a Foederal State of Salvation but Christians To them is given the Covenant of Grace and to them the promises of God are made and offered So that they have a certainty of it upon their performing those conditions that are put in the promises All others are out of this Promise to whom the Tidings of it were never brought but yet a great difference is to be made between them and those who have been invited to this Covenant and admitted to the outward Profession and the common Privileges of it and that yet have in effect rejected it These are under such positive denunciations of Wrath and Judgment that there is no room left for any charitable Thoughts or Hopes concerning them So that if any part of the Gospel is true that must be also true that they are under Condemnation Joh. 3.19 for having lov d darkness more than light when the Light shone upon them and visitâ—d them But as for them whom God has left in Darkness they are certainly out of the Covenant out of those Promises and Declarations that are made in it So that they have no Foederal Right to be saved neither can we affirm that they shall be saved But on the other hand they are not under those positive denunciations because they were never made to them Therefore since God has not declared that they shall be damned no more ought we to take upon us to damn them Instead of stretching the severity of Justice by an Inference we may rather venter to stretch the Mercy of God since that is the Attribute which of all others is the most Magnificently spoken of in the Scriptures So that we ought to think of it in the largest and most comprehensive manner But indeed the most proper way is for us to stop where the Revelation of God stops And not to be wise beyond what is written but to leave the secrets of God as Mysteries too far above us to examine or to sound their depth We do certainly know on what terms we our selves shall be saved or damned And we ought to be contented with that and rather study to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling than to let our minds run out into uncertain Speculations concerning the Measures and the Conditions of God's uncovenanted Mercies We ought to take all possible care that we our selves come not into Condemnation rather than to define positively of others who must or who must not be condemned It is therefore enough to fix this according to the Design of the Article That it is not to free Men to chuse at pleasure what Religion they will as if that were left to them or that all Religions were alike which strikes at the Foundation and undermines the Truth of all Revealed Religion None are within the Covenant of Grace but true Christians and all are excluded out of it to whom it is offered who do not receive and believe it and live according to it So in a word all that are saved are saved through Christ but whether all these shall be called to the Explicite Knowledge of him is more than we have any good ground to affirm Nor are we to go into that other Question Whether any that are only in a state of Nature live fully up to its Light This is that about which we can have no certainty no more than whether there may be a Common Grace given to them all proportioned to their State and to the Obligations of it This in general may be safely believed That God will never be wanting to such as do their utmost endeavours in order to the saving of their Souls But that as in the Case of Cornelius an Angel will be sent and a Miracle be wrought rather than that such a Person shall be left to perish But whether any of them do ever arrive at that state is more than we can determine and it is a vain attempt for us to endeavour to find it out ARTICLE XIX Of the Church The Uisible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duely administred according to Christ's Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their Living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith THIS Article together with some that follow it Relates to the Fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome They teaching that we are to judge of Doctrines by the Authority and the Decisions of the Church whereas we affirm That we are first to examine the Doctrine and according to that to judge of the Purity of a Church Somewhat was already said on the Sixth Article relating to this matter What remains is now to be considered The whole Question is to be reduced to this Point Whether we ought to Examine and Judge of Matters of Religion according to the Light and Faculty of judging that we have or if we are bound to submit in all things to the Decision of the Church Here the matter must be determined against private Judgment by very express and clear Authorities other wise the other side proves it self For we having naturally a Faculty of judging for our selves and using it in all other things this freedom being the greatest of all our other Rights must be still asserted unless it can be made appear that God has in some things put a Bar upon it by his Supreme Authority That Authority must be very express if we are required to submit to it in a Point of such vast Importance to us We do also see that Men are apt to be mistaken and are apt likewise willingly to mistake and to mislead others and that particularly in matters of Religion the World has been so much imposed upon and abused that we cannot be bound to submit to any sort of persons implicitely without very good and clear grounds that do assure us of their Infallibility Otherwise we have just reason to suspect that in matters of Religion chiefly in Points in which Human Interests are concerned Men may either through Ignorance and Weakness or Corruption and on Design abuse and mislead us So that the Authorities or Proofs of this Infallibility must be very express since we are sure no Man nor Body of Men can have it among them but by a Privilege from God and a Privilege of so extraordinary a nature must be given if at all in very plain and with very evident Characters since without these Human Nature cannot and ought not to be so tame as to receive it We must not draw it from an Inference because we think we need it and cannot be safe without it That therefore it must be so because if it were not so great Disorder would arise from the want of it This is certainly a wrong way of arguing
Holy Ghost it must be understood of the Father for when the Father is named with Christ sometimes he is called God simply and sometimes God the Father This Argument from the Threefold Salutation appears yet stronger in the Words in which St. Iohn addresses himself to the Seven Churches in the beginning of the Revelations Rev. 1.4 5. Grace and Peace from him which is which was and which is to come and from the seven Spirits which are before his Throne and from Iesus Christ. By the Seven Spirits must be meant one or more Persons since he wishes or declares Grace and Peace from them Now either this must be meant of Angels or of the Holy Ghost There are no where Prayers made or Blessings given in the Name of Angels This were indeed a worshipping them against which there are express Authorities not only in the other Books of the New Testament but in this Book in particular Nor can it be imagined that Angels could have been named before Iesus Christ So then it remains that Seven being a Number that imports both Variety and Perfection and that was the Sacred Number among the Iews this is a Mystical Expression which is no extraordinary thing in a Book that is all over mysterious And it imports one Person from whom all that variety of Gifts Administrations and Operations that were then in the Church did flow And this is the Holy Ghost But as to his being put in order before Christ as upon the supposition of an Equality the going out of the common order is no great matter so since there was to come after this a full Period that concerned Christ it might be a natural way of Writing to name him last Against all this it is objected That the Designation that is given to the first of these in a Circumlocution that imports Eternity shews that the Great God and not the Person of the Father is to be meant But then how could St. Iohn writing to the Churches wish them Grace and Peace from the other Two A few Verses after this the same Description of Eternal Duration is given to Christ and is a strong Proof of his Eternity and by consequence of his Divinity So what is brought so soon after as a Character of the Eternity of the Son may be also here used to denote the Eternal Father These are the Chief Places in which the Trinity is mentioned all together I do not insist on that contested Passage of St. Iohn's Epistle There are great doubtings made about it 1 Joh. 5.7 The main ground of doubting being the Silence of the Fathers who never made use of it in the Disputes with the Arians and Macedonians There are very considerable things urged on the other hand to support the Authority of that Passage yet I think it is safer to build upon sure and undisputable grounds So I leave it to be maintained by others who are more fully persuaded of its being Authentical There is no need of it This matter is capable of a very full Proof whether that Passage is believed to be a part of the Canon or not It is no small Confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine that we are certain it was universally received over the whole Christian Church long before there was either a Christian Prince to support it by his Authority or a Council to establish it by Consent And indeed the Council of Nice did nothing but declare what was the Faith of the Christian Church with the addition only of the Word Consubstantial For if all the other Words of the Creed settled at Nice are acknowledged to be true that of the Three Persons being of one Substance will follow from thence by a just consequence We know both by what Tertullian and Novatian writ what was the Faith both of the Roman and the African Churches From Irenaeus we gather the Faith both of the Gallican and the Asiatick Churches And the whole proceedings in the Case of Samosatenus that was the solemnest business that past while the Church was under Oppression and Persecution give us the most convincing Proof possible not only of the Faith of the Eastern Churches at that time but of their Zeal likewise in watching against every Breach that was made in so Sacred a part of their Trust and Depositum These things have been fully opened and enlarged on by others to whom the Reader is referred I shall only desire him to make this Reflection on the state of Christianity at that time The Disputes that were then to be managed with the Heathens against the Deifying or Worshipping of Men and those extravagant Fables concerning the Genealogies of their Heroes and Gods must have obliged the Christians rather to have silenced and supprest the Doctrine of the Trinity than to have owned and published it So that nothing but their being assured that it was a Necessary and Fundamental Article of their Faith could have led them to own it in so publick a manner since the Advantages that the Heathen would have taken from it must be too visible not to be soon observed The Heathens retorted upon them their Doctrine of a Man's being a God and of God's having a Son And every one who engaged in this Controversy framed such Answers to these Objections as he thought he could best maintain This as it gave the Rise to the Errors which some brought into the Church so it furnishes us with a Copious Proof of the common Sense of the Christians of those Ages who all agreed in general to the Doctrine though they had many different and some very Erroneous ways of explaining it among them I now come to the special Proofs concerning each of the Three Persons But there being other Articles relating to the Son and the Holy Ghost the Proofs of these Two will belong more properly to the Explanation of those Articles Therefore all that belongs to this Article is to prove that the Father is truly God but that needs not be much insisted on for there is no dispute about it None deny that he is God many think that he is so truly God that there is no other that can be called God besides him unless it be in a larger sense of the word And therefore I will here conclude all that seems necessary to be said on this first Article on which if I have dwelt the longer it was because the stating the Idea of God right being the Fundamental Article of all Religion and the Key into every part of it this was to be done with all the Fulness and Clearness possible In a word to recapitulate a little what has been said The liveliest way of framing an Idea of God is to consider our own Souls which are said to be made after the Image of God An attentive Reflection on what we perceive in our selves will carry us further than any other thing whatsoever to form just and true Thoughts of God We perceive what Thought is but
other Church has them equally with her or beyond her If all these must be discussed before we can settle this Question Which is the true Infallible Church A Man must stay long e're he can come to a point in it Therefore there can be no other way taken here but to examine first What makes a particular Church And then since the Catholick Church is an united Body of all particular Churches when the true Notion of a particular Church is fixed it will be easy from that to form a Notion of the Catholick Church It would seem reasonable by the Method of all Creeds in particular of that called the Apostles Creed that we ought first to settle our Faith as to the great Points of the Christian Religion and from thence go to settle the Notion of a true Church And that we ought not to begin with the Notion of a Church and from thence go to the Doctrine The Doctrine of Christianity must be first stated and from this we are to take our measures of all Churches and that chiefly with respect to that Doctrine which every Christian is bound to believe Here a distinction is to be made between those Capital and Fundamental Articles without which a Man cannot be esteemed a true Christian nor a Church a true Church And other Truths which being delivered in Scripture all Men are indeed obliged to believe them yet they are not of that nature that the Ignorance of them or an Error in them can exclude from Salvation To make this sensible It is a Proposition of another sort That Christ died for Sinners than this That he died at the Third or at the Sixth Hour And yet if the Second Proposition is expresly revealed in Scripture we are bound to believe it Since God has said it though it is not of the same nature with the other Here a Controversie does naturally arise that wise People are unwilling to meddle with What Articles are Fundamental and what are not The defining of Fundamental Articles seems on the one hand to deny Salvation to such as do not receive them all which Men are not willing to do And on the other hand it may seem a leaving Men at liberty as to all other particulars that are not reckoned up among the Fundamentals But after all the Covenant of Grace the Terms of Salvation and the Grounds on which we expect it seem to be things of another nature than all other truths which though revealed are not of themselves the Means or Conditions of Salvation Wheresoever true Baptism is there it seems the Essentials of this Covenant are preserved For if we look on Baptism as a Foederal admission into Christianity there can be no Baptism where the Essence of Christianity is not preserved As far then as we believe that any Society has preserved that so far we are bound to receive her Baptism and no further For unless we consider Baptism as a sort of a Charm that such words joined with a washing with Water make one a Christian which seems to be expresly contrary to what St. Peter says of it 1 Pet. â— 21 That it is not the washing away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience towards God that saves us We must conclude That Baptism is a Foederal thing in which after that the Sponsions are made the Seal of Regeneration is added From hence it will follow That all who have a true Baptism that makes Men Believers and Christians must also have the true Faith as to the Essentials of Christianity The Fundamentals of Christirnity seems to be all that is necessary to make Baptism True and Valid And upon this a distinction is to be made that will discover and destroy a Sophism that is often used on this occasion A True Church is in one sense a Society that preserves the Essentials and Fundamentals of Christianity In another sense it stands for a Society all whose Doctrines are true that has corrupted no part of this Religion nor mixed any Errors with it A true Man is one who has a Soul and a Body that are the Essential Constituents of a Man Whereas in another sense a Man of Sincerity and Candor is called a true Man Truth in the one Sense imports the Essential Constitution and in the other it imports only a Quality that is accidental to it So when we acknowledge that any Society is a true Church we ought to be supposed to mean no other than that the Covenant of Grace in its Essential Constituent parts is preserved entire in that Body and not that it is true in all its Doctrines and Decisions The Second thing to be considered in a Church is their Association together in the use of the Sacraments For these are given by Christ to the Society as the Rites and Badges of that Body That which makes particular Men Believers is their receiving the Fundamentals of Christianity so that which constitutes the Body of the Church is the Profession of that Faith and the use of those Sacraments which are the Rites and Distinctions of those who profess it In this likewise a distinction is to be made between what is Essential to a Sacrament and what is the exact observance of it according to the Institution Additions to the Sacraments do not annul them though they corrupt them with that adulterate mixture Therefore where the Sponsions are made and washing with Water is used with the words of Christ there we own that there is a true Baptism Though there may be a large Addition of other Rites which we reject as Superstitious though we do not pretend that they null the Baptism But if any part of the Institution is cut off there we do not own the Sacrament to be true Because it being an Institution of Christ's it can no more be esteemed a true Sacrament than as it retains all that which by the Institution appears to be the main and essential parts of the Action Upon this account it is That since Christ appointed Bread and Wine fo his other Sacrament and that he not only blessed both but distributed both with words appropriated to each kind we do not esteem that to be a true Sacrament in which either the one or the other of these kinds is w ithdrawn But in the next place there may be many things necessary in the way of Precept and Order both with relation to the Sacraments and to the other publick Acts of Worship in which tho' Additions or Defects are Erroneous and Faulty yet they do not annul the Sacraments We think none ought to Baptize but Men dedicated to the Service of God and Ordained according to that Constitution that was settled in the Church by the Apostles and yet Baptism by Laicks or by Women such as is most commonly practiced in the Roman Church is not esteemed null by us nor is it repeated Because we make a difference between what is Essential to a Sacrament and what is
