it is whole in the whole and whole in every part and it is true that it is so if it be wholly immaterial because that which is spiritual and immaterial cannot have material parts But when we speak of a body all the world means that which hath a finite quantity and is determin'd to one place This was the philosophy of all the world taught in all the Schools of the Christians and Heathens even of all mankind till the doctrine of Transubstantiation was to be nursed and maintained and even after it was born it could not be forgotten by them who were bound to keep it And I appeal to any man of the Roman perswasion if they can shew me any ancient Philosopher Greek or Roman or Christian of any Nation who did not believe it to be essential to the being of a body to be in one place and Amphitruo in the old Comedy had reason to be angry with Sofia upon this point Tun ' id dicere audes quod nemo unquam homo antehac vidit nec potest fieri tempore uno Homo idem duobus locis ut simul sit And therefore to make the body of Christ to be in a thousand places at once and yet to be but one body To be in Heaven and to be upon so many Altars to be on the Altar in so many round Wafers is to make a body to be a spirit and to make a finite to be infinite
all that he says he saw then was that he saw a great light and heard a voice 3. That in case Christ did appear corporally to Saul on earth it follows not his body was in two places at once I have the warrant of him that is willing enough otherwise that this argument should prevail Quia non est improbabile Christum privatim ad breve tempus descendisse de coelo post ascensionem It is not unlikely that Christ might privately and for a short time descend from Heaven after his ascension For when it is said in Scripture that the Heavens must receive him till the day of restitution of all things it is to be meant ordinarily and as his place of residence but that hinders not an extraordinary commigration as a man may be said to dwell continually in London and yet sometimes to go into the country to take the air For the other instances of S. Peter and S. Anthony and the rest if I were sure they were true I would say the same answer would also serve their turn but as they are it is not material whether it does or no. 26. Another way of answering is taken from the examples of God and the reasonable soul. Concerning the soul I have these things to say 1. Whether the soul be whole in every part of the body and whole in the whole is presumed by most men but substantially proved by none but denied by a great many and those of the first rank of learned men 2. If it were it follows not that it is in two places or more because not the hand nor the foot is the adequate place of the soul but the whole body and therefore the usual expression of Philosophy saying The soul is whole in every part is not true positively but negatively that is the soul being immaterial cannot be cantoniz'd into parts by the division of the body but positively it is not true For the understanding is not in the foot nor the will in the hand and something of the soul is not organical or depending upon the body viz. The pure acts of volition some little glimpses of intuition reflexion and the like 3. If it were yet to alledge this is impertinent to their purpose unless whatsoever is true concerning a spirit can also be affirmed of a body 4. When the body is divided into parts the soul is not multiplied into fantastick or real numbers as it is pretended in Transubstantiation and therefore although the soul were whole in every part it could do no service in this question unless it were so whole in each part as to be whole when each part is divided for so it is said to be in the Eucharist which because we say is impossible we require an instance in something where it is so but because it is not so in the soul this instance is not home to any of their purposes But Bellarmine says God can make it to be so that the soul shall remain in the member that is discontinued and cut off I answer that God ever did do so nor he nor any man else can pretend unless he please to believe S. Winifreds and S. Denys's walking with their heads in their hands after their decollation but since we never knew that God did so and whether it implies a contradiction or no that it should be so God hath no where declared it is sufficient to the present purpose that it is as much a question and of it self no more evident than that a body can be conserved in many places and therefore being as uncertain as the principal question cannot give faith to it or do any service But this is to amuse unwary persons by seeming to say something which indeed is nothing to the purpose 27. But that the Omnipresence of God should be brought to prove it possible that a body may be in many places truly though I am heartily desirous to do it if I could justly yet I cannot find any colour to excuse it from great impiety But this I shall add that it is so impossible that any body should be in two places and so impossible to justifie this from the immensity of God that God himself is not in proper manner of speaking in two places he is not capable of being in any place at all as we understand being in a place he is greater than all places and fills all things and locality and place and beings and relations are all from him and therefore they cannot comprehend him But then although this immensity of God is beyond the capacity of place and he can no more be in a place than all the world can be in the bottom of a well yet if God could be limited and determined it were a contradiction to say that he could be in two places just as it is a contradiction to say there are two Gods So that this comparison of Bellarmines as it is odious up to the neighbourhood and similitude of a great impiety so it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is against that Philosophy whereby we understand any of the perfective notices of God But these men would fain prevail by all means they care not how 28. But why may we not believe as well the doctrine of Transubstantiation in defiance of all the seeming impossibilities as well as we believe the doctrine of the Trinity in defiance of greater To this I answer many things 1. Because the mystery of the Trinity is revealed plainly in Scripture but the doctrine of Transubstantiation is against it as I suppose my self to have plainly proved So that if there were a plain revelation of Transubstantiation then this argument were good and if it were possible for ten thousand times more arguments to be brought against it yet we are to believe the revelation in despite of them all but when so much of revelation is against it and nothing for it it is but vain to say we may believe this as well as the doctrine of the Trinity for so we may as well argue for the heresie of the Manichees why may we not as well believe the doctrine of the Manichees in despite of all the arguments brought against it when there are so many seeming impossibilities brought against the holy Trinity I suppose the answer that I have given would be thought reasonable to every such pretence 2. As the doctrine of the holy Trinity is set down in Scripture and in the Apostles Creed and was taught by the Fathers of the first three hundred years I know no difficulties it hath what it hath met withal since proceeds from the too curious handling of that which we cannot understand 3. The Scool-men have so pried into this secret and have so confounded themselves and the Articles that they have made it to be unintelligible inexplicable indefensible in all their minuits and particularities and it is too sadly apparent in the arguments of the Antitrinitarians whose sophisms
Indeed Mr. Brerely hath got an ignorant fancy by the end which I am now to note and wipe off He saies that the Primitive Christians were scandalized by the Heathen to be eaters of the flesh of a child which in all reason must be occasioned by their doctrine of the manducation of Christs flesh in the Sacrament and if this be true then we may suspect that they to wipe of this scandal might remove their doctrine as far from the objection as they could and therefore might use some lessening expressions To this I answer that the occasions of the report were the sects of the Gnosticks and the Peputians The Gnosticks as Epiphanius reports bruised a new born infant in a mortar and all of them did communicate by eating portions of it and the Montanists having sprinkled a little child with meal let him blood and of that made their Eucharistical bread and these stories the Jews published to disrepute if they could the whole religion but nothing of this related to the doctrine of the Christian Eucharist though the bell always must tinkle as they are pleased to think But this turned to advantage of the truth and to the clearing of this Article For when the scandal got foot and run abroad the Heathens spared not to call the Christians Cannibals and to impute to them anthropophagy or the devouring humane flesh and that they made Thyestes's Feast who by the procurement of Atreus eat his own children Against this the Christian Apologists betook themselves to a defence Justin Martyr says the false devils had set on work some vile persons to kill some one or other to give colour to the report Athenagoras in a high defiance of the infamy asks Do you think we are murtherers for there is no way to eat mans flesh unless we first kill him Octavius in Minutius Felix confutes it upon this account We do not receive the blood of beasts into our food or beverage therefore we are infinitely distant from drinking mans blood And this same Tertullian in his Apologetick presses further affirming that to discover Christians they use to offer them a black pudding or something in which blood remained and they chose rather to die than to do it and of this we may see instances in the story of Sanctus and Blandina in the ecclesiastical histories Concerning which it is remarkable what Oecumenius in his Catena upon the 2 chap. of the first Epistle of S. Peter reports out of Irenaeus The Greeks having taken some servants of Christians pressing to learn something secret of the Christians and they having nothing in their notice to please the inquisitors except that they had heard of their Masters that the divine communion is the blood and body of Christ they supposing it true according to their rude natural apprehensions tortur'd Sanctus and Blandina to confess it But Blandina answered them thus How can they suffer any such thing in the exercise of their Religion who do not nourish themselves with flesh that is permitted All this trouble came upon the act of the forementioned hereticks the report was only concerning the blood of an infant not of a man as it must have been if it had been occasioned by the Sacrament but the Sacrament was not so much as thought of in this scrutiny till the examination of the servants gave the hint in the torture of Blandina Cardinal Perron perceiving much detriment likely to come to their doctrine by these Apologies of the primitive Christians upon the 11. anathematism of S. Cyril says that they deny anthropophagy but did not deny Theanthropophagy saying that they did not eat the flesh nor drink the blood of a meer man but of Christ who was God and Man which is so strange a device as I wonder it could drop from the pen of so great a wit For this would have been a worse and more intolerable scandal to affirm that Christians eat their God and sucked his blood and were devourers not only of a man but of an immortal God But however let his fancy be confronted with the extracts of the several apologies which I have now cited and it will appear that nothing of the Cardinals fancy can come near their sence or words for all the business was upon the blood of a child which the Gnosticks had kill'd or the Montanists tormented and the matter of the Sacrament was not in the whole rumour so much as thought upon 15. Lastly Unless there be no one objection of ours that means as it says but all are shadows and nothing is awake but Bellarmine in all his dreams or Perron in all his laborious excuses if we be allowed to be in our wits and to understand Latin or Greek or common sence unless the Fathers must all be understood according to their new nonsence answers which the Primitive Doctors were so far from understanding or thinking of that besides that it is next to impudence to suppose they could mean them their own Doctors in a few ages last past did not know them but opposed and spake some things contrary and many things divers from them I say unless we have neither sense nor reason nor souls like other men it is certain that not one nor two but very many of the Fathers taught our doctrine most expresly in this article and against theirs * And after all whether the testimonies of the Doctors be ancient or modern it is advantage to us and inconvenient for them For if it be ancient it shews their doctrine not to be from the beginning if it be modern it does it more for it declares plainly the doctrine to be but of yesterday now I am very certain I can make it appear not to have been the doctrine of the Church not of any Church whose records we have for above a thousand years together 16. But now in my entry upon the testimonies of Fathers I shall make my way the more plain and credible if I premise the testimonies of some of the Roman Doctors in this business And the first I shall name is Bellarmine himself who was the most wary of giving advantage against himself but yet he says Non esse mirandum c. it is not to be wondred at if S. Austin Theodoret and others of the ancients spake some things which in shew seem to favour the hereticks when even from Jodocus some things did fall which by the adversaries were drawn to their cause Now though he lessens the matter by quaedam and videantur and in speciem seemingly and in shew and some things yet it was as much as we could expect from him with whom visibilitèr if it be on our side must mean invisibilitèr and statuimus must be abrogamus But I rest not here Alphonsus à Castro says more De transubstantiatione panis in corpus Christi rara est in antiquis Scriptoribus mentio The ancient writers seldom mention the change of the substance of bread into
expounding the Sacrament Nothing needs to be plainer By the way let me observe this that the words cited by Tertullian out of Jeremy are expounded and recited too but by allusion For there are no such words in the Hebrew Text which is thus to be rendred Corrumpanus veneno cibum ejus and so cannot be referred to the Sacrament unless you will suppose that he fore-signified the poysoning the Emperour by a consecrated wafer But as to the figure this is often said by him for in the first book against Marcion he hath these words again nec reprobavit panem quo ipsum corpus suum repraesentat etiam in Sacramentis propriis egens mendicitatibus creatoris He refused not bread by which he represents his own body wanting or using in the Sacraments the meanest things of the Creator For it is not to be imagined that Tertullian should attempt to perswade Marcion that the bread was really and properly Christs body but that he really delivered his body on the Cross that both in the old Testament and here himself gave a figure of it in bread and wine for that was it which the Marcionites denied saying on the cross no real humanity did suffer and he confutes them by saying these are figures and therefore denote a truth 8. However these men are resolved that this new answer shall please them and serve their turn yet some of their fellows great Clerks as themselves did shrink under the pressure of it as not being able to be pleased with so laboured and improbable an answer For Harding against Juel hath these words speaking of this place which interpretation is not according to the true sence of Christs words although his meaning swerve not from the truth And B. Rhenanus the author of the admonition to the Reader De quibusdam Tertulliani dogmat◠seems to confess this to be Tertullians error Error putantium corpus Christi in Eucharistiâ tantùm esse sub figurâ jam olim condemnatus The error of them that think the body of Christ is in the Eucharist only in a figure is now long since condemned But Garetius Bellarmine Justinian Coton Fevardentius Valentia and Vasquez in the recitation of this passage of Tertullian very fairly leave out the words that pinch them and which clears the article and bring the former words for themselves without the interpretation of id est figura corporis mei I may therefore without scruple reckon Tertullian on our side against whose plain words no real exception can lye himself expounding his own meaning in the pursuance of the figurative sence of this mystery 20. Concerning Origen I have already given an account in the ninth Paragraph and other places casually and made it appear that he is a direct opposite to the doctrine of Transubstantiation And the same also of Justin Martyr Paragraph the fifth number 9. Where also I have enumerated divers others who speak upon parts of this question on which the whole depends whither I refer the Reader Only concerning Justin Martyr I shall recite these words of his against Tryphon Figura fuit panis Eucharistiae quem in recordationem passionis facere praecepit The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion 21. Clemens Alexandrinus saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The blood of Christ is twofold the one is carnal by which we are redeemed from death the other spiritual viz. by which we are anointed And this is to drink the blood of Jesus to be partakers of the incorruption of our Lord. But the power of the word is the Spirit as blood is of the flesh Therefore in a moderated proposition and convenience wine is mingled with water as the Spirit with a man And he receives in the Feast viz. Eucharistical tempered wine unto faith But the Spirit leadeth to incorruption but the mixture of both viz. of drink and the word is called the Eucharist which is praised and is a good gift or grace of which they who are partakers by faith are sanctified in body and soul. Here plainly he calls that which is in the Eucharist Spiritual blood and without repeating the whole discourse is easie and clear And that you may be certain of S. Clement his meaning he disputes in the same chapter against the Encratites who thought it not lawful to drink wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For be ye sure he also did drink wine for he also was a man and he blessed wine when he said Take drink 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my blood the blood of the vine for that word that was shed for many for the remission of sins it signifies allegorically a holy stream of gladness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that the thing which had been blessed was wine he shewed again saying to his disciples I will not drink of the fruit of this vine till I drink it new with you in my fathers kingdom Now S. Clement proving by Christs sumption of the Eucharist that he did drink wine must mean the Sacramental Symbol to be truly wine and Christs blood allegorically that holy stream of gladness or else he had not concluded by that argument against the Encratites Upon which account these words are much to be valued because by our doctrine in this article he only could confute the Encratites as by the same doctrine explicated as we explicate it Tertullian confuted the Marcionites and Theodoret and Gelasius confuted the Nestorians and Eutychians if the doctrine of Transubstantiation had been true these four heresies had by them as to their particular arguments relating to this matter been unconfuted 22. S. Cyprian in his Tractate de unctione which Canisius Harding Bellarmine and Lindan cite hath these words Dedit itaque Dominus noster c. Therefore our Lord in his table in which he did partake his last banquet with his disciples with his own hands gave bread and wine but on the cross he gave to the souldiers his body to be wounded that in the Apostles the sincere truth and the true sincerity being more secretly imprinted he might expound to the Gentiles how wine and bread should be his flesh and blood and by what reasons causes might agree with effects and diverse names and kinds viz. bread and wine might be reduced to one essence and the signifying and the signified might be reckoned by the same words and in his third Epistle he hath these words Vinum quo Christi sanguis ostenditur wine by which Christs blood is showen or declared Here I might cry out as Bellarmine upon a much slighter ground Quid clariùs dici potuit But I forbear being content to enjoy the real benefits of these words without a triumph But I will use it thus far that it shall outweigh the words cited out of the tract de coenâ Domini by Bellarmine by the Rhemists by the Roman Catechism by Perron
but that they contain in them the mystery of his body and blood Isidore Bishop of Sevil says Panis quem frangimus c. The bread which we break is the body of Christ who saith I am the living bread But the wine is his blood and that is it which is written I am the true vine But bread because it strengthens our body therefore it is called the body of Christ but wine because it makes blood in our flesh therefore it is reduced or referred to the blood of Christ. But these visible things sanctified by the holy Ghost pass into the Sacrament of the Divine body Suidas in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ calls the Church his body and by her as a man he ministers but as he is God he receives what is offered But the Church offers the symbols of his body and blood sanctifying the whole mass by the first fruits Symbola i. e. Signa says the Latin version The bread and wine are the signs of his body and his bloud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Suidas Hesychius speaking of this mystery affirms Quòd simul panis caro est It is both bread and flesh too Fulgentius saith Hic calix est novum Testamentum i. e. Hic calix quem vobis trado novum Testamentum significat This cup is the new Testament that is it signifies it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Procopius of Gaza He gave to his disciples the image of his own body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the scholiast upon Dionysius the Areopagite These things are symbols and not the truth or verity and he said it upon occasion of the same doctrine which his Author whom he explicates taught in that Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Divine symbols being placed upon the Altar by which Christ is signified and participated But this only I shall remark that Transubstantiation is so far from having been the Primitive doctrine that it was among Catholicks fiercely disputed in the time of Charles the Bald about the year 880. Paschasius wrote for the Substantial conversion Rabanus maintain'd the contrary in his answer to Heribaldus and in his writing to Abbot Egilo There lived in the same time in the Court of Charles the Emperor a country-man of ours Jo. Scot called by some Jo. Erigena who wrote a book against the substantial change in the Sacrament He lived also sometimes in England with King Alfred and was surnamed the wise and was a Martyr saith Possevinus and was in the Roman Calender his day was the fourth of the Ides of November as is to be seen in the Martyrologie published at Antwerp 1586. But when the controversie grew publick and noted Charles the Bald commanded Bertram or Ratran to write upon the question being of the Monastery of Corbey he did so and defended our doctrine against Paschasius the book is extant and may be read by him that desires it but it is so intire and dogmatical against the substantial change which was the new doctrine of Paschasius that Turrian gives this account of it to cite Bertram what is it else but to say that Calvins heresie is not new and the Belgick expurgatory Index professeth to use it with the same equity which it useth to other Catholick writers in whom they tolerate many errors and extenuate or excuse them and sometimes by inventing some device they do deny it and put some fit sence to them when they are opposed in disputation and this they do lest the Hereticks should talk that they forbid and burn books that make against them You see the honesty of the men and the justness of their proceedings but the Spanish expurgatory Index forbids the book wholly with a penitus auferatur I shall only add this that in the Church of England Bertrams doctrine prevailed longer and till Lanfrancks time it was permitted to follow Bertram or Paschasius And when Osbern wrote the lives of Odo Arch-bishop of Canterbury Dunstan and Elphege by the command of Lanfranck he says that in Odo's time some Clergy-men affirmed in the Sacrament bread and wine to remain in substance and to be Christs body only in figure and tells how the Arch-bishop prayed and blood dropped out of the Host over the Chalice and so his Clerks which then assisted at Mass and were of another opinion were convinced This though he writes to please Lanfranck who first gave authority to this opinion in England and according to the opinion which then prevailed yet it is an irrefragable testimony that it was but a disputed Article in Odo's time no Catholick doctrine no Article of Faith nor of a good while after for however these Clerks were fabulously reported to be changed at Odo's miracle who could not convince them by the Law and the Prophets by the Gospels and Epistles yet his successor he that was the fourth after him I mean Aelfrick Abbot of S. Albans and afterwards Arch-bishop of Canterbury in his Saxon Homily written above 600 years since disputes the question and determines in the words of Bertram only for a Spiritual presence not natural or substantial The book was printed at London by John Day and with it a letter of Aelfrick to Wulfin Bishop of Schirburn to the same purpose His words are these That housel that is the blessed Sacrament is Christs body not bodily but spiritually not the body which he suffered in but the body of which he spake when he blessed bread and wine to Housel the night before his suffering and said by the blessed bread This is my body And in a writing to the Arch-bishop of York he said The Lord halloweth daily by the hand of the Priest bread to his body and wine to his blood in spiritual mystery as we read in books And yet notwithstanding that lively bread is not bodily so nor the self same body that Christ suffered in I end this with the words of the Gloss upon the Canon Law Coeleste Sacramentum quod verè repraesentat Christi carnem dicitur corpus Christi sed impropriè unde dicitur suo modo scil non rei veritate sed significati mysterio ut sit sensus vocatur Christi corpus i. e. significatur The heavenly Sacrament which truly represents the flesh of Christ is called the body of Christ but improperly therefore it is said meaning in the Canon taken out of S. Austin after the manner to wit not in the truth of the thing but in the mystery of that which is signified so that the meaning is it is called Christ body that is Christs body is signified which the Church of Rome well expresses in an ancient Hymn Sub duabus speciebus Signis tantùm non rebus Latent res eximiae Excellent things lie under the two species of bread and wine which are only signs not the things whereof they are signs But the Lateran Council struck all dead before which Transubstantiatio non
