no such thing 3. A Law of such universal concernment to the Faith and Peace of the Christian Church being supposed the practice of the best and purestâ— Ages of the Church must be supposed agreeable thereto i. e. that in all matters of difference they did constantly own these infallible Judges by appealing to them for a final issue of all debates and resting satisfied with their decisions But if on the contrary when great differences have happened in and nearest the first times no such Authority was made use of but other ways put in practice to make an end of them if when it was pretended it was slighted and rejected nay if the persons pretending it were proceeded against and condemned and this not by a popular Faction but by just and legal Authority we may thence conclude that such Judges have arrogated that power to themselves which was not given them by the Supreme Legislator These things being premised I come to his particular Arguments which lie scatteredâ—up and down but to give them the greater strength I shall bring them nearer together And they are drawn either from Scripture or Tradition or parity of Reason 1. From Scripture And in truth the only satisfactory Argument in a matter of so great concernment to the Christian Church ought only to be drawn from thence unless we will suppose the Scripture defective in the most important things For this being pleaded as a thing necessary for the Peace of the Church by some and for the Faith of Christians by others so much greater the necessity of it is so much clearer ought the evidence of it to be in Scripture supposing that to be intended to reveal the Will of God to us in matters of the greatest necessity But it cannot be denied by our Adversaries that the places produced by them for a constant Infallibility in the Guides of the Church do not necessarily prove it because they are very capable of being understood as to the Infallibility only of the Apostles in the first Age and Foundation of the Christian Church is it then to be imagined that if Christ had intended such an Infallibility as the foundation of the Faith and Peace of his Church he would not have delivered his mind more plainly and clearly than he is pretended to do in this matter How easily might all the contentions of the Christian World have been prevented if Christ had caused it to be delivered in terms so clear as the nature of the thing doth require If he had said I do promise my Infallible Spirit to the Guides of the Church in all Ages to give the true sense of Scripture in all controversies which shall arise among Christians and I expect an obedience suitably to all their determinations or more particularly I appoint the Bishops of Rome in all Ages for my Successors in the Government of the Church who shall be the standing and infallible Iudges of all Controversies among Christians this dispute might never have happened among us For we assure them that we account the peace of the Church so valuable a thing and obedience to Christs Commands so necessary a duty that we are well enough inclined to embrace the doctrine of Infallibility if we could see any ground in Scripture for it But we cannot make persons infallible by believing them to be so but we may easily make our selves fools as others have done by believing it without reason The controversie then is not whether Infallibility in the Guides of the Church be a desirable thing or not for so we say impeccability is too but the question is whether there be any such thing promised by Christ to the Guides of his Church and whether all Christians on that account are bound to yield their internal assent as well as external obedience to all their decrees which we deny and desire to see it clearly proved from his words who alone could grant this Infallibility For if an infallible Judge be therefore necessary because the Scripture is not sufficiently clear for ending of Controversies and that God hath actually constituted such a Judge cannot be proved but by Scripture surely we have all the reason in the World to expect that the Scripture should be abundantly and beyond all contradiction clear in this point to make amends for its obscurity in the rest For if this Point be not clearly proved we are never the nearer an end of Controversies because the business stops at the very head and they may beg their hearts out before we shall ever be so good natured as to grant it them without proof And they who have been so bold shall I say or blasphemous as to charge our Lord with want of discretion in case he have not provided his Church with such an Infallible Judge do certainly render him much more obnoxious to this imputation in supposing him to have constituted such a Judge if he have no where plainly declared that he hath done so And let them if they can produce one clear Text of Scripture to this purpose which by the unanimous consent of the Fathers is so interpreted and which to the common sense of Mankind is more sufficiently clear for the ending this Controversie than the Scripture is said by them to be in other necessary Points of Faith And till they have done this according to their own way of arguing we have as much reason to deny their Infallibility as they have to demand our assent to it upon the presumed obscurity and insufficiency of Scripture When I came thus prepared to find what the Considerator would produce in a matter of such consequence I soon discerned how little mind he had to insist upon any proofs of that which is his only Engine to overthrow my Principles For after the most diligent search I could make the only Argument from Scripture I found produced was from the Old Testament where I confess I least looked for it but however this is thought so considerable as to be twice produced and yet is so unlucky that if I understand any thing of the force of it it pâ—oves the Judges in Westminster Hall to be infallible rather than the Pope or any Guide of the Christian Church For the force of the Argument lies in Gods appointing Iudges under the Law according to whose sentence matters were to be determined upon penalty of death in case of disobedience But what then doth this imply infallibility no that he dares not stand to but absolute obedience which we are ready to yield when we see the like absolute command for Ecclesiastical Judges of Controversies of Religion as there was among the Iews for their supreme Iudges in matters of Law But of this place I have already spoken at large and shewed how impertinently it is produced for Infallibility in the Book he often referrs to and might if he had thought fit have answered what is there said before he had urged it again without any new strength
Sophister one now comes forth in the habit of a grave Divine whom I shall treat with the respect due to his appearance of Modesty and Civility I pass by therefore all those unhandsome reflections in his Preface which I have not already answered in mine and come immediately to the main Controversie between us which I acknowledge to be of so great importance as to deserve a sober debate And the Controversie in short is this Whether Protestants who reject the Roman Churches Authority and Infallibility can have any sufficient Foundation to build their faith upon This we affirm and those of the Church of Rome confidently deny and on this account do charge us with the want of Principles i. e. sufficient grounds for our faith But this may be understood two ways 1. That we can have no certainty of our faith as Christians without their Infallibility 2. Or that we can have no certainty of our faith as Protestants i. e. in the matters in debate between their Church and ours These two ought carefully to be distinguished from each other and although the Principles I laid down do reach to both these yet that they were chiefly intended for the former will appear by the occasion of adding them to the end of the Answer there given The occasion was my Adversaries calling for Grounds and Principles upon which I there say that I would give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions The first I undertook on two accounts 1. To shew that the Roman Churches Authority and Infallibility cannot be the Foundation of Christian faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome 2. That this might serve as a sufficient answer to a Book entituled Protestants without Principles Which being in some part of it directed against me I had reason not only to lay down those Principles bâ—t to do it in such a manner as did most directly overthrow the principles of that Book Which being only intimated there I must now to make my proceeding more clear and evident produce those assertions of E. W. for which mine were intended In the first Chapter he designs to prove That all men must be infallible in the assent they give to matters of faith For saith he If they disown such infallible believers they must joyntly deny all infallible faith and a little after an Infallible verity revealed to us forcibly requires an answerable and correspondent infallible faith in us and therefore he asserts a subjective Infallibility in true believers And from hence he proves the necessity of Infallible teachers for infallible believers and infallible teachers he saith seem neer correlatives In the second Chapter he saith he that hears an infallible teacher hath the Spirit of truth and he that hears not an infallible teacher wants this Spirit of truth by which he does not mean an infallible Revealer of the doctrine at first but the immediate teachers of the revealed doctrine for saith he no man can be a Heretick that denies the objective verities revealed in Gods word unless he be sure that his teacher reveals those verities infallibly He proposes the objection of a Simplician as he calls him that he builds his faith and Religion not on any Preachers talk but on the objective verities revealed in Scripture to which he answers that unless he first learn of some infallible Oracle the sense of Scripture in controverted places he can never arrive to the depth of Gods true meaning or derive infallible faith from those objective revealed Verities He yet farther asserts that every Catechist or Preacher that hath a lawful mission and is sent by the infallible Church to teach Christs Sacred Doctrine if he Preach that doctrine which Christ and his Church approves of is then under that notion of a member conjoyned with an Infallible Church infallible in his teaching and thence concludes that infallibility doth accompany both teachers and hearers and from denying this Infallibility he saith follows an utter ruine of Christian Religion yea and of Scripture too And afterwards he goes about to prove that no man can have any divine faith without infallibility in the proponent for faith he as long as the Infallibility of a Revelation stands remote from me for want of an undoubted application made by an infallible Proponent it can no more transfuse Certainty into Faith than Fire at a great distance warm This is the sum of the Principles of that Metaphysical wit but sure a man must have his brains well confounded by School Divinity and hard words before he can have common sense little enough to think he understands them But because I never loved to spend time in confuting a man who thinks himself the wiser for speaking things which neither he nor any one else can understand I rather chose in as short a way as I could to put together such Propositions as might give an account of Christian Faith without all this Iargon about Infallibility In order to this I first laid down the Principles wherein all parties are agreed and then such Propositions as I supposed would sufficiently give an account of our faith without any necessity of such an infallibility as he makes necessary for the foundation of it But for our clearer proceeding in an Argument of this importance it will be necessary to state and fix the notion of Infallibility before I come to particulars For as it is used it seems to be a rare word for Iugglers in Divinity to play tricks with for sometimes they apply it to the object that is believed and call that infallibly true sometimes to the subject capable of believing and say persons ought to be infallibly certain that what they believe is infallibly true and sometimes to the means of conveying that infallible truth to the faculties of men and these they say must be infallible or else there can be no infallible certainty of any thing as infallbly true But the subtilty of these things lies only in their obscurity and the School-man is spoiled when his talk is brought down out of the clouds to common sense I will therefore trie to bring these things out of their terms to a plain meaning and surely we may speak and understand each other in these matters without this doubtful term of Infallibility For if it signifies any thing we may make use of the thing it signifâ—es in stead of the word and by applying the thing signified by it to that which it is spoken of we shall soon discern how justly it is attributed to it Infallibile is that which cannot be deceived now if no one will say That a proposition cannot be deceived it is absurd to say that it is infallibly true therefore the matters revealed considered as objective verities as our schoolman speaks are not capable of