Testament answered 84 Concerning the various Readings 85 The nature and degrees of Inspiration 86 Concerning the Historical parts of Scripture 87 Concerning the Reasonings in Scripture 88 Of the Apocryphal Books 89 ARTICLE VII 91 NO difference between the Old and New Testament Ibid. Proofs in the Old Testament of the Messias 92 In the Prophets chiefly in Daniel 94 The Proofs all summed up 95 Objections of the Jews answered 96 The hopes of anotheâ— Life in the Old Testament 97 Our Saviour proved the Resurrection from the words to Moses 98 Expiation of Sin in the Old Dispensation 99 Sins then expiated by the Blood of Christ Ibid. Of the Rites and Ceremonies among the Jews 100 Of their Iudiciary Laws 101 Of the Moral Law Ibid. The Principles of Morality 102 Of Idolatry 103 Concerning the Sabbath Ibid. Of the Second Table 104 Of not coveting what is our Neighbours 105 ARTICLE VIII 106 COncerning the Creed of Athanasius Ibid. And the condemning Clauses in it Ibid. Of the Apostles Creed 107 ARTICLE IX 108 DIfferent Opinions concerning Original Sin Ibid. All men liable to Death by it 109 A Corruption spread through the whole Race of Adam Ibid. Of the state of Innocence 110 Of the effects of Adam's Fall 111 God's Iustice vindicated 112 Of the Imputation of Adam's Sin 113 St. Austin's Doctrine in this Point 114 This is opposed by many others Ibid. Both sides pretend their Doctrines agree with the Article 116 ARTICLE X. 117 THE true Notion of Liberty Ibid. The Feebleness of our present state 118 Inward Assistances promised in the New Covenant 119 The effect that these have on men 120 Concerning Preventing-Grace Ibid. Of its being efficacious or universal 121 ARTICLE XI 122 COncerning Iustification Ibid. Concerning Faith 123 The differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in this Point 124 The conditions upon which men are justified 126 The use to be made of this Doctrine 127 ARTICLE XII 128 THE necessity of Holiness Ibid. Concerning Merit 129 Of the defects of Good Works Ibid. ARTICLE XIII 131 ACTIONS in themselves good yet may be sins in him who does them Ibid. Of the Seventh Chapter to the Romans 132 This is not a total Incapacity Ibid. ARTICLE XIV 133 Oâ— the great extent of our Duty Ibid. No Counsels of Perfection 134 Many Duties which do not bind at all times Ibid. It is not possible for man to supererogate 135 Objections against this answered 136 The steps by which that Doctrine prevailed 137 ARTICLE XV. 138 CHrist's spotless Holiness Ibid. Of the Imperfections of the best men 139 ARTICLE XVI 140 COncerning Mortal and Venial Sin Ibid. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost Ibid. Of the Pardon of Sin after Baptism 141 That as God forgives the Church ought also to forgive 142 Concerning Apostacy and sin unto Death 143 ARTICLE XVII 145 THE state of the Question 146 The Doctrine of the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians Ibid. The Doctrine of the Remonstrants and the Socinians 147 This is a Controversy that arises out of Natural Religion Ibid. The History of this Controversy both in ancient and modern times 148 The Arguments of the Supralapsarians 152 The Arguments of the Sublapsarians 158 The Arguments of the Remonstrants 159 They affirm a certain Prescience 161 The Socinians Plea 164 General Reflections on the whole matter 165 The advantages and disadvantages of both sides and the faults of both 166 In what both do agree 167 The sense of the Article 168 The Cautions added to it Ibid. Passages in the Liturgy explained 169 ARTICLE XVIII 171 PHilosophers thought men might be saved in all Religions Ibid. So do the Mahometans Ibid. None are saved but by Christ 172 Whether some may not be saved by him who never heard of him Ibid. None are in Covenant with God but through the knowledge of Christ 173 But for others we cannot judge of the extent of the Mercies of God Ibid. Curiosity is to be restrained 174 ARTICLE XIX 175 WE ought not to believe that any are Infallible without good Authority Ibid. Iust prejudices against some who pretend to it 176 No Miracles brought to prove this Ibid. Proofs brought from Scripture 177 Things to be supposed previous to these Ibid. A Circle is not to be admitted Ibid. The Notes given of the true Church 178 These are examined Ibid. And whether they do agree to the Church of Rome 179 The Truth of Doctrine must be first settled Ibid. A Society that has a true Baptism is a true Church 180 Sacraments are not annulled by every Corruption Ibid. We own the Baptism and Orders given in the Church of Rome 181 And yet justify our separating from them Ibid. Objections against private judging 182 Our Reasons are given us for that end Ibid. Our Minds are free as our Wills are 183 The Church is still Visible but not Infallible Ibid. Of the Popes Infallibility 184 That was not pretended to in the first Ages Ibid. The Dignity of Sees rose from the Cities 185 Popes have fallen into Heresy Ibid. Their Ambition and Forgeries Ibid. Their Cruelty 186 The Power of deposing Princes claimed by them as given them by God Ibid. This was not a Corruption only of Discipline but of Doctrine 187 Arguments for the Popes Infallibility 188 No Foundation for it in the New Testament Ibid. St. Peter never clâ—imed it 189 Christ's words to him explained Ibid. Of the Kâ—ys of the Kingdâ—m of Hâ—â—vâ—n 190 Of binding and loosing Ibid. ARTICLE XX. 192 OF Church Power in Rituals Ibid. The Practice of the Jewish Church 193 Changes in these sometimes necâ—ssary Ibid. The Practice of the Ap stles 194 Sâ—bjâ—cts must obey in lawful things Ibid. But Superiâ—rs must not impose too much 195 The Church has Authority though not Infallible Ibid. Great Respâ—ct due to her Decisions 196 But no absâ—lute Submâ—ssion Ibid. The Church is the Depâ—sitary of the Scriptures 197 The Church of Rome run in a Circle Ibid. ARTICLE XXI 199 COuncils cannot be called but by the Consent of Princes Ibid. Tâ—e first were called by the Roman Emperors Ibid. Afterwards the Popes called them 200 Then some Councils thought on methods to fix their meeting Ibid. What makâ—s a Council to be General Ibid. What numbers are necessary 201 Hâ—w thâ—y must he cited Ibid. Nâ— Rules given in Scripture concerning their Constitution Ibid. Nazianzen's Complaints of Councils 202 Councils have been câ—ntrary to one another Ibid. Disâ—rders and Intriguâ—s in Councils Ibid. They judgâ— not by Inspiration Ibid. The Churches may examine their proceedings and judge of them 203 Concerning the Popes Bull confirming them Ibid. Thâ—y have an Authority but not absolute Ibid. Nâ—r do they need the Popes Bulls 204 The several Churches know their Traditions best Ibid. The Fathers do argue for the truth of the decisions but not from their authority Ibid. No prospect of another General Council 205 Popes are jealous of them Ibid. And the World expects little from them Ibid. Concerning the words
Tell the Church Ibid. Hâ—w the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth 206 Christ's Promise I am with you alway even to the end of the world Ibid. Of that It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Ibid. Some Generâ—l Councils have ereed 207 ARTICLE XXII 217 THE Dâ—ctrine of Purgatory Ibid. Sins once pardâ—ned are not punished 218 Vnlâ—ss with chastisements in this life 219 No state of satisfaction aftâ—r death Ibid. No mention made of that in Scripture 220 But it is plain to the contrary 221 Different Opinions among the Ancients Ibid. The Original of Purgatory 222 A pâ—ssâ—ge in Maccabees considered Ibid. A pâ—ssâ—ge in the Epistle to the Corinthians câ—nsidered 223 The prâ—gress â—f the â—elief of Purgatory 2â—4 Prayers for the dead among the Ancients 225 Endâ—wments for redeeming out of Purgâ—toâ—y 226 Whether these ought to be sacred or nâ—t 227 The Doctrine of Pardons and Indulgences 228 It is only the excusing from Penance 229 Nâ— Foundation for it in Scripâ—ure Ibid. General Rules concerning Idolatry 230 Of the Iâ—olatry of Hâ—athens 231 Laws given to the Jews against it Ibid. The Expostulâ—â—ions of the Prophets 232 Concerning the Golden Calf Ibid. And The Calves at Dan and Bethel 233 The Ap stles opposed all Idolatry Ibid. St. Paul at Athens and to the Romans 334 The sense of the Primitive upon it 235 The first use of Images among Christians Ibid. Pictures in Churches for Instruction 236 Were afterwards worshipped Ibid. Contests abâ—ut that Ibid. Images of the Deity and Trinity 237 On what theWorship of Images terminates 238 The due Worship settled by the Council at Trent Ibid. Images consecrated and how 239 Arguments for worshipping them answered Ibid. Arguments against the use or worship of Images 240 The worship of Relicks 241 A due regard to the Bodies of Martyrs Ibid. The progress of Superstition Ibid. No warrant for this in Scripture 242 Hezekiah broke the Brazen Serpent Ibid. The memorable passage concerning the Body of St. Polycarp 243 Fables and Forgeries prevailed Ibid. The Souls of the Martyrs believed to hover about their Tombâ— 244 Nothing of this kind objected to the first Christians Ibid. Disputes between Vigilantius and St. Jerom 245 No Invocation of Saints in the Old Testament 246 The Invocating Angels condemned in the New Tâ—stament 247 No Saints invocated Christ only Ibid. No mention of this in the three first Ages 248 In the Fourth Martyrs invocated Ibid. The progrâ—ss that this made 249 Scandalous Offices in the Church of Rome Ib. Arguments against this Invocation 2â—0 An Apology for those who begun it Ibid. The Scandal given by it 251 Arguments for it ansâ—ered 252 Whethâ—r the Saints see all things in God Ib. This no part of the Communion of Saints 253 Prayers ought to be directed only to God Ib. Revealed Religion designed to deliver the World from Idolatry 254 ARTICLE XXIII 255 A Succâ—ssiâ—n of Pastors ought to be in the Church Ibid. 〈◊〉 was settlâ—d by the Apostles 256 And must continue to the end of the World Ibid. It was settlâ—d in the first Age of the Church 257 The danger of mâ—ns taking to themselves this Authority without a due Vocation Ibid. The difference between means of Salvation and precâ—pts for orders sake 258 What is lawful Authority Ibid. What may be done upon extraordinary occasions 259 Necessity is above Rules of Order Ibid. The High Priests in â—ur Saviour's time 260 Baptism by Women 261 ARTICLE XXIV 262 THE chief end of worshipping God Ib. The Practice of the Jews 263 Rules given by the Apostles Ibid. The Prâ—ctice â—f the Church 264 Arguments for Worship in an unknown Tongue answered Ibid. ARTICLE XXV 266 DIfference between Sacraments and Rites Ibid. Sacraments do not imprint a Character 267 But are not mere Ceremâ—nies 268 What is necessary to constitute a Sacrament 269 That applied to Baptism Ib. And to the Eucharist 270 No meâ—tion of seven Sacraments before Peter Lombard Ibid. Confirmation no Sacrament Ibid. How practised among us Ibid. The use of Chrism in it is new 271 Oyl early used in Christian Rituals Ibid. Bishops only consecrated the Chrism 272 In the Greek Church Presbyters appliâ—d it Ibid. This used in the Western Church but condemned by the Popes Ibid. Disputes concerning Confirmation 273 Concerning Penance Ibid. The true Notion of Repentance Ibid. Confâ—ssion not the matter of a Sacrament 274 The use of Confession Ibid. The Priâ—st's Pardon Ministerial 275 And restrained within bounds Ibid. Auricular Confâ—ssion not necessary 276 Not commanded in the New Testament Ibid. The beginnings of it in the Church 277 Many Canons about Penance Ibid. Confession forbid at Constantinople 278 The ancient Dâ—scipline slâ—ckâ—n'd Ibid. Confâ—ssion may be advised but not commanded 279 The good and bad effâ—cts it may have Ibid. Of Contrition and Attrition 280 The ill effects of the Doctrine of Attrition Ibid. Of doing the Penance or Satisfaction 281 Concerning sorrow for sin Ibid. Of the ill effects of hasty Absolutions 282 Of Fasting and Prayer Ibid. Of the Form I absolve thee 283 Of Hâ—ly Orders 284 Of the ancient Form of Ordinations Ibid. Of delivering the Vessels 285 Orders no Sacrament Ibid. Whether Bishops and Priests are of the same Order 286 Of Marriage Ibid. It can be no Sacrament 287 Intention not necessary Ibid. How Marriage is called a Mystery or Sacrament 288 Marriage dissolved by Adultery Ibid. The Practice of the Church in this matter 289 Of Extreme Vnction Ibid. St. James's words explained 290 Oyl much used in ancient Rituals 291 Pope Innocent's Epistle considered Ibid. Anointing used in order to Recovery 292 Afterwards as the Sacrament of the dying 293 The Sacraments are to be used Ibid. And to be received worthily 294 ARTICLE XXVI 295 SAcraments are not effectual as Prayers are Ibid. Of the Doctrine of Intention 296 The ill consâ—quences of it 297 Of a just Severity in Discipline Ibâ—d Particularly towards the Clergy 298 ARTICLE XXVII 299 COncerning St. John's Baptism Ibid. The Jews used Baptism Ibid. The Christian Baptism 300 The difference between it and St. John's Ib. The necessity of Baptism 301 It is a Precept but not a Mean of Salvation Ibid. Baptism unites us to the Church 302 It also saves us Ibid. St. Peter's words explained 303 St Austin's Doctrine of Baptism Ibid. Baptism is a Foederal Stipulation 304 In what sense it was of more value to preach than to baptize Ibid. Of Infant-Baptism 305 It is grounded on the Law of Nature Ibid. And the Law of Moses and warranted in the New Testament Ibid. In what sense Children can be holy 306 It is also very expedient Ibid. ARTICLE XXVIII 308 THE change made in this Article in Queen Elizabeth's time Ibid. The Explanation of our Doctrine 309 Of the Rituals in the Passover Ibid. Of the words This is my Body 310 And This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood Ibid. Of the horror the Jews had at Blood 311 In what sense only the Disciples could understand our
Saviour's words Ibid. The discourse Joh. 6. explained 312 It can only be understood spiritually 313 Bold Figures much used in the East Ibid. A plain thing needs no great proof 314 Of unworthy Receivers and the effect of that sin 315 Of the effects of worthy receiving Ibid. Of Foederal Symbols 316 Of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ Ibid. Of the like Phrases in Scripture 317 Of our Sense of the Phrase Real Presence Ib. Transubstantiation explained 318 Of the words of Consecration 319 Of the Consequences of Transubstantiation Ibid. The grounds upon which it was believed 320 This is contrary to the Testimony of all our Faculties both Sense and Reason Ibid. We can be sure of nothing if our Senses do deceive us 321 The Objection from believing Mysteries answered 322 The end of all Miracles considered Ibid. Our Doctrine of a Mystical Presence is confessed by those of the Church of Rome 323 St. Austin's Rule about Figures Ibid. Presumptions concerning the belief of the Ancients in this matter 324 They had not that Philosophy which this Doctrine has forced on the Church of Rome 325 This was not objected by Heathens 326 No Heresies or Disputes arose upon this as they did on all other Points 327 Many new Rituals unknown to them have sprung out of this Doctrine Ibid. In particular the adoring the Sacrament 328 Prayers in the Masses of the Saints inconsistent with it Ibid. They believed the Elements were Bread and Wine after Consecration Ibid. Many Authorities brought for this 329 Eutychians said Christ's Humanity was swallowed of his Divinity 330 The Fathers argue against this from the Doctrine of the Eucharist Ibid. The Force of that Argument explained 331 The Fathers say our Bodies are nourished by the Sacrament Ibid. They call it the Type Sign and Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ 332 The Prayer of Consecration calls it so 333 That compared with the Prayer in the Missal Ibid. The progress of the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence 334 Reflection on the Ages in which it grew 335 The occasion on which it was advanced in the Eastern Church 336 Paschase Radbert taught it first 337 But many wrote against him Ibid. Afterwards Berengarius opposed it 338 The Schoolmen descanted on it Ibid. Philosophy was corrupted to support it 339 Concerning Consubstantiation Ibid. It is an Opinion that may be born with 340 The Adoration of the Eucharist is Idolatry Ibid. The Plea against that considered Ibid. Christ is not to be worshipped though present 341 Concerning reserving the Sacrament Ibid. Concerning the Elevation of it 342 ARTICLE XXIX 343 THE wicked do not receive Christ Ibid. The Doctrine of the Fathers in this Point Ibid. More particularly St. Austin's 344 ARTICLE XXX 345 THE Chalice was given to all Ibid. Not to the Disciples as Priests Ibid. The breaking of Bread explained 346 Sacraments must be given according to the Institution Ibid. Nâ— Arguments from ill consequences to be admitted unless in cases of necessity 347 Concomitance a new Notion Ibid. Vniversal practice for giving the Chalice Ibid. The case of the Agrarii 348 The first beginning of taking away the Cup Ibid. The Decree of the Council of Constance 349 ARTICLE XXXI 350 THE term Sacrifice of a large signification Ibid. The Primitive Christians denied that they had any Sacrifices Ibid. The Eucharist has no virtue but as it is a Communion 351 Strictly speaking there is only one Priest and one Sacrifice in the Christian Religion 352 The Fathers did not think the Eucharist was a Propitiatory Sacrifice 353 But call it a Sacrafice in a larger sense Ibid. Mâ—sses without a Communion not known then 354 None might be at Mass who did not communicate Ibid. The Importance of the Controversies concerning the Eucharist 355 ARTICLE XXXII 356 NO Divine Law against a Married Clergy Ibid. Neither in the Old or New Testament but the contrary 357 The Church has not Power to make a perpetual Law against it Ibid. The ill consequences of such a Law 358 No such Law in the first Ages Ibid. When the Laws for the Celibate began 359 The practice of the Church not uniform in it Ibid. The progress of these Laws in England 360 The good and the bad of Celibate balanced Ibid. It is not lawful to make Vows in this matter 361 Nor do they bind when made Ibid. Oaths ill made are worse to be kept 362 ARTICLE XXXIII 363 A Temper to be observed in Church Discipline Ibid. The necessity of keeping it up Ibid. Extremes in this to be avoided 364 Concerning the delivering any to Satan Ibid. The Importance of an Anathemea 365 Of the effect of Church-Censures Ibid. What it is when they are wrong applied 366 The causless jealousy of Church-Power Ibid. How the Laity was once taken into the exercise of it 367 The Pastors of the Church have Authority Ibid. Defects in this no just cause of Separation 368 All these brought in by Popery Ibid. A Correction of them intended at the Reformation 369 ARTICLE XXXIV 370 THE Obligation to obey Canons and Laws Ibid. The great Sin of Schism and Disobedience 371 The true Notion of Scandal Ibid. The fear of giving Scandal no warrant to break established Laws 372 Human Laws are not unalterable Ibid. The Respect due to Ancient Canons 373 The Corruptions of the Canon Law Ibid. Great Varieties in Rituals Ibid. Every Church is a compleat Body 374 ARTICLE XXXV 375 THE occasion of compiling the Homilies Ibid. We are not bound to every thing in them Ibid. But only to the Doctrine 376 This illustrated in the Charge of Idolatry Ib. What is meant by their being necessary for those times Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVI 377 THE occasion of this Article Ibid. An Explanation of the words Receive ye the Holy Ghost 378 ARTICLE XXXVII 379 QVeen Elizabeth's Injunction concerning the Supremacy Ibid. The Popes Vniversal Iurisdiction not warranted by any of the Laws of Christ 380 Nor acknowledged in the first Ages 381 Begun on the occasion of the Arian Controversy Ibid. Contested in many places 382 The Progress that it made Ibid. The Patriarchal Authority founded on the division of the Roman Empire sunk with it 383 The Power exercised by the Kings of Judah in Religious Matters Ibid. That is founded on Scriptures 384 Practised in all Ages Ibid. And particularly in England 385 Methods used by Popish Princes to keep the Ecclesiastical Authority under the Civil Ibid. The Temporal Power is over all persons 386 And in all causes Ibid. The Importance of the Term Head 387 The Necâ—ssity of Capital Punishments Ibid. The measure of these 388 The Lawfulness of War Ibid. Our Saviour's words explained Ibid. In what cases War is juâ—t 389 Warranted by the Laws of God 390 How a Subject may serve in an unlawful War Ibid. ARTICLE XXXVIII 391 COncerning Property and Charity Ibid. The Proportion of Charity to the Poor 392 ARTICLE XXXIX 393 THE Lawfulness of Oaths proved Ibid. From Natural Religion and
the Scriptures Ibid. The Form of Swearing among the Jews 394 Our Saviour's words and St. James's against all Swearing explained 395 When Oaths may be lawfully taken 396 The End of the Table of the Contents AN EXPOSITION OF THE XXXIX ARTICLES OF THE Church of England TITLE Articles whereupon it was agreed by the Archbishops and Byshops of both Provinces and the whole Cleargie in the Convocation holden at London in the yeare of our Lorde GOD 1562. according to the computation of the Church of Englande for the avoiding of the diversities of opinions and for the stablishing of consent touching true Religion Put forth by the Queens authoritie The INTRODUCTION THE Title of these Articles leads me to consider 1. The Time the Occasion and the Design of Compiling them 2 dly The Authority that is stampt upon them both by Church and State and the Obligation that lies upon all of our Communion to Assent to them and more particularly the Importance of the Subscription to which the Clergy are obliged As to the 1 st It may seem somewhat strange to see such a Collection of Tenets made the Standard of the Doctrine of a Church that is deservedly valued by reason of her Moderation This seems to be a departing from the Simplicity of the First Ages which yet we pretend to set up for a Pattern In those times the owning the Belief of the Creeds then received was thought sufficient And when some Heresies had occasioned great Enlargements to be made in the Creeds the Third General Council thought fit to set a Bar against all further Additions and yet all those Creeds one of which goes far beyond the Ephesine Standard make but One Article of the Thirty nine of which this Book consists Many of these do also relate to subtile and abstruse Points in which it is not easy to form a clear Judgment and much less can it be convenient to Impose so great a Collection of Tenets upon a whole Church to Excommunicate such as affirm any of them to be erroneous and to reject those from the Service of the Church who cannot Assent to every one of them The Negative Articles of No Infallibility No Supremacy in the Pope No Transubstantiation No Purgatory and the like give yet a further Colour to Exceptions since it may seem that it was enough not to have mentioned these which implied a tacit rejecting of them It may therefore appear to be too rigorous to require a positive condemning of those Points for a very high degree of Certainty is required to affirm a Negative Proposition In order to the explaining this matter it is to be confessed that in the beginnings of Christianity the Declaration that was required even of a Bishop's Faith was conceived in very general Terms There was a Form setled very early in most Churches This St. Paul in one place calls The Form of Doctrine that was delivered in another place The Form of Sound Words Rom. 6.17 1 Tim. 4.6 6 3. 2 Tim. 1.13 which those who were fixed by the Apostles in particular Churches had received from them These words of his do import a Standard or fixed Formulary by which all Doctrines were to be examined Some have inferred from them that the Apostles delivered that Creed which goes under their Name every where in the same Form of Words But there is great reason to doubt of this since the first Apologists for Christianity when they deliver a short Abstract of the Christian Faith do all vary from one another both as to the Order and as to the Words themselves which they would not have done if the Churches had all received one setled Form from the Apostles They would all have used the same Words and neither more nor less It is more probable That in every Church there was a Form setled which was delivered to it by some Apostle or Companion of the Apostles with some Variation of which at this distance of time considering how defective the History of the First Ages of Christianity is it is not possible nor very necessary for us to be able to give a clear Account For Instance In the whole Extent or Neighbourhood of the Roman Empire it was at first of great Use to have this in every Christian's mouth That our Saviour suffered under Pontius Pilate because this fixed the Time and carried in it an Appeal to Records and Evidences that might then have been searched for But if this Religion went at first far to the Eastward beyond all Commerce with the Romans there is not that reason to think that this should have been a part of the shortest Form of this Doctrine it being enough that it was related in the Gospel These Forms of the several Churches were preserved with that Sacred Respect that was due to them This was esteemed the Depositum or Trust of a Church which was chiefly committed to the keeping of the Bishop In the First Ages in which the Bishops or Clergy of the several Churches could not meet together in Synods to examine the Doctrine of every new Bishop the Method upon which the Circumstances of those Ages put them was this The New Bishop sent round him and chiefly to the Bishops of the more Eminent Sees the Profession of his Faith according to the Form that was fixed in his Church And when the Neighbouring Bishops were satisfied in this they held Communion with him and not only owned him for a Bishop but maintained such a Commerce with him as the state of that Time did admit of But as some Heresies sprung up there were Enlargements made in several Churches for the condemning those and for excluding such as held them from their Communion The Council of Nice examined many of those Creeds and out of them they put their Creed in a fuller Form The Addition made by the Council of Constantinople was put into the Creeds of some particular Churches several Years before that Council met So that though it received its Authority from that Council yet those Fathers rather confirmed an Article which they found in the Creeds of some Churches than made a New one It had been an unvaluable Blessing if the Christian Religion had been kept in its first Simplicity The Council of Ephesus took care that the Creed by which men profess their Christianity should receive no new Additions but be fixed according to the Constantinoplitan Standard yet they made Decrees in Points of Faith and the following Councils went on in their steps adding still new Decrees with Anathematisms against the contrary Doctrines and declaring the Asserters of them to be under an Anathema that is under a very heavy Curse of being totally excluded from their Communion and even from the Communion of Jesus Christ. And whereas the New Bishops had formerly only declared their Faith they were then required besides that to declare That they received such Councils and rejected such Doctrines together with such as favoured them who were sometimes meâ—tioned by