matter of Faith or a Doctrine of the Church for if it had these had been Hereticks accounted and not have remain'd in the Communion of the Church But although for the reasonableness of the thing we have thought fit to take notice of it yet we shall have no need to make use of it since not only in the prime and purest Antiquity we are indubitably more than Conquerours but even in the succeeding Ages we have the advantage both numero pondere mensurâ in number weight and measure We do easily acknowledge that to dispute these Questions from the sayings of the Fathers is not the readiest way to make an end of them but therefore we do wholly rely upon Scriptures as the foundation and final resort of all our perswasions and from thence can never be confuted but we also admit the Fathers as admirable helps for the understanding of the Scriptures and as good testimony of the Doctrine deliver'd from their fore-fathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation and therefore if we find any Doctrine now taught which was not plac'd in their way of Salvation we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith and which ought not to be impos'd upon Consciences They were wise unto salvation and fully instructed to every good work and therefore the Faith which they profess'd and deriv'd from Scripture we profess also and in the same Faith we hope to be sav'd even as they But for the new Doctors we understand them not we know them not Our Faith is the same from the beginning and cannot become new But because we shall make it to appear that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversie with us and shew nothing but shadows instead of substances and little images of things instead of solid arguments we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted and chuse this sword of Goliah to combat their errors for non est alter talis It is not easie to find a better than the Word of God expounded by the prime and best Antiquity The first thing therefore we are to advertise is that the Emissaries of the Roman Church endeavour to perswade the good People of our Dioceses from a Religion that is truly Primitive and Apostolick and divert them to Propositions of their own new and unheard-of in the first Ages of the Christian Church For the Religion of our Church is therefore certainly Primitive and Apostolick because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and nothing else as matter of Faith and therefore unless there can be new Scriptures we can have no new matters of belief no new Articles of faith Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence we disclaim it as not deriving from the Fountains of our Saviour We also do believe the Apostles Creed the Nicene with the additions of Constantinople and that which is commonly called the Symbol of Saint Athanasius and the four first General Councils are so intirely admitted by us that they together with the plain words of Scripture are made the rule and measure of judging Heresies amongst us and in pursuance of these it is commanded by our Church that the Clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of Faith religiously to be observed but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament and collected out of the same Doctrine by the Ancient Fathers and Catholick Bishops of the Church This was undoubtedly the Faith of the Primitive Church they admitted all into their Communion that were of this Faith they condemned no Man that did not condemn these they gave Letters communicatory by no other cognisance and all were Brethren who spake this voice Hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti reliquos verò dementes vesanosque judicantes haeretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere said the Emperours Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius in their Proclamation to the People of C. P. All that believ'd this Doctrine were Christians and Catholicks viz. all they who believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost one Divinity of equal Majesty in the Holy Trinity which indeed was the sum of what was decreed in explication of the Apostles Creed in the four first General Councils And what Faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace the surer ligaments of Catholick Communion or the firmer basis of a holy life and of the hopes of Heaven hereafter than the measures which the Holy Primitive Church did hold and we after them That which we rely upon is the same that the Primitive Church did acknowledge to be the adequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief The way which they thought sufficient to go to Heaven in is the way which we walk what they did not teach we do not publish and impose into this Faith intirely and into no other as they did theirs so we baptize our Catechumens The Discriminations of Heresie from Catholick Doctrine which they us'd we use also and we use no other and in short we believe all that Doctrine which the Church of Rome believes except those things which they have superinduc'd upon the Old Religion and in which we shall prove that they have innovated So that by their confession all the Doctrine which we teach the people as matter of Faith must be confessed to be Ancient Primitive and Apostolick or else theirs is not so for ours is the same and we both have received this Faith from the Fountains of Scripture and Universal Tradition not they from us or we from them but both of us from Christ and his Apostles And therefore there can be no question whether the Faith of the Church of England be Apostolick or Primitive it is so confessedly But the Question is concerning many other particulars which were unknown to the Holy Doctors of the first Ages which were no part of their faith which were never put into their Creeds which were not determin'd in any of the four first General Councils rever'd in all Christendom and entertain'd every where with great Religion and Veneration even next to the four Gospels and the Apostolical Writings Of this sort because the Church of Rome hath introduc'd many and hath adopted them into their late Creed and imposes them upon the People not only without but against the Scriptures and the Catholick Doctrine of the Church of God laying heavy burdens on mens Consciences and making the narrow way to Heaven yet narrower by their own inventions arrogating to themselves a dominion over our faith and prescribing a method of Salvation which Christ and his Apostles never taught corrupting the Faith of the Church of God and teaching for Doctrines the Commandements of Men and lastly having derogated from the Prerogative of Christ who alone is the Author and finisher of our Faith and hath perfected it in the revelations consign'd in the Holy Scriptures therefore it is that we
esteem our selves oblig'd to warn the People of their danger and to depart from it and call upon them to stand upon the wayes and ask after the old paths and walk in them lest they partake of that curse which is threatned by God to them who remove the ancient Land-marks which our Fathers in Christ have set for us Now that the Church of Rome cannot pretend that all which she imposes is Primitive and Apostolick appears in this That in the Church of Rome there is pretence made to a power not only of declaring new Articles of faith but of making new Symbols or Creeds and imposing them as of necessity to Salvation Which thing is evident in the Bull of Pope Leo the tenth against Martyn Luther in which amongst other things he is condemn'd for saying It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or Pope to constitute Articles of Faith We need not add that this power is attributed to the Bishops of Rome by Turrecremata Augustinus Triumphus de Ancona Petrus de Ancorano and the Famous Abbot of Panormo that the Pope cannot only make new Creeds but new Articles of Faith that he can make that of necessity to be believ'd which before never was necessary that he is the measure and rule and the very notice of all credibilities That the Canon Law is the Divine Law and whatever Law the Pope promulges God whose Vicar he is is understood to be the Promulger That the souls of Men are in the hands of the Pope and that in his arbitration Religion doth consist which are the very words of Hostiensis and Ferdinandus ab Inciso who were Casuists and Doctors of Law of great authority amongst them and renown The thing it self is not of dubioâ—â— disputation amongst them but actually practis'd in the greatest Instances as is to be seen in the Bull of Pius the fourth at the end of the Council of Trent by which all Ecclesiasticks are not only bound to swear to all the Articles of the Council of Trent for the present and for the future but they are put into a new Symbol or Creed and they are corroborated by the same decretory clauses that are us'd in the Creed of Athanasius That this is the true Catholick Faith and that without this no Man can be saved Now since it cannot be imagined that this power to which they pretend should never have been reduc'd to act and that it is not credible they should publish so invidious and ill-sounding Doctrine to no purpose and to serve no end it may without further evidence be believed by all discerning persons that they have need of this Doctrine or it would not have been taught and that consequently without more ado it may be concluded that some of their Articles are parts of this new faith and that they can therefore in no sence be Apostolical unless their being Roman makes them so To this may be added another consideration not much less material that besides what Eckius told the Elector of Bavaria that the Doctrines of Luther might be overthrown by the Fathers though not by Scripture they have also many gripes of Conscience concerning the Fathers themselves that they are not right on their side and of this they have given but too much demonstration by their Expurgatory indices The Serpent by being so curious a defender of his head shews where his danger is and by what he can most readily be destroyed But besides their innumerable corruptings of the Fathers Writings their thrusting in that which was spurious and like Pharaoh killing the legitimate Sons of Israel though in this they have done very much of their work and made the Testimonies of the Fathers to be a record infinitely worse than of themselves uncorrupted they would have been of which divers Learned Persons have made publick complaint and demonstration they have at last fallen to a new trade which hath caus'd more disreputation to them than they have gain'd advantage and they have virtually confess'd that in many things the Fathers are against them For first the King of Spain gave a Commission to the Inquisitors to purge all Catholick Authors but with this clause Iique ipsi privatim nullisque consciis apud se indicem expurgatorium habebunt quem eundum neque aliis communicabunt neque ejus exemplum ulli dabunt that they should keep the expurgatory Index privately neither imparting that Index nor giving a copy of it to any But it happened by the Divine Providence so ordering it that about thirteen years after a copy of it was gotten and published by Johannes Pappus and Franciscus Junius and since it came abroad against their wills they find it necessary now to own it and they have printed it themselves Now by these expurgatory Tables what they have done is known to all Learned Men. In Saint Chrysostom's Works printed at Basil these words The Church is not built upon the Man but upon the Faith are commanded to be blotted out and these There is no merit but what is given us by Christ and yet these words are in his Sermon upon Pentecost and the former words are in his first Homily upon that of Saint John Ye are my friends c. The like they have done to him in many other places and to Saint Ambrose and to Saint Austin and to them all insomuch that Ludovicus Saurius the Corrector of the Press at Lyons shewed and complain'd of it to Junius that he was forc'd to cancellate or blot out many sayings of Saint Ambrose in that Edition of his Works which was printed at Lyons 1559. So that what they say on occasion of Bertram's Book In the old Catholick Writers we suffer very many errors and extenuate and excuse them and finding out some Commentary we feign some convenient sence when they are oppos'd in disputations they do indeed practise but esteem it not sufficient for the words which make against them they wholly leave out of their Editions Nay they correct the very Tables or Indices made by the Printers or Correctors insomuch that out of one of Froben's Indices they have commanded these words to be blotted The use of Images forbidden The Eucharist no Sacrifice but the memory of a Sacrifice Works although they do not justifie yet are necessary to Salvation Marriage is granted to all that will nor contain Venial sins damn The dead Saints after this life cannot help us nay out of the Index of Saint Austin's Works by Claudius Chevallonius at Paris 1531. there is a very strange deleatur Dele Solus Deus adorandus that God alone is to be worshipped is commanded to be blotted out as being a dangerous Doctrine These Instances may serve instead of multitudes which might be brought of their corrupting the Witnesses and razing the Records of Antiquity that the errors and Novelties of the Church of Rome might not be so easily reprov'd Now if
were press'd in the Council of Florence by Pope Eugenius and by their necessity how unwillingly they consented how ambiguously they answered how they protested against having that half-consent put into the Instrument of Union how they were yet constrain'd to it by their Chiefs being obnoxious to the Pope how a while after they dissolv'd that Union and to this day refuse to own this Doctrine are things so notoriously known that they need no further declaration We add this only to make the conviction more manifest We have thought fit to annex some few but very clear testimonies of Antiquity expresly destroying the new Doctrine of Purgatory Saint Cyprian saith Quando istinc excessum fuerit nullus jam locus poenitentiae est nullus satisfactionis effectus When we are gone from hence there is no place left for repentance and no effect of satisfaction Saint Dionysius call the extremity of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The end of all our Agonies and affirms That the Holy men of God rest in joy and in never-failing hopes and are come to the end of their holy combates Saint Justin Martyr affirms That when the soul is departed from the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 presently there is a separation made of the just and unjust The unjust are by Angels born into places which they have deserv'd but the souls of the just into Paradise where they have the conversation of Angels and Archangels Saint Ambrose saith That Death is a Haven of rest and makes not our condition worse but according as it finds every man so it reserves him to the judgment that is to come The same is affirmed by Saint Hilary c Saint Macarius and divers others they speak but of two states after death of the just and the unjust These are plac'd in horrible Regions reserv'd to the judgment of the great day the other have their souls carried by Quires of Angels into places of Rest. Saint Gregory Nazianzen expresly affirms That after this life there is no purgation For after Christ's ascension into Heaven the souls of all Saints are with Christ saith Gennadius and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss and this he delivers as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church In what place soever a man is taken at his death of light or darkness of wickedness or vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same order and in the same degree either in light with the just and with Christ the great King or in darkness with the unjust and with the Prince of Darkness said Olympiodorus And lastly we recite the words of Saint Leo one of the Popes of Rome speaking of the Penitents who had not perform'd all their penances But if any one of them for whom we pray unto the Lord being interrupted by any obstacles falls from the gift of the present Indulgence viz. of Ecclesiastical Absolution and before he arrive at the appointed remedies that is before he hath perform'd his penances or satisfactions ends his temporal life that which remaining in the body he hath not receiv'd when he is devested of his body he cannot obtain He knew not of the new devices of paying in Purgatory what they paid not here and of being cleansed there who were not clean here And how these words or any of the precedent are reconcileable with the Doctrines of Purgatory hath not yet entred into our imagination To conclude this particular We complain greatly that this Doctrine which in all the parts of it is uncertain and in the late additions to it in Rome is certainly false is yet with all the faults of it passed into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent But besides what hath been said it will be more than sufficient to oppose against it these clearest words of Scripture Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth even so saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours If all the dead that die in Christ be at rest and are in no more affliction or labours then the Doctrine of the horrible pains of Purgatory is as false as it is uncomfortable To these words we add the saying of Christ and we rely upon it He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment but passeth from death unto life If so then not into the judgment of Purgatory If the servant of Christ passeth from death to life then not from death to the terminable pains of a part of Hell They that have eternal life suffer no intermedial punishment judgment or condemnation after death for death and life are the whole progression according to the Doctrine of Christ and Him we chuse to follow SECT V. THE Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so far from being Primitive and Apostolick that we know the very time it began to be own'd publickly for an Opinion and the very Council in which it was said to be passed into a publick Doctrine and by what arts it was promoted and by what persons it was introduc'd For all the world knows that by their own parties by Scotus Ocham Biel Fisher Bishop of Rochester and divers others whom Bellarmine calls most learned and most acute men it was declared that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible that in the Scriptures there is no place so express as without the Churches Declaration to compel us to admit of Transubstantiation and therefore at least it is to be suspected of novelty But further we know it was but a disputable Question in the ninth and tenth Ages after Christ that it was not pretended to be an Article of Faith till the Lateran Council in the time of Pope Innocent the Third one thousand two hundred years and more after Christ that since that pretended determination divers of the chiefest Teachers of their own side have been no more satisfied of the ground of it than they were before but still have publickly affirm'd that the Article is not express'd in Scripture particularly Johannes de Bassolis Cardinal Cajetan and Melchior Canus besides those above reckon'd And therefore if it was not express'd in Scripture it will be too clear that they made their Articles of their own heads for they could not declare it to be there if it was not and if it was there but obscurely then it ought to be taught accordingly and at most it could be but a probable Doctrine and not certain as an Article of Faith But that we may put it past argument and probability it is certain that as the Doctrine was not taught in Scripture expresly so it was not at all taught as a Catholick Doctrine or an Article of the Faith by the Primitive Ages of the Church Now for this we need no proof