Infallibility which cannot belong to the truth proposed but to him that propounds or believes it For to be deceived or not to be deceived are proper only to persons and the impossibility of being deceived does in truth belong only to an infinitely perfect understanding for what ever understanding is imperfect is of it self liable to errour and mistake And yet an understanding liable to be deceived may not be deceived and be sure it is not The highest assurance of not being deceived is from Gods revealing any thing to men for we know it impossible that God should be deceived or go about to deceive mankind in what he obliges them to believe as true This then is granted that whatever any person speaks immediately from God he cannot be deceived in it but men may be deceived in thinking they speak from God when they do not There is then no difficulty in the first that what ever persons are inspired by God are infallible in what they speak but the main difficulty is about the assurance which God gives to men that they are inspired Two ways it may be conceived that men cannot be deceived in this matter 1. If God inspires every particular person with the belief of this and gives him such evidence thereof as cannot be false 2. Or if God shall inspire some persons in every Age to assure the World that those before them were inspired but notwithstanding this particular persons may be deceived in believing those inspired who are not and to prevent this nothing can be sufficient but divine revelation to every particular person that he hath appointed those infallible Guides in his Church to assure men that he had at first setled his Church by persons that were infallible but then why might not such a particular Revelation assure men as well immediately that Christ and his holy Apostles were infallible as that the Guides of the present Church are infallible For it is unconceivable that persons should be more infallible in judging the Inspiration of the present Guides than of the first Founders of the Church And supposing men not inspired they may be deceived in believing this infallibility of the present Church and if they may be deceived how can their Faith be infallible so that nothing can make the faith of particular persons infallible but private inspiration which must resolve all Faith into Enthusiasm and immediate revelation And nothing can be more absurd than to say That there are infallible Believers without infallible Inspiration or that an infallible Proponent can transfuse infallibility into faith unless the infallibility of that Proponent be first made known to the Believer in such a way as he cannot be deceived in For in matters of divine Revelation the main thing we are to enquire after is the infallibility of those who delivered this doctrine to the World And although the reason of believing what God saith be his own infallibility which is natural and essential to him yet the reason of my assenting to this or that doctrine as coming from God must be an assurance that God hath secured those persons from mistake whom he hath imployed to make known the doctrine to the World Those persons then whom God inspired are the Proponents of matters of faith to us and if they give us sufficient reason to believe that they were inspired we are bound to believe them otherwise not But to suppose that we cannot believe the first infallible Proponents unless there be such in every Age is to make more difficulties and to answer none For then all my belief of the infallibility of the first Proponents must depend on the evidence which the present Guides of the Church give of their infallibility who yet cannot pretend to the same evidence which they had and here is no difficulty answered for we are certainly bound as much to enquire into the reason of our believing the present Guides of the Church infallible as the Apostles and if men cannot be infallible in believing the Apostles unless there be other infallible Proponents in every Age to assure them that the Apostles were inspired why must not the infallibility of these present Proponents be likewise so attested as well as of the Apostles and what undoubted application can be made of the Churches infallibility unless there be some other infallible Proponent still to transfuse certainty into my belief of that by vertue of which I must believe all other matters of Faith which is the Churches Infallibility So that the last Proponent must either be believed for himself without any further evidence and then the shorter way would be to believe the first so or else there will be an endless infallibility or at last all must be resolved into the Enthusiasm of every particular person if we do not rest satisfied with the rational evidence which those persons who were inspired by God did give to the World that they were sent by him and then let the World judge whether Christ and his Apostles did not give stronger evidence that they were sent from God than the Pope or the Guides of the present Church do and if so whether iâ— be possible for men to do greater disseâ—vice to Christianity than to suspend our belief of the Inspiration of the Founders of the Christian Church on a thing at least far less evident than the thing to be believed by it is but in plain English on a thing notoriously false and only the arrogant pretence of an usurping Faction which thinks it easier boldly to say that it cannot be deceived than to defend it self against the just accusations both of deceiving and being deceived These things being premised I now come to consider how far N. O. hath shewed the invalidity of the Principles laid down by me for the end for which I intended them The design of them was to shew that we may have sufficient Certainty of our Faith without the Infallibility of the Roman Church the Answerer hath yielded some things and denied others I shall therefore first lay down his Concessions and see of what force they are to the issue of this Controversie and then come fairly to debate the matters in difference between us I. For his Concessions 1. He yields That there is no necessity at all of Infallibility under natural Religion which was implied in the second and third Propositions which are granted by him For in the second Proposition I assert That Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the being of God and his dependence upon him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any Principles of Natutural Religion which he saith may be granted All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of Natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God
added to it But since he produces no other proof for it I must consider how he goes about to weaken mine against it Two things I insisted upon against such a pretence of Infallibility viz. That such a pretence implying an Infallible Assistance of the Spirit of God there were but two ways of proving it either 1. By such miracles as the Apostles wrought to attest their infallibility or 2. By those Scriptures from whence this Infallibility is derived Concerning both these I laid down two Propositions 1. Concerning the Proof by miracles The Proposition was this There can be no more intollerable usurpation on the Faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an Assistance as Infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challenge this Infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who do not believe it To this he answers 1. That I am equally obliged to produce miracles for the Churches Infallibility in Fundamentals which I had asserted in the defence of the Archbishop But this admits a very easie answer for when I speak of Infallibility in Fundamentals I there declare that I mean no more by it than that there shall be always a number of true Christians in the World And what necessity is there now of miracles for men to believe since they receive the doctrine of the Gospel upon those miracles by which it was at first attested Neither is there any need of miracles to shew that any number of men are not guilty of an actual errour in what they believe supposing they declare to believe only on the account of that divine Revelation which is owned by Christians for in this case the trial of doctrine is to be by Scripture But in case any persons challenge an Infallibility to themselves antecedently to the belief of Scriptures and by vertue of which they say men must believe the Scriptures then I say such persons are equally bound to prove their infallibility by miracles as the Apostles were 2. Not resting in this he proceeds to another answer the sum of which is That the Infallibility of the Church not being so large or so high as the Apostles but consisting only in the Infallible delivery of the same doctrine there is no necessity of miracles in the present Church To this I answer That the doctrine of the Gospel may be said to be new two ways 1. In respect of the matter contained in it and so it was new only when it was first revealed 2. In respect of the person who is to believe it so it is new in every age to those who are first brought to believe it Now the Apostles had their infallibility attested by miracles not barely with a respect to the revelation of new matter for then none would have needed miracles but Christ himself or the Apostles that made the first Sermons for afterwards the matter was not new but the necessity of miracles was to give a sufficient motive to believe to all those to whom the Gospel was proposed and therefore miracles are said to be a a sign to unbelievers For by these Unbelievers were convinced that there was sufficient ground for receiving the doctrine of the Gospel on the Authority of those who delivered it God himself bearing them witness with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost Suppose then any of the Apostles after their first preaching continued only to inculcate the same doctrine for the conversion of more Unbelievers in this case the evidence of miracles was the reason of relying on the Authority of those persons for the truth of the Doctrine delivered by them From whence it follows that where the Christian Faith is to be received on the Authority of any persons in any Age those persons ought to confirm that Authority by miracles as the Apostles did For without this there can be no such Authority whereon to rely antecedently to the embracing the Christian Faith Now this is the case of the Church of Rome they pretend not to deliver any Doctrine wholly new but what was one way or another delivered by Christ and his Apostles although we therein charge them with fraud and falshood but yielding this yet they contend that no man can have sufficient ground for believing the Word of God but from their Churches Infallibility in this case it is plain that they make their Churches Infallibility to be as much the reason of persons believing as the Infallibility of the Apostles in their time was and therefore I say they ought to prove this Infallibility in the same way and by miracles as great publick and convincing as the Apostles did 3. Yet he is very loath to let go the miracles of their Church done in later times as well as formerly It would be too large a task in this place to examine the miracles of the Roman Church that may be better done on another occasion all that I have here to say is that all the miracles pretended among them signifie nothing to our present purpose unless those miracles give evidence of the Authority and Infallibility of those by whom they were done and they would do well to shew where ever in Scripture God did bestow a gift of miracles upon any but for this end and what reason there is that God should alter the method and course of his providence in a matter of so great concernment to the Faith of Mankind Such miracles as were wrought by Christ and his Apostles we defie all other Religions in the World to produce any like them to confirm their Doctrine but such as the Church of Rome pretends scarce any Religion in the World but hath pretended to the same And for his most credible Histories he vouches for them I hope he doth not mean the Church History written by S. C. nor any other such Legends among them if he doth I assure him they have a very easie Faith that think them credible And if all miracles that are so called by those among whom they are done be an Argument as he saith of the security of salvation in the Communion and Faith of that Church wherein they are done I hope he will be so just to allow the same to the Arrians Novatians Donatists and others who all pretend to miracles as well as the Church of Rome as any one that is versed in Church-History may easily see But of this more at large elsewhere 2. Concerning the proof of Infallibility from Scripture I said down this Proposition Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of those Writings and to interpret them
Governâ—uâ—s of a Christian society the Priviledge of Commanding in things which God hath nâ—t alâ— ready determined by his own Law We plead for the respect and reverence which is due to the Lawful constitutiâ—ns oâ— the Church whereof we are members and 〈◊〉 the just Authority of the Guides it in the exercise of that power which is committed to the Governours of it as the successours of the Apostles in their care of the Christian Church although not in their Infallibility 6. We allow a very great Authority to the Guides of the Catholick Church in the best times of Christianity and look upon the concurrent sense of Antiquity as an excellent means to understand the mind of Scripture in places otherwise doubtful and obscure We prosess a great Reverence to the Ancient Fathers of the Church but Especially when assembled in free and General Councils We reject the ancient heresies condemned in them which we the rather believe to be against the Scripture because so ancient so wise and so great persons did deliver the contrary doctrine not only to be the sense of the Church in their own time but ever since the Apostles Nay we reject nothing that can be proved by an universal Tradition from the Apostolical times downwards but we have so great an opinion of the Wisdom and Piety of those excellent Guides of the Church in the Primitive times that we see no reason to have those things forced upon us now which we offer to prove to be contrary to their doctrine and practice So that the controversy between us is not about the Authority of the Guides of the Church but whether the Guides of the Apostolical and Primitive times ought not to have greater Authority over us than those of the present Church in things wherein they contradict each other This is the true State of the Controversy between us and all the clamours of rejecting the Authority of Church Guides are vain and impertinent But we profess to yield greater reverence and submission of mind to Christ and his Apostles than to any Guides of the Church ever since we are sure they spake by an Infallible Spirit and where they have determined matters of Faith or