Name This increased daily We have a full Account of the special Declaration that a Bishop was obliged to make in the First Canon of that which passeth for the Fourth Council of Carthage But while by reason of new Emergencies this was swelling to a vast Bulk General and more Implicit Formularies came to be used the Bishops declaring that they received and would observe all the Decrees and Traditions of Holy Coâ—â—cils and Fathers And the Papacy coming afterwards to carry every thing before it a Formal Oath that had many loose and indefinite words in it which were very large and comprehensive was added to all the Declarations that had been formerly established The Enlargements of Creeds were at first occasioned by the Prevarications of Hereticks who having put Senses favouring their Opinions on the simpler Terms in which the First Creeds were proposed it was thought necessary to use more express words This was absolutely necessary as to some Points for they being obliged to shew that the Christian Religion did not bring in that Idolatry which it condemned in Heathens it was also necessary to state this matter so that it should appear that they worshipped no Creature but that the Person to whom all agreed to pay Divine Adoration was truly God And it being found that an Equivocation was used in all other words except that of the same Substance they judged it necessary to fix on it besides some other words that they at first brought in but which were afterwards made more doubtful by the Glosses that were put on them At all times it is very necessary to free the Christian Religion from the Imputation of Idolatry but this was never so necessary as when Christianity was engaged in such a Struggle with Paganism And since the main Article then in dispute with the Heathens was Idolatry and the Lawfulness of worshipping any besides the Great and Eternal God it was of the last Importance to the Christian Cause to take care that the Heathens might have no reason to believe that they worshipped a Creature There was therefore just reason given to secure this main Point and to put an end to Equivocation by establishing a Term which by the Confession of all Parties did not admit of any It had been a great Blessing to the Church if a Stop had been put here and that those nice Descantings that were afterwards so much pursued had been more effectually discouraged than they were But men ever were and ever will be men Factions were formed and Interests were set up Hereticks had shewed so much Dissimulation when they were low and so much Cruelty when they prevailed that it was thought necessary to secure the Church from the Disturbances that they might give them And thus it grew to be a Rule to enlarge the Doctrines and Decisions of the Church So that in stating the Doctrines of this Church so copiously our Reformers followed a Method that had been used in a course of many Ages There were besides this common Practice two particular Circumstances in that time that made this seem to be the more necessary One was That at the breaking out of that Light there sprang up with it many impious and extravagant Sects which broke out into most violent Excesses This was no extraordinary thing for we find the like happened upon the first spreading of the Gospel many detestable Sects grew up with it which tended not a little to the defaming of Christianity and the obstructing its Progress I shall not examine what Influence Evil Spirits might have both in the one and the other Bâ—t one visible occasion of it was That by the first Preaching of the Gospel as also upon the opening the Reformation an Enquiry into the Matters of Religion being then the Subject of mens Studies and Discourses many men of warm and ill-govern'd Imaginations presuming on their own Talents and being desirous to signalize themselves and to have a Name in the World went beyond their Depth in Sâ—udy without the necesâ—ary degrees of Knowledge and the yet more necessary dispositions of Mind for arriving at a right understanding of Divine Matters This happening soon after that the Reformation was first set on foot those whose Corruptions were struck at by it and who both hated and persecuted it on that account did not fail to lay hold of and to improve the Advantage which these Seâ—ts gave them They said That the Sectaries had only spoke out what the rest thought and at last they held to this That all Sects were the Natural Consequences of the Reformation and of shaking off the Doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church To stop those Calumnies the Protestants in Germany prepared that Confession of their Faith which they offered to the Diet as Ausburg and which carries its name And after their Example all the other Churches which separated from the Roman Communion published the Confessions of their Faith both to declare their Doctrine for the Instruction of their own Members and for covering them from the Slanders of their Adversaries Another reason that the first Reformers had for their descending into so many Particulars and for all these Negatives that are in their Confessions was this They had smarted long under the Tyranny of Popery and so they had reason to secure themselves from it and from all those who were leavened with it Those here in England had seen how many had complied with every Alteration both in King Henry and King Edward's Reign who not only declared themselves to have been all the while Papists but became bloody Persecutors in Q. Mary's Days Therefore it was necessary to keep all such out of their Body that they might not secretly undermine and betray it Now since the Church of Rome owns all that is positive in our Doctrine there could be no Discrimination made but by condemning the most important of those additions that they have brought into the Christian Religion in express words It is true that in Matters of Fact or in Theories of Nature it is not safe to affirm a Negative because it is seldom possible to prove it yet the Fundamental Article upon which the whole Reformation and this our Church depends is this That the whole Doctrines of the Christian Religion are contained in the Scripture and that therefore we are to admit no Article as a part of it till it is proved from Scripture This being laid down and well made out it is not at all unreasonable to affirm a Negative upon an Examination of all those places of Scripture that are brought for any Doctrine and that seem to favour it if these are found not at all to support it but to bear a different and sometimes a contrary sense to that which is offered to be proved by them So there is no weight in this cavil which yet may look plausible to such as cannot distinguish common Matters from Points of Faith This may serve in general to justify the largeness and the
some of every sort of men Yet they declared openly against the other and said that if men were Circumcised or were willing to come under such a Yoke Christ profited them nothing and upon that supposition he had died in vain From this plain Precedent we see what a difference we ought to make between the holding Errors in Doctrinal Matters 5. Gal. 3. 2. Gal. 21. and the Imposing them as Articles of Faith We may live in Communion with those who hold Errors of the one sort but must not with those of the other This also shews the Tyranny of that Church which has imposed the belief of every one of her Doctrines on the Consciences of her Votaries under the highest pains of Anathema's and as Articles of Faith But whatever those at Trent did This Church very carefully avoided the laying that weight upon even those Doctrines which she received as true and therefore though she drew up a large Form of Doctrine yet to all her Lay-Sons this is only a Standard of what she teaches and the Articles are to them only Articles of Church-Communion The Citations that are brought from those two great Primates Laud and Bramhall go no further than this They do not seem to relate to the Clergy that subscribe them but to the Laity and Body of the People The People who do only join in Communion with us may well continue to do so though they may not be fully satisfied with every Proposition in them Unless they should think that they struck against any of the Articles or Foundations of Faith and as those Great men truly observe there is a great difference to be observed in this particular between the Imperious Spirit of the Church of Rome and the modest freedom which ours allows But I come in the next place to consider what the Clergy is bound to by their Subscriptions The meaning of every Subscription is to be taken from the design of the Imposer and from the words of the Subscription it self The Title of the Articles bears That they were agreed upon in Convocation For the avoiding of diversities of Opinions and for the stablishing consent touching true Religion Where it is evident that a Consent in Opinion is designed If we in the next place consider the Declaration that the Church has made in the Canons we shall find that though by the Fifth Canon which relates to the whole Body of the People such are only declared to be Excommunicated ipso facto who shall affirm any of the Articles to be Erroneous or such as he may not with a good Conscience Subscribe to yet the 36 th Canon is express for the Clergy requiring them to Subscribe willingly and ex animo and acknowledge all and every Article to be agreeable to the word of God Upon which Canon it is that the Form of the Subscription runs in these words which seem expresly to declare a man's own Opinion and not a bare consent to an Article of Peace or an Engagement to silence and submission The Statute of the 13 th of Queen Elizabeth cap. 12. which gives the Legal Authority to our requiring Subscriptions in order to a man's being capable of a Benefice requires that every Clergyman should read the Articles in the Church where he is to serve with a Declaration of his Unfeigned Assent to them These things make it very plain that the Subscriptions of the Clergy must be considered as a Declaration of their own Opinion and not as a bare Obligation to silence There arose in K. Iames the First 's Reign great and warm Disputes concerning the Decrees of God and those other Points that were setled in Holland by the Synod of Dort against the Remonstrants Divines of both sides among us appealed to the Articles and pretended they were favourable to them For though the first appearance of them seems to favour the Doctrine of Absolute Decrees and the Irresistibility of Grace yet there are many expressions that have another face and so those of the other Persuasion pleaded for themselves from these Upon this a Royal Declarations was set forth in which after that mention is made of those Disputes and that the men of all sides did take the Articles to be for them order is given for stopping those Disputes for the future and for shutting them in God's promises as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them and that no man thereafter should put his own Sense or Comment to be the meaning of the Article but should take it in the Literal and Grammatical Sense In this there has been such a general acquiescing that the fierceness of these Disputes has gone off while men have been left to Subscribe the Articles according to their Literal and Grammatical Sense From which two Things are to be inferred The one is that the Subscription does import an Assent to the Article and the other is that an Article being conceived in such general words that it can admit of different Literal and Grammatical Senses even when the Senses given are plainly contrary one to another both sides may Subscribe the Article with a good Conscience and without any Equivocation To make this more sensible I shall give an instance of it in an Article concerning which there is no Dispute at present The Third Article concerning Christ's descent into Hell is capable of Three different Senses and all the Three are both Literal and Grammatical The First is that Christ descended locally into Hell and preached to the Spirits there in prison and this has one great advantage on its side that those who first prepared the Articles in K. Edward's Time were of this Opinion for they made it a part of it by adding in the Article those words of St. Peter as the Proof or Explanation of it Now though that period was left out in Q. Elizabeth's Time yet no Declaration was made against it so that this Sense was once in possession and was never expresly rejected Besides that it has great support from the Authority of many Fathers who understood the descent into Hell according to this Explanation A Second Sense of which that Article is capable is That by Hell is meant the Grave according to the Signification of the Original Word in the Hebrew and this is supported by the words of Christ's descending into the lower parts of the Earth as also by this That several Creeds that have this Article have not that or Christ's being buried and some that mention his Burial have not this of his Descent into Hell A Third Sense is That by Hell according to the Signification of the Greek Word is to be meant the Place or Region of Spirits separated from their Bodies So that by Christ's descent into Hell is only to be meant that his Soul was really and entirely disunited from his Body not lying dead in it as in an Apoplectical Fit nor
Deuteronomy The First Book of Chronicles Ecclesiastes or Preacher Ioshua The Second Book of Chronicles Cantica or Song of Solomon Iudges The First Book of Esdras Four Prophets the greater Ruth The Second Book of Esdras Twelve Prophets the less And the other Books as Hierom saith the Church doth read for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners but yet it doth not apply them to Establish any Doctrine Such are these following The Third Book of Esdras The Fourth Book of Esdras The Book of Tobias The Book of Iudith The rest of the Book of Esther The Book oâ— Wisdom Iesus the Son of Syrach Baruch the Prophet The Song of the Three Children The History of Susanna Of Bel and the Dragon The Prayer of Manasses The First Book of Maccabees The Second Book of Maccabees All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical IN this Article are Two important Heads and to each of them a proper consequence does belong The First is That the Holy Scriptures do contain all things necessary to Salvation The Negative Consequence that ariseth out of that is That no Article that is not either Read in it or that may not be proved by it is to be required to be believed as an Article of Faith or to be thought necessary to Salvation The Second is The settling the Canon of the Scripture both of Old and New Testament and the consequence that arises out of that is The rejecting the Books commonly called Apocryphal which though they may be Read by the Church for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners yet are no part of the Canon nor is any Doctrine to be Established by them After the main Foundations of Religion in General in the belief of a God or more specially of the Christian Religion in the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are laid down The next Point to be settled is What is the Rule of this Faith where is it to be found and with whom is it lodged The Church of Rome and We do both agree that the Scriptures are of Divine Inspiration Those of that Communion acknowledge That every thing which is contained in Scripture is true and comes from God but they add to this That the Books of the New Testament were occasionally written and not with the design of making them the full Rule of Faith but that many things were delivered Orally by the Apostles which if they are faithfully Transmitted to us are to be received by us with the same Submission and Respect that we pay to their Writings And they also believe That these Traditions are conveyed down infallibly to us and that to distinguish betwixt true and false Doctrines and Traditions there must be an infallible Authority lodged by Christ with his Church We on the contrary affirm That the Scriptures are a compleat Rule of Faith and that the whole Christian Religion is contained in them and no where else and although we make great use of Tradition especially that which is most Ancient and nearest the Source to help us to a clear understanding of the Scriptures yet as to Matters of Faith we reject all Oral Tradition as an incompetent mean of conveying down Doctrines to us and we refuse to receive any Doctrine that is not either expresly contained in Scripture or clearly proved from it In order to the opening and proving of this it is to be considered what God's design in first ordering Moses and after him all Inspired Persons to put things in Writing could be it could be no other than to free the World from the Uncertainties and Impostures of Oral Tradition All Mankind being derived from one common Source it seems it was much easier in the first Ages of the World to preserve the Tradition pure than it could possibly be afterwards There were only a few things then to be delivered concerning God as That he was one Spiritual Being That he had Created all things That he alone was to be Worshipped and Served the rest relating to the History of the World and chiefly of the first Man that was made in it There were also great advantages on the side of Oral Tradition the first men were very long-liv'd and they saw their own Families spread extreamly so that they had on their side both the Authority which long Life always has particularly concerning Matters of Fact and the credit that Parents have naturally with their own Children to secure Tradition Two Persons might have conveyed it down from Adam so Abraham Methuselah lived above Three hundred years while Adam was yet alive and Sem was almost an hundred when he died and he lived much above an hundred years in the same time with Abraham according to the Hebrew Here is a great period of Time filled up by Two or Three Persons And yet in that Time the Tradition of those very few things in which Religion was then comprehended was so Universally and Intirely corrupted that it was necessary to correct it by immediate Revelation to Abraham God intending to have a peculiar People to himself out of his Posterity commanded him to forsake his Kindred and Country that he might not be corrupted with an Idolatry that we have reason to believe was then but beginning among them We are sure his Nephew Laban was an Idolater And the danger of mixing with the rest of Mankind was then so great that God ordered a Mark to be made on the Bodies of all descended from him to be the Seal of the Covenant and the Badge and Cognisance of his Posterity By that distinction and by their living in a wandring and unfixed manner they were preserved for some time from Idolatry God intending afterwards to settle them in an Instituted Religion But though the Beginnings of it I mean the Promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai was one of the most amazing things that ever happened and the fittest to be Orally conveyed down the Law being very short and the Circumstances in the delivery of it most astonishing and though there were many Rites and several Festivities appointed chiefly for the carrying down the Memory of it though there was also in that dispensation the greatest advantage imaginable for securing this Tradition all the main Acts of their Religion being to be performed in one Place and by men of one Tribe and Family as they were also all the Inhabitants of a small Tract of Ground of one Language and by their Constitutions oblig'd to maintain a constant Commerce among themselves They having further a continuance of Signal Characters of God's Miraculous Presence among them such as the Operation of the Water of Jealousy the Plenty of the Sixth Year to supply them all the Sabbatical Year and tilâ— the Harvest of the following Year Together with a Succession of Prophets that followed one another either in a constant course or at least soon after one another but