but the confession and acknowledgment of the greatest Doctors of the Church of Rome Scotus sayes that before the Lateran Council Transubstantiation was not an Article of Faith as Bellarmine confesses and and Henriquez affirms that Scotus sayes it was not ancient insomuch that Bellarmine accuses him of ignorance saying he talk'd at that rate because he had not read the Roman Council under Pope Gregory the Seventh nor that consent of Fathers which to so little purpose he had heap'd together Rem transubstantiationis Patres ne attigisse quidem said some of the English Jesuits in Prison The Fathers have not so much as touch'd or medled with the matter of Transubstantiation and in Peter Lombard's time it was so far from being an Article of Faith or a Catholick Doctrine that they did not know whether it were true or no And after he had collected the Sentences of the Fathers in that Article he confess'd He could not tell whether there was any substantial change or no. His words are these If it be inquir'd what kind of conversion it is whether it be formal or substantial or of another kind I am not able to define it Only I know that it is not formal because the same accidents remain the same colour and taste To some it seems to be substantial saying that so the substance is chang'd into the substance that it is done essentially To which the former Authorities seem to consent But to this sentence others oppose these things If the substance of Bread and Wine be substantially converted into the Body and Blood of Christ then every day some substance is made the Body or Blood of Christ which before was not the body and to day something is Christ's Body which yesterday was not and every day Christ's Body is increased and is made of such matter of which it was not made in the Conception These are his words which we have remark'd not only for the Arguments sake though it be unanswerable but to give a plain demonstration that in his time this Doctrine was new not the Doctrine of the Church And this was written but about fifty years before it was said to be decreed in the Lateran Council and therefore it made haste in so short time to pass from a disputable Opinion to an Article of Faith But even after the Council Durandus as good a Catholick and as famous a Doctor as any was in the Church of Rome publickly maintain'd that even after consecration the very matter of bread remain'd And although he sayes that by reason of the Authority of the Church it is not to be held yet it is not only possible it should be so but it implies no contradiction that it should be Christ's Body and yet the matter of bread remain and if this might be admitted it would salve many difficulties which arise from saying that the substance of bread does not remain But here his reason was overcome by authority and he durst not affirm that of which alone he was able to give as he thought a reasonable account But by this it appears that the Opinion was but then in the forge and by all their understanding they could never accord it but still the Questions were uncertain according to that old Distich Corpore de Christi lis est de sanguine lis est Déque modo lis est non habitura modum And the Opinion was not determin'd in the Lateran as it is now held at Rome but it is also plain that it is a stranger to Antiquity De Transubstantiatione panis in corpus Christi rara est in Antiquis scriptoribus mentio said Alphonsus à Castro There is seldom mention made in the ancient Writers of transubstantiating the bread into Christ's Body We know the modesty and interest of the man he would not have said it had been seldom if he could have found it in any reasonable degree warranted he might have said and justified it There was no mention at all of this Article in the Primitive Church And that it was a meer stranger to Antiquity will not be deny'd by any sober person who considers That it was with so much uneasiness entertained even in the corruptest and most degenerous times and argued and unsetled almost 1300. years after Christ. And that it was so will but too evidently appear by that stating and resolution of this Question which we find in the Canon Law For Berengarius was by Pope Nicolaus commanded to recant his error in these words and to affirm Verum corpus sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi sensualiter non solùm in sacramento sed in veritate manibus sacerdotum tractari frangi fidelium dentibus atteri That the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ sensually not only in Sacrament but in truth is handled by the Priests hands and broken and grinded by the teeth of the faithful Now although this was publickly read at Rome before an hundred and fourteen Bishops and by the Pope sent up and down the Churches of Italy France and Germany yet at this day it is renounc'd by the Church of Rome and unless it be well expounded sayes the Gloss will lead into a heresie greater than what Berengarius was commanded to renounce and no interpretation can make it tolerable but such an one as is in another place of the Canon Law Statuimus i. e. abrogamus nothing but a plain denying it in the sence of Pope Nicolas But however this may be it is plain they understood it not as it is now decreed But as it happened to the Pelagians in the beginning of their Heresie they spake rudely ignorantly and easily to be reprov'd but being asham'd and disputed into a more sober understanding of their hypothesis spake more warily but yet differently from what they said at first so it was and is in this Question at first they understood it not it was too unreasonable in any tolerable sence to make any thing of it but experience and necessity hath brought it to what it is But that this Doctrine was not the Doctrine of the first and best Ages of the Church these following testimonies do make evident The words of Tertullian are these The bread being taken and distributed to his Disciples Christ made it his Body saying This is my Body that is the figure of my Body SECT II. Of PVRGATORY THAT the doctrine of Purgatory as it is taught in the Roman Church is a Novelty and a part of their New Religion is sufficiently attested by the words of the Cardinal of Rochester and Alphonsus à Castro whose words I now add that he who pleases may see how these new men would fain impose their new fancies upon the Church under pretence and title of Ancient and Catholick verities The words of Roffensis in his eighteenth article against Luther are these Legat qui velit Graecorum veterum commentarios nullum quantum
Innocentius Nec invenitur ubi Ecclesia istam veritatem determinet solenniter Neither is it found where the Church hath solemnly determin'd it And for his own particular though he was carried into captivity by the symbol of Pope Innocent 3. for which by that time was pretended the Lateran Council yet he himself said that before that Council it was no article of faith and for this thing Bellarmine reproves him and imputes ignorance to him saying that it was because he had not read the Roman Council under Greg. 7. nor the consent of the Fathers And to this purpose I quoted Henriquez saying that Scotus saith the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not ancient the Author of the Letter denies that he saith any such thing of Scotus But I desire him to look once more and my Margent will better direct him What the opinion of Durandus was in this Question if these Gentlemen will not believe me let them believe their own friends But first let it be consider'd what I said viz. that he maintain'd viz. in disputation that even after consecration the very matter of bread remain'd 2. That by reason of the Authority of the Church it is not to be held 3. That nevertheless it is possible it should be so 4. That it is no contradiction that the matter of bread should remain and yet it be Christs body too 5. That this were the easier way of solving the difficulties That all this is true I have no better argument than his own words which are in his first question of the eleventh distinction in quartum num 11. n. 15. For indeed the case was very hard with these learned men who being pressed by authority did bite the file and submitted their doctrine but kept their reason to themselves and what some in the Council of Trent observed of Scotus was true also of Durandus and divers other Schoolmen with whom it was usual to deny things with a kind of courtesie And therefore Durandus in the places cited though he disputes well for his opinion yet he says the contrary is modus tenendus de facto But besides that his words are as I understand them plain and clear to manifest his own hearty perswasion yet I shall not desire to be believed upon my own account for fear I be mistaken but that I had reason to say it Henriquez shall be my warrant Durandus dist qu. 3. ait esse probabile sed absque assertione c. He saith it is probable but without assertion that in the Eucharist the same matter of bread remains without quantity And a little after he adds out of Cajetan Paludanus and Soto that this opinion of Durandus is erroneous but after the Council of Trent it seems to be heretical And yet he says it was held by Aegidius and Euthymius who had the good luck it seems to live and die before the Council of Trent otherwise they had been in danger of the inquisition for heretical pravity But I shall not trouble my self further in this particular I am fully vindicated by Bellarmine himself who spends a whole Chapter in the confutation of this error of Durandus viz. that the matter of bread remains he endeavours to answer his arguments and gives this censure of him Itaque sententia Durandi hâ—retica est Therefore the sentence of Durandus is heretical although he be not to be called a heretick because he was ready to acquiesce in the judgment of the Church So Bellarmine who if he say true that Durandus was ready to submit to the judgment of the Church then he does not say true when he says the Church before his time had determined against him but however that I said true of him when I imputed this opinion to him Bellarmine is my witness Thus you see I had reason for what I said and by these instances it appears how hardly and how long the doctrine of Transubstantiation was before it could be swallowed But I remember that Salmeron tells of divers who distrusting of Scripture and reason had rather in this point rely upon the tradition of the Fathers and therefore I descended to take from them this armour in which they trusted And first to ease a more curious inquiry which in a short dissuasive was not convenient I us'd the abbreviature of an adversaries confession For Alphonsus à Castro confess'd that in Ancient writers there is seldome any mention made of Transubstantiation one of my adversaries says this is not spoken of the thing but of the name of Transubstantiation but if à Castro meant this only of the word he spake weakly when he said that the name or word was seldom mention'd by the Ancients 1. Because it is false that it was seldom mention'd by the Ancients for the word was by the Ancient Fathers never mention'd 2. Because there was not any question of the word where the thing was agreed and therefore as this saying so understood had been false so also if it had been true it would have been impertinent 3. It is but a trifling artifice to confess the name to be unknown and by that means to insinuate that the thing was then under other names It is a secret cosenage of an unwary Reader to bribe him into peace and contentedness for the main part of the Question by pleasing him in that part which it may be makes the biggest noise though it be less material 4. If the thing had been mentioned by the Ancients they need not would not ought not to have troubled themselves and others by a new word to have still retained the old proposition under the old words would have been less suspicious more prudent and ingenious but to bring in a new name is but the cover for a new doctrine and therefore S. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to avoid prophanas vocum novitates the prophane newness of words that is it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and taught in the words of the Scripture and with that simplicity openness easiness and candor and not with new and unhallowed words such as is that of Transubstantiation 5. A Castro did not speak of the name alone but of the thing also de transubstantiatione panis in Corpus Christi of the Transubstantiation of bread into Christs body of this manner of conversion that is of this doctrine now doctrines consist not in words but things however his last words are faint and weak and guilty for being convinc'd of the weakness of his defence of the thing he left to himself a subterfuge of words But let it be how it will with à Castro whom I can very well spare if he will not be allowed to speak sober sence and as a wise man should we have better and fuller testimonies in this affair That the Fathers did not so much as touch the matter or thing of Transubstantiation said the Jesuits in prison as is
peculiar grace and vertue was signified by the symbol of wine and it was evident that the chalice was an excellent representment and memorial of the effusion of Christs blood for us and the joyning both the symbols signifies the intire refection and nourishment of our souls bread and drink being the natural provisions and they design and signifie our redemption more perfectly the body being given for our bodies and the blood for the cleansing our souls the life of every animal being in the blood and finally this in the integrity signifies and represents Christ to have taken body and soul for our redemption For these reasons the Church of God always in all her publick communions gave the chalice to the people for above a thousand years This was all I would have remarked in this so evident a matter but that I observed in a short spiteful passage of E. W. Pag. 44. a notorious untruth spoken with ill intent concerning the Holy Communion as understood by Protestants The words are these seeing the fruit of Protestant Communion is only to stir up faith in the receiver I can find no reason why their bit of bread only may not as well work that effect as to taste of their wine with it To these words 1. I say that although stirring up faith is one of the Divine benefits and blessings of the Holy Communion yet it is falsely said that the fruit of the Protestant Communion is only to stir up faith For in the Catechism of the Church of England it is affirmed that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lords Supper and that our souls are strengthened and refreshed by the body and blood of Christ as our bodies are by the bread and wine and that of stirring up our faith is not at all mention'd So ignorant so deceitful or deceiv'd is E. W in the doctrine of the Church of England But then as for his foolish sarcasm calling the hallowed Element a bit of bread which he does in scorn he might have considered that if we had a mind to find fault whenever his Church gives us cause that the Papists wafer is scarce so much as a bit of bread it is more like Marchpane than common bread and besides that as Salmeron acknowledges anciently Olim ex pane uno sua cuique particula frangi consueverat that which we in our Church do was the custom of the Church out of a great loaf to give particles to every communicant by which the Communication of Christs body to all the members is better represented and that Durandus affirming the same thing says that the Grecians continue it to this day besides this I say the Author of the Roman order says Cassander took it very ill that the loaves of bread offered in certain Churches for the use of the sacrifice should be brought from the form of true bread to so slight and slender a form which he calls Minutias nummulariarum oblatarum scraps of little penies or pieces of money and not worthy to be called bread being such which no Nation ever used at their meals for bread But this is one of the innovations which they have introduc'd into the religious Rites of Christianity and it is little noted they having so many greater changes to answer for But it seems this Section was too hot for them they loved not much to meddle with it and therefore I shall add no more fuel to their displeasure but desire the Reader who would fully understand what is fit to be said in this Question to read it in a book of mine which I called Ductor dubitantium or the Cases of Conscience only I must needs observe that it is an unspeakable comfort to all Protestants when so manifestly they have Christ on their side in this Question against the Church of Rome To which I only add that for above 700. years after Christ it was esteemed sacriledge in the Church of Rome to abstain from the Cup and that in the ordo Romanus the Communion is always describ'd with the Cup how it is since and how it comes to be so is too plain But it seems the Church hath power to dispence in this affair because S. Paul said that the Ministers of Christ are dispensers of the mysteries of God as was learnedly urg'd in the Council of Trent in the doctrine about this question SECT V. Of the Scriptures and Service in an unknown Tongue THE Question being still upon the novelty of the Roman doctrines and Practices I am to make it good that the present article and practice of Rome is contrary to the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church To this purpose I alledged S. Basil in his Sermon or book de variis scripturae locis But say my adversaries there is no such book Well! was there such a man as S. Basil If so we are well enough and let these Gentlemen be pleas'd to look into his works printed at Paris 1547. by Carola Guillard and in the 130. page he shall see this Book Sermon or Homily in aliquot scripturae locis at the beginning of which he hath an exhortation in the words placed in the Margent there we shall find the lost Sheep The beginning of it is an exhortation to the people congregated to get profit and edification by the Scriptures read at morning prayer the Monitions in the Psalms the precepts of the Proverbs Search ye the beauty of the history and the examples and add to these the precepts of the Apostles But in all things joyn the words of the Gospel as the Crown and perfection that receiving profit from them all ye may at length turn to that to which every one is sweetly affected and for the doing of which he hath received the grace of the Holy Spirit Now this difficulty being over all that remains for my own justification is that I make it appear that S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose S. Austin Aquinas and Lyra do respectively exhort to the study of the Scriptures exhorting even the Laity to do so and testifie the custom of the Ancient Church in praying in a known tongue and commending this as most useful and condemning the contrary as being useless and without edification I shall in order set down the doctrine they deliver in their own words and then the impertinent cavils of the adversaries will of themselves come to nothing S. Chrysostom commenting upon S. Pauls words concerning preaching and praying for edification and so as to be understood coming to those words of S. Paul If I pray with my tongue my spirit prayeth but my mind is without fruit you see saith he how a little extolling prayer he shews that he who is such a one viz. as the Apostle there describes is not only unprofitable to others but also to himself since his mind is without fruit Now if a man praying what he understands not does
not So that it may be only a private opinion of some Doctors and then I am to blame to charge Popery with it To this I answer that Bellarmine indeed says Non esse tam certum in Ecclesia an sint faciendae imagines Dei sive Trinitatis quam Christi Sanctorum It is not so certain viz. as to be an article of faith But yet besides that Bellarmine allows it and cites Cajetan Catharinus Payva Sanders and Thomas Waldensis for it this is a practice and doctrine brought in by an unproved custom of the Church Constat quod haec consuetudo depingendi Angelos Deum modo sub specie Columbae modo sub Figura Trinitatis sit ubique inter Catholicos recepta The picturing Angels and God sometimes under the shape of a Dove and sometimes under the figure of the Trinity is every where received among the Catholicks said a great Man amongst them And to what purpose they do this we are told by Cajetan speaking of Images of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost saying Haec non solum pinguntur ut ostendantur sicut Cherubim olim in Templo sed ut adorentur They are painted that they may be worshipped ut frequens usus Ecclesiae testatur This is witnessed by the frequent use of the Church So that this is received every where among the Catholicks and these Images are worshipped and of this there is an Ecclesiastical custom and I add In their Mass-book lately printed these pictures are not infrequently seen So that now it is necessary to shew that this besides the impiety of it is against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church and is an innovation in religion a propriety of the Roman doctrine and of infinite danger and unsufferable impiety To some of these purposes the Disswasive alledged Tertullian Eusebius and S. Hierom but A. L. says these Fathers have nothing to this purpose This is now to be tried These men were only nam'd in the Disswasive Their words are these which follow 1. For Tertullian A man would think it could not be necessary to prove that Tertullian thought it unlawful to picture God the Father when he thought the whole art of painting and making Images to be unlawful as I have already proved But however let us see He is very curious that nothing should be us'd by Christians or in the service of God which is us'd on or by or towards Idols and because they did paint and picture their Idols cast or carve them therefore nothing of that kind ought to be in rebus Dei as Tertullian's phrase is But the summ of his discourse is this The Heathens use to picture their false Gods that indeed befits them but therefore is unfit for God and therefore we are to flee not only from Idolatry but from Idols in which affair a word does change the case and that which before it was said to appertain to Idols was lawful by that very word was made Unlawful and therefore much more by a shape or figure and therefore flee from the shape of them for it is an Unworthy thing that the Image of the living God should be made the Image of an Idol or a dead thing For the Idols of the Heathens are silver and gold and have eyes without sight and noses without smell and hands without feeling So far Tertullian argues And what can more plainly give his sence and meaning in this Article If the very Image of an Idol be Unlawful much more is it unlawful to make an Image or Idol of the living God or represent him by the Image of a dead man But this argument is further and more plainly set down by Athanasius whose book against the Gentiles is spent in reproving the Images of God real or imaginary insomuch that he affirms that the Gentiles dishonour even their false Gods by making Images of them and that they might better have pass'd for Gods if they had not represented them by visible Images And therefore That the religion of making Images of their Gods is not piety but impious For to know God we need no outward thing the way of truth will direct us to him And if any man ask which is that way viz. to know God I shall say it is the soul of a man and that understanding which is planted in us for by that alone God can be seen and Vnderstood The same Father does discourse many excellent things to this purpose as that a man is the only Image of God Jesus Christ is the perfect Image of his Glory and he only represents his essence and man is made in the likeness of God and therefore he also in a less perfect manner represents God Besides these if any many desires to see God let him look in the book of the creature and all the world is the Image and lively representment of Gods power and his wisdom his goodness and his bounty But to represent God in a carved stone or a painted Table does depauperate our understanding of God and dishonours him below the Painters art for it represents him lovely only by that art and therefore less than him that painted it But that which Athanasius adds is very material and gives great reason of the Command why God should severely forbid any Image of himself Calamitati enim tyrannidi servienâ—es homines Vnicum illud est nulli Communicabile Dei nomen lignis lapidibusque imposâ—runt Some in sorrow for their dead children made their Images and fancied that presence some desiring to please their tyrannous Princes put up their statues and at distance by a phantastical presence flattered them with honours And in process of time these were made Gods and the incommunicable name was given to wood and stones Not that the Heathens thought that Image to be very God but that they were imaginarily present in them and so had their Name Hujusmodi igitur initiis idolorum inventio Scriptura â—este apud homines coepit Thus idolatry began saith the Scripture and thus it was promoted and the event was they made pitiful conceptions of God they confined his presence to a statue they worshipped him with the lowest way â—maginable they descended from all spirituality and the noble ways of Understanding and made wood and stone to be as it were a body to the Father of Spirits they gave the incommunicable name not only to dead men and Angels and Daemons but to the Images of them and though it is great folly to picture Angelical Spirits and dead Heroes whom they never saw yet by these steps when they had come to picture God himself this was the height of the Gentile impiety and is but too plain a representation of the impiety practised by too many in the Roman Church But as we proceed further the case will be yet clearer Concerning the testimony of Eusebius I wonder that any writer of Roman controversies should be ignorant and being