practice we look upon it as arrogance and presumption in any others to alter what they have declared And for the Ages since we have a much gâ—eater esteem for those neaâ—est the Apostolical times and so downwards till Ignorance Ambition and private Interests sway'd too much among those who were called the Guides of the Church And that by the confession of those who were members of it at the same time which makes us not to wonder that such corruptions of doctrine and practice should then come in but we do justly wonder at the sincerity of those who would not have them reformed and taken away 7. In matters imposed upon us to believe or practise which are repugnant to plain commands of Scripture or the Evidence offense or the grounds of Christian Religion we assert that no Authority of the present Guides of a Church is to overrule our faith or practice For there are some things so plain that no Man will be guided by anothers opinion in them If any Philosopher did think his Authority ought to overrule an Ignorant Mans opinion in saying the snow which he saw to be white was not so I would fain know whether that Man did better to believe his eyes or the prudent experienc'd Philosopher I am certain if I destroy the Evidence of sense I must overthrow the grounds of Christian Religion and I am as certain if I believe that not to be bread which my senses tell me is so I must destroy the greatest Evidence of sense and which is fitter for me to reject that Evidence which assures my Christianity to me or that Authority which by its impositions on my faith overthrows the certainty of sense We do not say that we are to reject any doctrine delivered in Scripture which concerns a Being infinitely above our understanding because we cannot comprehend all things contained in it but in matters lyable to sense and the proper objects of it we must beg pardon if we prefer the grounds of our common Christianity before a novel and monstrous figment hatched in the times of Ignorance and Barbarism foster'd by faction and imposed by Tyranny We find no command so plain in Scripture that we must believe the Guides of the Church in all they deliver as there is that we must not worship Images that we must pray with understanding that we must keep to our Saviours Institution of the Lords supper but if any Guides of a Church pretend to an Authority to evacuate the force of these Laws we do not so much reject their Authority as prefer Gods above them Doth that Man destroy the authority of Parents that refuses to obey them when they Command him to commit Treason That is our case in this matter supposing such Guides of a Church which otherwise we are bound to obey if they require things contrary to a direct Command of God must we prefer their Guidance before Gods If they can prove us mistaken we yield but till then the Question is not whether the Guides of the Church must be submitted to rather than our own reason but whether Gods authority or theirs must be obeyed And I would gladly know whether there be not some Points of faith and some parts of our duty so plain that no Church-Authority determining the contrary ought to be obey'd 8. No absolute submission can be due to those Guides of a Church who have opposed and contradicted each other and condemned one anâ—ther for errour and hereâ—y For then in case of absolute submission a Man must yield his assent to contradictions and for the same reason that he is to be a Catholick at one time he must be a heretick at another I hope the Guides of the present Church pretend to no more infallibility and Authority than their predecessours in the same Capacity with themselves have had and we say they have contradicted the sense of those before them in the matters in dispute between us Yet that is not the thing I now insist upon but that these Guides of the Church have declared each other to be fallible by condemning their opinions and practices and by that means have made it necessary for men to believe those not to be infallible unless both parts of a contradiction may be infallibly true Suppose a Man living in the times of the prevalency of Arrianism when almost all the Guides of the Church declared in favour of it when several great Councils opposed and contradicted that of Nice when Pope Liberius did subscribe the Sirmian confession and Communicated with the Arrians what advice would N. O. give such a one if he must not exercise his own Judgement and compare both the doctrines by the rule of Scriptures must he follow the present Guides even the Pope himself Then he must
here is a contest of Right in the case antecedent to any duty of submission which must be better proved than ever it hath yet been before we can allow any dispute how far we are to submit to the Guides of the Roman Church 2. Not to submit to those who are Lawful Guides in all things they may require For our dispute is now about Guides supposed to be fallible and they being owned to be such may be supposed to require things to which we are bound not to yield But the great difficulty now is so to state these things as to shew that we had reason not to submit to the Guides of the Roman Church and that those of the Separation have no reason not to submit to the Guides of our Church For that is the obvious objection in this case that the same pretence which was used by our Church against the Church of Rome will serve to justify all the Separations that have been or can be made from our Church So my Adversary N. O. in his preface saith that by the principles we hold we excuse and justify all Sects which have or shall separate from our Church In answer to which calumny I shall not fix upon the perswasion of conscience for that may equally serve for all parties but upon a great difference in the very nature of the case as will appear in these particulars 1. We appeal to the Doctrine and practice of the truly Catholick Church in the matters of difference between us and the Church of Rome we are as ready as they to stand to the unanimous consent of Fathers and to Vincentius Lerinensis his Rules of Antiquity universality and consent we declare let the things in dispute be proved to have been the practice of the Christian Church in all Ages we are ready to submit to them but those who separate from the Church of England make this their Fundamental principle as to worship wherein the difference lyes that nothing is Lawful in the worship of God but what he hath expresly commanded we say all things are Lawful which are not forbidden and upon this single point stands the whole Controversy of separation as to the Constitution of our Church We challenge those that separate from us to produce one person for 1500. years together that held Forms of prayer to be unlawful or the ceremonies which are used in our Church We defend the Government of the Church by Bishops to be the most ancient and Apostolical Government and that no persons can have sufficient reason to cast that off which hath been so universally received in all Ages since the Apostles times if there have been disputes among us about the nature of the difference between the two orders and the necessity of it in order to the Being of a Church such there have been in the Church of Rome too Here then lyes a very considerable difference we appeal and are ready to stand to the judgement of the Primitive Church for interpreting the letter of Scripture in any difference between us and the Church of Rome but those who separate from our Church will allow nothing to be lawful but what hath an express command in Scripture 2. The Guides of our Church never challenged any Infallibility to themselves which those of the Church of Rome do and have done ever since the Controversy began Which challenge of Infallibility makes the Breach irreconcileable while that pretence continues for there can be no other way but absolute submission where men still pretend to be infallible It is to no purpose to propose terms of Accommodation between those who contend for a Reformation and such who contend that they can never be deceived on the one side errours are supposed and on the other that it is impossible there should by any Until therefore this pretence be quitted to talk of Accomodation is folly and to design it madness If the Church of Rome will allow nothing to be amiss how can she Reform any thing and how can they allow any thing to be amiss who believe they can never be deceived So that while this Arrogant pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church continues it is impossible there should be any Reconciliation But there is no such thing in the least pretended by our Church that declares in her Articles that General Councils may err and sometimes have erred even in things partaining to God and that all the proof of things to be believed is to be taken from Holy Scripture So that as to the Ground of Faith there is no difference between our Church and those who dissent from her and none of them charge our Church with any errour in doctrine nor plead that as the reason of their separation 3. The Church of Rome not only requires the belief of her errours but makes the belief of them necessary to Salvation which is plain by the often objected Creed of Pius 4. Wherein the same necessity is expressed of believing the additional Articles which are proper to the Roman Church as of the most Fundamental Articles of Christian Faith And no Man who reads that Bull can discern the least difference therein made between the necessity of believing one and the other but that all together make up that Faith without which no man can be saved which though only required of some persons to make profession of yet that profession is to be esteemed the Faith of their Church But nothing of this nature can be objected against our Church by dissenters that excludes none from a possibility of Salvation meerly because not in her Communion as the Church of Rome expresly doth for it was not only Boniface 8. who determined as solemnly as he could that it was necessary to Salvation to be in subjection to the Bishop of Rome but the Council of Lateran under Leo 10. decreed the same thing 4. The Guides of the Roman Church pretend to as immediate authority of obliging the Consciences of men as Christ or his Apostles had but ours challenge no more than teaching men to do what Christ had Commanded them and in other things not commanded or forbidden to give rules which on the account of the General Commands of Scripture they look on the members of our Church as obliged to observe So that the Authority challenged in the Roman Church encroaches on the Prerogative of Christ being of the same nature with his but that which our Governours plead for is only that which belongs to them as Governours over a Christian Society Hence in the Church of Rome it is accounted as much a mortal sin to disobey their Guides in the most indifferent things as to disobey God in the plain Commands of Scripture but that is not all they challenge to themselves but a power likewise to dispence with the Law 's of God as in matter of marriages and with the Institution of Christ as in Communion in one kind and promise the same spiritual effects to
thought fit And what can the most skilful men in the Scripture do with such men who deny or affirm what they please therefore such kind of disputes tended to no good at all where either side charged the other with forging and perverting the Scriptures and so the Controversy with them was not to be managed by the Scriptures by which either none or an uncertain Victory was to be obtained 2. In this dispute about the sense of Scripture the true Ancient faith is first to be enquired after for among whom that was there would appear to be the true meaning of Scripture And for finding out the true faith we are to remember that Christ sent abroad his Apostles to plant Churches in every City from whence other Churches did derive the faith which are called Apostolical from their agreement in this common faith at first delivered by the Apostles that the way to understand this Apostolical faith is to have recourse to the Apostolical Churches for it is unreasonable to suppose that the Apostles should not know the Doctrine of Christ which he at large proves or that they did not deliver to the Churches planted by them the things which they knew or that the Churches misunderstood their Doctrine because all the Christian Churches were agreed in one Common faith and therefore there is all the reason to believe that so universal consent must arise from some common cause which can be supposed to be no other than the common delivery of it by all the Apostles But the Doctrines of the Hereticks were novel and upstart and we must say all the former Christians were baptized into a false faith as not knowing the true God or the true Christ if Marcion and Valentinus did deliver the true Doctrine but that which is first is true and from God that which comes after is foraign and false If Marcion and Valentinus Nigidius or Hermogenes broach new opinions and set up other expositions of Scripture than the Christian Church hath received from the Apostles times that without any farther proof discovers their imposture 3. Two senses directly contrary to each other cannot proceed from the same Apostolical persons This Tertullian likewise insists upon to shew that although they might pretend Antiquity and that as far as the Apostolical times yet the contrariety of their Doctrine to that of the Apostles would sufficiently manifest the falshood of it For saith he the Apostles would never contradict each other or themselves and if the Apostolical persons had contradicted them they had not been joyned together in the Communion of the same faith which all the Apostolical Churches were But the Doctrines broached by these men were in their seeds condemned by the Apostles themselves so Marcion Apelles and Valentinus were confuted in the Sadducees and first corrupters of Christianity But the true Christians could not be charged by their Adversaries with holding any thing contrary to what the Church received from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God For the