an Oral Tradition which they themselves had not put in writing They do sometimes refer themselves to such things as they had delivered to particular Churches but by Tradition in the Apostles days and for some Ages after it is very clear that they meant only the conveyance of the Faith and not any unwritten Doctrines They reckoned the Faith was a sacred depositum which was committed to them and that was to be preserved pure among them But it were very easy to shew in the continued Succession of all the first Christian Writers That they still Appealed to the Scriptures That they Argued from them That they Condemned all Doctrines that were not contained in them and when at any time they brought human Authorities to justify their Opinions or Expressions they contented themselves with a very few and those very late Authorities So that their design in vouching them seems to be rather to clear themselves from the Imputation of having innovated any thing in the Doctrine or in the ways of expressing it than that they thought those Authorities were necessary to prove them by For in that case they must have taken a great deal more pains than they did to have followed up and proved the Tradition much higher than they went We do also plainly see that such Traditions as were not founded on Scripture were easily corrupted and on that account were laid aside by the succeeding Ages Such were the Opinion of Christ's Reign on Earth for a Thousand years The Saints not seeing God till the Resurrection The necessity of giving Infants the Eucharist The Divine Inspiration of the 70 Interpreters besides some more important Matters which in respect to those Times are not to be too much descanted upon It is also plain That the Gnosticks the Valentinians and other Hereticks began very early to set up a Pretension to a Tradition delivered by the Apostles to some particular persons as a Key for understanding the secret meanings that might be in Scripture in opposition to which both Irenaeus Tertullian and others Iren. I. 3. c. 1 2 3 4 5. Tertul. de presc Cap. 20 21 25 27 28. make use of Two sorts of Arguments The one is the Authority of the Scripture it self by which they confuted their Errors The other is a Point of Fact That there was no such Tradition In asserting this they appeal to those Churches which had been founded by the Apostles and in which a Succession of Bishops had been continued down They say in these we must search for Apostolical Tradition This was not said by them as if they had designed to establish Tradition as an Authority distinct from or equal to the Scriptures But only to shew the falshood of that pretence of the Hereticks and that there was no such Tradition for their Heresies as they gave out When this whole Matter is considered in all its parts such as 1 st That nothing is to be believed as an Article of Faith unless it appears to have been Revealed by God 2 dly That Oral Tradition appâ—ars both from the Nature of Man and the Experience of former Times to be an incompetent conveâ—er of Truth 3 dly That some Books were written for the conveyance of those Matters which have been in all Ages carefully preserved and esteemed sacred 4 thly That the Writers of the First Ages do always Argue from and Appeal to these Books And 5 thly That what they have said without Authority from them has been rejected in succeeding Ages the Truth of this Branch of our Article is fully made out If what is contain'd in theScripture in express words is theObject of our Faith then it will follow That whatsoever may be proved from thence by a just and lawful consequence is also to be believed Men may indeed Err in framing these Consequences and Deductions they may mistake or stretch them too far but though there is much Sophistry in the World yet there is also true Logick and a certain Thread of Reasoning And the sense of every Proposition being the same whether expressed always in the same or in different words then whatsoever appears to be clearly the sense of any place of Scripture is an Object of Faith tho it should be otherwise expressed than as it is in Scripture and every just Inference from it must be as true as the Proposition it self is Therefore it is a vain cavil to ask express words of Scripture for every Article That was the Method of all the Anciâ—nt Hereticks Christ and his Apostles Argued from the words and passages in the Old Testament to prove such things as agreed with the true sense of them and so did all the Fathers and therefore so may we do The great Objection to this is That the Scriptures are dark That the same place is capable of different Senses the Literal and the Mystical And therefore since we cannot understand the true Sense of the Scripture we must not Arguefrom it but seek for an Interpreterofit on whom we may depend All Sects Argue from thence and fancy that they find their Tenets in it And therefore this can be no sure way of finding out sacred Truth since so many do err that follow it In Answer to this it is to be considered That the Old Testament was delivered to the whole Nation of the Iews that Moses was read in the Synagogue in the hearing of the Women and Children that whole Nation was to take their Doctrine and Rules from it All Appeals wâ—re made to the Law and to the Prophets among them And though the Propâ—â—cies of the Old Testament were in their Stile and whole Contexture dark and hard to be understood yet when so great a Question as this Who was the true Messias came to be examined the proofs urged for it were Passages in the Old Testament Now the Question was How these were to be understood No Appeal was here made to Tradition or to Church-Authority but only by the Enemies of our Saviour Whereas he and his Disciples urge these passages in their true sense and in the consequences that arose out of them They did in that Appeal to the rational Faculties of those to whom they spoke The Christian Religion was at first delivered to poor and simple Multitudes who were both illiterate and weak the Epistles which are by much the hardest to be understood of the whole New Testament were Addressed to the whole Churches to all the Faithful or Saints that is to all the Christians in those Churches These were afterwards read in all thâ—ir Assemblies Upon this it may reasonably be asked Were these Writings clear in that Age or were they not If they were not it is unaccountable why they were addressed to the whole Body and how they came to be received and entertained as they were It is the End of Speech and Writing to make things to be understood and it is not supposable That Men Inspired by the Holy Ghost either could not or would
The Stile and Matter of the Revelation as well as the designation of Divine given to the Author of it gave occasion to many Questions about it Clemens of Rome cites it as a Prophetical Book Clem. in Ep. ad Coâ— Justin cont Tryphon Irenaeus l 5. c. 30. Eus. Hist. l. 4. c. 24 26. l. 5. c. 18. l. 7. c. 27. Iustin Martyr says it was writ by Iohn one of Christ's Twelve Apostles Irenaeus calls it the Revelation of St. Iohn the Disciple of our Lord writ almost in our own Age in the End of Domitian's Reign Melito writ upon it Theophilus of Antioch Hyppolitus Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria Tertullian Cyprian and Origen do cite it And thus the Canon of the New Testamentseems to be fullymade outbythe concurrent Testimony of the several Churches immediately after the Apostolicaltime Here it is to be observed that a great difference is to be made between all this and the Oral Tradition of a Doctrine in which there is nothing fixed or permanent so that the whole is only Report carried about and handed down Whereas here is a Book that was only to be copied out and read publickly and by all Persons between which the difference is so vast that it is as little possible to imagine how the one should continue pure as how the other should come to be corrupted There was never a Book of which we have that reason to be assured that it is genuine that we have here There hapned to be constant Disputes among Christians from the Second Century downward concerning some of the most important Parts of this Doctrine and by both sides these Books were appealed to And though there might be some Variations in Readings and Translations yet no question was made concerning the Canon or the Authenticalness of the Books themselves unless it were by the Manichees who came indeed to be called Christians by a very enlarged way of speaking since it is justly strange how men who said that the Author of the Universe and of the Mosaical Dispensation was an Evil God and who held that there were Two Supreme Gods a Good and an Evil one how such men I say could be called Christians The Authority of those Books is not derived from any Judgment that the Church made concerning them but from this That it was known that they were writ either by men who were themselves the Apostles of Christ or by those who were their Assistants and Companions at whose Order or under whose Direction and Approbation it was known that they were written and published These Books were received and known for such in the very Apostolical Age it self so that many of the Apostolical men such as Ignatius and Polycarp lived long enough to see the Canon generally received and settled The suffering and depressed state of the First Christians was also such that as there is no reason to suspect them of Imposture so it is not at all credible that an Imposture of this kind could have passed upon all the Christian Churches A man in a Corner might have forged the Sibylline Oracles or some other Pieces which were not to be generally used and they might have apâ—â—ared soon after and Crâ—dit might have been given too easily to a Book or Writing of that kind But it cannot be imagined that in an Age in which the belief of this Doctrine brought men under great Troubles and in which Miracles and other extraordinary Gifts were long continued in the Church that I say either False Books could have been so early obtruded on the Church as True or that True Books could have been so vitiated as to lose their Original Purity while they were so universally read and used and that so soon or that the Writers of that very Age and of the next should have been so generally and so grosly imposed upon as to have cited Spurious Writings for True These are things that could not be believed in the Histories or Records of any Nation Though the Value that the Christians set upon these Books and the constant use they made of them reading a parcel of them every Lord's Day make this much less supposable in the Christian Religion than it could be in any other sort of History or Record whatsoever The early spreading of the Christian Religion to so many remote Countries and Provinces the many Copies of these Books that lay in Countries so remote the many Translations of them that were quickly made do all concur to make the Impossibility of any such Imposture the more sensible Thus the Canon of the New Testament is fixed upon clear and sure Grounds From thence without any further Proof we may be convinced of the Canon of the Old Testament Christ does frequently cite Moses and the Prophets he appeals to them and though he charged the Iews of that time chiefly their Teachers and Rulers with many Disorders and Faults yet he never once so much as insinuated that they had corrupted their Law or other Sacred Books which if true had been the greatest of all those Abuses that they had put upon the People Our Saviour cited their Books according to the Translation that was then in Credit and common Use amongst them When one asked him which was the great Commandment he answered How readest thou And he proved the chief things relating to himself his Death and Resurrection from the Prophecies that had gone before which ought to have been fulfilled in him He also cites the Old Testament Luke 24.44 by a Threefold Division of the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms according to the Three Orders of Books into which the Iews had divided it The Psalms which was the first among the Holy Writings being set for that whole Volume St. Paul says That to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 He reckons that among the chief of their Privileges but he never blames them for being unfaithful in this Trust and it is certain that the Iews have not corrupted the chief of those Passages that are urged against them to prove Jesus to have been the Christ. So that the Old Testament at least the Translation of the LXX Interpreters which was in common use and in high esteem among the Iews in our Saviour's time was as to the main faithful and uncorrupted This might be further urged from what St. Paul says concerning those Scriptures which Timothy had learned of a Child these could be no other than the Books of the Old Testament Thus if the Writings of the New Testament are acknowledged to be of Divine Authority the full Testimony that they give to the Books of the Old Testament does sufficiently prove their â—uthority and Genuineness likewise But to carry this matter yet further Moses wrought such Miracles both in Egypt in passing through the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness that if these are acknowledg'd to be true there can be no question made of his being sent of God and authorized by
had certainly put the chief strength of their Cause on this That they adhered to the Apostles Creed in opposition to the Innovations of the Nicene Fathers There is therefore no reason to believe that this Creed was prepared by the Apostles or that it was of any great Antiquity since Ruffin was the first that published it It is true he published it as the Creed of the Church of Aquileia but that was so late that neither this nor the other Creeds have any Authority upon their own account Great Respect is indeed due to things of such Antiquity and that have been so long in the Church but after all we receive those Creeds not for their own sakes nor for the sake of those who prepared them but for the sake of the Doctrine that is contained in them because we believe that the Doctrine which they declare is contained in the Scriptures and chiefly that which is the main Intent of them which is to assert and profess the Trinity therefore we do receive them tho we must acknowledge that the Creed ascribed to Athanasius as it was none of his so it was never established by any General Council ARTICLE IX Of Original or Birth-Sin Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk but it is the fault or corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendred of the Offspring of Adam whereby man is very far gone from Original Righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil so that the Flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit and therefore in every Person born into the World it deserveth God's Wrath and Damnation And this Infection of Nature doth remain yea in them that are regenerated whereby the Lust of the Flesh called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some do expound the Wisdom some Sensuality some the Affection some the Desire of the Flesh is not subject to the Law of God And though there is no Condemnation for them that believe and are baptized yet the Apostle doth confess That Concupiscence and Lust hath of it self the nature of Sin AFter the First Principles of the Christian Religion are stated and the Rule of Faith and Life was setled the next thing that was to be done was to declare the special Doctrines of this Religion and that first with relation to all Christians as they are single Individuals for the directing every one of them in order to the working out his own Salvation which is done from this to the Nineteenth Article And then with relation to them as they compose a Society called the Church which is carried on from the Nineteenth to the End In all that has been hitherto explained the whole Church of England has been all along of one mind In this and in some that follow there has been a greater diversity of Opinion but both sides have studied to prove their Tenets to be at least not contrary to the Articles of the Church These different Parties have disputed concerning the Decrees of God and those Assistances which pursuant to his Decrees are afforded to us But because the Foundation of those Decrees and the Necessity of those Assistances are laid in the Sin of Adam and in the Effects it had on Mankind therefore thâ—se Controversies begin on this Head The Pelagians and the Socinians agree in saying That Adam's Sin was Personal That by it as being the first Sin it is said that Sin entred into the World But that as Adam was made mortal â—om 5 1â— and had died whether he had sinned or not so they think the liberty of Human Nature is still entire and that every man is punished for his own sins and not for the sin of another to do otherwise they say seems contrary to Justice not to say Goodness In opposition to this Iudgment is said to have come upon many to condemnation through one either Man or Sin ver 1â— Death is said to have reigned by one and by one man's offence and many are said to be dead through the offence of one All these Passages do intimate that death is the consequence of Adam's Sin and that in him as well as in all others Death was the Wages of Sin so also that we dye upon the account of his Sin We are said to bear the Image of the first Adam as true Christians bear the Image of the second Now we are sure that there is both a derivation of Righteousness 1 Cor 15.49 and a Communication of Inward Holiness transferred to us through Christ So it seems to follow from thence that there is somewhat both transferred to us and conveyed down throughMankind by the first Adam and particularly that by it we are all made subject to Death from which we should have been freed if Adam had continued in his first state and that by virtue of the Tree of Life Gen. 3.22 in which some think there was a natural Virtue to cure all Diseases and relieve against all Accidents while others do ascribe it to a Divine Blessing of which that Tree was only the Symbol or Sacrament through the words said after Adam's sin as the reason of driving him out of Paradise lest he put forth his hand and take of the Tree of Life and eat and live for ever seem to import that there was a Physical Virtue in the Tree that could so fortify and restore Life as to give Immortality These do also think that the Threatning made to Adam That upon his eating the forbidden Fruit he should surely dye is to be taken literally and is to be carried no further than to a Natural Death This Subjection to Death and to the Fear of it brings men under a slavish Bondage many Terrors and other Passions and Miseries that arise out ofit which they think is a great Punishment and that it is a Condemnation and Sentence of Death passed upon the whole Race and by this they are made sinners that is treated as guilty Persons and severely punished This they think is easily enough reconciled with the Notions of Justice and Goodness in God since this is only a Temporary Punishment relating to mens Persons And we see in the common methods of Providence that Children are in this sort often punished for the sins of their Fathers most men that come under a very ill habit of Body transmit the Seeds of Diseases and Pains to their Children They do also think that the Communication of this liableness to death is easily accounted for and they imagine that as the Tree of Life might be a Plant that furnished men with an Universal Medicine so the forbidden Fruit might derive a slow Poyson into Adam's Body that might have exalted and inflamed his Blood very much and might though by a slower operation certainly brought on death at the last Our being thus adjudged to Death and to all the Miseries that accompany Mortality they think may be well called the wrath of
Remission of Sins is acknowledged to be given freely to us through Jesus Christ this is that which we affirm to be Iustification though under another name We do also acknowledge that our Natures must be sanctified and renewed that so God may take pleasure in us when his Image is again visible upon us and this we call Sanctification which we acknowledge to be the constant and inseparable effect of Iustification So that as to this we agree in the same Doctrine only we differ in the use of the Terms in which we have the Phrase of the New Testament clearly with us But there are two more material differences between us It is a Tenet in the Church of Rome That the Use of the Sacraments if Men do not put a bar to them and if they have only imperfect Acts of Sorrow accompanying them does so far compleat those weak Acts as to justify us This we do utterly deny as a Doctrine that tends to enervate all Religion and to make the Sacraments that were appointed to be the solemn â—â—ts of Religion for quickning and exciting our Piety and for conveying Grace to us upon our coming devoutly to them becomes means to flatten and deaden us As if they were of the nature of Charms which if they could be come at tho' with ever so slight a preparation would make up all defects The Doctrine of Sacramental Justification is justly to be reckoned among the most mischievous of all those Practical Errors that are in the Church of Rome Since therefore this is no where mentionâ—d in all these large Discourses that are in the New Testament concerning Justification we have just reason to reject it Since also the natural consequence of this Doctrine is to make Men rest contented in low imperfect Acts when they can be so easily made up by a Sacrament we have just reason to detest it as one of the depths of Satan The Tendency of it being to make those Ordinances of the Gospel which were given us as means to raise and heighten our Faith and Repentance become Engines to encourage Sloth and Impenitence There is another Doctrine that is Held by many and is still Taught in the Church of Rome not only with Approbation but Favour That the inherent Holiness of good Men is a thing of its own nature so perfect that upon the account of it God is so bound to esteem them just and to justify them that he were unjust if he did not They think there is such a real condignity in it that it makes Men God's adopted Children Whereas we on the other hand Teach That God is indeed pleased with the inward Reformaâ—â—on that he sees in good Men in whom his Grace dwells that he approves and accepts of their Sincerity but that with this there is still such a mixture and in this there is still so much Imperfection that even upon this account if God did straitly mark Iniquity none could stand before him So that even his acceptance of this is an Act of Mercy and Grace This Doctrine was commonly Taught in the Church of Rome at the time of the Reformation and together with it they reckoned that the chief of those Works that did Justify were either great or rich Endowments or excessive Devotions towards Images Saints and Relicks by all which Christ was either forgot quite or remembred only for form-sake esteemed perhaps as the chief of Saints not to mention the impious Comparisons that were made between him and some Saints and the Preferences that were given to them beyond him In opposition to all this the Reformers began as they ought to have done at the laying down this as the Foundation of all Christianity and of all our hopes That we were reconciled to God meerly through his Mercy by the Redemption purchased by Jesus Christ And that a firm believing the Gospel and a claiming to the Death of Christ as the great Propitiation for our Sins according to the Terms on which it is offered us in the Gospel was that which united us to Christ that gave us an Interest in his Death and thereby justified us If in the management of this Controversy there was not so critical a Judgment made of the Scope and several Passages of St. Paul's Epistles and if the Dispute became afterwards too abstracted and metaphysical that was the effect of the Infelicity of that Time and was the natural consequence of much disputing Therefore tho' we do not now stand to all the Arguments and to all the Citations and Illustrations used by them and tho' we do not deny but that many of the Writers of the Church of Rome came insensibly off from the most practical Errors that had been formerly much taught and more practised among them and that this matter was so stated by many of them that as to the main of it we have no just Exceptions to it Yet after all this beginning of the Reformation was a great Blessing to the World and has proved so even to the Church of Rome by bringing her to a juster sâ—nse of the Atonement made for Sins by the Blood of Christ and by taking Men off from external Actions and turning them to consider the inward Acts of the Mind Faith and Repentance as the Conditions of our Justification And therefore the Approbation given here to the Homily is only an Approbation of the Doctrine asserted and proved in it Which ought not to be carried to every particular of the Proofs or Explanations that are in it To be Iustified and to be accounted Righteous stand for one and the same thing in the Article And both import our being delivered from the Guilt of Sin and entitled to the Favour of God These differ from God's intending from all Eternity to save us as much as a Decree differs from the Execution of it A Man is then only Iustified when he is freed from Wrath and is at peace with God And tho' this is freely offered to us in the Gospel through Jesus Christ yet it is applied to none but to such as come within those Qualifications and Conditions set before us in the Gospel That God pardons Sin and receives us into favour only through the Death of Christ is so fully expressed in the Gospel as was already made out upon the second Article that it is not possible to doubt of it if one does firmly believe and attentively read the New Testament Nor is it less evident that it is not offered to us absolutely and without Conditions and Limitations These Conditions are Repentance with which remission of sins is often joined and Faith Gal. 5.6 Luke 24.47 Acts. 2.38 but a faith that worketh by love that purifies the heart and that keeps the â—ommandments of God Such a Faith as shews it self to be alive by Good Works by Acts of Charity and every Act of Obedience by which we demonstrate that we truly and firmly believe the Divine Authority of our Saviour and his Doctrine