he reveres And this liberty I now take is no other than hath been used by the severest Votaries in that Church where to dissent is death I mean in the Church of Rome I call to witness those disputations and contradictory assertions in the matter of some articles which are to be observed in Andreas Vega Dominicus à Soto Andradius the Lawyers about the Question of divorces and clan destine contracts the Divines about predetermination and about this very article of Original sin as relating to the Virgin Mary But blessed be God we are under the Discipline of a prudent charitable and indulgent Mother and if I may be allowed to suppose that the article means no more in short than the office of Baptism explicates at large I will abide by the trial there is not a word in the Rubricks or Prayers but may very perfectly consist with the Doctrine I deliver But though the Church of England is my Mother and I hope I shall ever live and at last die in her Communion and if God shall call me to it and enable me I will not refuse to die for her yet I conceive there is something most highly considerable in that saying Call no man Master upon earth that is no mans explication of her articles shall prejudice my affirmative if it agrees with Scripture and right reason and the doctrine of the Primitive Church for the first 300 years and if in any of this I am mistaken I will most thankfully be reproved and most readily make honourable amends But my proposition I hope is not built upon the sand and I am most sure it is so zealous for Gods honour and the reputation of his justice and wisdom and goodness that I hope all that are pious unless they labour under some prejudice and prepossession will upon that account be zealous for it or at least confess that what I intend hath in it more of piety than their negative can have of certainty That which is strain'd and held too hard will soonest break He that stoops to the authority yet twists the article with truth preserves both with modesty and Religion One thing more I fear will trouble some persons who will be apt to say to me as Avitus of Vienna did to Faustus of Rhegium Hic quantum ad frontem pertinent quasi abstinentissimam vitam professus non secretam crucem sed publicam vanitatem c. That upon pretence of great severity as if I were exact or could be I urge others to so great strictness which will rather produce despair than holiness Though I have in its proper place taken care concerning this and all the way intend to rescue men from the just causes and in-lets to despair that is not to make them do that against which by preaching a holy life I have prepar'd the best defensative yet this I shall say here particularly That I think this objection is but a mere excuse which some men would make lest they should believe it necessary to live well For to speak truth men are not very apt to despair they have ten thousand ways to flatter themselves and they will hope in despight of all arguments to the contrary In all the Scripture there is but one example of a despairing man and that was Judas who did so not upon the stock of any fierce propositions preach'd to him but upon the load of his foul sin and the pusillanimity of his spirit But they are not to be numbred who live in sin and yet sibi suaviter benedicunt think themselves in a good condition and all them that rely upon those false principles which I have reckoned in this Preface and confuted in the Book are examples of it But it were well if 〈◊〉 would distinguish the sin of despair from the misery of despair Where God hath 〈◊〉 us no warrant to hope there to despair is no sin it may be a punishment and to hope 〈◊〉 may be presumption I shall end with the most charitable advice I can give to any of my erring Brethren 〈◊〉 no man be so vain as to use all the wit and arts all the shifts and devices of the world 〈…〉 may behold to enjoy the pleasure of his sin since it may bring him into that condition that it 〈◊〉 be disputed whether he shall despair or no. Our duty is to make our calling and electioâ—â— sure which certainly cannot be done but by a timely and effective repentance But they that will be confident in their health are sometimes pusillanimous in their sickness presumptious in sin and despairing in the day of their calamity Cognitio de incorrupto Dei judicio in multis dormit sed excitari solet circa mortem said Plato For though 〈◊〉 give false sentences of the Divine judgments when their temptations are high and their 〈◊〉 pleasant yet about the time of their death their understanding and notices are awakened 〈◊〉 they see what they would not see before and what they cannot now avoid Thus I have given account of the design of this Book to you Most Reverend Fatâ—â—â— and Religious Brethren of this Church and to your judgment I submit what I have here discoursed of as knowing that the chiefest part of the Ecclesiastical office is conversant about Repentance and the whole Government of the Primitive Church was almost wholly imployed in ministring to the orders and restitution and reconciliation of penitents and therefore you are not only by your ability but by your imployment and experiences the most competent Judges and the aptest promoters of those truths by which Repentance is made most perfect and unreprovable By your Prayers and your Authority and your Wisdom I hope it will be more and more effected that the strictnesses of a holy life be thought necessary and that Repentance may be no more that trifling little piece of duty to which the errors of the late Schools of learning and the desires of men to be deceiv'd in this article have reduc'd it I have done thus much of my part toward it and I humbly desire it may be accepted by God by you and by all good men JER TAYLOR VNVM NECESSARIVM OR The DOCTRINE and PRACTICE OF REPENTANCE CHAP. I. The Foundation and Necessity of Repentance SECT I. Of the indispensable Necessity of Repentance in remedy to the unavoidable transgressing the Covenant of Works IN the first entercourse with Man God made such a Covenant as he might justly make out of his absolute dominion and such as was agreeable with those powers which he gave us and the instances in which obedience was demanded For 1. Man was made perfect in his kind and God demanded of him perfect obedience 2. The first Covenant was the Covenant of Works that is there was nothing in it but Man was to obey or die but God laid but one command upon him that we find the Covenant was instanced but in one precept In that he fail'd and therefore he was lost
fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God * abounding in the work of the Lord. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the words often used fill'd full and perfect 16. To the same purpose is it that we are commanded to live in Christ and unto God that is to live according to their will and by their rule and to their glory and in their fear and love called by S. Paul to live in the faith of the Son of God to be followers of Christ and of God to dwell in Christ and to abide in him to walk according to the Commandments of God in good works in truth according to the Spirit to walk in light to walk with God which was said of Enoch of whom the Greek LXX read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He pleased God * There are very many more to the same purpose For with great caution and earnestness the holy Scriptures place the duties of mankind in practice and holiness of living and removes it far from a confidence of notion and speculation Qui fecerit docuerit He that doth them and teaches them shall be great in the Kingdom and Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things I say to you and Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must not only be called Christians but be so for not to be called but to be so brings us to felicity that is since the life of a Christian is the life of Repentance whose work it is for ever to contend against sin for ever to strive to please God a dying to sin a living to Christ he that thinks his Repentance can have another definition or is compleated in any other or in fewer parts must be of another Religion than is taught by Christ and his holy Apostles This is the Faith of the Son of God this is that state of excellent things which he purchased with his blood and as there is no other Name under Heaven so there is no other Faith no other Repentance whereby we can be saved Upon this Article it is usual to discourse of Sorrow and Contrition of Confession of sins of making amends of self-affliction and some other particulars but because they are not parts but actions fruits and significations of Repentance I have reserved them for their proper place Now I am to apply this general Doctrine to particular states of sin and sinners in the following Chapters SECT III. Descriptions of Repentance taken from the Holy Scriptures ¶ WHEN Heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against thee if they pray towards this place and confess thy name and turn from their sin when thou afflictest them Then hear thou in Heaven and forgive the sin of thy servants and of thy people Israel that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk and give rain upon thy land which thou hast given to thy people for an Inheritance ¶ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord. As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord My Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever Again when I say unto the wicked Thou shalt surely die If he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right If the wicked restore the pledge give again that he had robbed walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity he shall even live he shall not die * None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him he hath done that which is lawful and right he shall surely live Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that hence forth we should not serve sin Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. * Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof * Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God * Being then made free from sin ye became the servants of righteousness * I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God For when we were in the flesh the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death * But now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter And that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed The night is far spent the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light * Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying * But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God For godly sorrow worketh Repentance to salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death * For behold this self same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge in all thing ye have approved your selves to be clear in this matter For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts And be renewed in the spirit of your mind * And that ye put on that new man which after
by accident that is for their conjunction with mortal sins is confuted infinitely because God punishes them with degrees of evil proper to them and for their own demerit There is no other accident by which these come to be smarted for in hell but because they were not repented of for by that accident they become Mortal as by the contrary accident to wit if the sinner repents worthily not only the smallest but the greatest also become Venial The impenitent pays for all all together But if the man be a worthy penitent if he continues and abides in Gods love he will find a mercy according to his circumstances by the measures of Gods graciousness and his own repentance so that by accident they may be pardoned but if that accident does not happen if the man be not penitent the sins shall be punished directly and for their own natural demerit The summ is this If a man repents truly of the greater sins he also repents of the smallest for it cannot be a true repentance which refuses to repent of any so that if it happens that for the smallest he do smart in hell it is because he did not repent truly of any greatest nor smallest But if it happens that the man did not commit any of the greater sins and yet did indulge to himself a licence to do the smallest even for those which he calls the smallest he may perish and what he is pleased to call little God may call great Cum his peccatis neminem salvandum said S. Bernard with these even the smallest sins actually remaining upon him unrepented of in general or particular no man can be saved SECT IV. The former doctrine reduc'd to practice 36. I HAVE been the more earnest in this article not only because the Doctrine which I have all this while opposed makes all the whole doctrine of moral Theology to be inartificial and in many degrees useless false and imprudent but because of the immediate influence it hath to encourage evil lives of men For 37. I. To distinguish a whole kind of sins is a certain way to make repentance and amendment of life imperfect and false For when men by fears and terrible considerations are scar'd from their sins as most repentances begin with fear they still retain some portions of affection to their sin some lookings back and phantastick entertainments which if they be not pared off by repentance we love not God with all our hearts and yet by this doctrine of distinguishing sins into Mortal and Venial in their whole kind and nature men are taught to arrest their repentances and have leave not to proceed further for they who say sins are Venial in their own nature if they understand the consequences of their own doctrine do not require repentance to make them so or to obtain a pardon which they need not 38. II. As by this means our repentances are made imperfect so is a relapse extreamly ready for while such a leaven is left it is ten to one but it may sowre the whole mass S. Gregory said well Si curare parva negligimus insensibiliter seducti audentèr etiam majora perpetramus we are too apt to return to our old crimes whose reliques we are permitted to keep and kiss 38. III. But it is worse yet For the distinction of sins Mortal and Venial in their nature is such a separation of sin from sin as is rather a dispensation or leave to commit one sort of them the expiation of which is so easy the pardon so certain the remedy so ready the observation and exaction of them so inconsiderable For there being so many ways of making great sins little and little sins none at all found out by the folly of men and the craft of the Devil a great portion of Gods right and the duty we owe to him is by way of compromise and agreement left as a portion to carelesness and folly and why may not a man rejoyce in those trifling sins for which he hath security he shall never be damned As for the device of Purgatory indeed if there were any such thing it were enough to scare any one from committing any sins much more little ones But I have conversed with many of that perswasion and yet never observed any to whom it was a terror to speak of Purgatory but would talk of it as an antidote or security against hell but not as a formidable story to affright them from their sins but to warrant their venial sins and their imperfect repentance for their mortal sins And indeed let it be considered If venial sins be such as the Roman DD. describe them that they neither destroy nor lessen charity or the grace of God that they only hinder the fervency of an act which sleep or business or any thing that is most innocent may doe that they are not against the law but besides it as walking and riding standing and sitting are that they are not properly sins that all the venial sins in the world cannot amount to one mortal sin but as time differs from eternity finite from infinite so do all the Venial sins in the world put together from one Mortal act that for all them a man is never the less beloved and loves God nothing the less I say if venial sins be such as the Roman Writers affirm they are how can it be imagined to be agreeable to Gods goodness to inflict upon such sinners who only have venial sins unsatisfied for such horrible pains which they dream of in Purgatory as are during their abode equal to the intolerable pains of hell for that which breaks none of his laws which angers him not which is not against him or his love which is incident to his dearest servants Pro peccato magno paulum supplicii satis est patri But if fathers take such severe amends of their children for that which is not properly sin there is nothing left by which we can boast of a fathers kindness In this case there is no remission for if it be not just in God to punish such sins in hell because they are consistent with the state of the love of God and yet they are punished in Purgatory that is as much as they can be punished then God does remit to his children nothing for their loves sake but deals with them as severely as for his justice he can in the matter of venial sins indeed if he uses mercy to them at all it is in remitting their mortal sins but in their venial sins he uses none at all Now if things were thus on both sides it is strange men are not more afraid of their venial sins and that they are not more terrible in their description which are so sad in their event and that their punishment should be so great when their malice is so none at all and it is strangest of all that if men did believe such horrible effects to be the consequent of
and whose eternal interest I do so much desire may be secured and advanced Now my Lord I had thought I had been secured in the Article not only for the truth of the Doctrine but for the advantages and comforts it brings I was confident they would not because there was no cause any men should be angry at it For it is strange to me that any man should desire to believe God to be more severe and less gentle That men should be greedy to find out inevitable ways of being damned that they should be unwilling to have the vail drawn away from the face of Gods goodness and that they should desire to see an angry countenance and be displeased at the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace It is strange to me that men should desire to believe that their pretty Babes which are strangled at the gates of the womb or die before Baptism should for ought they know die eternally and be damned and that themselves should consent to it and to them that invent Reasons to make it seem just They might have had not only pretences but reasons to be troubled if I had represented God to be so great a hater of Mankind as to damn millions of millions for that which they could not help or if I had taught that their infants might by chance have gone to Hell and as soon as ever they came for life descend to an eternal death If I had told them evil things of God and hard measures and evil portions to their children they might have complained but to complain because I say God is just to all and merciful and just to infants to fret and be peevish because I tell them that nothing but good things are to be expected from our good God is a thing that may well be wondred at My Lord I take a great comfort in this that my doctrine stands on that side where Gods justice and goodness and mercy stand apparently and they that speak otherwise in this Article are forced by convulsions and violences to draw their doctrine to comply with Gods justice and the reputation of his most glorious Attributes And after great and laborious devices they must needs do it pitifully and jejunely but I will prejudice no mans opinion I only will defend my own because in so doing I have the honour to be an advocate for God who will defend and accept me in the simplicity and innocency of my purposes and the profession of his truth Now my Lord I find that some believe this doctrine ought not now to have been published Others think it not true The first are the wise and few the others are the many who have been taught otherwise and either have not leisure or abilities to make right judgments in the question Concerning the first I have given what accounts I could to that excellent man the Lord Bishop of Sarum who out of his great piety and prudence and his great kindness to me was pleased to call for accounts of me Concerning the other your Lordship in great humility and in great tenderness to those who are not perswaded of the truth of this doctrine hath called upon me to give all those just measures of satisfaction which I could be obliged to by the interest of any Christian vertue In obedience to this pious care and prudent counsel of your Lordship I have published these ensuing Papers hoping that God will bless them to the purposes whither they are designed however I have done all that I could and all that I am commanded and all that I was counselled to And as I submit all to Gods blessing and the events of his providence and Oeconomy so my doctrine I humbly submit to my holy Mother the Church of England and rejoyce in any circumstances by which I can testifie my duty to her and my obedience to your Lordship CHAP. VII A further EXPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF Original Sin SECT I. Of the Fall of Adam and the Effects of it upon Him and Vs. IT was well said of S. Augustine in this thing though he said many others in it less certain Nihil est peccato Originali ad praedicandum noâ—ius nihil ad intelligendum secretius The article we all confess but the manner of explicating it is not an apple of knowledge but of contention Having therefore turned to all the ways of Reason and Scripture I at last apply my self to examine how it was affirmed by the first and best Antiquity For the Doctrine of Original sin as I have explicated it is taxed of Singularity and Novelty and though these words are very freely bestowed upon any thing we have not learned or consented to and that we take false measures of these Appellatives reckoning that new that is but renewed and that singular that is not taught vulgarly or in our own Societies Yet I shall easily quit the proposition from these charges and though I do confess and complain of it that the usual affirmations of Original sin are a popular error yet I will make it appear that it is no Catholick doctrine that it prevailed by prejudice and accidental authorities but after such prevailing it was accused and reproved by the Greatest and most Judicious persons of Christendom And first that judgment may the better be given of the Allegations I shall bring from authority I shall explicate and state the Question that there may be no impertinent allegations of Antiquity for both sides nor clamours against the persons interested in either perswasion nor any offence taken by error and misprision It is not therefore intended nor affirmed that there is no such thing as Original sin for it is certain and affirmed by all Antiquity upon many grounds of Scripture That Adam sinned and his sin was Personally his but Derivatively ours that is it did great hurt to us to our bodies directly to our souls indirectly and accidentally 2. For Adam was made a living soul the great representative of Mankind and the beginner of a temporal happy life and to that purpose he was put in a place of temporal happiness where he was to have lived as long as he obeyed God so far as he knew nothing else being promised to him or implied but when he sinned he was thrown from thence and spoiled of all those advantages by which he was enabled to live and be happy This we find in the story the reasonableness of the parts of which teaches us all this doctrine To which if we add the words of S. Paul the case is clear The first Adam was made a living soul The last Adam was made a quickning Spirit Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual The first man is of the earth earthly the second man is the Lord from Heaven As is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the Heavenly such are they also that are Heavenly and as we have born