succession of the Churches was so evident and the Chairs of the Apostles so well known that any one might satisfy his curiosity about their Doctrine especially since their authentick Epistles are still preserved therein But where a diversity of Doctrine was found from the Apostles that was sufficient evidence of a false sense that was put upon the Scriptures Thus Tertullian lays down the rules of finding out the sense of controverted places of Scripture without the least insinuation of any infallibility placed in the Guides of the Church for determining the certain sense of them But lest by this way of Prescribing against Hereticks he should seem to decline the merits of the cause out of distrust of being able to manage it against them he tells us therefore elsewhere he would set aside the ground of prescription or just exception against their pleading for so prescription signifies in him as against Marcion and Hermogenes and Praxeas and refute their opinions upon other grounds In his Books against Marcion he first lays down Marcions rule as he calls it i.e. the sum of his opinion which was making the Creator of the World and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ two distinct Gods the one nothing but goodness and the other the Author of evil which opinion he overthrows from principles of reason because there cannot be two infinitely great and on the same grounds he makes two he may make many more and because God must be known by his works and he could not be God that did not create the World and so continues arguing against Marcion to the end of the first Book In the second he vindicates God the Creator from all the objections which Marcion had mustered against his goodness In the third he proves that Christ was the Son of God the Creator first by reason and then by Scripture and lays down two rules for understanding the Prophetical predictions relating to the manner of expressing future things as past and the aenigmatical way of representing plain things afterwards he proves in the same manner from Scripture and Reason that Christ did truly assume our nature and not meerly in appearance which he demonstrates from the death and resurrection of Christ and from the evidence of sense and makes that sufficient evidence of the truth of a body that it is the object of three senses of sight and touch and hearing Which is the same way of arguing we make use of against Transubstantiation and if Marcion had been so subtle to have used the Evasions those do in the Roman Church he might have defended the putative body of Christ in the very same manner that they do the being of accidents without a substance In the fourth Book he asserts against Marcion the Authority of the Gospel received in the Christian Church above that which Marcion allowed by the greater Antiquity and the universal reception of the true Gospels and after refutes the supposition of a twofold Christ one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles from the comparing of Scriptures together which he doth with great diligence and answers all the arguments from thence brought by Marcion to prove that Christ was an enemy to the Law of Moses In his fifth and last Book he proves out of the Epistles of St. Paul allowed by Marcion that he preached no other God than the Creator and that Christ was the Son of God the Creator which he doth from the scope and circumstances of the places without apprehending the least necessity of calling in any Infallible Guides to give the certain sense and meaning of them Against Hermogenes he disputes about the eternity of matter the Controversy between them he tells us was concerning the sense of some places of Scripture which relate to the Creation of things Tertullian proves that all things were made of nothing
because it is not mentioned out of what they were made Hermogenes proves they were made out of matter because it is not said they were made of nothing To determine therefore the sense of these places Tertullian shews from reason the repugnancy of the eternity of matter to the attributes of God he compares several places of Scripture together he reasons from the manner of the expressions and the Idiom of Scripture I adore saith he the fulness of the Scripture which shews me both the maker and the thing made but the Gospel likewise discovers by whom all things were made But the Scripture no where saith that all things were made out of matter Let the shop of Hermogenes shew where it is written and if it be not written let him fear the wo denounced to those who add or take from what is written He examins the several places in dispute and by proving that sense which Hermogenes put upon them to be repugnant to reason as he shews to the end of that Book he concludes his sense of Scripture to be false and erroneous Against Praxeas he disputes whether God the Father took our nature upon him and the arguments on both sides are drawn from the Scriptures but Tertullian well observes that they insisted upon two or three places of Scripture and would make all the rest though far more to yield to them Whereas the fewer places ought to be understood according to the sense of the greater number But this saith he is the property of all Hereticks because they can find but few places for them they defend the smaller number against the greater which is against the nature of a rule wherein the first and the most ought to oversway the latter and the fewer And therefore he sets himself throughout that Book to produce the far greater number of places of Scripture which do assert the distinction between the Father and the Son and consequently that it could not be the Father who suffered for us Hitherto we find nothing said of an infallible Guide to give the certain sense of Scripture when the fairest occasion was offered by those who disputed the most concerning the sense of Scripture in the Age wherein they lived viz. by Irenaeus and Tertullian I now proceed to Clemens of Alexandria who in his learned Collections proposes that objection against Christianity that there were many Heresies among Christians and therefore men could believe nothing To which he answers That there were Heresies among the Jews and Philosophers and that objection was not thought sufficient against Iudaism or Philosophy and therefore ought not to be against Christianity Besides the coming of Heresies was foretold and what ever is foretold must come to pass The Physitians saith he differ in their opinions yet men do not neglect to make use of them when they are sick Heresies should only make men more careful what they choose Men ought thereby to endeavour the more to find out truth from falshood as if two sorts of fruit be offered to a man real and waxen will a man abstain from both because one is Counterfeit or rather find out the true from the apparent When several ways offer themselves for a man to go in he ought not therefore to sit down and not stir a step further but he uses the best means to find out the true way and then walks in it So that they are justly condemned who do not discern the true from the false for they who will saith he may find out the truth For either there is demonstration or not all grant demonstration or evidence who do not destroy our senses If there be demonstration there must be search and enquiry made and by the Scriptures we may demonstratively learn how Heresies fell of and that the exactest knowledge was to be found in the truth and the ancient Church Now the true searchers will not leave till they find Evidence from the Scriptures To this end he commends the exercise of mens reason and understanding impartiality or laying aside opinion a right disposition of Soul for when men are given over to their lusts they endeavour to wrest the Scriptures to them But he establishes the Scripture as the only principle of certainty to Christians and more credible than any demonstration which who so have tasted are called faithful but those who are versed in them are the truly knowing men The great objection now is that Hereticks make use of Scripture too I but they saith he reject what they please and do not follow the Body and Contexture of Prophecy but take ambiguous expressions and apply them to their own opinions and a few scattered phrases without regarding the sense and importance of them For in the Scriptures produced by them you may find them either making use of meer names and changing the significations of them never attending to the scope and intention of them But truth saith he doth not lye in the change of the signification of words for by that means all Truth may be overthrown but in considering what is proper and perfectly agreeable to our Lord and Almighty God and in confirming every thing which is demonstrated by the Scripture out of the same Scriptures Wherein Clemens Alexandrinus lays down such rules as he thought necessary to find out the certain sense of Scripture viz. by considering the scope and coherence of the words the proper sense and importance of them the comparing of Scripture with Scripture and the Doctrine drawn from it with the nature and properties of God all which are excellent Rules without the least intimation of the necessity of any Infallible Interpreter to give the certain sense of doubtful places After this time a great dispute arose in the Church about the rebaptizing Hereticks managed by the Eastern and African Bishops against Stephen Bishop of Rome Here the Question was about the sense of several places of Scripture and the practice of the Apostles as appears by the Epistles of Cyprian and Firmilian both parties pleading Scripture and Tradition for themselves But no such thing as an infallibility in judgement was pleaded by the Pope nor any thing like it in the least acknowledged by his Adversaries who charge him without any respect to his Infallible guideship with pride error rashness impertinency and contradicting himself Which makes Baronius very Tragically exclaim and although he makes use of this as a great argument of the prevalency of Tradition because the opinion of Stephen obtained in the Church yet there is no Evidence at all that any Churches did submit to the opinion of Stephen when he declared himself but as appears by Dionystus of Alexandria's Epistles the Controversy continued after his time and if we look into the judgement of the Church in following Ages we shall find that neither Stephens opinion nor his Adversaries were followed for Stephen was against rebaptizing any Hereticks and the others were for rebaptizing all because one
Baptism was only in the true Church For in the 19. Canon of the Council of Nice the Samosatenian Baptism is pronounced null and the persons who received it are to be new Baptized and the first Council of Arles decrees that in case of Heresy men are to receive new Baptism but not otherwise The second Council of Arles puts a distinction between Hereticks decreeing that the Photinians and Samosatenians should be Baptized again but not the Bonofiaci noâ— the Arians but they were to be received upon renouncing their Heresy without Baptism Which seems the harder to understand since the Bonosiaci were no other than Photinians The most probable way of solving it is that these two latter sorts did preserve the form of Baptism entire but the Photinians and Samosatenians altered it which St. Augustin saith is a thing to be believed So Gennadius reports it that those who were Baptized without invocation of the B. Trinity were to he Baptized upon their reception into the Church not rebaptized because the former was accounted null of these he reckons not only the Paulianists and Photinians but the Bonâ—sâ—â—ci too and many others But St. Basil determines the case of Baptism not from the form but from the faith which they professed a Schismatical Baptism he faith was allowed but not Heretical by which he means such as denyed the Trinity and therein he saith S. Cyprian and Firmilian were to blame because they would allow no Baptism among persons separated from the Communion of the Church The Council of Laodicea decreed that the Novatians Photinians and Quarto-decimans were to be received without new Baptism but not the Montanists or Cataphryges but Binius saith there was one Copy wherein the Photinians were left out and then these Canons may agree with the rest and Baronius asserts that the greater number of M. S. Copies leave out Photinians And withal he proves that the Church did never allow the Baptism of the Photinians though it did of the Arians by which we see that the Church afterwards did not follow that which Stephen pretended to be an Apostolical tradition viz. that no Hereticks should be rebaptized and from hence we may conclude that the Pope was far from being thought an infallible Guide or Interpreter of Scripture either by that or succeeding Ages when not only single persons that were eminent Guides of the Church such as the African and Eastern Bishops were opposed his Doctrine and slighted his excommunications but several Councils called both in the East and Africa and the most eminent Councils of the Church afterwards such as the first of Arles and Nice decreed contrary to what he declared to be an Apostolical Tradition In the same Age we meet with another great Controversy about the sense of Scripture for Paulus Samosatenus openly denyed the Divinity of Christ and asserted the Doctrine of it to be repugnant to Scripture and the ancient Apostolical tradition For this Paulus revived the heresie of Artemon whose followers as appears by the fragment of an ancient Writer against them in Eusebius supposed to be Caius pleaded that the Apostles were of their mind and that their Doctrine continued in the Church till the time of Victor and then it began to be corrupted Which saith that Writer would seem probable if the holy Scriptures did not first contradict them and the Books of several Christians before Victors time So that we see the main of the Controversie did depend upon the sense of Scripture which was pleaded on both sides But what course was taken in this important Controversie to find out the certain sense of Scripture Do they appeal to any