Such a Faith as this justifies but not as it is a Work or meritorious Action that of its own nature puts us in the Favour of God and makes us truly just But as it is the Condition upon which the Mercy of God is offered to us by Christ Jesus For then we correspond to his design of coming into the World that he might redeem us from all Iniquity Tit. 2.14 that is justify us And purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works that is sanctify us Upon our bringing our selves therefore under these Qualifications and Conditions we are actually in the Favour of God Our Sins are pardoned and we are entitled to Eternal Life Our Faith and Repentance are not the valuable Considerations for which God pardons and justifies that is done meerly for the Death of Christ which God having out of the Riches of his Grace provided for us and offered to us Justification is upon those accounts said to be free There being nothing on our part which either did or could have procured it But still our Faith which includes our Hope our Love our Repentance and our Obedience is the Condition that makes us capable of receiving the benefits of this Redemption and Free Grace And thus it is clear in what sense we believe that we are justified both freely and yet through Christ and also through Faith as the Condition indispensably necessary on our part In strictness of words we are not justified till the final Sentence is pronounced Till upon our Death we are solemnly acquitted of our Sins and admitted into the Presence of God this being that which is opposite to Condemnation Yet as a Man who is in that state that must end in Condemnation is said to be condemned already Joh. 3.18 and the wrath of God is said to abide upon him tho' he be not yet adjudged to it So on the contrary a Man in that state which must end in the full Enjoyment of God is said now to be justified and to be at peace with God because he not only has the Promises of that state now belonging to him when he does perform the Conditions required in them but is likewise receiving daily Marks of God's Favour the protection of his Providence the Ministry of Angels and the inward Assistances of his Grace and Spirit This is a Doctrine full of comfort for if we did believe that our Justification was founded upon our Inherent Justice or Sanctification as the Consideration on which we receive it we should have just cause of Fear and Dejection since we could not reasonably promise our selves so great a Blessing upon so poor a Consideration but when we know that this is only the Condition of it then when we feel it is sincerely received and believed and carefully observed by us we may conclude that we are justified But we are by no means to think that our certain persuasion of Christ's having died for us in particular or the certainty of our Salvation through him is an Act of saving Faith much less that we are justified by it Many things have been too crudely said upon this Subject which have given the Enemies of the Reformation great Advantages and have furnished them with much matter of Reproach We ought to believe firmly That Christ died for all Penitent and Converted Sinners and when we feel these Characters in our selves we may from thence justly infer That he died for us and that we are of the Number of those who shall be Saved through him But yet if we may fall from this state in which we do now feel our selves we may and must likewise forfeit those hopes and therefore we must work out our Salvation with fear and trembling Our believing that we shall be Saved by Christ is no Act of Divine Faith since every Act of Faith must be founded on some Divine Revelation It is only a Collection and Inference that we may make from this general Proposition That Christ is the propitiation for the Sins of those who do truly repent and believe his Gospel and from those Reflections and Observations that we make on our selves by which we conclude That we do truly both repent and believe ARTICLE XII Of Good Works Albeit that Good Works which are the fruits of Faith and follow after Iustification cannot put away our Sins and endure the severity of God's Iudgment yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a Tree discerned by the fruit THat Good works are indispensably necessary to Salvation that without holiness no man shall see the Lord is so fully and frequently exprest in the Gospel that no doubt can be made of it by any who reads it And indeed a greater disparagement to the Christian Religion cannot be imagined than to propose the hopes of God's Mercy and Pardon barely upon Believing without a Life suitable to the Rules it gives us This began early to corrupt the Theories of Religion as it still has but too great an influence upon the Practice of it What St. Iames writ upon this Subject must put an end to all doubting about it and whatever Subtilties some may have set up to separate the consideration of Faith from a holy Life in the point of Iustification yet none among us have denied that it was absolutely necessary to Salvation And so it be owned as necessary it is a nice curiosity to examine whether it is of it self a Condition of Justification or if it is the certain distinction and constant effect of that Faith which justifies These are Speculations of very little consequence as long as the main Point is still maintained That Christ came to bring us to God to change our Natures to mortify the Old man in us and to raise up and restore that Image of God from which we had fallen by Sin And therefore even where the Thread of Men's Speculations of these Matters may be thought too fine and in some Points of them wrong drawn yet so long as this Foundation is preserved that every one who nameth the name of Christ does depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 so long the Doctrine of Christ is preserved pure in this Capital and Fundamental Point There do arise out of this Article only two Points about which some Debates have been made 1st Whether the Good Works of Holy Men are in themselves so perfect that they can endure the severity of God's Judgment so that there is no mixture of imperfection or Evil in them or not The Council of Trent has decreed That Men by their Good Works have so fully satisfied the Law of God according to the state of this Life that nothing is wanting to them The second Point is Whether these Good Works are of their own nature meritorious of Eternal Life or not The Council of Trent has decreed that
taught a Middle Doctrine Asserting an inward Grace but subject to the freedom of the Will And that all things were both decreed and done according to the Prescience of God in which all future Contingents were foreseen He also taught that the first Conversion of the Soul to God was merely an effect of its free choice so that all Preventing-grace was denied by him which came to be the peculiar distinction of those who were afterwards called the Semi-Pelagians Prosper and Hilary gave an account of this System to S. Austin upon which he writ against it and his Opinions were defended by Prosper Fulgentius Orosius and others as Cassian's were defended by Faustus Vincentius and Gennadius In conclusion St. Austin's Opinions did generally prevail in the West only Pelagius it seems retiring tâ— his own Country he had many followers among the Britans But German and Lupus being sent over once and again from France are said to have conquered them so intirely that they were all freed from those Errors Whatever they did by their Arguments the Writers of their Legends took care to adorn their Mission with many very wonderful Miracles of which the gathering all the pieces of a Calf some of which had been drest and the putting them together in its Skin and restoring it again to Life is none of the least The Ruin of the Roman Empire and the disorders that the Western Provinces fell under by their new and brabarous Masters occasioned in those Ages a great decay of Learning So that few Writers of Fame coming after that time St. Austin's great Labours and Piety and the many vast Volumes that he had left behind him gave him so great a Name that few durst contest what had been so zealously and so copiously defended by him And though it is highly probable that Celestine was not satisfied with his Doctrine yet both he and the other Bishops of Rome together with many Provincial Synods have so often declared his Doctrine in those Points to be the Doctrine of the Church that this is very hardly got over by those of that Communion The chief and indeed the only material difference that is between St. Austin's Doctrine and that of the Sublapsarians is That he holding that with the Sacrament of Baptism there was joyned an inward Regeneration made a difference between the Regenerate and the Predestinate which these do not He thought Persons thus regenerate might have all Grace besides that of Perseverance but he thought that they not being predestinated were certainly to fall from that state and from the Grace of Regeneration The other differences are but forced Strains to represent him and the Calvinists as of different Principles He thought that overcoming Delectation in which he put the Efficacy of Grace was as Irresistible though he used not so strong a word for it as the Calvinists do And he thought that the Decree was as Absolute and made without any regard to what the Free-Will would chuse as any of these do So in the main Points the Absoluteness of the Decree the Extent of Christ's Death the Efficacy of Grace and the Certainty of Perseverance their Opinions are the same though their ways of expressing themselves do often differ But if St. Austin's Name and the Credit of his Books went far yet no Book was more read in the following Ages than Cassian's Collations There was in them a clear Thread of good Sense and a very high Strain of Piety that run through them and they were thought the best Institutions for a Monk to form his Mind by reading them attentively So they still carried down among those who read them deep Impressions of the Doctrine of the Greek Church This broke out in the Ninth Century in which Godescalcus a Monk was severely used by Hincmar and by the Church of Rheims for asserting some of St. Austin's Doctrines against which Scotus Erigena wrote as Bertram or Ratramne wrote for them Remigius Bishop of Lyons with his Church did zealously assert St. Austin's Doctrine not without great sharpness against Scotus After this the matter slept till the School-Divinity came to be in great Credit And Thomas Aquinas being counted the chief Glory of the Dominican Order he not only asserted all St. Austin's Doctrine but added this to it That whereas formerly it was in general held That the Providence of God did extend it self to all things whatsoever he thought this was done by God's concurring immediately to the Production of every Thought Action Motion or Mode so that God was the First and Immediate Cause of every thing that was done And in order to the explaining the joint Production of every thing by God as the First and by the Creature as the Second Cause he thought at least as his Followers have understood him That by a Physical Influence the Will was predetermined by God to all things whether good or bad so that the Will could not be said to be free in that particular Instance in sensu composito though it was in general still free in all its Actions in sensu diviso A distinction so sacred and so much used among them that I chuse to give it in their on Terms rather than translate them To avoid the consequence of making God the Author of Sin a distinction was made between the Positive Act of Sin which was said not to be Evil and the want of its Conformity to the Law of God which being a Negation was no positive Being so that it was not produced And thus though the Action was produced jointly by God as the first Cause and by the Creature as the Second yet God was not guilty of the Sin but only the Creature This Doctrine passed down among the Dominicans and continues to do so to this day Scotus who was a Franciscan denied this Predetermination and asserted the Freedom of the Will Durandus denied this Immediate Concourse in which he has not had many Followers except Adola and some few more When Luther began to form his Opinions into a Body he clearly saw that nothing did so plainly destroy the Doctrine of Merit and Justification by Works as St. Austin's Opinions He found also in his Works very express Authorities against most of the Corruptions of the Roman Church And being of an Order that carried his Name and by consequence was accustomed to read and reverence his Works it was no wonder if he without a strict examining of the matter espoused all his Opinions Most of those of the Church of Rome who wrote against him being of the other Persuasions any one reading the Books of that Age would have thought that St. Austin's Doctrine was abandoned by the Church of Rome So that when Michael Baius and some others at Louvain began to revive it that became a matter of Scandal and they were condemned at Rome Yet at the Council of Trent the Dominicans had so much credit that great care was taken in the penning their Decrees to avoid all
Reflections upon that Doctrine It was at first received by the whole Iesuit Order so that Bellarmine formed himself upon it and still adhered to it But soon after that Order changed their Mind and left their whole Body to a full liberty in those Points and went all quickly over to the other Hypothesis that differed from the Semi-pelagians only in this that they allowed a Preventing-Grace but such as were subject to the Freedom of the Will Molina and Fonseca invented a new way of explaining God's foreseeing future Contingents which they called a Middle or Mean Science by which they taught That as God sees all things as possible in his knowledge of simple Apprehension and all things that are certainly future as present in his knowledge of Vision so by this knowledge he also sees the Chain of all Conditionate Futurities and all the Connexions of them that is whatsoever would follow upon such or such conditions Great Jealousies arising upon the Progress that the Order of the Jesuits was making these Opinions were laid hold on to mortify them so they were complained of at Rome for departing from St. Austin's Doctrine which in these Points was generally received as the Doctrine of the Latin Church and many Conferences were held before Pope Clement the Eighth and the Cardinals where the Point in debate was chiefly What was the Doctrine andTradition of theChurch The Advantages that St. Austin's Followers had were such that before fair Judges they must have triumphed over the other Pope Clement had so resolved but he dying though Pope Paul the Fifth had the same Intentions yet he happening then to be engaged in a Quarrel with the Venetians about the Ecclesiastical Immunities and having put that Republick under an Interdict the Jesuits who were there chose to be banished rather than to break the Interdict And their adhering so firmly to the Papal Authority when most of the other Orders forsook it was thought so meritorious at Rome that it saved them the Censure So instead of a Decision all sides were commanded to be silent and to quarrel no more upon those Heads About Forty years after that Iansenius a Doctor of Louvain being a zealous Disciple of S. Austin's and seeing the Progress that the contrary Doctrines were making did with great Industry and an equal Fidelity publish a Voluminous Systâ—m of St. Austin's Doctrine in all the several Branches of the Controversy And he set forth the Pelagians and the Semipelagians in that Work under very black Characters and not content with that he compared the Doctrines of the Modern Innovators with theirs This Book was received by the whole Party with great Applause as a Work that had decided the Controversy But the Author having writ with an extraordinary Force against the French Pretensions on Flanders which recommended him so much to the Spanish Court that he was made a Bishop upon it all those in France who followed St. Austin's Doctrine and applauded this Book were represented by their Enemies as being in the same Interests with him and by consequence as Enemies to the French Greatness so that the Court of France prosecuted the whole Party This Book was at first only prohibited at Rome as a Violation of that Silence that the Pope had enjoined afterwards Articles were pickt out of it and condemned and all the Clergy of France were required to sign the Condemnation of them These Articles were certainly in his Book and were manifest Consequences of St. Austin's Doctrine which was chiefly driven at though it was still declared at Rome That nothing was intended to be done in prejudice of St. Austin's Doctrine Upon this pretence his Party have said That those Articles being capable of two Senses the one of which was strained and was Heretical the other of which was clear and according to St. Austin's Doctrine it must be presumed it was not in that second but in the other sense that they were condemned at Rome and so they signed the Condemnation of them But then they said that they were not in Iansenius's Book in the sense in which they condemned them Upon that followed a most extravagant Question concerning the Pope's Infallibility in Matters of Fact It being said on the one side That the Pope heving condemned them as Iansenius's Opinions the belief of his Infallibity obliged them to conclude that they must be in his Book Whereas the others with great Truth affirmed That it had never been thought that in Matters of Fact either Popes or Councils were Infallible At last a new Cessation of Hostilities upon these Points was resolved on yet the Hatred continues and the War goes on though more covertly and more indirctely than before Nor are the Reformed more of a piece than the Church of Rome upon these Points Luther went on long as he at first set out with so little disguise that whereas all Parties had always pretended that they asserted the Freedom of the Will he plainly spoke out and said the Will was not Free but Enslaved Yet before he died he is reported to have changed his Mind for tho he never owned that yet Melancthon who had been of the same Opinion did freely retract it for which he was never blamed by Luther Since that time all the Lutherans have gone into the Semipelagian Opinions so entirely and so eagerly that they will neither tolerate nor hold Communion with any of the other Persuasion Calvin not only taught St. Austin's Doctrine but seemed to go on to the Supralapsarian way which was more openly taught by Beza and was generally followed by the Reformed only the difference between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians was never brought to a decision Divines being in all the Calvinists Churches left to their freedom as to that Point In England the first Reformers were generally in the Sublapsarian Hypothesis But Perkins and others have asserted the Supralapsarian way Arminius a Professor in Leyden writ against him Upon this Gomarus and he had many disputes and these Opinions bred a great distraction over all the Vnited Provinces At the same time another Political matter occasioning a division of Opinion Whether the War should be carried on with Spain or if Propositions for a Peace or Truce should be entertained It happened that Arminius's followers were all for a Peace and the others were generally for carrying on theWar which being promoted by the Prince of Orange he joyned to them And the Arminians were represented as Men whose Opinions and Affections leaned to Popery So that this from being a Doctrinal Point became the distinction of a Party and by that means the differences were inflamed A great Synod met at Dort to which Divines were sent from hence as well as from other Churches The Arminian Tenets were condemned but the difference between the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians was not medled with The Divines of this Church though very moderate in the way of proposing their Opinions yet upon the main adhered to St.