Chrysostome even when he differs from others and in this Article he consents with him and the rest now reckoned when God made Adam and adorned him with reason he gave him one commandement that he might exercise his reason he being deceived broke the commandement and was exposed to the sentence of death and so he begat Cain and Seth and others but all these as being begotten of him had a mortal nature This kind of Nature wants many things meat and drink and cloaths and dwelling and divers arts the use of these things often-times provokes to excess and the excess begets sin Therefore the divine Apostle saith that when Adam had sinned and was made mortal for his sin both came to his stock that is death and sin for death came upon all inasmuch as all men have sinned For every man suffers the decree of death not for the sin of the first man but for his own Much more to the same purpose he hath upon the same Chapter but this is enough to all the purposes of this Question Now if any man thinks that though these give testimony in behalf of my explication of this Article yet that it were easie to bring very many more to the contrary I answer and profess ingenuously that I know of none till about S. Austin's time for that the first Ages taught the doctrine of Original sin I do no ways doubt but affirm it all the way but that it is a sin improperly that is a stain and a reproach rather than a sin that is the effect of one sin and the cause of many that it brought in sickness and death mortality and passions that it made us naked of those supernatural aides that Adam had and so more lyable to the temptations of the Devil this is all I find in antiquity and sufficient for the explication of this question which the more simply it is handled the more true and reasonable it is But that I may use the words of Solomon according to the Vulgar translation Hoc inveni quod fecerit Deus hominem rectum ipse se infinitis miscuerit quaestionibus God made man upright and he hath made himself more deformed than he is by mingling with innumerable questions 23. I think I have said enough to vindicate my sentence from Novelty and though that also be sufficient to quit me from singularity yet I have something more to add as to that particular and that is that it is very hard for a man to be singular in this Article if he would For first in the Primitive Church when Valentinus and Marcion Tatianus Julius Cassianus and the Encratites condemned marriage upon this account because it produces that only which is impure many good men and right believers did to justifie marriages undervalue the matter of Original sin this begat new questions in the manner of speaking and at last real differences were entertained and the Pelagian Heresie grew up upon this stock But they changed their Propositions so often that it was hard to tell what was the Heresie But the first draught of it was so rude so confused and so unreasonable that when any of the followers of it spake more warily and more learnedly yet by this time the name Pelagian was of so ill a sound that they would not be believed if they spake well nor trusted in their very recantations nor understood in their explications but cryed out against in all things right or wrong and in the fierce prosecution of this S. Austin and his followers Fulgentiâ—â— Prosper and others did excedere in dogmate pati aliquid humanum S. Austin called them all Pelagians who were of the middle opinion concerning infants and yet many Catholicks both before and since his time do profess it The Augustan confession calls them Pelagians who say that concupiscence is only the effect of Adam's sin and yet all the Roman Churches say it confidently and every man that is angry in this Question calls his Enemy Pelagian if he be not a Stoic or a Manichee a Valentinian or an Encratite But the Pelagians say so many things in their Controversie that like them that â—â—lk much they must needs say some things well though very many things amiss but if every thing which was said against S. Austin in these controversies be Pelagianism then all Antiquity were Pelagians and himself besides For he before his disputes in these Questions said much against what he said after as every learned man knows But yet it is certain that even after the Pelagian Heresie was conquered there were many good men who because they from every part take the good and leave the poyson were called Pelagians by them that were angry at them for being of another opinion in some of their Questions Cassian was a good and holy man and became the great rule of Monastines yet because he spake reason in his exhortations to Piety and justified God and blamed man he is called Pelagian and the Epistle ad Demetriadem and the little commentary on S. Paul's Epistles were read and commended highly by all men so long as they were supposed to be S. Hierom's but when some fancied that Faustus was the author they suspect the writings for the Man's sake and how-ever S. Austin was triumphant in the main Article against those Hereticks and there was great reason he should yet that he took in too much and confuted more than he should appears in this that though the World followed him in the condemnation of Pelagianisme yet the World left him in many things which he was pleased to call Pelagianisme And therefore when Arch-Bishop Bradwardin wrote his Books de causâ Dei against the liberty of will and for the fiercer way of absolute decrees he complains in his Preface that the whole World was against him and gone after Pelagius in causa liberi arbitrii Not that they really were made so but that it is an usual thing to affright men from their reasons by Names and words and to confute an argument by slandering him that uses it Now this is it that I and all men else ought to be troubled at if my doctrine be accused of singularity I cannot acquit my self of the charge but by running into a greater For if I say that one Proposition is taught by all the Roman Schools and therefore I am not singular in it They reply it is true but then it is Popery which you defend If I tell that the Lutherans defend another part of it then the Calvinists hate it therefore because their enemies avow it Either it is Popery or Pelagianisme you are an Arminian or a Socinian And either you must say that which no body sayes and then you are singular or if you do say as others say you shall feel the reproach of the party that you own which is also disowned by all but it self That therefore which I shall choose to say is this that the doctrine of Original sin as
But the Spirit of God does dwell in all the servants of God in all the regenerate For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Now as these are in Scripture distinguished in their appellatives and in their character so also in their operations They that are carnal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the flesh do mind or relish the things of the flesh They that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit And they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Now they that have crucified the flesh cannot in any sence of Scripture or Religion be called Carnal That there is something of carnality in the regenerate is too true because our regeneration and spirituality in this life is imperfect But when carnal and spiritual are oppos'd in Scripture and the Question is Whether of these two is to be attributed to the servants and sons of God to the Regenerate It is certain by the analogy of the thing and the perpetual manner of speaking in Scripture that by this word Carnal the Spirit of God never means the sons of God or the spiritual that is the Regenerate The sons of God are led by the Spirit of God therefore not by the flesh which they have crucified Whatsoever is essential to regeneration to new birth to the being the sons of God all that is in the regenerate for they cannot be that thing of which they want an essential part as a thing cannot be a body unless it be divisible nor a living creature if it have not life Therefore regeneration is perfect in respect of its essentials or necessary parts of constitution But in the degrees there is imperfection and therefore the abatement is made by the intermixture of carnality For it is in our new and spiritual birth as in our natural The child is a man in all essential parts but he is as a beast in some of his operations he hath all the faculties of a man but not the strengths of a man but grows to it by the progression and encrease of every day So is the spiritual man regenerate in his mind his will his affections and therefore when carnal and spiritual are oppos'd in their whole nature and definitions the spiritual man is not the carnal though he still retain some of the weaknesses of the flesh against which he contends every day To this purpose are those words of S. Leo. Quamvis spe salvi facti sumus corruptionem adhuc carnémque mortalem gestamus rectè tamen dicimur in carne non esse si carnales nobis non dominentur affectus meritò ejus deponimus â—uncupationem cujus non sequimur voluntatem We are not to be called Carnal though we bear about us flesh and its infirmities yet if carnal affections do not rule over us well are we to quit the name when we do not obey the thing Now if any man shall contend that a man may be called Carnal if the flesh strives against the Spirit though sin does not rule I shall not draw the Saw of Contention with him but only say that it is not usually so in Scripture and in this place of which we now dispute the sence and use it is not so for by Carnal S. Paul means such a person upon whom sin reigns I am carnal sold under sin therefore this person is not the spiritual not the regenerate or the son of God S. Paul uses the word Carnal in a comparative locution for babes and infants or unskilful persons in the Religion but then this carnality he proves to be in them wholly by their inordinate walking by their strifes and contentions by their being Schismaticks and therefore he reproves them which he had no reason to do if himself also had been carnal in that sence which he reproves 17. The Conclusion from all these premises is I suppose sufficiently demonstrated that S. Paul does not in the seventh Chapter to the Romans describe the state of himself really or of a regenerate person neither is this state of doing sin frequently though against our will a state of unavoidable infirmity but a state of death and unregeneration SECT III. 18. SAint Austin did for ever reject that interpretation and indeed so did the whole Primitive Church but yet he having once expounded this Chapter of the unregenerate or a man under the law not redeemed by the Spirit of Christ from his vain conversation he retracted this Exposition and constru'd those words in question thus Non ergo quod vult agit Apostolus quia vult non concupiscere tamen concupiscit ideo non quod vult agit The Apostle does not do what he would because he would fain not desire but yet because he desires he does what he would not Did that desire lead him captive to fornication God forbid He did strive but was not mastered but because he would not have had that concupiscence left against which he should contend therefore he said What I would not that I do meaning I would not lust but I do lust The same also I find in Epiphanius Nam quod dictum est Quod operor non cognosco facio quod odio habeo non de eo quod operati sumus ac perfecimus malum accipiendum est sed de eo quod solum cogitavimus Now this interpretation hath in it no impiety as the other hath for these Doctors allow nothing to be unavoidable or a sin of infirmity and consistent with the state of grace and regeneration but the mere ineffective unprocured desirings or lustings after evil things to which no consent is given and in which no delight is taken extraneae cogitationes quas cogitavimus aliquando non volentes non scientes ex quâ causâ as Epiphanius expresses this Article But S. Austin may be thought to have had some design in chusing this sence as supposing it would serve for an argument against the Pelagians and their sence of Free will For by representing the inevitability of sin he destroyed their doctrine of the sufficiency of our natural powers in order to Heaven and therefore by granting that S. Paul complains thus of his own infirmity he believed himself to have concluded firmly for the absolute necessity of Gods grace to help us But by limiting this inevitability of sinning to the matter of desires or concupiscence he gave no allowance or pretence to any man to speak any evil words or to delight or consent to any evil thoughts or to commit any sinful actions upon the pretence of their being sins of an unavoidable infirmity So that though he was desirous to serve the ends of his present question yet he was careful that he did not disserve the interests of Religion and a holy life But besides that the holy Scriptures abound in nothing more than in affirming our needs and the
is worth a little Peace every day of the week and caeteris paribus Truth is to be preferred before Peace not every trifling truth to a considerable peace But if the truth be material it makes recompence though it brings a great noise along with it and if the breach of Peace be nothing but that men talk in Private or declaim a little in publick truly Madam it is a very pitiful little proposition the discovery of which in truth will not make recompence for the pratling of disagreeing Persons Truth and Peace make an excellent yoke but the truth of God is always to be preferred before the Peace of men and therefore our Blessed Saviour came not to send Peace but a Sword That is he knew his Doctrine would cause great divisions of heart but yet he came to perswade us to Peace and Unity Indeed if the truth be clear and yet of no great effect in the lives of men in government o◠in the honour of God then it ought not to break the Peace That is it may not run out of its retirement to disquiet them to whom their rest is better than that knowledge But if it be brought out already it must not be deserted positively though peace goes away in its stead So that Peace is rather to be deserted than any truth should be renounced or denied but Peace is rather to be procured or continued than some Truth offered This is my sence Madam when the case is otherwise than I suppose it to be at present For as for the present case there must be two when there is a falling out or a peace broken and therefore I will secure it now for let any man dissent from me in this Article I will not be troubled at him he may do it with liberty and with my charity If any man is of my opinion I confess I love him the better but if he refuses it I will not love him less after than I did before but he that dissents and reviles me must expect from me no other kindness but that I forgive him and pray for him and offer to reclaim him and that I resolve nothing shall ever make me either hate him or reproach him And that still in the greatest of his difference I refuse not to give him the Communion of a Brother I believe I shall be chidden by some or other for my easiness and want of fierceness which they call Zeal but it is a fault of my nature a part of my Original sin Vnicuique dedit vitium Natura Creato Mî Natura aliquid semper amare dedit Propert. Some weakness to each man by birth descends To me too great a kindness Nature lends But if the peace can be broken no more than thus I suppose the truth which I publish will do more than make recompence for the noise that in Clubs and Conventicles is made over and above So long as I am thus resolved there may be injury done to me but there can be no duel or loss of Peace abroad For a single anger or a displeasure on one side is not a breach of Peace on both and a War cannot be made by fewer than a bargain can in which always there must be two at least Object 3. But as to the thing If it be inquired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what profit what use what edification is there what good to souls what honour to God by this new explication of the Article I answer That the usual Doctrines of Original sin are made the great foundation of the horrible proposition concerning absolute Reprobation the consequences of it reproach God with injustice they charge God foolishly and deny his goodness and his Wisdom in many instances And whatsoever can upon the account of the Divine Attributes be objected against the fierce way of Absolute Decrees all that can be brought for the reproof of their usual Propositions concerning Original sin For the consequences are plain and by them the necessity of my Doctrine and its usefulness may be understood For 1. If God decrees us to be born sinners Then he makes us to be sinners and then where is his goodness 2. If God does damn any for that he damns us for what we could not help and for what himself did and then where is his Justice 3. If God sentence us to that Damnation which he cannot in justice inflict where is his Wisdom 4. If God for the sin of Adam brings upon us a necessity of sinning where is our liberty where is our Nature what is become of all Laws and of all Vertue and vice How can Men be distinguished from Beasts or the Vertuous from the vicious 5. If by the fall of Adam we are so wholly ruined in our faculties that we cannot do any good but must do evil how shall any man take care of his ways or how can it be supposed he should strive against all vice when he can excuse so much upon his Nature or indeed how shall he strive at all For if all actual sins are derived from the Original and which is unavoidable and yet an Unresistible cause then no man can take care to avoid any actual sin whose cause is natural and not to be declined And then where is his Providence and Government 6. If God does cast Infants into Hell for the sin of others and yet did not condemn Devils but for their own sin where is his love to mankind 7. If God chuseth the death of so many Millions of Persons who are no sinners upon their own stock and yet swears that he does not love the death of a sinner viz. sinning with his own choice how can that he credible he should love to kill Innocents and yet should love to spare the Criminal Where then is his Mercy and where is his Truth 8. If God hath given us a Nature by derivation which is wholly corrupted then how can it be that all which God made is good For though Adam corrupted himself yet in propriety of speaking we did not but this was the Decree of God and then where is the excellency of his providence and Power where is the glory of the Creation Because therefore that God is all goodness and justice and wisdom and love and that he governs all things and all men wisely and holily and according to the capacities of their Natures and Persons that he gives us a wise Law and binds that Law on us by promises and threatnings I had reason to assert these glories of the Divine Majesty and remove the hinderances of a good life since every thing can hinder us from living well but scarcely can all the Arguments of God and man and all the Powers of Heaven and Hell perswade us to strictness and severity Qui serere ingenuum volet agrum Liberet arva priùs fruticibus Falce rubos silicemque resecet Vt novâ fruge gravis Ceres eat Boeth lib. 3. Metr 1. He that will sow his field with hopeful
Original Sin is the lust or concupiscence that is the proneness to sin Now then I demand whether Concupiscence before actual consent be a sin or no and if it be a sin whether it deserves damnation That all sin deserves damnation I am sure our Church denies not If therefore concupiscence before consent be a sin then this also deserves damnation where-ever it is and if so then a man may be damned for Original Sin even after Baptism For even after Baptism concupiscence or the sinfulness of Original Sin remains in the regenerate and that which is the same thing the same viciousness the same enmity to God after Baptism is as damnable it deserves damnation as much as that did that went before If it be replied that Baptism takes off the guilt or formal part of it but leaves the material part behind that is though concupiscence remains yet it shall not bring damnation to the regenerate or Baptized I answer that though baptismal regeneration puts a man into a state of grace and favour so that what went before shall not be imputed to him afterwards that is Adam's sin shall not bring damnation in any sence yet it hinders not but that what is sinful afterwards shall be then imputed to him that is he may be damn'd for his own concupiscence He is quitted from it as it came from Adam but by Baptism he is not quitted from it as it is subjected in himself if I say concupiscence before consent be a sin If it be no sin then for it Infants unbaptized cannot with justice be damn'd it does not deserve damnation but if it be a sin then so long as it is there so long it deserves damnation and Baptism did only quit the relation of it to Adam for that was all that went before it but not the danger of the man * But because the Article supposes that it does not damn the regenerate or baptized and yet that it hath the nature of sin it follows evidently and undeniably that both the phrases are to be diminished and understood in a favourable sence As the phrase the Nature of sin signifies so does Damnation but the Nature of sin signifies something that brings no guilt because it is affirm'd to be in the Regenerate therefore Damnation signifies something that brings no Hell but to deserve Damnation must mean something less than ordinary that is that concupiscence is a thing not morally good not to be allowed of not to be nurs'd but mortifi'd fought against disapprov'd condemn'd and disallowed of men as it is of God And truly My Lord to say that for Adam's sin it is just in God to condemn Infants to the eternal flames of Hell and to say that concupiscence or natural inclinations before they pass into any act could bring eternal condemnation from Gods presence into the eternal portion of Devils are two such horrid propositions that if any Church in the world would expresly affirm them I for my part should think it unlawful to communicate with her in the defence or profession of either and to think it would be the greatest temptation in the world to make men not to love God of whom men so easily speak such horrid things I would suppose the Article to mean any thing rather than either of these But yet one thing more I have to say The Article is certainly to be expounded according to the analogy of faith and the express words of Scripture if there be any that speak expresly in this matter Now whereas the Article explicating Original Sin affirms it to be that fault or corruption of mans nature vitium Naturae not peccatum by which he is far gone from Original righteousness and is inclin'd to evil because this is not full enough the Article adds by way of explanation So that the flesh lusteth against the spirit that is it really produces a state of evil temptations It lusteth that is actually and habitually it lusteth against the spirit and therefore deserves Gods wrath and damnation So the Article Therefore for no other reason but because the flesh lusteth against the spirit not because it can lust or is apta nata to lust but because it lusteth actually therefore it deserves damnation and this is Original Sin or as the Article expresses it it hath the nature of sin it is the fomes or matter of sin and is in the Original of mankind and deriv'd from Adam as our body is but it deserves not damnation in the highest sence of the word till the concupiscence be actual Till then the words of Wrath and Damnation must be meant in the less and more easie signification according to the former explication and must only relate to the personal sin of Adam To this sence of the Article I heartily subscribe For besides the reasonableness of the thing and the very manner of speaking us'd in the Article it is the very same way of speaking and exactly the same doctrine which we find in S. James Jam. 1.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concupiscence when it is impregnated when it hath conceiv'd then it brings forth sin and sin when it is in production and birth brings forth death But in Infants concupiscence is innocent and a virgin it conceives not and therefore is without sin and therefore without death or damnation * Against these expositions I cannot imagine what can be really and materially objected But my Lord I perceive the main out-cry is like to be upon the authority of the Harmony of Confessions Concerning which I shall say this That in this Article the Harmony makes as good musick as Bells ringing backward and they agree especially when they come to be explicated and untwisted into their minute and explicite meanings as much as Lutheran and Calvinist as Papist and Protestant as Thomas and Scotus as Remonstrant and Dordrechtan that is as much as pro and con or but a very little more I have not the book with me here in prison and this neighbourhood cannot supply me and I dare not trust my memory to give a scheme of it but your Lordship knows that in nothing more do the Reformed Churches disagree than in this and its appendages and you are pleased to hint something of it by saying that some speak more of this than the Church of England and Andrew Rivet though unwillingly yet confesses De Confessionibus nostris earum syntagmate vel Harmonia etiamsi in non nullis capitibus non planè conveniant dicam tamen melius in corcordiam redigi posse quà m in Ecclesia Romana concordantiam discordantium Canonum quo titulo decretum Gratiani quod Canonistis regulas praefigit solet insigniri And what he affirms of the whole collection is most notorious in the Article of Original Sin For my own part I am ready to subscribe the first Helvetian confession but not the second So much difference there is in the confessions of the same Church Now whereas your Lordship adds that though they