infallible Guides Nothing like it But in the Councils of Antioch in the Writings of Dionysius of Alexandria and others since they who opposed the Samosatenian Doctrine endeavoured with all their strength to prove that to be the true sense of Scripture which asserted the Divinity of Christ. It is great pity the dispute of Malchion with Paulus is now lost which was extant in Eusebius his time but in the Questions and Answers between Paulus and Dionysius which Valesius without reason suspects since St. Hierome mentions his Epistle against Paulus the dispute was about the true sense of Scripture which both pleaded for themselves Paulus insists on those places which speak of the humane infirmities of Christ which he saith prove that he was meer Man and not God the other answers that these things were not inconsistent with the Being of the Divine nature since expressions implying humane passions are attributed to God in Scripture But he proves from multitude of Scriptures and reasons drawn from them that the divine nature is attributed to Christ and therefore the other places which seem repugnant to it are to be interpreted in a sense agreeable thereto The same course is likewise taken by Epiphanius against this heresie who saith the Christians way of answering difficulties was not from their own reasons but from the scope and consequence of Scripture and particularly adds that the Doctrine of the Trinity was carefully delivered in the Scriptures because God foresaw the many heresies which would arise about it But never any Controveâ—sie about the sense of Scripture disturbed the Church more than that which the Arians raised and if ever any had reason to think of some certain and infallible way of finding out the sense of Scripture the Catholick Christians of that Age had I shall therefore give an account of what way the best Writers of the Church in that time took to find out the sense of Scripture in the Controverted places Of all the Writers against them Athanasius hath justly the greatest esteem and Petavius saith that God inspired him with greater skill in this Controversie than any others before him The principle he goes upon in all his disputes against the Arians is this that our true faith is built upon the Scriptures so in several places of his conference with the Arian and in the beginning of his Epistle to Iovianus and elsewhere Therefore in the entrance of his Disputations against the Arians he adviseth all that would secure themselves from the impostures of Hereticks to study the Scriptures because those who are versed therein stand firm against all their assaults but they who look only at the words without understanding the meaning of them are easily seduced by them And this Counsel he gives after the Council of Nice had decreed the Arian Doctrine to be Heresie and although he saith other ways may be used to confute it yet because the Holy Scripture is more sufficient than all of them therefore those who would be better instructed in these things I would advise them to be conversant in the divine Oracles But did not the Arians plead Scripture as well as they how then could the Scripture end this Controversie which did arise about the sense of Scripture This objection which is now made so much
Ancient Creeds we allow on both sides to have been universally received by the Catholick Church but now the Church of Rome adds new Articles to be believed we desire to put the whole matter upon this issue Let the Popes Supremacy the Roman Churches Infallibility the Doctrines of Transubstantiation Purgatory c. be proved by as Universal Consent of Antiquity as the Articles of the Creed are and then let them charge us with Heresie if we reject them But we say the measure of Heresie in the Ancient Church was the rejecting the Rule of Faith universally received among Christians this Rule of Faith we stand to and say no other can be made upon any pretence whatsoever as Vincentius at large proves but what ever things are obtruded on the belief of Christians which want that Vniversal consent of Antiquity which the Rule of Faith had we are bound by Vincentius from plain Scripture to shun them as prophane novelties and corruptions of the Christian Faith These Rules therefore are not barely allowed but pleaded for by us in the test of Articles of Faith as to which Vincentius tells us if not the only yet the chief use of them is 2. But suppose the Question be not concerning the express Articles of this Rule of Faith but concerning the sense and meaning of them how then are we to find out the consent of Antiquity For they might all agree in the words and yet have a different notion of the things As Petavius at large proves that there was an ancient Tradition for the substance of the Doctrine of the Trinity and yet he confesses that most of the Writers of the ancient Church did differ in their explication of it from that which was only allowed by the Council of Nice And he grants that Arius did follow the opinion of many of the Ancients in the main of his Doctrine who were guilty of the same error that he was before the matter was throughly discussed Here now arises the greatest difficulty to me in this point of Tradition the usefulness of it I am told is for explaining the sense of Scripture but there begins a great Controversie in the Church about the explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity I desire to know whether Vincentius his Rules will help us here It is pleaded by St. Hierome and others that the Writers of the Church might err in this matter or speak unwarily in it before the matter came to be throughly discussed if so how comes the Testimony of erroneous or unwary Writers to be the certain means of giving the sense of Scripture And in most of the Controversies of the Church this way hath been used to take off the Testimony of persons who writ before the Controversie began and spake differently of the matter in debate I do not deny the truth of the allegation in behalf of those persons but to my understanding it plainly shews the incompetency of Tradition for giving a certain sense of Scripture when that Tradition is to be taken from the Writers of the foregoing Ages and if this had been the only way of confuting Arius it is a great Question how he could ever have been condemned if Petavius or St. Hierome say true But since a General Council hath determined the contrary to the opinion of these Writers before which Council hath been received by the Universal Church I will not deny that they had better opportunities of knowing what the sense of the Ancient Church was when so many writings were extant which are now lost than we can have at this distance and therefore we yield all submission to a Council of that nature and proceeding in that manner which that of Nice did who did not meerly determine that Controversie by the number of Writers on their side before them but by comparing the opinions afterwards with the Rule of Scriptures and in this regard we acknowledge a great Reverence due to the decrees of such General Councils as that was Therefore next to the Rule of Faith we allow a great veneration to the determinations of lawful General Councils Universally received which Vincentius himself pleads for But supposing no general Councils or such which are not allowed or received for such we are yet to enquire into the ways of finding out Catholick tradition which may interpret Scripture For this end he proposes another means which is The gathering together the opinions of those Fathers alone who living holily wisely and constantly in the faith and communion of the Catholick Church have died in that faith or else for it But still with this reserve that what either all or many of them manifestly frequently and constantly as it were by a Council of them have confirmed by their receiving holding and delivering of it that ought to be held for undoubted certain and firm but whatsoever any one though holy and learned though a Bishop confessour or Martyr hath held against the opinion of others that ought not to be looked on as the judgement of the Church but as his own private opinion and therefore not to be followed Which words I shall not examine with all the severity that some have done for then the proving these conditions to have been observed by any one person would require more pains and be less capable of resolution than the matter it self is but I say that in most of the Controversies this day in the Christian world it may be much more satisfactory to examine the merits of the cause than the integrity of the witnesses these conditions being supposed And yet after all this we must not misunderstand him as though this way would serve to confute all heresies For he tells us yet farther 2. This course can only hold in some new and upstart heresies i.e. in case of the pretence of some new revelation when men pretend to some special grace without humane industry to discover some divine truth not known before but in case of ancient and inveterate heresies he saith we have no way to deal with them but either only by Scripture or else by plain decrees of General Councils for when heresies have been of long continuance then saith he we may have ground to suspect they have not dealt fairly with the Testimonies of ancient times And thus we see what Vincentius hath offered towards the resolution of this great Question how we may be sure of the certain sense of Scripture in controverted places wherein is nothing contained but what we are willing to stand to and very far from the least supposition of any infallibility in the present Guides of the Church for that end Thus far I have taken the pains to search into the opinion of the Primitive Church in this important Controversie which I might carry yet farther if it were at all needful The substance of what is delivered by them is this that if any Controversie arise in the Church concerning the sense of Scripture if the
in which time he would sin mortally by omitting contrition if he were obliged to it but this saith he is against the common opinion of Divines that a man contracts any new guilt by omitting contrition Nay he afterwards determins that a man that hath received the Sacrament of Penance with bare attrition is not bound under the guilt of mortal sin for omitting it to an act of contrition at the point of death which is he saith the commonly received opinion among them and he quotes Diana Coninch Becanus Layman Fagundez Faber Turrianus Salas and others for it The great argument he brings is because Confessors do not think themselves obliged to put men in mind of an act of contrition at that time as necessary as common experience shews And are not such Confessors excellent Guides to Heaven the mean while If they be they have found out a much broader way and wider gate than ever Christ intended What not one single act of contrition necessary No not at the point of death What pity it is for sinners you have not the keeping of Heaven-gates How do they want the Sacrament of Penance in Hell for no doubt there is attrition good store there But above all of them commend me to honest Gregor de Valentiâ who not only makes contrition unnecessary but saith it is rather a hindrance to the effect of the Sacraments From whence Morinus justly infers that a Confessor ought not to perswade the Penitent to Contrition nor the penitent to endeavour after it Nay Morinus shews that grave men and famous in their Church do assert that a Penitent having received the Sacrament of Penance is not bound to so much as one act of contrition or the Love of God in order to his reconciliation with God Yea although a man hath hated God to the last act of his life if he receives the Sacrament of Penance they deny that it is necessary for him to be contrite for his sins or to love God Nothing could go beyond this but what follows in him that the excellency of the Evangelical Sacraments above the legal consists in this that the Evangelical Sacraments have freed us from the most heavy yoke 〈◊〉 of contrition and the Love of God O admirable Guides of Conscience I do not at all question but Jews Turks and Heathens have a much better and truer notion of Repentance than these men the Pagan Philosophers were Christians to them And what injury have I done them now in charging such things upon them which obstruct devotion and overthrow the necessity of a good life For I hardly think it possible to contrive a Doctrine more effectual for that end than to tell men that the Sacraments of the Gospel do free men from that heavy yoke Contrition and the Love of God But supposing there were no such Foundation for this Doctrine in the Council of Trent as we see there is would there be no danger to mens Salvation if their Confessors generally told then these things and they knew it to be thâ— current opinion among them Is there 〈◊〉 danger of falling into the ditch wheâ— the Blind lead the Blind unless General Council expresly allow of it 〈◊〉 there no danger by Empericks aâ—â— Mountebanks unless the whole Coâ—ledge of Physicians approve them Anâ— of all sorts of Empericks the worst aâ—â— such Casuists and Confessors Is therâ— no way to magnify the Sacerdotal office unless they have a Power to Trepan Soul into eternal flames for want of true repentance by making them believe thâ— Priests absolution with bare attritioâ— will make all even with God Or 〈◊〉 this Doctrine only a Decoy to draw great sinners into your nets And all this while is your Church innocent which at least sees and will not reform these things In A. D. 1665. 24. of September and 18. May 1666. the Congregation of the Inquisition at Rome under Alexander 7. took upon them to censure 45. several Propositions of the late Casuists as scandalous and pernicious to the Souls of men but not one of them relates to this Doctrine of repentance although the Jansenists in France had complained of it Whence could this arise but from looking on it as the Doctrine of their Church Indeed I find that on May 5. 