Controversy with that which they think they can the most easily prove the one at the Establishing of Election and the other at the overthrowing of Reprobation Some have studied to seek out middle-ways For they observing that the Scriptures are writ in a great diversity of Stile in Treating of the Good or Evil that happens to us ascribing the one to God and imputing the other to our selves teaching us to ascribe the honour of all that is Good to God and to cast the blame of all that is Evil upon our selves have from thence concluded That God must have a different Influence and Causality in the one from what he has in the other But when they go to make this out they meet with great Difficulties yet they chuse to bear these rather than to involve themselves in those equally great if not greater Difficulties that are in either of the other Opinions They wrap up all in Two General Assertions that are great Practical Truths Let us Arrogate no good to our selves and impute no evil to God and so let the whole matter rest This may be thought by some the lazier as well as the safer way which avoids Difficulties rather than answers them whereas they say of both the Contending Sides That they are better at the starting of Difficulties than at the resolving of them Thus far I have gone upon the general in making such Reflections as will appear but too well grounded to those who have with any Attention read the chief Disputants of both Sides In these great Points all agree That Mercy is freely offered to the World in Christ Jesus That God did freely offer his Son to be our Propitiation and has freely accepted the Sacrifice of his Death in our stead whereas he might have Condemned every Man to have perished for his own Sins That God does in the Dispensation of this Gospel and the Promulgation of it to the several Nations act according to the Freedom of his Grace upon Reasons that are to us mysterious and past finding out That every Man is inexcusable in the sight of God That all Men are so far free as to be praise-worthy or blame-worthy for the Good or Evil that they do That every Man ought to employ his Faculties all he can and to pray and depend earnestly upon God for his Protection and Assistance That no Man in Practice ought to think that there is a Fate or Decree hanging over him and so become slothful in his Duty but that every Man ought to do the best he can as if there were no such Decree since whether there is or is not it is not possible for him to know what it is That every Man ought to be deeply humbled for his Sins in the sight of God without excusing himself by pretending a Decree was upon him or a want of Power in him That all Men are bound to obey the Rules set them in the Gospel and are to expect neither Mercy nor Favour from God but as they set themselves diligently about that And finally That at the Last Day all Men shall be Judged not according to secret Decrees but according to their own Works In these great Truths of which the greater part are Practical all Men agree If they would agree as honestly in the Practice of them as they do in Confessing them to be true they would do that which is much more important and necessary than to speculate and dispute about Niceties by which the World would quickly put on a new Face and then those few that might delight in curious Searches and Arguments would manage them with more Modesty and less Heat and be both less positive and less supercilious I have hitherto insisted on such general Reflections as seemed proper to these Questions I come now in the last place to examine how far our Church hath determined the Matter either in this Article or elsewhere How far she hath restrained her Sons and how far she hath left them at liberty For those different Opinions being so intricate in themselves and so apt â—o raise hot Disputes and to kindle lasting Quarrels it will not be suitable to that Moderation which our Church hath observed in all other things to sâ—retch her Words on these Heads beyond their strict sense The natural equity or reason of things ought rather to carry us on the other hand to as great a Comprehensiveness of all sides as may well consist with the Words in which our Church has expressed herself on those Heads It is not to be denied but that the Article seems to be framed according to St. Austin's Doctrine It supposes Men to be under a Curse and Damnation antecedently to Predestination from which they are delivered by it so it is directly against the Sâ—pralapsarian Doctrine Nor does the Article make any mention of Reprobation no not in a hint no Definition is made concerning it The Article does also seem to assert the Efficacy of Grace That in which the Knot of the whole Dfficulty lies is not Defined that is Whether God's Eternal Purpose or Decree was made according to what he foresaw his Creatures would do or purely upon an Absolute Will in order to his own Glory It is very probable that those who Penned it meant that the Decree was Absolute but yet since they have not said it those who subscribe the Articles do not seem to be bound to any thing that is not expressed in them And therefore since the Remonstrants do not deny but that God having foreseen what all Mankind would according to all the different Circumstances in which they should be put do or not do he upon that did by a firm and Eternal Decree lay that whole Design in all its Branches which he Executes in time they may subscribe this Article without renouncing their Opinion as to this matter On the other hand the Calvinists have less occasion for Scruple since the Article does seem more plainly to favour them The Three Cautions that are added to it do likewise intimate that St. Austin's Doctrine was designed to be settled by the Article For the danger of Mens having the sentence of God's Predestination always before their eyes which may occasion either desperation on the one hand or the wretchlesness of most unclean living on the other belongs only to that side since these Mischiefs do not arise out of the other Hypothesis The other Two of taking the Promises of God in the sense in which they are set forth to us in Holy Scriptures and of following that Will of God that is expresly declared to us in the Word of God relate very visibly to the same Opinion Though others do infer from these Cautions That the Doctrine laid down in the Article must be so understood as to agree with these Cautions and therefore they argue That since Absolute Predestination cannot consist with them that therefore the Article is to be otherwise explained They say the natural Consequence of an Absolute
Decree is either Presumption or Despair since a Man upon that bottom reckons That which way soever the Decree is made it must certainly be accomplished They also argue That because we must receive the Promises of God as conditional we must also believe the Decree to be conditional for Absolute Decrees exclude conditional Promises An Offer cannot be supposed to be made in earnest by him that has excluded the greatest number of Men from it by an antecedent Act of his own And if we must only follow the revealed Will of God we ought not to suppose that there is an Antecedent and Positive Will of God that has decreed our doing the contrary to what he has commanded Thus the one side argues That the Article as it lies in the plain meaning of those who conceived it does very expresly establish their Doctrine And the other argues from those Cautions that are added to it That it ought to be understood so as that it may agree with these Cautions And both sides find in the Article it self such grounds that they reckon they do not renounce their Opinions by subscribing it The Remonstrant side have this further to add That the Universal Extent of the Death of Christ seems to be very plainly affirmed in the most solemn part of all the Offices of the Church For in the Office of Communion and in the Prayer of Consecration we own That Christ by the one Oblation of himself once offered made there a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World Though the others say That by full perfect and sufficient is not to be understood that Christ's Death was intended to be a compleat Sacrifice and Satisfaction for the whole World but that in its own Value it was capable of being such This is thought too great a stretch put upon the words And there are yet more express words in our Church-Catechism to this purpose which is to be considered as the most solemn Declaration of the sense of the Church since that is the Doctrine in which she instructs all her Children And in that part of it which seems to be most important as being the short Summary of the Apostles Creed it is said God the Son who hath redeemed me and all Mankind Where all must stand in the same Extent of Universality as in the precedent and in the following words The Father who made me and all the World the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the Elect People of God which being to be understood severely and without exception this must also be taken in the same strictness There is another Argument brought from the Office of Baptism to prove that men may fall from a state of Grace and Regeneration for in the whole Office more particularly in the Thanksgiving after the Baptism it is affirmed That the Person baptized is Regenerated by God's Holy Spirit and is received for his own Child by Adoption Now since it is certain that many who are baptized fall from that state of Grace this seems to import That some of the Regenerate may fall away Which tho' it agree well with St. Austin's Doctrine yet it does not agree with the Calvinists Opinions Thus I have examined this matter in as short a compass as was possible and yet I do not know that I have forgot any important part of the whole Controversy though it is large and has many Branches I have kept as far as I can perceive that Indifference which I proposed to my self in the prosecuting of this matter and have not on this occasion declared my own Opinion though I have not avoided the doing it upon other occasions Since the Church has not been peremptory but that a Latitude has been left to different Opinions I thought it became me to make this Explanation of the Article such And therefore I have not endeavoured to possess the Reader with that which is my own sense in this matter but have laid the Force of the Arguments as well as the Weight of the Difficulties of both Sides before him with all the Advantages that I had found in the Books either of the one or of the other Persuasion And I leave the Choice as free to my Reader as the Church has done ARTICLE XVIII Of obtaining Eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ. They also are to be accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his Life according to that Law and the Light of Nature For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Iesus Christ whereby men must be saved THE Impiety that is condemned in this Article was first taug htby some of the Heathen Oraters and Philosophers in the Fourth Century who in their Addresses to the Christian Emperors for the Tolerance of Paganism started this Thought that how lively soever it may seem when well set off in a piece of Eloquence will not bear a severe Argument That God is more honoured by the Varieties and different Methods of worshipping and serving him than if all should fall into the same way That this diversity has a Beauty in it and a suitableness to the Infinite Perfections of God and it does not look so like a mutual agreement or concert as when all Men worship him one way But this is rather a Flash of Wit than true Reasoning The Alcoran has carried this matter further to the asserting That all Men in all Religions are equally acceptable to God if they serve him faithfully in them The infusing this into the World that has a shew of Mercy in it made Men more easy to receive their Law and they took care by their extream Severity to fix them in it when they were once engaged for though they use no Force to make Men Musselmans yet they punish with all extremity every thing that looks like Apostacy from it if it is once received The Doctrine of Leviathan that makes Law to be Religion and Religion to be Law that is that obliges Subjects to believe that Religion to be true or at least to follow that which is enacted by the Laws of their Countrey must be built either on this foundation That there is no such thing as Revealed Religion but that it is only a Political Contrivance or that all Religions are equally acceptable to God Others having observ'd that it was a very small part of Mankind that had the advantages of the Christian Religion have thought it too cruel to damn in their thoughts all those who have not heard of it and yet have lived morally and virtuously according to their Light and Education And some to make themselves and others easy in accommodating their Religion to their secular Interests to excuse their changing and to quiet their Consciences have set up this Notion that seems to have a largeness both of good Nature and Charity in
We must be then well assured in whom this great Privillege is vested before we can be bound to acknowledge it or to submit to it So here a great many things must be known before we can either argue from or apply those Passages of Scripture in which it is pretended that Infallibility is promised to the Church And if private Judgment is to be trusted in the Inquiries that arise about all these particulars they being the most important and most difficult matters that we can search into then it will be thought reasonable to trust it yet much further It is evident by their proceeding this way that both the Authority and the Sense of the Scriptures must be known antecedently to our acknowledging the Authority or the Infallibility of any Church For it is an Eternal Principle and Rule of Reason never to prove one thing by another till that other is first well proved Nor can any thing be proved afterwards by that which was proved by it This is as impossible as if a Father should beget a Son and should be afterwards begotten by that Son Therefore the Scriptures cannot prove the Infallibility of the Church and be afterwards proved by the Testimony of the Church So the one or the other of these must be first settled and proved before any use can be made of it to prove the other by it The last way they take to find out this Church by is from some Notes that they pretend are peculiar to her such as the Name Catholick Antiquity Extent Bellar. Contr. Tom 2. l. 4. Duration Succession of Bishops Vnion among themselves and with their Head Conformity of Doctrine with former times Miracles Prophecy Sanctity of Doctrine Holiness of Life Temporal Felicity Curses upon their Enemies and a constant Progress or Efficacy of Doctrine together with the Confession of their Adversaries And they fancy that wheresoever we find these we must believe that Body of Men to be Infallible But upon all this endless Questions will arise so far will it be from ending Controversies and settling us upon Infallibility If all these must be believed to be the Marks of the Infallible Church upon the account of which we ought to believe it and submit to it then two Enquires upon every one of these Notes must be discussed before we can be obliged to acquiesce in the Infallibility First Whether that is a true Mark of Infallibility or not And next Whether it belongs to the Church which they call Infallible or not And then another very intricate Question will arise upon the whole Whether they must all be found together or How many or which of them together will give us the entire Characters of the Infallible Church In discussing the Questions Whether every one of these is a true Mark or not no use must be made of the Scriptures for if the Scriptures have their Authority from the Testimony or rather the Decisions of the Infallible Church no use can be made of them till that is first fixed Some of these Notes are such as did not at all agree to the Church in the best and purest Times for then she had but a little Extent a short-liv'd Duration and no Temporal Felicity and she was generally reproached by her Adversaries But out of which of these Topicks can one hope to fetch out an Assurance of the Infallibility of such a Body Can no Body of Men continue long in the constant Series and with much Prosperity but must they be concluded to be Infallible Can it be thought that the assuming a Name can be a Mark Why is not the Name Christian as solemn as Catholick Might not the Philosophers have concluded from hence against the First Christians That they were by the confession of all Men the true Lovers of Wisdom since they were called Philosophers much more unanimously than the Church of Rome is called Catholick If a Conformity of Doctrine with former times and a Sanctity of Doctrine are Notes of the Church these will lead men into Enquiries of such a nature that if they are once allowed to go so far with their private Judgment they may well be suffered to go much further Some Standard must be fixed on by which the Sanctity of Doctrine may be examined they must also be allowed to examine what was the Doctrine of former times and here it will be natural to begin at the first times the Age of the Apostles It must therefore be first known what was the Doctrine of that Age before we can examine the Conformity of the present Age with it A Succession of Bishops is confessed to be still kept up among corrupted Churches An Union of the Church with its Head cannot be supposed to be a Note unless it is first made out by some other Topicks That this Church must have a Head and that he is Infallible For unless it is proved by some other Argument That she ought to have a Head she cannot be bound to adhere to him or to own him and unless it is also proved that he is Infallible she cannot be bound absolutely and without restrictions to adhere to him Holiness of Life cannot be a Mark unless it is pretended that those in whom the Infallibility is are all holy A few holy men here and there are indeed an Honour to any Body but it will seem a strange Inference That because some few in a Society are eminently holy that therefore others of that Body who are not so but are perhaps as eminently vicious should be Infallible Somewhat has been already said concerning Miracles The pretence to Prophecy falls within the same Consideration The one being as wonderful a Communication of Omniscience as the other is of Omnipotence For the Confession of Adversaries or some Curâ—es on them these cannot signifie much unless they were Universal Fair Enemies will acknowledg what is good among their Adversaries But as that Church is the least apt of any Society we know to speak good of those who differ from her so she has not very much to boast as to others saying much good of her And if Signal Providences have now and then happened these are such things and they are carried on with such a depth that we must acquiesce in the Observation of the wisest Men of all Ages That the race is not to the swift nor the battel to the strong Eccl. 9.11 But that time and chance happeneth to all things And thus it appears That these pretended Notes instead of giving us a clear Thread to lead us up to Infallibility and to end all Controversies they do start a great variety of Questions that engage us into a Labyrinth out of which it cannot be easy for any to extricate themselves But if we could see an end of this then a new set of Questions will come on When we go to examine all Churches by them Whether the Church of Rome has them all And if she alone has them so that no
requisite in the regular way of using it None can deny this among us but those who will question the whole Christianity of the Roman Church where the Midwives do generally Baptize But if this Invalidates the Baptism then we must question all that is done among them Persons so Baptized if their Baptism is void are neither truly Ordained nor capable of any other act of Church-Communion Therefore mens being in Orders or their being duly Ordained is not necessary to the Essence of the Sacrament of Baptism but only to the regularity of Administring it And so the want of it does not void it but does only prove such Men to be under some Defects and Disorder in their Constitution Thus I have laid down those distinctions that will guide us in the right understanding of this Article If we believe that any Society retains the Fundamentals of Christianity we do from that conclude it to be a true Church to have a true Baptism and the Members of it to be capable of Salvation But we are not upon that bound to Associate our selves to their Communion For if they have the Addition of false Doctrines or any unlawful parts of Worship among them we are not bound to join in that which we are persuaded is Error Idolatry or Superstition If the Sacraments that Christ has appointed are observed and ministred by any Church as to the main of them according to his Institution we are to own those for valid Actions But we are not for that bound to join in Communion with them if they have Adulterated these with many Mixtures and Additions Thus a plain difference is made between our owning that a Church may retain the Fundamentals of Christianity a true Baptism and true Orders which are a consequent upon the former and our joining with that Church in such acts as we think are so far vitiated that they become unlawful to us to do them Pursuant to this we do neither repeat the Baptism nor the Ordinations of the Church of Rome We acknowledge that our Fore-fathers were both Eaptized and Ordained in that Communion And we derive our present Christianity or Baptism and our Orders from thence yet we think that there were so many unlawful Actions even in those Rituals besides the other corruptions of their Worship that we cannot join in such any more The being Baptized in a Church does not tie a Man to every thing in that Church it only ties him to the Covenant of Grace The Stipulations which are made in Baptism as well as in Ordination do only bind a Man to the Christian Faith or to the faithful dispensing of that Gospel and of those Sacraments of which he is made a Minister So he who being convinced of the Errors and Corruptions of a Church departs from them and goes on in the Purity of the Christian Religion does pursue the true effect both of his Baptism and of his Ordination Vows For these are to be considered as ties upon him only to God and Christ and not to adhere to the other Dictates of that body in which he had his Birth Baptism and Ordination The great Objection against all this is That it sets up a private Judgment it gives particular persons a right of judging Churches Whereas the Natural Order is That private persons ought to be Subject and Obedient to the Church This must needs feed Pride and Curiosity it must break all Order and cast all things loose if every single Man according to his Reading and Presumption will judge of Churches and Communions On this Head it is very easy to Employ a great deal of popular Eloquence to decry private mens examining of Scriptures and forming their judgments of things out of them and not submitting all to the judgment of the Church But how absurd soever this may seem all Parties do acknowledg that it must be done Those of the Church of Rome do teach That a Man born in the Greek Church or among us is bound to lay down his Error and his Communion too and to come over to them and yet they allow our Baptism as well as they do the Ordinations of the Greek Church Thus they allow private Men to judge and that in so great a Point as what Church and what Communion ought to be chosen or forsaken And it is certain That to judge of Churches and Communions is a thing of that Intricacy that if private judgment is allowed here there is no reason to deny it its full scope as to all other Matters God has given us rational Faculties to guide and direct us And we must make the most of these that we can We must judge with our own Reasons as well as see with our own Eyes Neither can we or ought we to resign up our Understandings to any others unless we are convinced that God has Imposed this upon us by his making them infallible so that we are secured from Error if we follow them All this we must examine and be well assured of it otherwise it will be a very rash unmanly and base thing in us to muffle up our own Understandings and to deliver our Reason and Faith over to others blindfold Reason is God's Image in us and as the Use and Application of our Reason as well as of the Freedom of our Wills are the highest Excellencies of the Rational Nature so they must be always claimed and ought never to be parted with by us but upon clear and certain Authorities in the Name of God putting us implicitly under the Dictates of others We may abuse the Use of our Reason as well as the Liberty of our Will and may be damn'd for the one as well as the other But when we set our selves to make the best use we can of the freedom of our Wills we may and do upon that expect secret affistances We have both the like promises Direction to the like Prayers and Reason to expect the same Illumination to make us see know and comprehend the Truths of Religion that we have to expect that our Powers shall be inwardly Strengthened to love and obey them Psal. 119.18 35. David prayes that God may open his Eyes as well as that he may make him to go in his ways The Promises in the Prophets concerning the Gospel-Dispensation carry in them the being Taught of God as well as the being made to walk in his ways Ephes. 1 18.3.17 and the enlightening the mind and the eys of the mind to know is prayed for by St. Paul as well as that Christ might dwell in their hearts Since then there is an Assistance of the Divine Grace given to fortify the Understanding as well as to enable the Will it follows that our Understanding is to be imployed by us in order to the finding out of the Truth as well as our Will in order to the obeying of it And though this may have very ill consequences it does not follow from thence that it is