seems to warrant it to my understanding why may not he serve up another dish to me in the same dress and exact the same task of me to believe the contradictory And then since all the Hereticks in the world have offered to prove their Articles by the same means by which true Believers propound theirs it is necessary that some separation either of Doctrine or of persons be clearly made and that all pretences may not be admitted nor any just Allegations be rejected and yet that in some other Questions whether they be truly or falsly pretended if not evidently or demonstratively there may be considerations had to the persons of men and to the Laws of charity more then to the triumphing in any Opinion or Doctrine not simply necessary Now because some Doctrines are clearly not necessary and some are absolutely necessary why may not the first separation be made upon this difference and Articles necessary be onely urged as necessary and the rest left to men indifferently as they were by the Scripture indeterminately And it were well if men would as much consider themselves as the Doctrines and think that they may as well be deceived by their own weakness as perswaded by the Arguments of a Doctrine which other men as wise call inevident For it is a hard case that we should think all Papists and Anabaptists and Sacramentaries to be fools and wicked persons certainly among all these Sects there are very many wise men and good men as well as erring And although some zeals are so hot and their eyes so inflamed with their ardours that they do not think their Adversaries look like other men yet certainly we find by the results of their discourses and the transactions of their affairs of civil society that they are men that speak and make Syllogisms and use Reason and reade Scripture and although they do no more understand all of it then we do yet they endeavour to understand as much as concerns them even all that they can even all that concerns repentance from dead works and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore methinks this also should be another consideration distinguishing the persons for if the persons be Christians in their lives and Christians in their profession if they acknowledge the Eternall Son of God for their Master and their Lord and live in all relations as becomes persons making such professions why then should I hate such persons whom God loves and who love God who are partakers of Christ and Christ hath a title to them who dwell in Christ and Christ in them because their understandings have not been brought up like mine have not had the same Masters they have not met with the same books nor the same company or have not the same interest or are not so wise or else are wiser that is for some reason or other which I neither do understand nor ought to blame have not the same Opinions that I have and do not determine their School-Questions to the sense of my Sect or interest But now I know before-hand that those men who will endure none but their own Sect will make all manner of attempts against these purposes of charity and compliance and say I or doe I what I can will tell all their Proselytes that I preach indifferency of Religion that I say it is no matter how we believe nor what they profess but that they may comply with all Sects and doe violence to their own Consciences that they may be saved in all Religions and so make way for a colluvies of Heresies and by consequence destroy all Religion Nay they will say worse then all this and but that I am not used to their phrases and forms of declamation I am perswaded I might represent fine Tragedies before-hand And this will be such an Objection that although I am most confident I shall make it apparent to be as false and scandalous as the Objectors themselves are zealous and impatient yet besides that I believe the Objection will come where my Answers will not come or not be understood I am also confident that in defiance and incuriousness of all that I shall say some men will persist pertinaciously in the accusation and deny my conclusion in despite of me Well but however I will try And first I answer that whatsoever is against the foundation of Faith or contrary to good life and the laws of obedience or destructive to humane society and the publick and just interests of bodies politick is out of the limits of my Question and does not pretend to compliance or Toleration So that I allow no indifferency nor any countenance to those Religions whose principles destroy Government nor to those Religions if there be any such that teach ill life nor do I think that any thing will now excuse from belief of a fundamental Article except stupidity or sottishness and natural inability This alone is sufficient answer to this vanity but I have much more to say Secondly The intendment of my Discourse is that permissions should be in Questions speculative indeterminable curious and unnecessary and that men would not make more necessities then God made which indeed are not many The fault I find and seek to remedy is that men are so dogmaticall and resolute in their Opinions and impatient of others disagreeings in those things wherein is no sufficient means of union and determination but that men should let Opinions and Problems keep their own forms and not be obtruded as Axioms nor Questions in the vast collection of the systeme of Divinity be adopted into the family of Faith And I think I have reason to desire this Thirdly It is hard to say that he who would not have men put to death or punished corporally for such things for which no humane Authority is sufficient either for cognizance or determination or competent for infliction that he perswades to an indifferency when he refers to another Judicatory which is competent sufficient infallible just and highly severe No man or company of men can judge or punish our thoughts or secret purposes whilest they so remain and yet it will be unequal to say that he who owns this Doctrine preaches it lawfull to men for to think or purpose what they will And so it is in matters of doubtfull disputation such as are the distinguishing Articles of most of the Sects of Christendome so it is in matters intellectual which are not cognoscible by a secular power in matters spiritual which are to be discerned by spiritual Authority which cannot make corporal inflictions and in Questions indeterminate which are doubtfully propounded or obscurely and therefore may be in utramque partem disputed or believed for God alone must be Judge of these matters who alone is Master of our Souls and hath a dominion over humane Vnderstanding And he that says this does not say that indifferency is perswaded because God alone is judge of erring persons Fourthly No part of
this Discourse teaches or encourages variety of Sects and contradiction in Opinions but supposes them already in being and therefore since there are and ever were and ever will be variety of Opinions because there is variety of humane understandings and uncertainty in things no man should be too forward in determining all Questions nor so forward in prescribing to others nor invade that liberty which God hath left to us intire by propounding many things obscurely and by exempting our souls and understandings from all power externally compulsory So that the restraint is laid upon mens tyranny but no licence given to mens Opinions they are not considered in any of the Conclusions but in the Premisses onely as an Argument to exhort to charity So that if I perswade a licence of discrediting any thing which God hath commanded us to believe and allow a liberty where God hath not allowed it let it be shewn and let the Objection press as hard as it can but to say that men are too forward in condemning where God hath declared no sentence nor prescribed any Rule is to disswade from tyranny not to encourage licentiousness is to take away a licence of judging not to give a licence of dogmatizing what every one please or as may best serve his turn And for the other part of the Objection Fifthly This Discourse is so far from giving leave to men to profess any thing though they believe the contrary that it takes order that no man shall be put to it for I earnestly contend that another man's Opinion shall be no rule to mine and that my Opinion shall be no snare and prejudice to myself that men use one another so charitably and so gently that no errour or violence tempt men to Hypocrisie this very thing being one of the Arguments I use to perswade permissions lest compulsion introduce Hypocrisie and make sincerity troublesome and unsafe Sixthly If men would not call all Opinions by the name of Religion and superstructures by the name of fundamental Articles and all fancies by the glorious appellative of Faith this Objection would have no pretence or footing so that it is the disease of the men not any cause that is ministred by such precepts of charity that makes them perpetually clamorous And it would be hard to say that such Physicians are incurious of their Patients and neglectfull of their health who speak against the unreasonableness of such Empiricks that would cut off a man's head if they see but a Wart upon his cheek or a dimple upon his chin or any lines in his face to distinguish him from another man the case is altogether the same and we may as well decree a Wart to be mortal as a various Opinion in re alioqui non necessaria to be capital and damnable For I consider that there are but few Doctrines of Christianity that were ordered to be preached to all the world to every single person and made a necessary Article of his explicite belief Other Doctrines which are all of them not simply necessary are either such as are not clearly revealed or such as are If they be clearly revealed and that I know so too or may but for my own fault I am not to be excused but for this I am to be left to God's judgement unless my fault be externally such as to be cognoscible and punishable in humane Judicatory But then if it be not so revealed but that wise men and good men differ in their opinions it is a clear case it is not inter dogmata necessaria simpliciter and then it is certain I may therefore safely disbelieve it because I may be safely ignorant of it For if I may with innocence be ignorant then to know it or believe it is not simply obligatory ignorance is absolutely inconsistent with such an obligation because it is destructive and a plain negative to its performance and if I doe my honest endeavour to understand it and yet do not attain it it is certain that it is not obligatory to me so much as by accident for no obligation can press the person of a man if it be impossible no man is bound to doe more then his best no man is bound to have an excellent understanding or to be infallible or to be wiser then he can for these are things that are not in his choice and therefore not a matter of a Law nor subject to reward and punishment So that where ignorance of the Article is not a sin there disbelieving it in the right sense or believing it in the wrong is not a breach of any duty essentially or accidentally necessary neither in the thing itself nor to the person that is he is neither bound to the Article nor to any endeavours or antecedent acts of volition and choice and that man who may safely be ignorant of the Proposition is not tied at all to search it out and if not at all to search it then certainly not to find it All the obligation we are capable of is not to be malicious or voluntarily criminal in any kind and then if by accident we find out a Truth we are obliged to believe it and so will every wise or good man doe indeed he cannot doe otherwise But if he disbelieves an Article without malice or design or involuntarily or unknowingly it is a contradiction to say it is a sin to him who might totally have been ignorant of it for that he believes it in the wrong sense it is his ignorance and it is impossible that where he hath heartily endeavoured to find out a Truth that this endeavour should make him guilty of a sin which would never have been laid to his charge if he had taken no pains at all His ignorance in this case is not a fault at all possibly it might if there had been no endeavour to have cur'd it So that there is wholly a mistake in this Proposition For true it is there are some Propositions which if a man never hear of they will not be required of him and they who cannot reade might safely be ignorant that Melchisedeck was King of Salem but he who reads it in the Scripture may not safely contradict it although before that knowledge did arrive to him he might safely have been ignorant of it But this although it be true is not pertinent to our Question For in sensu diviso this is true that which at one time a man may be ignorant of at some other time he may not disbelieve but in sensu conjuncto it is false for at what and in what circumstance soever it is no sin to be ignorant at that time and in that conjuncture it is no sin to disbelieve And such is the nature of all Questions disputable which are therefore not required of us to be believed in any one particular sense because the nature of the thing is such as not to be necessary to be known at all simply and absolutely and
Ages in which as they in all probability did differ from the apprehensions of the former Centuries so it is certain there were differing learnings other fancies divers representments and judgments of men depending upon circumstances which the first Ages knew and the following Ages did not and therefore the Catalogues were drawn with some truth but less certainty as appears in their differing about the Authors of some heresies several opinions imputed to the same and some put in the roll of Hereticks by one which the other left out which to me is an Argument that the Collectors were determined not by the sence and sentence of the three first Ages but by themselves and some circumstances about them which to reckon for Hereticks which not And that they themselves were the prime Judges or perhaps some in their own Age together with them but there was not any sufficient external judicatory competent to declare heresy that by any publick or sufficient sentence or acts of Court had furnished them with warrant for their Catalogues And therefore they are no Argument sufficient that the first Ages of the Church which certainly were the best did much recede from that which I shewed to be the sence of the Scripture and the practice of the Apostles they all contented themselves with the Apostles Creed as the rule of the Faith and therefore were not forward to judge of heresy but by analogie to their rule of Faith And those Catalogues made after these Ages are not sufficient Arguments that they did otherwise but rather of the weakness of some persons or of the spirit and genius of the Age in which the Compilers lived in which the device of calling all differing opinions by the name of heresies might grow to be a design to serve ends and to promote interests as often as an act of zeal and just indignation against evil persons destroyers of the Faith and corrupters of manners 22. For what ever private mens opinions were yet till the Nicene Council the rule of Faith was intire in the Apostles Creed and provided they retained that easily they broke not the unity of Faith however differing opinions might possibly commence in such things in which a liberty were better suffered than prohibited with a breach of charity And this appears exactly in the Question between S. Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen Bishop of Rome in which one instance it is easie to see what was lawful and safe for a wise and good man and yet how others began even then to be abused by that temptation which since hath invaded all Christendome S. Cyprian rebaptized Hereticks and thought he was bound so to doe calls a Synod in Africk as being Metropolitan and confirms his opinion by the consent of his Suffragans and Brethren but still with so much modesty that if any man was of another opinion he judged him not but gave him that liberty that he desired himself Stephen Bishop of Rome grows angry Excommunicates the Bishops of Asia and Africa that in divers Synods had consented to rebaptization and without peace and without charity condemns them for Hereticks Indeed here was the rarest mixture and conjunction of unlikelihoods that I have observed Here was error of opinion with much modesty and sweetness of temper on one side and on the other an over-active and impetuous zeal to attest a truth It uses not to be so for errour usually is supported with confidence and truth suppressed and discountenanced by indifferency But that it might appear that the errour was not the sin but the uncharitableness Stephen was accounted a zelous and furious person and S. Cyprian though deceived yet a very good man and of great sanctity For although every errour is to be opposed yet according to the variety of errours so is there variety of proceedings If it be against Faith that is a destruction of any part of the foundation it is with zeal to be resisted and we have for it an Apostolical warrant contend earnestly for the Faith but then as these things recede farther from the foundation our certainty is the less and their necessity not so much and therefore it were very fit that our confidence should be according to our evidence and our zeal according to our confidence and our confidence should then be the Rule of our Communion and the lightness of an Article should be considered with the weight of a precept of charity And therefore there are some errours to be reproved rather by a private friend than a publick censure and the persons of the men not avoided but admonished and their Doctrine rejected not their Communion few opinions are of that malignity which are to be rejected with the same exterminating spirit and confidence of aversation with which the first Teachers of Christianity condemned Ebion Manes and Corinthus and in the condemnation of Hereticks the personal iniquity is more considerable than the obliquity of the doctrine not for the rejection of the Article but for censuring the persons and therefore it is the piety of the man that excused S. Cyprian which is a certain Argument that it is not the opinion but the impiety that condemns and makes the Heretick And this was it which Vincentius Lirinensis said in this very case of S. Cyprian Vnius ejusdem opinionis mirum videri potest judicamus authores Catholicos sequaces haereticos Excusamus Magistros condemnamus Scholasticos Qui scripserunt libros sunt haeredes Coeli quorum librorum defensores detruduntur ad infernum Which saying if we confront against the saying of Salvian condemning the first Authors of the Arrian Sect and acquitting the Followers we are taught by these two wise men that an errour is not it that sends a man to Hell but he that begins the heresy and is the author of the Sect he is the man marked out to ruine and his Followers scaped when the Heresiarch commenced the errour upon pride and ambition and his Followers went after him in simplicity of their heart and so it was most commonly but on the contrary when the first man in the opinion was honestly and invincibly deceived as S. Cyprian was and that his Scholars to maintain their credit or their ends maintain'd the opinion not for the excellency of the reason perswading but for the benefit and accrewments or peevishness as did the Donatists qui de Cypriani authoritate sibi carnaliter blandiuntur as S. Austin said of them then the Scholars are the Hereticks and the master is a Catholick For his errour is not the heresy formally and an erring person may be a Catholick A wicked person in his errour becomes heretick when the good man in the same errour shall have all the rewards of Faith For what ever an ill man believes if he therefore believe it because it serves his own ends be his belief true or false the man hath an heretical mind for to serve his own ends his mind is prepared to believe