1667. The Pope caused a Decree to be published straitly forbidding all persons in their debates about Attrition to condemn each other but it is worth our while to understand what this controversie was viz. Whether bare attrition doth require an act of the love of God and although the Negative be there said to be the more common opinion yet the Pope would not have the others that affirmed it to be censured But not the least word against the sufficiency of bare attrition Are any of the Books censured which assert this Doctrine Nay they are published with great approbations Are any of the Defenders of it discountenanced Nay they are Persons in the highest esteem dignity and Authority among them Are any cautions given to Confessors to beware of these Doctrines Nay these very Books are purposely written and approved for their instruction and use And if their Church be innocent after all this so was the Iewish Church in our Saviours time for the corruptions that were then among them had no decree of the Sanhedrin that I find for them it was only their Schoolmen and Casuists the Scribes and Pharisees which introduced them And yet our Saviour thought mens Souls in danger when he bid them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees I confess when we debate the causes of Separation from their Communion we think it then reasonable to alledge no more than what they impose on all to believe and practice and we have enough of all Conscience in that kind without going farther but when we represent the hazard of Salvation to particular persons we may then justly charge them with the pernicious Doctrines and practices which are received and allowed among them although not decreed by the Church in Councils For otherwise it would be just as if one should say to a man that asked him whether he might safely travel through such a Country yes without doubt you may for although there be abundance of Thieves and High-waymen yet the Prince or the State never approved them or gave them licence to rob Travellers Do you think any man would venture his person or his purse on no better security Yet such security as this if it were true is all that such moderate men as O. N. or his Brethren can give as to the Roman Church for they dare not deny the bad consequence of the Doctrines and practices charged upon them but only say the Church hath not decreed them So much I thought necessary to say to this newest and most plausible pretence which is made use of by the best Advocates for the Roman Church And now farewel to Moderation for the two next which appeared on the Stage against me
were two Jesuits the one sent over a Book which if we look only at the bulk and thickness was a very substantial one called by an odd Antiphrasis Reason and Religion I have endeavoured to draw off all the Spirit I could find in it in the following discourses but I am forced to leave a vast quantity of Phlegm and Caput Mortuum behind I shall say no more of him here having occasion to speak so much of him in the Discourses about the Principles of faith which will in a little time be ready to appear The other is the stout Defender of lgnatius Loyola and the whole Order of Jesuits What one man undertake to defend the Jesuits as to their Principles and Practices and that in this Age which so well understands their Maxims and Conduct and in England too where those of other Orders and the Secular Priests love them so dearly But nothing is too brave or difficult for a Jesuit to attempt however he comes off in it As to Ignatius Loyola I will come to terms with him if what he confesses as to his ignorant zeal pious simplicity frequent visions and extasies extravagant preaching unmannerly contempt of Superiours do not prove him a Fanatick I am content to let him go But what if Ignatius himself being grown old did suspect such frequent extasies and visions for illusions I desire him to look Ribadineira in his larger life to that purpose But this matter of Fanaticism must be referred to another place I shall now only give a tast of the Jesuits excellent way of defending the principles destructive to Government which I charged his Order with The first was that Government was so originally in the People that they by their Representatives may call their Soveraign to an account and alter the form of Government Now mark this Answer This principle whatsoever truth it may have in speculation is by no means to be preached to the People who are apt enough of themselves to stretch cases and pick quarrels with their best Governours yet was it taught many Ages before the Jesuits were so much as thought of Welfare the man for his plain-dealing the Doctrine it seems is true enough but the people are not fit to be trusted with the management of it no not in their places and callings no no let the Jesuits alone with these things they know just the very nick of time when to be Iudges and Executioners too The next principle is the Popes power of deposing Princes to which he again answers roundly You are then to know Sir that the Doctrine was long ago taught by almost all Orders and Professions Seculars Regulars Divines Lawyers before the Jesuits were in Being A very Catholick Doctrine it seems it is What a stirr do other people make with mincing this matter I know not how give me a man that speaks out and lets Princes understand what their general Doctrine is in this matter lest they may possibly be deceived as though it were only the bold assertion of some few Persons among them What wonder then saith he if Bellarmin and 3. or 4. more Jesuits were carried away with such a Torrent of Doctors who went before them Nay in my opinion the only wonder is how any Persons among them dare think otherwise this Doctrin having as he tells us so Catholick a consent to the truth of it But in earnest Sir is the Doctrine true or false Nay Sir I beseech you to excuse me in that for as he saith afterwards about the Popes power 〈◊〉 absolving Subjects I beg leave to wave such curious controversieâ— What a Jesuit beg leave to wave curious controversies What is become 〈◊〉 all their vast Tomes of Scholastical anâ— Casuistical Divinity Are no curious controversies handled in them Anâ— were you bred up among them and yet haâ—â— controversies meerly because curious No no We understand you better than so That is only a curious controversies with you which endangers your safety if you speak out for it is a needless kind of curiosity for a man to betray himself Here in these practical Countries it is sometimes dangerous speaking Truth in their sense but at such a speculative place as Rome is there those may be wholesome and Catholick Truths which â—ere are but niceties and curiosities But doth he not say the Jesuits have solemnly renounced the Doctrine Yes but have a care how far you believe him we poor simple Islanders might understand by this that they had declared it to be false and pernicious There is no such matter I will assure you but upon the stirrs in France they renounced the publishing it they renounced it as they were in France but thought it good Doctrine at Rome they are forbidden to treat any more of it because of the odiousness of it to Princes and that is all the renouncing they ever meant The third Principle is the lawfulness of killing Kings as to which he saith he cannot name the person that ever taught it in those Terms a good reason for that because when they would have them killed they call them Tyrants And so grants Dominicus Soto and Marian have asserted it he might have namse more if he had pleased I could not desâ— a more pleasant task than to pursue 〈◊〉 through the remainder of his discourse wherein he undertakes to vindicate the Jesuits practices but these have been much exposed by men of their own Region that I may spare my pains in thâ— Preface and we may easily guess hâ— hard he was put to it when he makâ— the letter of the Bishop of Angelopol to be forged at Port-Royal by the Jaâ— senists And thus he hath shifted 〈◊〉 fault from the Indies to Europe 〈◊〉 to vindicate some Papists there freâ— Idolatry he charges others here with forgeâ— And â—et to this as a full Answer the 〈◊〉 Ansâ—erer of the Seasonable Discourâ— doth referr us And out of his admiral learning and skill in History desires 〈◊〉 Adversary for his satisfaction that the can be no danger of Resuming Abby Lanâ— of Popery should return to go into Germany where there are so many Papist and Protestant Princes Noble men and Gentlemen that have especially since the Treaty at Munster either Bishopricks Abbeys or the like confirmed to them by the Pope How confirmed to them by the Pope what will not these men dare to say I perceive Ignorance serves them for other purposes than meerly to be the Mother of Devotion If at least this worthy Author could be Ignorant of so notorious a thing as Pope Innocents Bull published on purpose to Null the Treaty at Munster as prejudicial to the Catholick Religion to the Apostolical See to Churches and other Holy Places and Persons and Ecclesiastical Rights In the body of the Bull he saith that his Nuncio there who was afterwards Pope Alexander the seveth did protest against these Articles as void null unjust and agreed upon by persons that had no
power and that they were to be so looked on by all But the Pope did not think this sufficient but declares all those Articles that related to liberty of Religion Church-lands or any Ecclesiastical Rights or brought any the least prejudice to them or might be thought or pretended so to do to be null void invalid unjust damned reprobate vain and without any force or power and that they shall remain so for ever and that no person though never so much sworn to observe those articles shall be bound by such oath no right title plea prescription shall accrue to any by vertue of them and therefore out of the Plenitude of Apostolical power he doth absolutely damn reprobate null and cassate all those articles and protests before God of the nullity of them and restores all persons and places to their ancient possessions notwithstanding them with very much more to the same purpose This was dated at Rome apud Sanctam Mariam Majorem sub Annulo Piscatoris die 26 Novemb. and solemnly published there the third of Jan. 1651. in the eighth year of his Pontificat Call you this Sir the Popes confirming them Is it credible that he who in the beginning of his Answer had charged the late Protestant Books which he most ingeniously calls Libels to be crammed with nothing else but what we know to be false should within a few Pages have the confidence to affirm in the face of the world so notorious an untruth But I leave this ingenious Author to be Chastised for this and other his extravagancies by his worthy Adversary and return to my own After all these unsuccessful attempts at last the Knight himself resolves to encounter the Dragon and accordingly he buckles on his armour mounts his stead and according to all ancient and modern Pictures of the combat directs his lance into the very mouth of it wisely considering if the head were mortally wounded the whole Body would fall to the ground After him at a convenient distance follows his Squire I. S. who had a particular spight at the Dragons Tayl and without fear or wit falls unmercifully upon it and in his own opinion hath chopt it into a thousand pieces But such mischievous creatures whose strength lies scattered in all their parts do often rise up when they are triumphed over as dead and give their most deadly wounds when they are thought to lye gasping for breath It happened that when T. G's Answer to the first part of my Book came out I was before engaged in the Defence of the Protestant principles of faith against the Guide in Controversies and E. W. the Author of those two learned Treatises as T. G. calls them Protestancy without Principles and Religion and Reason part of which being then in the Press I was forced to go through with that before I could take his Book into consideration And thereupon I resolved to dispatch all those which relate to the Principles of Faith together and then to proceed to the Principles of Worship in answer to him which God willing I intend as soon as the former part is finished All that I shall take notice of him here is to represent the ingenuity of his dealing with me in his Preface wherein he charges me with dissenting from the Doctrine of the Church of England in accusing the Church of Rome of Idolatry And by this one Instance I desire the Reader to judge what Candour and sincerity he is to expect in his Book For the sense of the Church of England I appealed to the Book of Homilies not to any doubtful or general or single passage therein but to the design of one of the largest and most elaboratâ— Homilies in the whole Book consisting of three several parts the last of which iâ— said not to be meerly for the People but for the instruction of those who were tâ— teach them The design of that last part is thus set down 1. That Popish Images and the Idols of the Gentils are all one concerning themselves 2. That they have been and be worshipped in our time in like form and manner as were the Idols of the Gentils And for that Idolatry standeth chiefly in the mind it shall in this part first be proved that our Image-maintainers have had and have the same opinions and judgement of Saints whose Images they have made and worshipped as the Gentils Idolaters had of their Gods and afterwards shall be declared that our Image-maintainers and worshippers have used and use the same outward rites and manner of honouring and worshipping their Images as the Gentils did use before their Idols and that therefore they commit Idolatry as well inwardly as outwardly as did the wicked Gentils Idolaters and this that Homily is intended for the proof of which it doth very fully But saith T. G. why did I not appeal for the sense of our Church to the 39. Articles As though the approbation of the Book of Homilies were not one of them viz the 35. The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joyned under this Article among which Titles the second is this of the Peril of Idolatry doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for these times Which Articles were not only allowed and approved by the Queen but confirmed by the subscription of the hand of the Arch-bishop and Bishops of the upper House and by the subscription of the whole Clergy in the nether House of Convocation A. D. 1571. Now I desire T. G. to resolve me whether men of any common understanding would have subscribed to this Book of Homilies in this manner if they had believed the main Doctrine and design of one of them had been false and pernicious as they must have done if they had thought the practice of the Roman Church to be free from Idolatry I will put thâ— case that any of the Bishops then had thought the charge of Idolatry had been unjust and that it had subverted the foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority that there could have been no Church or right ordination if the Roman Church had been guilty of Idolatry would they have inserted this into the Articles when it was in their power to have left it out and that the Homilies contained a wholesome and Godly Doctrine which in their consciences they believed to be false and pernicious I might as well think that the Council of Trent would have allowed Calvins Institutions as containing a wholesome and Godly Doctrine as that men so perswaded would have allowed it the Homily against the Peril of Idolatry And how is it possible to understand the sense of our Church better than by such publick and authentick acts of it which all Persons who are in any place of trust in the Church must subscribe and dâ—clare their approbation of them This Homily hath still continued the same the Article the very same and if so they must acknowledge this hath been and is to this day the sense