not true No consequences can be worse than the Corruption that is in the World and the Damnation that follows upon sin and yet God permits it because he has made us free Creatures Nor can any reason be given why we should be less free in the use of our understanding than we are in the use of our Will or why God should make it to be less possible for us to fall into Errors than it is to commit Sins The Wrath of God is as much denounced against Men that hold the Truth in unrighteousness as against other Sins Rom. 1.18 24 26. 2 Thes. 2.11 and it is reckoned among the heaviest of Curses to be given up to strong delusions to believe a lye Upon all these reasons therefore it seems clear that our Understandings are left free to us as well as our Wills and if we observe the Stile and Method of the Scriptures we shall find in them all over a constant Appeal to a Man's Reason and to his Intellectual Faculties If the mere dictates of the Church or of Infallible Men had been the resolution or foundation of Faith there had been no need of such a long Thread of Reasoning and Discourse as both our Saviour used while on Earth and as the Apostles used in their Writings We see the way of Authority is not taken but Explanations are offered Proofs and Illustrations are brought to convince the Mind which shews that God in the clearest Manifestation of his Will would deal with us as with reasonable Creatures who are not to believe but upon Persuasion and are to use our Reasons in order to the attaining that Persuasion And therefore upon the whole matter we ought not to believe Doctrines to be true because the Church teaches them but we ought to search the Scriptures and then according as we find the Doctrine of any Church to be true in the Fundamentals we ought to believe her to be a true Church and if besides this the whole Extent of the Doctrine and Worship together not only with the essential parts of the Sacraments but the whole Administration of them and the other Rituals of any Church are pure and true then we ought to account such a Church true in the largest Extent of the word true and by consequence we ought to hold Communion with it Another question may arise out of the first words of this Article concerning the Visibility of this Church Whether it must be always Visible According to the distinction hitherto made use of the resolution of this will be soon made There seem to be Promises in the Scriptures of a perpetual Duration of the Christian Church I will be with you always Matth. 28.20 Matth. 16.18 even to the end of the world And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church The Iewish Religion had a Period perfixed in which it was to come to an end but the Prophecies that are among the Prophets concerning the new Dispensation seem to import not only its Continuance but its being continued still Visible in the World But as the Iewish Dispensation was long continued after they had fallen generally into some very gross Errors so the Christian Church may be Visible still though not Infallible God may preserve the Succession of a true Church as to the Essentials and Fundamentals of Faith in the World even though this Society should fall into Error So a Visible Society of Christians in a true Church as to the Essentials of our Faith is not controverted by us We do only deny the Infallibility of this true Church And therefore we are not afraid of that Question Where was your Church before Henry the Eighth We Answer It was where it is now here in England and in the other Kingdoms of the World only it was then corrupted and it is now pure There is therefore no sort of Inconvenience in owning the constant Visibility of a constant Succession and Church of true Christians true as to the Essentials of the Covenant of Grace though not true in all their Doctrines This seems to be a part of the Glory of the Messias and of his Kingdom That he shall be still visibly worshipped in the World by a Body of Men called by his Name But when Visibility is thus separated from Infallibility and it is made out that a Church may be a true Church though she has a large Allay of Errors and Corruptions mixed in her Constitution and Decisions there will be no manner of Inconvenience in owning a constant Visibility even at the same time that we charge the most eminent part of this Visible Body with many Errors and with much Corruption So far has the first part of this Article been treated of From it we pass to the second which affirms That as the other Patriarchal and Apostolical Churches such as Ierusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so the Church of Rome has likewise erred and that not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith It is not questioned but that the other Patriarchal Churches have erred both that where our Saviour himself first taught and which was governed by two of the Apostles successively and those which were founded by St. Peter in Person or by Proxy as Church History represents Alexandria and Antioch to have been Those of the Church of Rome by whom they are at this day condemned both of Heresy and Schism do not dispute this Nor do they dispute that many of their Popes have led bad and flagitious Lives They deny not that the Canons Ceremonies and Government of the Church are very much changed by the Influence and the Authority of their Popes But the whole question turns upon this Whether the See of Rome has erred in matter of Faith or not In this those of that Communion are divided Some by the Church or See of Rome mean the Popes personally so they maintain That they never have and never can fall into Error Whereas others by the See of Rome mean that whole Body that holds Communion with Rome which they say cannot be tainted with Error and these separate this from the Personal Infallibility of Popes for if a Pope should err they think that a General Council has Authority to proceed against him and to deprive him And thus though he should err the See might be kept free from Error I shall upon this Article only consider the first Opinion reserving the Consideration of the second to the Article concerning General Councils As to the Popes their being subject to Error that must be confessed unless it can be proved that by a clear and express Privilege granted them by God they are excepted out of the common condition of Human Nature It is further highly probable that there is no such Privilege since the Church continued for many Ages before it was so much as pretended to and that in a time when that See was not only claiming all the Rights that
condemn them of Heresy and to proceed against them with Church-Censures but that they had a Power to depose them to absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and to transfer their Dominions to such Persons as should undertake to execute their Sentences Tâ—is they have often put in execution and have constantly kept up their 〈…〉 it to this day It will not serve them to get clear here to say That these were the violent Practices of some Popes What they did in many particular Instances may be so turned off and left as a Blemish on the Memories of some of them But the Point at present in question is Whether they have not laid Claim to this as a Right belonging to their See as a part of St. Peter's Authority descended to them Whether they have not founded it on his being Christ's Vicar who was the King of kings and Lord of lords Dict Papâ—e l. 1. Ep. Greg. 7. Post Ep. 55. Extravag de Major Obâ—d c 1. to whom all power in heaven and in earth was given Whether they have not founded it on Ieremy's being set over nations and kingdoms to root out pluck down and to destroy and on other places of Scripture not forgetting that the first Words of the Bible are In the beginning and not In the beginnings from which they inferred That there is but one Principle from whence all Power is derived And that God made two great lights the Sun to rule by day which they applied to themselves This I say is the Question Whether they did not assume this Authority as a Power given them by God As for the applying it to particular Instances to those Kings and Emperors whom they deposed that is indeed a personal thing Whether they were guilty of Heresy or of being favourers of it or not And whether the Popes proceeded against them with too much Violence or not The Point now in Question is Whether they declared this to be a Doctrine that there was an Authority lodged with their See for doing such things and whether they alledged Scripture and Tradition for it Conc. Lat. 3. cap. 27. Conc. Lat. 4. Can. 3. Con. Lug. Now this will appear evident to those who will read their Bulls In the Preambles of which those Quotations will be found as some of them are in the Body of the Canon Law And it is decreed in it that the belief of this is absolutely necessary to Salvation This was pursued in a Course of many Ages General Councils as they are esteemed among them have concurred with the Popes both in General Decrees assâ—rting this power to be in them and in special Sentences against Princes This became the universally-received Doctrine of those Ages No Vniversity nor Nation declaring against it not so much as one Divine Ciâ—â—â—lian Canonist or Casuist writ against it as Card. Perron truly said Câ—rd Perron Harangueau tiers estat It was so certainly believed that those Writers whom the deposed Princes got to undertake their defence do not in any of their Books pretend to call the Doctrine in General in question Two things were disputed One was Whether Popes had a direct power in Temporals over Princes so that they were as much subject to them as Feudatory Princes were to their Superior Lords This to which Boniface the 8th laid claim was indeed contradicted The other Point was Whether those particulars for which Princes had been deposed such as the giving the Investitures to Bishopricks were Heresies or not This was much contested But the power in the case of manifest Heresy or of favouring it to Depose Princes and Transfer their Crowns to others was never called in Question This was certainly a definition made in the Chair ex Cathedra For it was addrest to all their Community both Laity and Clergy Plenary Pardons were bestowed with it on those who executed it The Clergy did generally preach the Croisades upon it Princes that were not concerned in him that was deposed gave way to the publication of those Bulls and gave leave to their Subjects to take the Cross in order to the Executing of them And the People did in vast Multitudes gather about the Standarts that were set up for leading on Armies to Execute them while many Learned Men writ in defence of this Power and not one Man durst write against it This Argument lies not only against the Infallibility of Popes but against that of General Councils likewise And also against the Authority of Oral Tradition For here in a Succession of many Ages the Tradition was wholly changed from the Doctrine of former times which had been That the Clergy was subject to Princes and had no Authority over them or their Crowns Nor can it be said That that was a Point of Discipline for it was founded on an Article of Doctrine Whether there was such a power in the Popes or not The Prudence of Executing or not Executing it is a Point of Discipline and of the Government of the Church But it is a Point of Doctrine Whether Christ has given such an Authorityto St. Peter and his followers And those Points of Speculation upon which a great deal turns as to practice are certainly so important that in them if in any thing we ought to expect an Infallibility For in this case a Man is distracted between two contrary Propositions The one is That he must obey the Civil Powers as set over him by an Ordinance of God so that if he resist them he shall receive in himself Damnation The other is That the Pope being Christ's Vicar is to be obeyed when he Absolves him from his former Oath and Allegiance and that the new Prince set up by him is to be obeyed under the pain of Damnation likewise Here a Man is brought into a great strait and therefore he must be guided by Infallibility if any thing So the whole Argument comes to this Head that we must either believe that the Deposing Power is lodged by Christ in the See of Rome or we must conclude with the Article that they have Erred and by Consequence That they are not Infallible For the Erring in any one Point and at any one Time does quite destroy the Claim of Infallibility Before this Matter can be concluded we must consider what is brought to prove it What was laid down at first must be here remembred That the Proofs brought for a thing of this Nature must be very express and clear A Privilege of such a sort against which the appearances and prejudices are so strong must be very fully made out before we can be bound to believe it Nor can it be reasonable to urge the Authority of any Passages from Scripture till the Grounds are shewn for which the Scriptures themselves ought to be believed Those who think that it is in general well proved That there must be an Infallibility in the Church conclude from thence that it must be in the Pope For if
there must be a living speaking Judge always ready to guide the Church and to decide Controversies they say this cannot be in the diffusive Body of Christians for these cannot meet to judge Nor can it â—e in a General Council the meeting of which depends upon so many accidents and on the consent of so many Princes that the Infallibility will lie dormant for some Ages if the General Council is the Seat of it Therefore they conclude That since it is certainly in the Church and can be no where else but in the Pope therefore it is lodged in the See of Rome Whereas we on the other hand think this is a strong Argument against the Infallibility in general That it does not appear in whom it is vested And we think that every side does so effectually Confute the other that we believe them all as to that and think they argue much stronger when they prove where it cannot be than when they pretend to prove where it must be This in the Point now in hand concerning the Pope seems as evident 〈◊〉 thing can possibly be It not appearing That after the words of Christ 〈…〉 the other Apostles thought the Point was thereby decided Who 〈…〉 should be the greatest For that Debâ—â—e was still on foot and was 〈◊〉 among them in the very Night in which our Saviour was betrayâ—d Nor does it appear That after the Effusion of the Holy Ghost which certainly Inspired them with the full understanding of Christ's words that thâ—y thought there was any thing peculiarly given to S. Peter beyond the â—â—st He was questioned upon his Baptizing Cornelius He was not singly appealed to in the great Question of Subjecting the Gentiles to the Yoke of the Mosaical Law he delivered his Opinion as one of the Apostles After which St. Iames summed up the Matter and setled the Decision of it He was charged by St. Paul as guilty of dissimulation in that matter for which St. Paul withstood him to his Face And he justifies that in an Epistle confessed to be writ by Divine Inspiration St. Paul does also in the same Epistle plainly assert the equality of his own Authority with his And that he received no Authority from him and owed him no Dependance Nor was he ever Appealed to in any of the Points that appear to have been Disputed in the times that the Epistles were written So that we see no Characters of any special Infallibility that was in him besides that which was the effect of the Inspiration that was in the other Apostles as well as in him Nor is there a Tittle in the Scripture not so much as by a remote Intimation that he was to derive that Authority whatsoever it was to any Successor or to lodge it in any particular City or See The Silence of the Scripture in this Point seems to be a full proof that no such thing was intended by God Otherwise we have all reason to believe that it would have been clearly expressed St. Peter himself ought to have declared this And since both Alexandria and Antioch as well as Rome pretend to derive from him and that the Succession to those Sees began in him this makes a decision in this Point so much the more necessary When St. Peter writ his 2d Epistle in which he mentions a Revelation that he had from Christ of his approaching dissolution though that was a very proper occasion for declaring such an important Matter 2 Pet. 1 1â— he says nothing that relates to it but gives only a new Attestation of the truth of Christ's Divine Mission and of what he himself had been a witness to in the Mount when he saw the excellent glory and heard the voice out of it He leaves a Provision in Writing for the following Ages but says nothing of any Succession or See So that here the greatest of all Privileges is pretâ—nded to be lodged in a Succession of Bishops without any one Passage in Scripture importing it Another set of difficulties arise concerning the Persons who have a right to chuse these Popes in whom this Right is Vested and what number is necessary for a Canonical Election How far Simony voids it and who is the competent Judge of that or who shall judge in the Case of two different Elections which has often happened We must also have a certain Rule to know when the Popes judge as private Persons and when they judge Infallibly With whom they must consult and what Solemnities are necessary to make them speak ex Cathedra or Infallibly For if this Infallibility comes as a Privilege from a Grant made by Christ we ought to expect that all those necessary Circumstances to direct us in order to the receiving and submitting to it should be fixed by the same Authority that made the Grant Here then are very great difficulties Let us now see what is offered to make out this great and important Claim The chief Proof is brought from these Words of our Saviour when upon St. Peter's confessing That he was the Christ the Son of the living God Mat. 16. 16 17 18 19. He said to him Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven This begins with an Allusion to his Name and Discourses built upon such Allusions are not to be understood strictly or Grammatically By the Rock upon which Christ promises to build his Church many of the Fathers have understood the Person of Christ others have understood the Confession of him or Faith in him which indeed is but a different way of expressing the same thing And it is certain that strictly speaking the Church can only be said to be founded upon Christ and upon his Doctrine But in a Secondary sense it may be said to be founded upon the Apostles and upon St. Peter as the first in order which is not to be Disputed Now though this is a Sense which was not put on these Words for many Ages yet when it should be allowed to be their true sense it will not prove any thing to have been granted to St. Peter but what was common to the other Apostles who are all called the Foundations upon which the Church is built That which follows of the gates of hell not being able to prevail against the Church may be either understood of Death Eph. 2.20 Rev. 21.2 14. which is often called the gate to the grave Which is the sense of the Word that is rendred Hell And then the meaning of these Words will be That the Church which Christ was to raise should never be extinguished nor die or come to a period as the Iewish Religion then did Or according to the Custom of the Iews of holding their
For so great and so important a Matter as this is must be supposed to be either expresly declared in the Scriptures or not at all The Article affirming That some General Councils have erred must be understood of Councils that pass for such and that may be called General Councils much better than many others that go by that Name For that at Arimini was both very Numerous and was drawn out of many different Provinces As to the strict Notion of a General Council there is great Reason to believe that there was never any Assembly to which it will be found to agree And for the Four General Councils which this Church declares she receives they are received only because we are persuaded from the Scriptures that their Decisions were made according to them That the Son is truly God of the same Substance with the Father That the Holy Ghost is also truly God That the Divine Nature was truly united to the Human in Christ and that in One Person That both Natures remain distinct and that the Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine These Truths we find in the Scriptures and therefore we believe them We reverence those Councils for the sake of their Doctrine but do not believe the Doctrine for the Authority of the Councils There appeared too much of Human Frailty in some of their other Proceedings to give us such an Implicite Submission to them as to believe things only because they so Decided them ARTICLE XXII Of Purgatory The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God THERE are two small Variations in this Article from that published in King Edward's Reign What is here called the Romish Doctrine is there called the Doctrine of School-men The plain reason of this is that these Errors were not so fully espoused by the Body of the Roman Church when those Articles were first published so that some Writers that softened matters threw them upon the School-men and therefore the Article was cautiously worded in laying them there But before these that we have now were published the Decree and Canons concerning the Mass had passed at Trent in which most of the Heads of this Article are either affirmed or supposed though the formal Decree concerning them was made some Months after these Articles were published This will serve to justifie that diversity The second difference is only the leaving out a severe word Perniciously repugnant to the Word of God was put at first but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word they judged very right in the Second Edition of them that it was enough to say repugnant to the Word of God There are in this Article five Particulars that are all Ingredients in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church of Rome Purgatory Pardons the Worship of Images and of Relicks and the Invocation of Saints that are rejected not only as ill grounded brought in and maintained without good warrants from the Scripture but as contrary to it The first of these is Purgatory concerning which the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that every Man is liable both to Temporal and to Eternal Punishment for his Sins that God upon the Account of the Death and Intercession of Christ does indeed pardon Sin as to its Eternal Punishment but the Sinner is still liable to Temporal Punishment which he must expiate by Acts of Pennance and Sorrow in this World together with such other Sufferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him but if he does not expiate these in this Life there is a State of Suffering and Misery in the next World where the Soul is to bear the Temporal punishment of its Sins which may continue longer or shorter till the Day of Judgment And in order to the shortening this the Prayers and Supererogations of Men here on Earth or the Intercession of the Saints in Heaven but above all things the Sacrifice of the Mass are of great Efficacy This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome asserted in the Councils of Florence and Trent What has been taught among them concerning the Nature and the Degrees of those Torments though supported by many pretended Apparitions and Revelations is not to be imputed to the whole Body and is indeed only the Doctrine of Schoolmen though it is generally preached and infused into the Consciences of the People Therefore I shall only examine that which is the established Doctrine of the whole Roman Church And first as to the Foundation of it that Sins are only pardoned as to their Eternal Punishment to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ. Rom. 5.1 There is not a colour for it in the Scriptures Remission of Sins is in general that with which the Preaching of the Gospel ought always to begin and this is so often repeated without any such reserve that it is a high assuming upon God and his Attributes of Goodness and Mercy to limit these when he has not limited them but has expresly said that this is a main part of the New Covenant Jer. 31.34 Heb. 8.12 that he will remember our sins and iniquities no more Now it seems to be a Maxim not only of the Law of Nations but of Nature that all offers of Pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the Words without any secret Reserves or Limitations unless they are plainly expressed An Indemnity being offered by a Prince to persuade his Subjects to return to their Obedience in the fullest Words possible without any reserves made in it it would be lookt on as a very perfidious thing if when the Subjects come in upon it trusting to it they should be told that they were to be secured by it against Capital Punishments but that as to all Inferior Punishments they were still at Mercy We do not dispute whether God if he had thought fit so to do might not have made this distinction nor do we deny that the Grace of the Gospel had been infinitely valuable if it had offered us only the Pardon of Sin with relation to its Eternal Punishment and had left the Temporal Punishment on us to be expiated by our selves but then we say this ought to have been expressed The Distinction ought to have been made between Temporal and Eternal and we ought not to have been drawn into a Covenant with God by words that do plainly import an intire Pardon and Oblivion upon which there lay a limited Sense that was not to be told the World till it was once well engaged in the Christian Religion Upon these Reasons it is that we conclude that this Doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures is not only without any warrant in them but that it is contrary to those full offers of