prejudices Epiphanius makes Pride to be the onely cause of Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudice cause them all the one criminally the other innocently And indeed S. Paul does almost make Pride the onely cause of Heresies his words cannot be expounded unless it be at least the principal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and consents not to sound words and the doctrine that is according to godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The summe is this If ever an Opinion be begun with pride or manag'd with impiety or ends in a crime the man turns Heretick but let the errour be never so great so it be not against an Article of Creed if it be simple and hath no confederation with the personal iniquity of the man the Opinion is as innocent as the person though perhaps as false as he is ignorant and therefore shall burn though he himself escape But in these cases and many more for the causes of deception encrease by all accidents and weaknesses and illusions no man can give certain judgement upon the persons of men in particular unless the matter of fact and crime be accident and notorious The man cannot by humane judgement be concluded a Heretick unless his Opinion be an open recession from plain demonstrative Divine Authority which must needs be notorious voluntary vincible and criminal or that there be a palpable serving of an end accidental and extrinsecall to the Opinion 3. But this latter is very hard to be discerned because those accidental and adherent crimes which make the man a Heretick in Questions not simply fundamental or of necessary practice are actions so internall and spiritual that cognizance can but seldome be taken of them And therefore to instance though the Opinion of Purgatory be false yet to believe it cannot be Heresie if a man be abused into the belief of it invincibly because it is not a Doctrine either fundamentally false or practically impious it neither proceeds from the will nor hath any immediate or direct influence upon choice and manners And as for those other ends of upholding that Opinion which possibly its Patrons may have as for the reputation of their Churche's Infallibility for the advantage of Dirges Requiems Masses Monthly minds Anniversaries and other Offices for the dead which usually are very profitable rich and easie these things may possibly have sole influences upon their understanding but whether they have or no God onely knows If the Proposition and Article were true these ends might justly be subordinate and consistent with a true Proposition And there are some Truths that are also profitable as the necessity of maintenance to the Clergy the Doctrine of Restitution giving Alms Lending freely Remitting debts in cases of great necessity and it would be but an ill argument that the Preachers of these Doctrines speak false because possibly in these Articles they may serve their own ends For although Demetrius and the Craftsmen were without excuse for resisting the preaching of S. Paul because it was notorious they resisted the Truth upon ground of profit and personal emoluments and the matter was confessed by themselves yet if the Clergy should maintain their just Rights and Revenues which by pious dedications and donatives were long since ascertained upon them is it to be presumed in order of Law and charity that this end is in the men subordinate to truth because it is so in the thing itself and that therefore no judgement in prejudice of these truths can be made from that observation 4. But if aliunde we are ascertained of the truth or falshood of a Proposition respectively yet the judgement of the personal ends of the men cannot ordinarily be certain and judicial because most commonly the acts are private and the purposes internall and temporal ends may sometimes consist with truth and whether the purposes of the men make these ends principal or subordinate no man can judge and be they how they will yet they do not always prove that when they are conjunct with errour the errour was caused by these purposes and criminal intentions 5. But in Questions practical the Doctrine itself and the person too may with more ease be reproved because matter of fact being evident and nothing being so certain as the experiments of humane affairs and these being the immediate consequents of such Doctrines are with some more certainty of observation redargued then the speculative whose judgement is of itself more difficult more remote from matter and humane observation and with less curiosity and explicitness declared in Scripture as being of less consequence and concernment in order to God's and Man's great end In other things which end in notion and ineffective contemplation where neither the Doctrine is malicious nor the person apparently criminal he is to be left to the judgement of God and as there is no certainty of humane judicature in this case so it is to no purpose it should be judged For if the person may be innocent with his Errour and there is no rule whereby it can certainly be pronounced that he is actually criminal as it happens in matters speculative since the end of the Commandment is love out of a pure conscience and faith unfeigned and the Commandment may obtain its end in a consistence with this simple speculative Errour why should men trouble themselves with such Opinions so as to disturb the publick charity or the private confidence Opinions and persons are just so to be judged as other matters and persons criminal For no man can judge any thing else it must be a crime and it must be open so as to take cognizance and make true humane judgement of it And this is all I am to say concerning the causes of Heresies and of the distinguishing Rules for guiding of our judgements towards others 6. As for guiding our judgements and the use of our Reason in judging for ourselves all that is to be said is reducible to this one Proposition Since Errours are then made sins when they are contrary to charity or inconsistent with a good life and the honour of God that judgement is the truest or at least that opinion most innocent that 1. best promotes the reputation of God's Glory and 2. is the best instrument of holy life For in Questions and interpretations of dispute these two analogies are the best to make Propositions and conjectures and determinations Diligence and care in obtaining the best Guides and the most convenient assistances prayer and modesty of spirit simplicity of purposes and intentions humility and aptness to learn and a peaceable disposition are therefore necessary to finding out Truths because they are parts of good life without which our Truths will doe us little advantage and our errours can have no excuse But with these dispositions as he is sure to find out all that is necessary so what Truth he inculpably misses of he is sure is therefore not necessary because he could not find it when
he did his best and his most innocent endeavours And this I say to secure the persons because no Rule can antecedently secure the Proposition in matters disputable For even in the proportions and explications of this Rule there is infinite variety of disputes And when the dispute is concerning Free will one party denies it because he believes it magnifies the grace of God that it works irresistibly the other affirms it because he believes it engages us upon greater care and piety of our endeavours The one Opinion thinks God reaps the glory of our good actions the other thinks it charges our bad actions upon him So in the Question of Merit one part chuses his assertion because he thinks it incourages us to doe good works the other believes it makes us proud and therefore he rejects it The first believes it increases piety the second believes it increases spiritual presumption and vanity The first thinks it magnifies God's justice the other thinks it derogates from his mercy Now then since neither this nor any ground can secure a man from possibility of mistaking we were infinitely miserable if it would not secure us from punishment so long as we willingly consent not to a crime and doe our best endeavour to avoid an errour Onely by the way let me observe that since there are such great differences of apprehension concerning the consequents of an Article no man is to be charged with the odious consequences of his Opinion Indeed his Doctrine is but the person is not if he understands not such things to be consequent to his Doctrine for if he did and then avows them they are his direct Opinions and he stands as chargeable with them as with his first propositions but if he disavows them he would certainly rather quit his Opinion then avow such errours or impieties which are pretended to be consequent to it because every man knows that can be no truth from whence falshood naturally and immediately does derive and he therefore believes his first Proposition because he believes it innocent of such errours as are charged upon it directly or consequently 7. So that now since no errour neither for its self nor its consequents is to be charged as criminal upon a pious person since no simple errour is a sin nor does condemn us before the throne of God since he is so pitifull to our crimes that he pardons many de toto integro in all makes abatement for the violence of temptation and the surprizal and invasion of our faculties and therefore much less will demand of us an account for our weaknesses and since the strongest understanding cannot pretend to such an immunity and exemption from the condition of men as not to be deceived and confess its weakness it remains we inquire what deportment is to be used towards persons of a differing perswasion when we are I do not say doubtfull of a Proposition but convinced that he that differs from us is in Errour for this was the first intention and the last end of this Discourse SECT XIII Of the Deportment to be used towards persons Disagreeing and the reasons why they are not to be punished with Death c. 1. FOR although every man may be deceived yet some are right and may know it too for every man that may erre does not therefore certainly erre and if he erres because he recedes from his Rule then if he follows it he may doe right and if ever any man upon just grounds did change his Opinion then he was in the right and was sure of it too and although confidence is mistaken for a just perswasion many times yet some men are confident and have reason so to be Now when this happens the question is what deportment they are to use towards persons that disagree from them and by consequence are in errour 2. First then No Christian is to be put to death dismembred or otherwise directly persecuted for his Opinion which does not teach Impiety or Blasphemy If it plainly and apparently brings in a crime and himself does act it or incourage it then the matter of fact is punishable according to its proportion or malignity As if he preaches Treason or Sedition his Opinion is not his excuse because it brings in a crime and a man is never the less Traitour because he believes it lawfull to commit Treason and a man is a Murtherer if he kills his brother unjustly although he thinks he does God good service in it Matters of fact are equally judicable whether the principle of them be from within or from without And if a man could pretend to innocence in being seditious blasphemous or perjur'd by perswading himself it is lawfull there were as great a gate opened to all iniquity as will entertain all the pretences the designs the impostures and disguises of the world And therefore God hath taken order that all Rules concerning matters of fact and good life shall be so clearly explicated that without the crime of the man he cannot be ignorant of all his practicall duty And therefore the Apostles and primitive Doctors made no scruple of condemning such persons for Hereticks that did dogmatize a sin He that teaches others to sin is worse then he that commits the crime whether he be tempted by his own interest or incouraged by the other's Doctrine It was as bad in Basilides to teach it to be lawfull to renounce Faith and Religion and take all manner of Oaths and Covenants in time of persecution as if himself had done so Nay it is as much worse as the mischief is more universal or as a fountain is greater then a drop of water taken from it He that writes Treason in a book or preaches Sedition in a Pulpit and perswades it to the people is the greatest Traitour and Incendiary and his Opinion there is the fountain of a sin and therefore could not be entertained in his understanding upon weakness or inculpable or innocent prejudice he cannot from Scripture or Divine revelation have any pretence to colour that so fairly as to seduce either a wise or an honest man If it rest there and goes no farther it is not cognoscible and so scapes that way but if it be published and comes à stylo ad machaeram as Tertullian's phrase is then it becomes matter of fact in principle and in perswasion and is just so punishable as is the crime that it perswades Such were they of whom Saint Paul complains who brought in damnable doctrines and lusts S. Paul's Vtinam abscindantur is just of them take it in any sense of rigour and severity so it be proportionable to the crime or criminal Doctrine Such were those of whom God spake in Deut. 13. If any Prophet tempts to idolatry saying Let us goe after other Gods he shall be slain But these do not come into this Question but the Proposition is to be understood concerning Questions disputable in materia intellectuali which also
ancient then falshood that God would not for so many Ages forsake his Church and leave her in an errour that whatsoever is new is not onely suspicious but false which are suppositions pious and plausible enough And if the Church of Rome had communicated Infants so long as she hath prayed to Saints or baptized Infants the communicating would have been believed with as much confidence as the other Articles are and the dissentients with as much impatience rejected But this consideration is to be enlarged upon all those particulars which as they are apt to abuse the persons of the men and amuse their understandings so they are instruments of their excuse and by making their errours to be invincible and their Opinions though false yet not criminall make it also to be an effect of reason and charity to permit the men a liberty of their Conscience and let them answer to God for themselves and their own Opinions Such as are the beauty and splendour of their Church their pompous Service the stateliness and solennity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the antiquity of many of their Doctrines the continuall Succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed S. Peter the supposall and pretence of his personal prerogatives the advantages which the conjunction of the Imperial Seat with their Episcopal hath brought to that See the flattering expressions of minor Bishops which by being old Records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of people which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes an apparent consent with some elder Ages in many matters Doctrinal the advantage which is derived to them by entertaining some personal Opinions of the Fathers which they with infinite clamours see to be cried up to be a Doctrine of the Church of that time the great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide the great differences which are commenced amongst their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophesying unto a very great licentiousness their happiness of being instruments in converting divers Nations the advantages of Monarchicall Government the benefit of which as well as the inconveniences which though they feel they consider not they daily do enjoy the piety and the austerity of their Religious Orders of men and women the single life of their Priests and Bishops the riches of their Church the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for Faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose Institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate their Miracles false or true substantial or imaginary the casualties and accidents that have happened to their Adversaries which being chances of humanity are attributed to several causes according as the fancies of men and their interests are pleased or satisfied the temporal felicity of their Professors the oblique arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongsâ— many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacy fasten upon all that disagree from them These things and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore fathers which had actual possession and seisure of mens understandings before the opposite professions had a name and so much the rather because Religion hath more advantages upon the fancy and affections then it hath upon Philosophie and severe discourses and therefore is the more easily perswaded upon such grounds as these which are more apt to amuse then to satisfie the understanding 3. Secondly If we consider the Doctrines themselves we shall find them to be superstructures ill built and worse managed but yet they keep the foundation they build upon God in Jesus Christ they profess the Apostles Creed they retain Faith and repentance as the supporters of all our hopes of Heaven and believe many more Truths then can be proved to be of simple and original necessity to Salvation And therefore all the wisest personages of the adverse party allowed to them possibility of salvation whilst their errours are not faults of their will but weaknesses and deceptions of the understanding So that there is nothing in the foundation of Faith that can reasonably hinder them to be permitted The foundation of Faith stands secure enough for all their vain and unhandsome superstructures But then on the other side if we take account of their Doctrines as they relate to good life or are consistent or inconsistent with civil Government we shall have other considerations 4. Thirdly For I consider that many of their Doctrines do accidentally teach or lead to ill life and it will appear to any man that considers the result of these Propositions Attrition which is a low and imperfect degree of sorrow for sin or as others say a sorrow for sin commenced upon any reason of a religious hope or fear or desire or any thing else is a sufficient disposition for a man in the Sacrament of Penance to receive absolution and be justified before God by taking away the guilt of all his sins and the obligation to eternall pains So that already the fear of Hell is quite removed upon conditions so easie that many men take more pains to get a groat then by this Doctrine we are obliged to for the curing and acquitting all the greatest sins of a whole life of the most vicious person in the world And but that they affright their people with a fear of Purgatory or with the severity of Penances in case they will not venture for Purgatory for by their Doctrine they may chuse or refuse either there would be nothing in their Doctrine or Discipline to impede and slacken their proclivity to sin But then they have as easie a cure for that too with a little more charge sometimes but most commonly with less trouble For there are so many Confraternities so many priviledged Churches Altars Monasteries Coemeteries Offices Festivals and so free a concession of Indulgences appendant to all these and a thousand fine devices to take away the fear of Purgatory to commute or expiate Penances that in no Sect of men do they with more ease and cheapness reconcile a wicked life with the hopes of Heaven then in the Roman Communion 5. And indeed if men would consider things upon their true grounds the Church of Rome should be more reproved upon Doctrines that infer ill life then upon such as are contrariant to Faith For false superstructures do not always destroy Faith but many of the Doctrines they teach if they were prosecuted to the utmost issue would destroy good life And therefore my quarrell with the Church of Rome is greater
This discourse is to suppose it false and we are to direct our proceedings accordingly And therefore I shall not need to urge with how many fair words and gay pretences this Doctrine is set off apt either to cozen or instruct the conscience of the wisest according as it is true or false respectively But we finde says the Romanist in the History of the Maccabees that the Jews did pray and make offerings for the dead which also appears by other testimonies and by their Form of prayers still extant which they used in the Captivity It is very considerable that since our Blessed Saviour did reprove all the evil Doctrines and Traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees and did argue concerning the dead and the Resurrection against the Sadducees yet he spake no word against this publick practice but left it as he found it which he who came to declare to us all the will of his Father would not have done if it had not been innocent pious and full of charity To which by way of consociation if we adde that Saint Paul did pray for Onesiphorus that the Lord would sheâ— him a mercy in that day that is according to the style of the New Testament the day of Judgement the result will be that although it be probable that Onesiphorus at that time was dead because in his salutations he salutes his houshold without naming him who was the Major domo against his custom of salutations in other places yet besides this the prayer was for such a blessing to him whose demonstration and reception could not be but after death which implies clearly that then there is a need of mercy and by consequence the dead people even to the day of Judgement inclusively are the subject of a misery the object of God's mercy and therefore fit to be commemorated in the duties of our piety and charity and that we are to recommend their condition to God not onely to give them more glory in the re-union but to pity them to such purposes in which they need which because they are not revealed to us in particular it hinders us not in recommending the persons in particular to God's mercy but should rather excite our charity and devotion For it being certain that they have a need of mercy and it being uncertain how great their need is it may concern the prudence of charity to be the more earnest as not knowing the greatness of their necessity 12. And if there should be any uncertainty in these Arguments yet its having been the universal practice of the Church of God in all places and in all Ages till within these hundred years is a very great inducement for any member of the Church to believe that in the first Traditions of Christianity and the Institutions Apostolical there was nothing delivered against this practice but very much to insinuate or enjoyn it because the practice of it was at the first and was universal And if any man shall doubt of this he shews nothing but that he is ignorant of the Records of the Church it being plain in Tertullian and Saint Cyprian who were the eldest Writers of the Latine Church that in their times it was ab antiquo the custom of the Church to pray for the Souls of the faithfull departed in the dreadfull mysteries And it was an Institution Apostolical says one of them and so transmitted to the following Ages of the Church and when once it began upon slight grounds and discontent to be contested against by Aerius the man was presently condemn'd for a Heretick as appears in Epiphanius 13. But I am not to consider the Arguments for the Doctrine itself although the probability and fair pretence of them may help to excuse such persons who upon these or the like grounds do heartily believe it but I am to consider that whether it be true or false there is no manner of malice in it and at the worst it is but a wrong errour upon the right side of charity and concluded against by its Adversaries upon the confidence of such Arguments which possibly are not so probable as the grounds pretended for it 14. And if the same judgement might be made of any more of their Doctrines I think it were better men were not furious in the condemning such Questions which either they understood not upon the grounds of their proper Arguments or at least consider not as subjected in the persons and lessened by circumstances by the innocency of the event or other prudential considerations 15. But the other Article is harder to be judged of and hath made greater stirs in Christendom and hath been dasht at with more impetuous Objections and such as do more trouble the Question of Toleration For if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be false as upon much evidence we believe it is then it is accused of introducing Idolatry giving Divine worship to a creature adoring of bread and wine and then comes in the precept of God to the Jews that those Prophets who perswaded to Idolatry should be slain 16. But here we must deliberate for it is concerning the lives of men and yet a little deliberation may suffice For Idolatry is a forsaking the true God and giving Divine worship to a creature or to an Idol that is to an imaginary god who hath no foundation in essence or existence and is that kind of superstition which by Divines is called the superstition of an undue object Now it is evident that the object of their adoration that which is represented to them in their minds their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the onely true and eternal God hypostatically joyned with his holy Humanity which Humanity they believe actually present under the veil of the Sacramental signs And if they thought him not present they are so far from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves profess it to be Idolatry to doe so which is a demonstration that their soul hath nothing in it that is idololatricall If their confidence and fancy-full Opinion hath engaged them upon so great mistake as without doubt it hath yet the will hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to Idolatry Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas And although they have done violence to all Philosophy and the reason of man and undone and cancelled the principles of two or three Sciences to bring in this Article yet they have a Divine Revelation whose literal and grammatical sense if that sense were intended would warrant them to doe violence to all the Sciences in the Circle And indeed that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against natural reason is no Argument to make them disbelieve it who believe the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication which are in the School and which now-a-days pass for the Doctrine of the Church