of our Church But saith T. C. the subscribing the Book of Homilies as containing a godly and wholesome Doctrine doth not evince that every particular Doctrine contained in it is such Be it so but I hope it doth evince that the Subscribers did not think the main Doctrine of any one Homily to be false Surely there is a great deal of difference between some particular passages and expressions in these Homilies and that which is the main design and Foundation of any one of them But in this case we are to observe that they who deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry do not only look on the Charge as false but as of dangerous Consequence and therefore although men may subscribe to a Book in general as containing wholesome and godly Doctrine though they be not so certain of the Truth of every passage in it yet they can never do it with a good conscience if they believe any great and considerable part of the Doctrine therein contained to be false and dangerous Such a subscription would be as apparently shuffling and dishonest as is the evasion of this Testimony which T. G. makes use of for want of a better I shall in the next place shew the current Doctrine of the Church ever since the Reformation to have been agreeable to this Homily of the Peril of Idolatry In the Injunctions published by K. Edward VI. A. D. 1547. the extirpation of Popery is called the suppression of Idolatry and Superstition In the second year of Edward VI. Arch-bishop Cranmer published his Articles of Visitation whereof the 6. and the last are about the taking away Images Pictures and all other Monuments of feigned miracles Pilgrimages Idolatry and Superstition In the second Liturgy by Edward VI. after the Communion was a Rubrick annexed in which the Adoration of the Host is expresly called Idolatry This is that very Rubrick of which T. G. according to his excellent skill in the offices of our Church saith it is not yet more then a dozen years since it was inserted into the Communion Book which he might have found above a 100. years before in the Book of Edward VI. In the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth A. D. 1559. Art 2. and 23. all Shrines Tables Pictures c. are commanded to be taken away and destroyed and all other Monuments of feigned miracles Idolatry and Superstition And that 〈◊〉 may not think it was only a sudden heaâ— at the first Reformation which made theâ— charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry long after in A form of Thanksgiving in the 37. of Queen Elizabeth A. D. 1594. Popery is called that Idolatrous Religion as it was in the Beginning of her Reign in the excellenâ— Apology for the Church of England And I desire him or any one else 〈◊〉 produce any one Bishop or Divine of notâ— in the Church of England who during all hâ—r Reign did deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry But why then was it not inserted in the 39. Articles in which T. G. observes the Adoration of Images is not rejected as Idolatry but only as a fond thing vainly invented nor as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture but as being rather repugnant to the word of God which plainly gives us to understand that they had done their endeavours to find a command but could not A most ingenious Criticism when himself and all others of their Divines yield that adoration of images which our Church charges them with Art 22. viz. not barely worshipping but adoration of images to be Idolatry and plainly repugnant to Scripture Were the composers of our Articles so sensless as not to think Idolatry repugnant to Scripture or not to think adoration of images to be Idolatry or not to think the Church of Rome guilty of it when the Article saith The Romish Doctrine concerning worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Reliques c It is not meerly the practice used in the Church of Rome but their very Doctrine concerning adoration of images which is here charged and can any Church teach adoration of images and not be guilty of Idolatry And for his Criticism about being rather repugnant it had been utterly lost if he had looked into the Latin Articles where the words are immo verbo Dei contradicit whereby it appears that rather is not used as a term of diminution but of a more vehement affirmation I now come to the exceptions he takes to the particular Testimonies I produced of the most eminent Bishops and Divines of our Church ever since the Reformation who have all concurred in this charge of Idolatry Two parts in three he excepts against as incompetent witnesses in the case how few of the Iury would any Malefactor allow if such frivolous exceptions might serve his turn The two first he excepts against are the two Arch-Bishops Whitgift and Abbot as Puritanically inclined But as it unhappily falls out one of them was never mentioned by me and the other never till now suspected for a Puritan The Abbot I mentioned was not George Abbot Arch-Bishop of Canterbury but Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury and it is the first time we ever heard that a Bishop of Salisbury was suspended from his Metropolitical jurisdiction But they of the Church of Rome have a faculty of doing greater wonders with five words than Changing a Bishop into an Arch-Bishop I hope he understands the Church he is of better than that he hath left or else we are like to have a sad account of History from him But why I beseech you after all his zeal and indefatigable pains for the Church of England must Arch-Bishop Whitgift be thrown away to the Puritans If he had proved T. C. at the same time Arch-Bishop of Canterbury there might have been some reason to suspect Whitgift to have been of the Puritan side for all the world know they were greaâ— adversaries on that very account of thâ— Puritan cause But was not Whitgiâ—â— for the Lambeth Articles And whâ— then Are the Dominicans Puritans and no Papists If your Church may havâ— liberty not to determin those nice points why may not ours and so both parties remain of our Church as long as they contradict no received Articles among us But the Lambeth-Articles were neveâ— intended for any more than as Responsâ— Prudentum to silence disputes in the university And I believe none of the Puritan party after that took Arch-Bishop Whitgift to be a Patron of theiâ— cause But if these will not serve his turn 〈◊〉 have others ready whom for meer shamâ— he will not say were Puritans or Puritanically inclined And the first of these is an Arch-Bishop too and that is Arch-Bishop Bancroft and if he be cast out for a Puritan surely there never was any Bishop of the Church of England In his Sermon preached at Pauls Cross on 1 John 4. 1. he hath these words speaking of the Papists The Popish false Prophets
with in the Field And to speak truth N. O. seems to understand his Art better than to meddle with such heavy and Antique Armour which every one hath been foiled with that hath undertaken to combat with them only it seems a little for the credit of their Cause to point to such a Magazine which in the days of Ignorance and Credulity the Romantick Age of the Church was in great request But we must now buckle our selves to a new manner of Combat which is from the Tradition of the Church and that of the very same nature with what we have for the Canon of Scripture This I confess is bright shining Armour and may do great service if it will hold but that must be judged upon trial which I now set my self to But we shall find that no weapons formed against Truth can prosper and it hath been long observed of Rome that it could never endure a close Siege The Question now is whether they of the Roman Church have the same universal Tradition for the Infallibility of the Guides of it w ch we have for the Canon of Scripture w ch he asserts It is I suppose agreed on both sides That the Tradition on w ch we receive and believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God was universal as to all Ages and Times of the Church that from the beginning all disputes in Religion among true Christians were built upon the supposition of it That in no Age any persons were allowed to be good Christians who made doubt of it That every Age doth afford plentiful testimonies of the belief of it This is that universal Tradition we receive the Scriptures upon and let any thing like this be produced for the Infallibility of the Guides of their Church and we yield up the Cause to them Can any fairer terms than these be desired But we expect proofs and so I perceive we may do to the Worlds end I commend the Ingenuity of N. O. for endeavouring to escape out of the circle any way but I believe they think themselves as wise who still dance within it knowing the impossibility of doing any good in this other way The only Argument he insists upon is so weak that I wonder he had not considered how often it had been answered by their own Writers For it is certain that Provincial Councils as well as General have Anathematized dissenters and pronounced them Hereticks which is his only Argument to prove this Tradition of the Churches Infallibility and they had no way to answer it but by saying this doth not imply their Infallibility And if it doth not in the case of Provincial Councils why should he think it doth in the case of General For the Anathema's of Provincial Councils did not relate to the acceptation of their Decrees either by the Pope or the whole Church as N. O. supposes but did proceed upon their own assurance of the truth of what they decreed otherwise their Anathema's would have been only conditional and not absolute and peremptory as we see they were But I need give no other answer to this Argument than in the words of Dr. Field whom N. O. appealed to before viz. That Councils denounce Anathema not because they think every one that disobeyeth the Decree of the Council to be accursed but because they are perswaded in particular that this is the eternal truth of God which they propose therefore they accurse them that obstinately shall resist as St. Paul willeth every Christian man to Anathematize an Angel coming from heaven if he shall teach him any other doctrine than he hath already learned yet is not every particular Christian free from possibility of erring If the Argument then were good from Anathematizing dissenters and calling them Hereticks every particular person must by it be proved Infallible who are bound to Anathematize even Angels from Heaven in case of delivering any other doctrine from the Gospel so that this which is his only Argument in stead of proving an universal Tradition would prove an universal Infallibility Let the Reader now judge in his Conscience whether here be any thing offered in the way of Tradition for the Churches Infallibility that may bear the least proportion with the Tradition on which we receive the Scriptures And yet if this had been true it had been almost impossible that any one Age should have passed without remarkable testimonies of it For no Age of the Church hath been so happy as not to have occasion for an Infallible Judge of Controversies if any such had been appointed by Christ and therefore it cannot be imagined but that Christians must in all Controversies arising have appealed to him and stood to his determinations which must have been as well known in the practice of the Church as Judges trying Causes in Westminster Hall But I challenge him to produce any one Age since the Apostles times to this day wherein the Infallibility of a standing Judge of Controversies appointed by Christ hath been received by as universal a consent as the Authority of Scripture hath been in that very Age. Nay I except not that Age which hath been since the Council of Trent for the Scriptures of the New Testament have been received of all sides but the Infallibility of a standing Judge is utterly denied by one side and vehemently disputed between several parties on the other Some making only the Essential Church infallible others the representative in Councils others again the virtual viz. the Pope And supposing any infallible Judge necessary it stands to reason it should be rather in one than in a multitude and rather in a constant succession of Bishops in one See than in an uncertain number who cannot be convened together as often as the necessities of the Church may require But this is so far from being received as an Universal Tradition in that very Age wherein we live that onely one busie Party in the Roman Church do maintain it Many others eagerly opposing it and all the Princes and States in Christendom do in their actions if not in words deny it And is not this now an Universal Tradition fit to be matched with that of the Scriptures I had once thought to have brought testimonies oâ—t of every Age of the Christian Church manifestly disproving any such Tradition of Infallibility and that not only of private persons when there were no Councils but from the most solemn Acts of Councils and the confession of their own Writers but that would swell this Answer to too great a Bulk and is not needful where so very little is offered for the proof of it And yet I shall be ready to do it when any thing more important requires it I now return to his exceptions against the latter part of the former proposition viz. That Infallibility in a Body of men is as liable to doubts and disputes as in those Books from whence only they derive their Infallibility The plain meaning of which