God the Father and the holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that Sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a Divine Attribute I mean the Immensity and Spirituality of the Divine Nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be Infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christ's Institution to a humane invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Traditions to new pretences from Prayers which ye understood to Prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon creatures from intire dependence upon inward acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and of Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose worshipping is Simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the days of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio greater I say than all the Ceremonies of the Jews contained in Leviticus c. You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the holy Scriptures from whence you found instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that Fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out And if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true For if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you But there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacraments or decrees of the Church or the messages of your friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are liable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are liable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you were only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to worship Saints and Angels with a worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God For your Church worships the Virgin Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her Presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned for Heresie in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the Virgin Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the worship and your joyning God and the Saints in your worship and devotions is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former I will trouble you with no more particulars because if these move you not to consider better nothing can But yet I have two things more to add of another nature one of which at least may prevail upon you whom I suppose to have a tender and a religious Conscience The first is That all the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition of Power and Riches and so stand vehemently suspected of design and art rather than truth of the Article and designs upon Heaven I instance in the Popes power over Princes and all the World His power of dispensation The exemption of the Clergy from jurisdiction of Princes The doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences which was once made means to raise a portion for a Lady the Neece of Pope Leo the Tenth The Priests power advanced beyond authority of any warrant from Scripture a doctrine apt to bring absolute obedience to the Papacy But because this is possibly too nice for you to suspect or consider that which I am sure ought to move you is this That you are gone to a Religion in which though through God's grace prevailing over the follies of men there are I hope and charitably suppose many pious men that love God and live good lives yet there are very many doctrines taught by your men which are very ill friends to a good life I instance in your Indulgences and Pardons in which vicious men put a great confidence and rely greatly upon them The doctrine of Purgatory which gives countenance to a sort of Christians who live half to God and half to the world and for them this doctrine hath found out a way that they may go to Hell and to Heaven too The Doctrine that the Priests absolution can turn a trifling Repentance into a perfect and a good and that suddenly too and at any time even on our death-bed or the minute before our death is a dangerous heap of falshoods and gives licence to wicked people and teaches men to reconcile a wicked debauched life with the hopes of Heaven And then for Penances and temporal satisfaction which might seem to be as a plank after the shipwrack of the duty of Repentance to keep men in awe and to preserve them from sinking in an Ocean of Impiety it comes to just nothing by your doctrine for there are so many easie ways of Indulgences and getting Pardons so many Con-fraternities Stations priviledg'd Altars little Offices Agnus Dei's Amulets Hallowed devices Swords Roses Hats Church-yards and the fountain of these annexed Indulgences the Pope himself and his power of granting what and when and to whom he list that he is a very unfortunate man that needs to smart with penances and after all he may chuse to suffer any at all for he may pay them in Purgatory if he please and he may come out of Purgatory upon reasonable terms in case he should think it fit to go thither So that all the whole duty of Repentance seems to be destroyed with devices of men that seek power and gain and find error and folly insomuch that if I had a mind to live an evil Life and yet hope for Heaven at last I would be of your Religion above any in the world But I forget I am writing a Letter I shall therefore desire you to consider upon the Promises which is the safer way For surely it is lawful for a man to serve God without Images but that to worship Images is lawful is not so sure It is lawful to pray to God alone to confess him to be true and every man a lyar to call no man Master upon Earth but to rely upon God
16 17 18. explained 782 n. 32. and Chap. 5.24 He that is in Christ hath crucified the flesh with the affections explained 794 n. 58. and Chap. 5.17 The spirit lusteth against the flesh explained 810 n. 40. Gelasius Bishop of Rome was the authour of the Book de duabus naturis contra Eutychetem 265 § 12. His words about Transubstantiation considered Genesis Chap. 6. v. 5. Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart onely evil explained 720 n. 47. and Chap. 8. v. 21. The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth explained 721 n. 48. H. Ghost The Divinity of the Holy Ghost was not decreed at Nice 424. The procession of the Holy Ghost may be proved by Scripture without Tradition 427 428. What is the sin against the Holy Ghost 810 n. 43. Final impenitence proved not to be the sin against the Holy Ghost 811 n. 42. That the sin against the Holy Ghost is pardonable 812 n. 48. In what sense it is affirmed in Scripture that the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be pardoned in this world nor in the world to come 812 n. 52 53. Glory Concerning the degrees of eternal glory 968 n. 5. God Of his power to doe things impossible 233 § 11. Ubiquity an incommunicable attribute of God's 237 § 12. and 241. To picture God the Father or the Trinity is against the Primitive practice 307. The Romanists teach that the Pope hath power to dispense with all the laws of God 342. No man is tempted of God 737 n. 90. Gospel The difference between it and the Law 574. Of the possibility of keeping the Evangelical Law 576. What is required in the Gospel 588 n. 9. It is nothing else but faith and repentance 599 n. 1 2. The righteousness of the Law and Gospel how they differ 673 n. 46. Grace Pope Adrian taught that a man out of the state of Grace may merit for another in the state of Grace 320 321. The Romanists attribute the conveying of Grace to things of their own inventing 337 § 11. They teach that the Sacraments do not onely convey Grace but supply the defect of it 337. To be in the state of Grace is of very large signification 643 n. 31. The just measures and latitude of a man's being in the state of Grace 643 n. 32. How it works 679. n. 52. ad 56. What it signifieth to be in the state of Grace 643 n. 31. There is a transcendent habit of Grace and what it is 685. n. 68. How the necessity of Grace is consistent with the doctrine of Free-will 754 n. 15. By the strengths of mere Nature men cannot get to heaven 885. Greek Photius was the first authour of the Schism between the Greek and Latine Church 109 § 33. The Greek Church receive not the Article of Transubstantiation Ep. Ded. to Real Pres. 175. The Greek Church disowns Purgatory 297. The opinion of the Greek Church concerning Purgatory 510. Gregory Gregory Bishop of Rome reproved the Patriarch of Constantinople for calling himself Universal Bishop 310. Guilt It cannot properly be traduced from one person to another 902 915. Against that notion That guilt cleaveth to the nature though not to the person 910. H. Habits A Single act of sin without a habit gives a denomination 641 n. 25. Sins are damnable that cannot be habitual 641 n. 24. A sinful habit hath a guilt distinct from that of the act 659 n. 1. Sinful habits require a distinct manner of repentance 669 n. 31. Seven objections against that Assertion answered 675 n. 51. Of infused habits 676. The method of mortifying vicious habits 690 691 n. 9 10. How and in what cases a single act may be accounted habitual 648 n. 50. Of sinful habits and their threefold capacity 659 n. 4. 'T is not true to affirm That every reluctancy to an act of vertue that proceeds from the habit of the contrary vice if it be overcome increases the reward 661 n. 6. ad 9. A vicious habit adds many degrees of aversation from God 669 n. 9. Evil habits do not only imply a facility but a kind of necessity 662 n. 11. A vicious habit makes our repentances the more difficult 663 n. 14. A vicious habit makes us swallow a great sin as easily as the least 664 n. 15. It keeps us always out of God's favour 665 n. 18. A sinful habit denominates the man guilty though he exert no actions 666 n. 23. Smaller sins if habitual discompose our state of Grace 667 n. 24. Habitual concupiscence needs pardon as much as natural 667 n. 26. Saint Augustine endeavours to prove that a sinful habit has a special sinfulness distinct from that of evil actions and Pelagius did gainsay it 667 n. 26. Every habit of vice is naturally expelled by a habit of vertue 669 n. 34. Though to extirpate a vicious habit by a contrary habit is not meritorious of pardon yet it is necessary in order to the obtaining pardon 670 n. 36. To oppose a habit against a habit is a more proper and effectual remedy then to oppose an act of sorrow or repentance against an act of sin 670 n. 38. In re morali there is no such thing as infused habits 676 n. 53. Hands Of laying on of hands in absolution 838 n. 54. Imposition of hands was twice solemnly had in repentance 840 841 n. 57. Heathen Their practice in their hymns and prayers to their gods pag. 3 n. 11. They could not worship an Image terminativè 338. The Heathens did condemn the worship of Images 546. Heaven In a natural state we cannot hope for Heaven 737 n. 85. Epistle to the Hebrews Chap. 6. v. 1 2. Of the foundation of laying on of hands explained 10 11 b. That the Apostle there in speaking of the laying on of hands means Confirmation and not either Absolution or Ordination 10 11 b. Chap. 9.28 expl 712 n. 15. Chap. 7.27 expl 712. n. 17. Chap. 5.23 explained 712. Chap. 6.4 5 6. explained ibid. Chap. 10.26 explained 809 n. 36. Hell The Article of Christ's descent into Hell was not in the ancient copies of the Creed 943 n. 8. Heresie How Aërius could be an Heretick seeing his errour was against no fundamental doctrine 150 § 48. The notion of Heresie was anciently more comprehensive then now it is ibid. In the first Council of Constantinople he is declared an heretick that believes right but separates from his Bishop 151 § 48. The Heresie of the Acephali what it was ibid. A Son or Wife they absolve from duty if the Father or Husband be heretical 345. The Pope takes upon him to depose Kings not heretical 345. The Fathers style some hereticks that are not 376. An heretical Pope is no Pope 401. What Popes have been heretical ibid. and 402. The validity of Baptism by hereticks is not to be proved by Tradition without Scripture 426 427. Divers hereticks did worship the picture of our Lord and were reproved for it 545. Pope John XXII
sin 673 n. 47. M. Malefactors BEing condemned by the customs of Spain they are allowed respite till their Confessor supposeth them competently prepared 678 n 56. Man The weakness and frailty of humane nature 734 n. 82. in his body soul and spirit 735 n. 83. and 486. Mark Chap. 12.34 explained 780 n. 26. Chap. 12.32 explained 809. Justin Martyr His testimony against Transubstantiation 258 § 12. and 522 523. His testimony against Purgatory 513 514. Mass. A Cardinal in his last Will took order to have fifty thousand Masses said for his soul 320. Indulgences make not the multitude of Masses less necessary 320 c. 2. § 4. Pope John VIII gave leave to the Moravians to have Mass in the Sclavonian tongue 534. Saint Matthew Chap. 26.11 Me ye have not always explained 222 § 9. Chap. 28.20 I am with you always to the end of the world explained ibid. Chap. 18.17 Dic Ecclesiae explained 389. Chap. 15.9 teaching for doctrines the commandments of men 471 472 477. Chap. 5.19 one of the least of these Commandments 615 616 n. 18. Chap. 5.19 explained ibid n. 18. Chap. 5. v. 22. explained 622 n. 34. Chap. 12.32 explained 810. Chap. 15.48 explained 582 n. 40 43. Chap. 5.22 shall be guilty of judgement 621 n. 34. Mercy God's Mercy and Justice reconciled about his exacting the Law 580. Merit Pope Adrian taught that one out of the state of Grace may merit for another in the state of Grace 320 321. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The difference between them 596 n. 1. Millenaries Their opinion how much it spread and prevailed in the ancient Church 976 n. 3. Miracles The miraculous Apparitions that are brought to prove Transubstantiation proved to be false by their own doctrine 229 § 10. Of those now-adays wrought by the Romanists 452. The Dominicans and Franciscans brought Miracles on both sides in proof both for and against the immaculate Conception 1019. Of false Miracles and Legends 1020. Miracles not a sufficient argument to prove a doctrine ibid. Canus his opinion of the Legenda Lombardica ibid. The Pope in the Lateran Council made a decree against false Miracles 1020. Montanus His Heresie mistaken by Epiphanius 955 n. 18. Moral The difference between the Moral Regenerate and Prophane man in committing sin 782 n. 33. and 820 n. 1. Mortal Sin Between the least mortal sin and greatest venial sin no man can distinguish 610 n. 2. Mortification It is a precept not a counsel 672 n. 44. The method of mortifying vicious habits 691 n. 10 11. The benefits of it 690. n. 6. Mysterie The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist like other mysteries is not to be searched into as to the manner of it too curiously 182 § 1. N. Nature OF the use of that word in the controversie of Transubstantiation 251 § 12. By the strength of it alone men cannot get to heaven 885. The state of nature 770 n. 1 2. c. 8. § 1. What the phrase by nature means 723 n. 48. By it alone we cannot be saved 737 n. 86. The use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 767 n. 35. Necessity Of that distinction Necessitas praecepti and medii 8. b. There is in us no natural necessity of sinning 754 n. 15. Nicolaitans The authour of that Heresie vindicated from false imputations 953 n. 17. Novatians Their doctrine opposed 802 n. 8. A great objection of theirs proposed 806 n. 24. and answered 807 n. 26. O. Obedience ARguments to prove that perfect obedience to God's Law is impossible 576 577 n. 15. ad 19. Obstinacy Two kinds of it the one sinful the other not so 951 n. 10. Opinion A man is not to be charged with the odious consequents of his opinion 1024. Sometimes on both sides of the Opinion it is pretended that the Proposition promotes the honour of God ibid. How hard it is not to be deceived in weighing some Opinions of Religion 1026. Ordination Pope Pelagius not lawfully ordained Bishop according to the Canon 98 § 31. A Presbyter did once assist at the ordaining a Bishop ibid. Ordo and gradus were at first used promiscuously 98 § 31. How strangely some of the Church of Rome do define Orders 99 § 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had Episcopal Ordinaâ—ion but not Jurisdiction 102 § 32. Presbyters could not ordain 102 § 32. The Council of Sardis would not own them as Presbyters who were ordained by none but Presbyters 103 § 32. Novatus was ordained by a Bishop without the assistance of other Clergy 104 § 32. A Bishop may ordain without the concurrence of a Presbyter in the Ceremony 105 § 32. Concerning Ordination in the Reformed Churches without Bishops 105 § 32. Saint Cyprian did ordain and perform acts of jurisdiction without his Presbyters 145 146 § 44. A Pope accused in the Lateran Council for not being in Orders 325 c. 2. § 7. The Romanists give distinct Ordination to their Exorcists 336. Origen His authority against Transubstantiation 258 § 12. Original sin In what sense it is damnable 570. How that doctrine is contrary to the Pelagian 571. Some Romanists in this doctrine have receded as much from the definitions of their Church as this Authour from the English and without offence 571. Original sin is manifest in the many effects of it 869. The true doctrine of Original sin 869 870 896. The errours in that Article 871. There are sixteen several and famous opinions in the Article of Original sin 877. Against that Proposition Original sin makes us liable to damnation yet none are damned for it 878 n. 5. 879 n. 6 7. The ill consequence of the mistakes in this doctrine 883 884. If Infants are not under the guilt of original sin why are they baptized That objection answered 884. The difficulties that Saint Augustine and others found in explicating the traduction of original sin 896. The Authour's doctrine about Original sin It is proved that it contradicts not the Ninth Article of the Church of England 898 899. Concupiscence is not it 911. Whether we derive from Adam original and natural ignorance 713 n. 22. Adam's sin made us not heirs of damnation ibid. nor makes us necessarily vicious 717 n. 37. Adam's sin did not corrupt our nature by a natural efficiency 717 n. 39. nor because we were in the loins of Adam 717 n. 40. nor because of the will and decree of God 717 n. 41. Objections out of Scripture against this doctrine answered 720 n. 46. Vid. Sin The Authour affirmeth not that there is no such thing as original sin 747 748 n. 1. He is not singular in his doctrine 762 n. 24 26. The want of original righteousness is no sin 752 n. 10. In what sense the ancient Fathers taught the doctrine of Original sin 761 n. 22. With what variety the doctrine of Original sin was anciently taught 761 n. 23. How much they are divided amongst themselves who say that Original sin is in us formally a sin 762 n. 25. Original sin
be the best way of proving the immortality of the Soul 357. Aristotle believed the Soul of man to be divine and not of the body 718 n. 41. There is no difference between the inferiour and superiour faculties of the Soul 728 n. 68. and 825 n. 19. The frailty of man's Soul 734 n. 83. Spirit Whether the ordinary gifts of the Spirit be immediate infusions of faculties and abilities or an improvement of our natural powers and means 4 n. 15. ad 34. How the Holy Spirit did inspire the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament as to the very words 8 n. 32. What in the sense of Scripture is praying with the Spirit 9 n. 37. and 47. What a Spirit is as to nature 236 § 11. How a Spirit is in place 236 § 11. The Holy Spirit perfects our Redemption 1. b. The Spirit of God 1. b. The frailty of the spirit of man 735 n. 83. The rule of the Spirit in us 782. To have received the Spirit is not an inseparable propriety of the regenerate 786. What the Spirit of God doth in us 787. The regenerate man hath not onely received the Spirit of God but is wholly led by him 788. Sublapsarians Their Doctrine in five Propositions 872. It is not much better then the Supralapsarian 873. Against this way 886 n. 8. Substance What a Substance is 236 § 11. Aquinas says that the Body of Christ is in the Elements not after the manner of a Body but a Substance this Notion considered 238 § 11. Succession Of the succession of Bishops 402 403. Supererogation How it and Christian perfection differ 590 591 n. 16 17. What it is 786. Superlative This is usually exprest by a synonymal word by an Hebraism 909. Supralapsarians Their Doctrine 871. T. Tears A Man by them must not judge of his Repentance nor by any other one way of expression 850 n. 86. Temptation Every temptation to sin if overcome increases not the reward 661 n. 7. No man is tempted of God 737 n. 86. The violence of a temptation doth not in the whole excuse sin 743. Testament In a humane or Divine Testament figurative words may be admitted 210 § 6. A certain Athenian's aenigmatical Testament 210 § 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What they were 835 n. 44. Theodoret. His words about Transubstantiation considered 264 265 § 12. Theology The power of Reason in matters of Theology 230 231 § 11. It findeth a medium between Vertue and Vice 673. Thief on the Cross. Why his Repentance was accepted 681 n. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What that word means 637 n 10. 1. Epistle to Timothy Chap. 4. v. 8. explained 860 n. 114. Chap. 5. v. 22. explained 808 n. 31. Chap. 5.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explained 152 § 48. and 166 § 51. Chap. 3.15 16. the pillar and ground of truth explained 386 387. Chap. 1.5 6. explained 949 n. 8. 2. Epistle to Timothy Chap. 2. v. 4. explained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 162 § 49. Epistle to Titus Chap. 5.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 explained 780 n. 30. Tradition Christ and his Apostles made use of Scripture for arguments not Tradition 353. An answer to that Objection Tradition is the best argument to prove the Scripture to be the word of God therefore it is a better Principle then that 354. Oral Tradition was useful to convey matter of fact onely not Doctrines 354 355 358. Oral Tradition a very uncertain means to convey down a Doctrine 356. The Romanists have no Tradition to assure them the Epistle to the Hebrews is Canonical 361. The doctrine of the Scriptures sufficiency proved by Tradition 410. Some of the Fathers by Tradition mean Scripture 410 411 412. What Tradition is and what the word meaneth 420 § 3. When and in what case Tradition is an useful Topick 421. It is necessary in the Church because the Scripture could not be conveyed to us without it 424. The Questions that arose in the Council of Nice were not determined by Tradition but Scripture 425. The Tradition urged by the Ancients was not oral 425. The Romanists by their doctrine of Tradition gave great advantage to the Socinians 425. The doctrine of the Trinity relieth not upon Tradition but Scripture 425. That the doctrine of Infant-baptism relieth not upon Tradition onely but Scripture too 425 426. The validity of Baptism by Hereticks is not to be proved by Tradition without Scripture 426 427. The Procession of the Holy Ghost may be proved by Scripture without Tradition 427 428. The observation of the Lord's Day relieth not upon Tradition 428. Instances wherein oral Tradition has failed in conveyance 431. Saint Augustine's Rule to try Apostolical Traditions 432. Some Traditions said to be Apostolical have proceeded from the testimony of one man alone and he none of them 432. Of the means of proving a Tradition to be Apostolical 433. Of Vincentius Lirinensis his Rule to discern Apostolical Tradition 434. In the Question about the immaculate Conception Tradition is equally pretended on both sides 435. Traditions now held that are contrary to the Primitive Traditions 453 454. There is no Ecclesiastical Tradition for Auricular Confession 490. Of what use Tradition is in expounding Scripture 976. It is no sufficient medium to end Controversies 976 sect 5. per tot It was pretended by the Arians and divers other hereticks as well as the Orthodox 977 n. 3. The report of Tradition was uncertain even in the Ages Apostolical 978 n. 4. Tradition could not be made use of to determine the Controversie about Easter between the Churches of the East and West because both sides pretended it 979 n. 7. What Tradition it was the Fathers used to appeal to 979 n. 8. Transubstantiation The arts by which the Romanists have managed this Article Ep. Ded. to Real Pres. 174. It is acknowledged by the Romanists that this doctrine cannot be proved out of Scripture 187 § 2. and 298. How many figurative terms there are in the words of Institution 211 212 § 6. If this doctrine be true then the truth of Christian Religion which relieth upon the evidence of Sense is questionable 223 224 § 10. The Papists Answer to that Argument with our Reply 224 § 10. Bellarmine's Answer and a Reply upon it 226 § 10. If the testimony of our Senses in fit circumstances be not to be relied on the Catholicks could not have confuted the Valentinians and Marcionites 227 § 10. Irenaeus mentions an Impostour that essayed to counterfeit Transubstantiation long before the Roman Church decreed it 228 § 10. The miraculous Apparitions that are brought to prove Transubstantiation are proved to be false by their own doctrine 229 § 10. Picus Mirandula offered to maintain in Rome this Thesis Paneitas potest suppositare corpus Domini 230 § 11. How many ways the words of Christ Hoc est corpus meum may be verified without Transubstantiation 230 231 § 11. The folly of that assertion Credo quia impossibile est when applied to