very next Chapter urges this as the Consequence of it that having truth for our Rule and so plain Testimony of God men ought not to perplex themselves with doubtful Questions concerning God but grow in the love of him who hath done and doth so great things for us and never fall off from that knowledge which is most clearly revealed And we ought to be content with what is clearly made known in the Scriptures because they are perfect as coming from the wâ—rd and Spirit of God And we need 〈◊〉 â—onder if there be many things in Religion above our understandings since there are so in natural things which are daily seen by us as in the nature of Birds Water Air Meteors c. of which we may talk much but only God knows what the truth is Therefore why should we think much if it be so in Religion too wherein are some things we may understand and others we must leave to God and if we do so we shall keep our faith without danger And all Scripture being agreeable to it self the dark places must be understood in a way most suitable to the sense of the plain 3. The sense they gave of Scripture was contrary to the Doctrine of faith received by all true Christians from the beginning which he calls the unmoveable rule of faith received in Baptism and which the Church dispersed over the Earth did equally receive in all places with a wonderful consent For although the places and languages be never so distant or different from each other yet the faith is the very same as there is one Sun which inlightens the whole World which faith none did enlarge or diminish And after having shewn the great absurdities of the Doctrines of the Enemies of this faith in his first and second Books in the beginning of the third he shews that the Apostles did fully understand the mind of Christ that they preached the same Doctrine which the Church received and which after their preaching it was committed to writing by the Will of God in the Scriptures to be the pillar and ground of Faith Which was the true reason why the Hereticks did go about to disparage the Scriptures because they were condemned by them therefore they would not allow them sufficient Authority and charged them with contradictions and so great obscurity that the truth could not be found in them without the help of Tradition which they accounted the key to unlock all the difficulties of Scripture And was not to be sought for in Writings but was delivered down from hand to hand for which cause St. Paul said we speak wisdom among them that are perfect Which wisdom they pretended to be among themselves On this account the matter of Tradition came first into dispute in the Christian Church And Irenaeus appeals to the most eminent Churches and Especially that of Rome because of the great resort of Christians thither whether any such tradition was ever received among them and all the Churches of Asia received the same faith from the Apostles and knew of no such Tradition as the Valentinians pretended to and there was no reason to think that so many Churches founded by the Apostles or Christ should be ignorant of such a tradition and supposing no Scriptures at all had been written by the Apostles we must then have followed the Tradition of the most ancient and Apostolical Churches and even the most Barbarous nations that had embraced Christianity without any Writings yet fully agreed with other Churches in the Doctrine of Faith for that is it he means by the rule of faith viz. a summary comprehension of the Doctrine received among Christians such as the Creed is mentioned by Irenaeus and afterwards he speaks of the Rule of the Valentinians in opposition to that of the sound Christians From hence Irenaeus proceeds to confute the Doctrine of the Valentinians by Scripture and Reason in the third fourth and fifth Books All which ways of finding out the sense of Scripture in doubtful places we allow of and approve and are always ready to appeal to them in any of the matters controverted between us and the Church of Rome But Irenaeus knew nothing of any Infallible Judge to determine the sense of Scripture for if he had it would have been very strange he should have gone so much the farthest way about when he might so easily have told the Valentinians that God had entrusted the Guides of his Church especially at Rome with the faculty of interpreting Scripture and that all men were bound to believe that to be the sense of it which they declared and no other But men must be pardoned if they do not write that which never entred into their Heads After Irenaeus Tertullian sets himself the most to dispute against those who opposed the Faith of the Church and the method he takes in his Boo of Praescription of Hereticks is this 1. That there must be a certain unalterable Rule of Faith For he that believes doth not only suppose sufficient grounds for his faith but bounds that are set to it and therefore there is no need of further search since the Gospel is revealed This he speaks to take away the pretence of the Seekers of those days who were always crying seek and ye shall find to which he replys that we are to consider not the bare words but the reason of them And in the first place we are to suppose this that there is one certain and fixed Doctrine delivered by Christ which all nations are bound to believe and therefore to seek that when they have found they may believe it Therefore all our enquiries are to be confined within that compass what that Doctrine was which Christ delivered for otherwise there will be no end of seeking 2. He shews what this Rule of Faith is by repeating the Articles of the Ancient Creed which he saith was universally received among true Christians and disputed by none but Hereticks Which Rule of Faith being embraced then he saith a liberty is allowed for other enquiries in doubtful or obscure matters For faith lyes in the Rule but other things were matters of skill and curiosity and it is faith which saves men and not their skill in expounding Scriptures and while men keep themselves within that Rule they are safe enough for to know nothing beyond it is to know all 3. But they pretend Scripture for what they deliver and by that means unsettle the minds of many To this he answers several ways 1. That such persons as those were ought not to be admitted to a dispute concerning the sense of Scripture because they rather deserved to be censured than disputed for bringing such new heresies into the Church but chiefly because it was to no purpose to dispute with them about the sense of Scripture who received what Scriptures they pleased themselves and added and took away as they
of against the Scriptures was never so much as thought of in those days or if it were was not thought worth answering for they diâ— not in the least desert the proofs of Scripture because their Adversaries made use of it too But they endeavouâ—ed to shew that their Adversaries Doctrine had no solid Foundation in Scripture but theirs had i.e. that the Arians perverted it because they did not examine and compare places as they ought to do but run away with a few words without considering the scope and design of them or comparing them with places plainer than those were which they brought Thus when the Arians objected that place My Father is greater than I Athanasius bids them compare that with other places such as My Father and I are one and who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equâ—â— with God and by him all things were made c. When Arius objected to us there is but one God of whom are all things he telâ—s him he ought to consider the following words and one Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things from whence when Arius argued that Christ was only Gods instrument in creating things Athanasius then bids him compare this place with another where it is said of whom the whole body c. Not barely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Arians objected Christs saying all things are delivered to me from my Father Athanasius opposes that place of St. Iohn to it By him all things were made Thus when they objected several other places he constantly hath recourse to Iohn 1. 1 2 3. to Phil. 2. 7. 1 Iohn 5. 20. and others which he thought the plainest places for Christs eternal Divinity and by these he proves that the other were to be interpreted with a respect to his humane nature and the State he was in upon Earth So that the greatest Defender of the Doctrine of the Trinity against the Arians saw no necessity at all of calling in the Assistance of any infalâ—ible Guides to give the certain sense of Scripture in these doubtful places but he thought the Scripture plain enough to all those who would impartially examine it and for others who wilfully shut their eyes no light could be great enough for them Indeed when the Arians called in the help of any of the Ancient Writers to justify their Doctrine then Athanasius thought himself concerneâ— to vindâ—cate them as particularly Dionysius of Alexandria But as he saith if they can produce Scripture or Reason for what they say let them do it but if not let them hold their peace Thereby implying that these were the only considerable things to be regarded yet he shews at large that they abused the Testimony of Dionysius who although in his letters against Sabellius he spake too much the other way yet in other of his writings he sufficiently cleared himself from being a savouâ—er of the Arian Heresie And although Athanasius doth else where say that the Faith which the Catholick Church then held was the faith of their Fore-fathers and descended from the Apostles yet he no where saith that without the help of that Tradition it had been impossible to have known the certain sense of Scripture much less without the infallible interpretation of the Guides of the present Church S. Hilary in his disputes against the same Hereticks professes in the beginning that his intention was to confound their rage and ignorance out of writings of the Prophets and Apostles and to that end desires of his Readers that they would conceive of God not according to the Laws of their own beings but according to the greatness of what he had declared of himself For he is the best Reader of Scripture who doth not bring his sense to the Scripture but takes it from it and doth not resolve before hand to find that there which he concluded must be the sence before he reads In things therefore which concern God we must allow him to know himself best and give due Reverence to his word For he is the best witness to himself who cannot be known but by himself In which words he plainly asserts that the Foundation of our Faith must be in the Scriptures and that a free and impartial mind is necessary to find out the true sense of Scripture And after he had said in the second Book that Heresies arise from misunderstanding the Scripture and charged in his fourth Book the Arians particularly with it he proceeds to answer all the places produced by them out of the old and new Testament by comparing several places together and the antecedents and consequents and by these means proving that they mistook the meaning of Scripture So in the beginning of his ninth Book rehearsing the Common places which were made use of by the Arians he saith they repeated the words alone without enquiring into the meaning or Contexture of them whereas the true sense of Scripture is to be taken from the antecedents and consequents their fundamental mistake being the applying those things to his Divine nature which were spoken of his humane which he makes good by a particular examination of the several places in Controversie The same course is taken by Epiphanius Phaebadius and others of the ancient Writers of the Church who asserted the Eternal Divinity of Christ against the Arians Epiphanius therefore charges them which mangling and perverting the sense of Scripture understanding figurative expressions literâ—â—ly and those which are intended in a plain sense figuratively So that it is observable in that great Controversie which disturbed the Church so many years which exercised the wits of all men in that time to find out a way to put an end to it after the Guides of the Church had in the Council of Nice declared what was the Catholick faith yet still the Controversie was managed about the sense of Scripture and no other ways made use of for finding it than such as we plead for at this day It is a most incredible thing that in a time of so violent contention so horrible confusion so scandalous divisions in the Christian Church none of the Catholick Bishops should once suggest this admirable Expedient of Infallibility But this Palladium was not then fallen down from heaven or if it were it was kept so secret that not one of the Writers of the Christian Church in that busie and disputing Age discovered the least knowledge of it Unless it be said that of all times it was then least fit to talk of Infallibility in the Guides of the Church when they so frequently in Councils contrâ—dicted each other The Synodical Book in the new Tomes of the Councils reckons up 31. several Councils of Bishops in the time of the Arian Controversie whereof near 20. were for the Arians and the rest against them If the sense of Scripture were in this time to be taken from the Guides of the