that there were many very effectual ways to prevent and avoid or at least to shorten those Sufferings and if the Apostles knew this and yet said not a Word of it neither in their first Sermons nor in their Epistles here was a great Treachery in the discharge of their Function and that to the Souls of Men not to warn them of their Danger nor to direct them to the proper Methods of avoiding it but on the contrary to speak and write to them just as we can suppose Impostors would have done to terrify those who would not receive their Gospel with Eternal Damnation but not to say a Word to those who received it of their danger in case they lived not up to that Exactness that their Religion required and yet upon the main adhered to it and followed it This is a Method that does not agree with common Honesty not to say Inspiration A fair way of proceeding is to make Men sensible of Dangers of all sorts and to shew them how to avoid them The Apostles told their Converts That through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Acts 14.22 Rom. 8.18 they assurâ—d them That their present sufferings were not worthy to be compared to the Glory that was to be revealed and that those light afflictions which are for a moment wrought for them a more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Here if they knew any thing of Purgatory a powerful Consideration was past over in silence that by these Afflictions they should be delivered from those Torments This Argument goes further than meer Silence though that is very strong The Scriptures speak always as if the one did immediately follow the other and that the Saints or true Christians pass from the Miseries of this State to the Glories of the next So does our Saviour represent the matter in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Gluâ—ton whose Souls were presently carried to their different abodes the one to be comforted as the other was tormented He promised also to the repenting Thief To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise 〈◊〉 24.43 St. Paul comforts himself in the apprehension of his dissolution that was approaching with the prospect of the crown of righteousness that should be given him after death 2 Tim. 4.8 and so he states these two as certain Consequents one of another to be dissolved and to be with Christ Phil. 1.2 3. 2 Câ—r 5.6.8 v. 1 2. Heb. 1 10. to be absent from the body and present with the Lord And he makes it appear that it was no peculiar Privilege that he promised to himself but that which all Christians had a Right to expect for he says in general this we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens In the Epistle to the Hebrews the Patriarchs under the Old Dispensation are represented as looking for that City whose builder and founder is God Though in that State the manifestations of another Life were more imperfect than in this In which life and immortality are brought to light they being veiled and darkned in that State And finally St. Iohn heard a voice commanding him to Write Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord that is being true Christians from henceforth or immediately yea Rev. 14 13. saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them The solemnity in which these words are delivered carry in them an Evidence sufficient to determine the whole matter So that we must have very hard thoughts of the sincerity of the Writers of the New Testament and very much disparage their Credit not to say their Inspiration if we can imagine that there are Scenes of Suffering and those very dismal ones to be gon through of which they gave the World no sort of notice But spoke in the same style that we do who believe no such dismal Interval between the Death of good Men and their final Blessedness The Scriptures do indeed speak of a full reward and of different Degrees in Glory as one Star exceeds another They do also represent the Day of Judgment upon the Resurrection of the Body 2 Ep. John v. 8. 1 Cor. 15.41 as that which gives the full and entire possession of Blessedness so that from hence some have thought upon very probable Grounds that the Blessed though admitted to Happiness immediately upon their Death yet were not so compleatly Happy as they shall be after the Resurrection And in this there arose a diversity of Opinions which is very natural to all who will go and form Systems out of some general Hints Some thought that the Souls of good Men were at Rest and in a good measure Happy but that they did not see God before the Resurrection Others thought that Christ was to come down and Reign visibly upon Earth a Thousand Years before the End of the World And that the Saints were to rise and to Reign with him some sooner and some later Some thought that the last Conflagration was so to affâ—ct all that every one was to pass through it and that it was to give the last and highest Purification to those Bodies that were then to be glorified but that the better Christians that any had been they should feel the less of the Pain of that last Fire These Opinions were very early entertained in the Church An itch of intruding too far into things which Men did not throughly understand concerning Angels began to disturb the Church even in the days of the Apostles which made St. Paul charge the Colossians to beware of vain Philosophy Plato thought there was a middle Sort of Men who though they had sinned yet had repented of it and were in a curable condition and that they went down for some time into Hell to be purged and absolved by grievous Torments The Iews had also a Conceit that the Souls of some Men continued for a Year going up and down in a state of Purgation From these Opinions somewhat of a Curiosity in describing the Degrees of the next State began pretty early to enter into the Church As for that Opinion of the Platonists and the Fictions of Homer and Virgil setting forth the Complaints of Souls departed for their not being relieved by Prayers and Sacrifices though these perhaps are the true Sources of the Doctrine of Purgatory and of redeeming Souls out of it yet we are not so much concerned in them as in what is represented to us by the Author of the Second Book of the Maccabees concerning the Sacrifice that was offered by Iudas Maccabeus for those about whom after they were killed they found such things as shewed that they had defiled themselves with the Idolatry of the Heathens All this is of less Authority with us who do not acknowledge that Book to be Canonical According
to what was set out in its proper Place And although we set a due value upon some of the Apocryphal Books yet others are of a lower Character The First Book of Maccabees is a very grave History writ with much exactness and a true Judgment but the Second is the Work of a mean Writer He was an Abridger of a larger Work and as he has the Modesty to ask his Readers Pardon for his Defects so it is very plain to every one that reads him that he needs often many grains of allowance So that this Book is one of the least valuable Pieces of the Apocrypha and there are very probable Reasons to question the Truth of that Relation concerning those who were thus prayed for But because that would occasion too long a Digression we are to make a difference between the Story that he relates and the Author 's own Reflections upon it for as we ought not to make any great Account of his Reflections these being only his private Thoughts who might probably have imbibed some of the Principles of the Greek Philosophy as some of the Iews had done or he might have believed that Notion which is now very generally received by the Iews that every Iew shall have a share in the World to come but that such as have lived ill must be purged before they arrive at it It is of much more importance to consider what Iudas Maccabeus did 2 Maccab. 12.40 which even by that Relation seems to be no more than this That he finding some things Consecrated to the Idols of the Iamnites about the Bodies of those who were killed concluded that to have been the cause of their Death And upon this he and all his Men betook themselves to Prayer and besought God that the Sin might be wholly put out of remembrance He exhorted his People to keep themselves by that Example from the like Sin and he made a Collection of a Sum of Money and sent it to Ierusalem to offer a Sin-offering before the Lord. So far the matter agrees well enough with the Iewish Dispensation It had appeared in the days of Ioshua how much guilt the Sin of Achan though but one Person had brought upon the whole Congregation and their Law had upon another Occasion prescribed a Sin-offering for the whole Congregation to expiate Blood that was shed when the Murderer could not be discovered That so the Judgments of God might not come upon them by reason of the cry of that Blood And by a parity of Reason Iudas might have ordered such an Offering to free himself and his Men from the guilt which the Idolatry of a few might have brought upon greater Numbers such a Sacrifice as this might according to the nature of that Law have been offered But to offer a Sin-offering for the Dead was a new thing without ground or any intimation of any thing like it in their Law So there is no reason to doubt but that if the Story is true Iudas offered this Sin-offering for the Living and not for the Dead If they had been alive then by their Law no Sin-offering could have been made for them for Idolatry was to be punished by cutting off and not to be expiated by Sacrifice What then could not have been done for them if alive could much less be done for them after their death So we have reason to conclude that Iudas offered this Sacrifice only for the Living And we are not much concerned in the Opinion which so slight a Writer as the Author of that Book had concerning it But whatever might be his Opinion it was far from that of the Roman Church By this Instance of the Maccabees Men who died in a State of mortal Sin and that of the highest nature had Sacrifices offered for them Whereas according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome Hell and not Purgatory is to be the Portion of all such So this will prove too much if any thing at all that Sacrifices are to be offered for the Damned The design of Iudas his sending to make an Offering for them as that Writer states it was that their Sins might be forgiven and that they might have a happy Resurrection Here is nothing of Redeeming them out of Misery or of shortening or alleviating their Torment So that the Author of that Book seems to have been possessed with that Opinion received commonly among the Iews That no Iew could finally perish as we find S. Ierom expressing himself with the like partiality for all Christians But whatever the Author's Opinion was as that Book is of no Authority it is highly probable that Iudas's design in that Oblation was misunderstood by the Historian and we are sure that even his sense of it differs totally from that of the Church of Rome A Passage in the New Testament is brought as a full proof of the Fire of Purgatory 1 Cor. 3. from V. 10. to 16. When St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians is reflecting on the Divisions that were among them and on that diversity of Teachers that formed Men into different Principles and Parties he compares them to different Builders Some raised upon a Rock an Edifice like the Temple at Ierusalem of Gold and Silver and noble Stones called precious Stones whereas others upon the same Rock raised a mean Hovel of Wood Hay and Stubble of both he says every man's work shall be made manifest For the day shall reveal it because it shall be revealed by fire for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is And he adds If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward and if any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire From the first view of these words it will not be thought strange if some of the Ancients who were too apt to Expound places of Scripture according to their first appearences might fancy that at the last day all were to pass through a great Fire and to suffer more or less in it But it is visible that that Opinion is far enough from the Doctrine of Purgatory These words relate to a Fire that was soon to appear and that was to try every Man's work It was to be revealed and in it every Man's work was to be made manifest So this can have no relation to a secret Purgatory Fire The meaning of it can be no other but that whereas some with the Apostles were building up the Church not only upon the Foundation of Jesus Christ and the Belief of his Doctrine but were teaching Men Doctrines and Rules that were Vertuous Good and Great Others at the same time were daubing with a profane mixture both of Judaism and Gentilism joining these with some of the Precepts of Christianity a day would soon appear which probably is meant of the destruction of Ierusalem and of the Iewish Nation or
it may be applied to the Persecution that was soon to break out in that day those who had true Notions generous Principles and suitable Practices would weather that Storm Whereas others that were entangled with weak and superstitious Conceits would then run a great risk though their firm believing that Jesus was the Messias would preserve them Yet the weakness and folly of those Teachers would appear their Opinions would involve them in such danger that their escaping would be difficult like one that gets out of a House that is all on fire round about him So that these words cannot possibly belong to Purgatory but must be meant of some signal discrimination that was to be made in some very dreadful appearances which would distinguish between the true and the false Apostles and that could be no other but either in the destruction of Ierusalem or in the persecution that was to come on the Church though the first is the more probable It were easy to pursue this Argument further and to shew that the Doctrine of Purgatory as it is now in the Roman Church was not known in the Church of God for the first six hundred Years that then it began to be doubtfully received But in an ignorant Age Visions Legends and bold Stories prevailed much yet the Greek Church never received it Some of the Fathers speak indeed of the last probatory Fire but though they did not think the Saints were in a state of consummate Blessedness enjoying the Vision of God yet they thought they were in a state of ease and quiet and that in Heaven St. Austin speaks in this whole matter very doubtfully he varies often from himself Aug. de Civit. Dâ—i l. 21. c. 18. ad 22. Enâ—â—â—r c. 67 68 69. Ad Dulcid 〈◊〉 primâ— he seems sometimes very positive only for two States at other times as he asserts the last probatory Fire so he seems to think that good Souls might suffer some grief in that sequestred state before the last Day upon the account of some of their past Sins and that by degrees they might arise up to their Consummation All these Contests were proposed very doubtfully before Gregory the Great 's days and even then some Doubts seem to have been made But the Legends were so copiously plaid upon all those Doubts that this Remnant of Paganism got at last into the Western Church Tertul. de Câ—r mil. c. â— de Ex. 〈◊〉 c. 13. â—â—prian 〈◊〉 34.37 〈…〉 75. l. 3. â—3 It was no wonder that the Opinions formerly mentioned which began to appear in the Second Age had preduced in the Third the practice of Praying for the Dead of which we find such full evidence in Tertullain and St. Cyprian's Writings that the matter of Fact is not to be denied This appears also in all the Antient Liturgies And Epiphanius charges Aerius with this of rejecting all Prayers for the Dead asking why were they prayed for The Opinions that they fell into concerning the State of departed Souls in the Interval between their Death and the Day of Judgment gave occasion enough for Prayer they thought they were capable of making a Progress and of having an early Resurrection They also had this Notion among them That it was the peculiar Priviledge of Jesus Christ to be above all our Prayers but that no Men not excepting the Apostles nor the Blessed Virgin were above the Prayers of the Church They thought this was an Act of Church-Communion that we were to hold even with the Saints in Heaven to pray for them Thus in the Apostolical Constitutions in the Books of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and in the Liturgies that are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysostom Dion de Eccl. Hierar Cap. 7. they offer unto God these Prayers which they thought their reasonable Service for those who were at rest in the Faith their Forefathers Fathers Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles Preachers Evangelists Martyrs Confessors Religious Persons and for every Spirit pâ—rfected in the Faith especially for our most Holy Immaculate most Blessed Lady the Mother of God the ever Virgin Mary Particular Instances might also be given of this out of St. Cyprian St. Ambrose Nazianzen and St. Austin Aug. Conf. l. 9. c. 19. who in that famous and much cited Passage concerning his Mother Monica as he speaks nothing of any Temporal Pains that she suffered so he plainly intimates his belief that God had done all that he desired Thus it will appear to those who have examined all the Passages which are brought out of the Fathers concerning their Prayers for the Dead that they believed they were then in Heaven and at rest and by consequence though these Prayers for the Dead did very proâ—ably give the chief rise to the Doctrine of Purgatory yet as they then made them they were utterly inconsistent with that Opinion Tertullian who is the first that is cited for them says we make Oblations for the Dead Supra and we do it for that Second Nativity of theirs Natalitia once a year The Signification of the word Natalitia as they used it was the Saint's Days of Death in which they reckoned he was born again to Heaven So though they judged them there yet they offered up Prayers for them And when Epiphanius brings in Aerius asking Why those Prayers were made for the Dead Though it had been very natural and indeed unavoidable if he had believed Purgatory to have answered that it was to deliver them from thence yet he makes no such answer but only asserts that it had been the Practice of the Church so to do The Greek Church retains that Custom though she has never admitted of Purgatory Here then an Objection may be made to our Constitution that in this of praying for the Dead we have departed from the practice of the Ancients We do not deny it both the Church of Rome and we in another Practice of equal Antiquity of giving the Eucharist to Infants have made changes and let that Custom fall The Curiosities in the Second Century seem to have given rise to those Prayers in the Third and they gave the rise to many other Disorders in the following Centuries Since therefore God has commanded us while we are on Earth to pray for one another and has made that a main Act of our Charity and Church-Communion but has no where directed us to pray for those that have finished their Course and since the only pretence that is brought from Scripture of St Paul's praying that Onesiphorus might find mercy in the day of the Lord cannot be wrought up into an Argument for it cannot be proved that he was then Dead and since the Fathers reckon this of praying for the Dead only as one of their Customs for which they vouch no other Warrant but Practice since also this has been grosly abused and has been applied to support a Doctrine totally different from theirs we think that we have as good a Plea
for not following them in this as we have for not giving Infants the Sacrament and therefore we think it no Imputation on our Church that we do not in this follow a groundless and a much abused Precedent though set us in Ages which we highly reverence The greatest Corruption of this whole matter comes in the last place to be considered which is the Methods proposed for redeeming Souls out of Purgatory If this Doctrine had rested in a Speculation we must still have considered it as derogatory to the Death of Christ and the Truth of the Gospel but it raises our Zeal a little more when we consider the use that was made of it and that Fears and Terrors being by this means infused into Mens minds new Methods were proposed to free them from these The chief of which was the saying of Masses for departed Souls It was pretended that this being the highest Act of the Communion of Christians and the most sublime Piece of Worship therefore God was so well pleased with the frequent Repetition of it with the Prayers that accompanied it and with those that made Provisions for Men who should be constantly imployed in it that this was a most acceptable Sacrifice to God Upon this followed all those vast Endowments for saying Masses for departed Souls Though in the Institution of that Sacrament and in all that is spoken of it in the Scripture there is not an hint given of this Sacraments are positive Precepts which are to be measured only by the Institution in which there is not room left for us to carry them further We are to take eat and drink and thereby shew forth the Lord's death till his second coming All which has no relation to the applying this to others who are gone off this Stage therefore if we can have any just Notions either of Superstition or of Will-worship they are applicable here Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an Action which we are sure it has not of it self and we cannot find that God has put in it and yet they without any Authority from God do set up a new piece of Worship and imagine that God will be pleased with them in every thing they do or ask only because they are perverting this piece of Worship clearly contrary to the Institution to be a Solitary Mass. In the Primitive Church where all the Service of the whole Assembly ended in a Communion there was a Roll read in which the Names of the more Eminent Saints of the Catholick Church and of the Holy Bishops Martyrs or Confessors of every particular Church were registred This was an honourable remembrance that was kept up of such as had died in the Lord. When the soundness of any Persons Faith was brought in suspicion his Name was not read till that Point was cleared and then either his Name continued to be read or it was quite dasht out This was thought an Honour due to the Memory of those who had died in the Faith And in St. Cyprian's time in the Infancy of this Practice Cypr. Epist. 1. Oâ—on ad â—leb Furer we see he counted the leaving a Man's Name out as a thing that only left a Blot upon him but not as a thing of any Consequence to his Soul for when a Priest had died who had by his Last Will named another Priest the Tutor or Guardian of his Children this seemed to him a thing of such ill Example to put those Secular Cares upon the Minds of the Clergy that he appointed that his Name should be no more read in the daily Sacrifice which plainly shews unless we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreasonable Cruelty that he considered that only as a small Censure laid on his Memory but not as a Prejudice to his Soul This gives us a very plain View of the Sense that he had of this Matter After this Roll was read then the general Prayer followed as was formerly acknowledged for all their Souls and so they went on in the Communion-Service This has no relation to a Mass said by a single Priest to deliver a Soul out of Purgatory Here without going far in Tragical expressions we cannot hold saying what our Saviour said upon another occasion My house is a house of prayer but ye have made it a den of thieves Mark 11.17 A Trade was set up on this Foundation The World was made believe that by the Virtue of so many Masses which were to be purchased by great Endowments Souls were redeemed out of Purgatory and Scenes of Visions and Apparitions sometimes of the tormented and sometimes of the delivered Souls were published in all Places which had so wonderful an effect that in two or three Centuries Endowments increased to so vast a degree that if the Scandals of the Clergy on the one hand and the Statutes of Mortmain on the other had not restrained the Profuseness that the World was wrought up to upon this account it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone perhaps to an entire subjecting of the Temporalty to the Spiritualty The Practices by which this was managed and the Effects that followed on it we can call by no other Name than downright Impostures worse than the making or venting false Coyn when the World was drawn in by such Aâ—â—s to plain Bargains to redeem their own Souls and the Souls of their Ancestors and Posterity so many Masses were to be said and Forfeitures were to follow upon their not being said Thus the Masses were really the Price of the Lands An Endowment to a Religious Use though mixed with Error or Superstition in the Rules of it ought to be held Sacred according to the Decision given concerning the Censures of those that were in the Rebellion of Corah Numb 16.38 So that we do not excuse the Violation of such from Sacriledge yet we cannot think so of Endowments where the only Consideration was a false Opinion first of Purgatory and then of Redemption out of it by Masses this being expressed in the very Deeds themselves By the same Reasons by which private Persons are obliged to restore what they have drawn from others by base Practices by false Deeds or counterfeit Coyn Bodies are also bound to restore what they have got into their Hands by such fraudulent Practices so that the States and Princes of Christendom were at full liberty upon the discovery of these Impostures to void all the Endowments that had followed upon them and either to apply them to better Uses or to restore them to the Families from which they had been drawn if that had been practicable or to convert them to any other use This was a crying Abuse which those who have observed the progress that this matter made from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth cannot reflect on without both Amazement and Indignation We are sensible enough that there are many political Reasons and Arguments for keeping up the Doctrine of Purgatory
But we have not so learned Christ. We ought not to lie even for God much less for our selves or for any other pretended ends of keeping the World in awe and order therefore all the Advantages that are said to arise out of this and all the Mischief that may be thought to follow on the rejecting of it ought not to make us presume to carry on the Ends of Religion by unlawful Methods This were to call in the Assistance of the Devil to do the Work of God If the just Apprehensions of the Wrath of God and the Guilt of Sin together with the Fear of Everlasting Burnings will not Reform the World nor Râ—strain Sinners we must leave this Matter to the wise and unsearchable Judgments of God The next Particular in this Article is the condemning the Romish Doctrine concerning Pardons That is founded on the Distinction between the Temporal and Eternal Punishment of Sin and the Pardon is of the Temporal Punishment which is believed to be done by a Power lodged singly in the Pope derived from those Words Feed my Sheep and To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven This may be by him derived as they Teach not only to Bishops and Priests but to the Inferior Orders to be dispensed by them and it excuses from Penance unless he who purchases it thinks fit to use his Penance in a medicinal way as a Preservative against Sin So the Virtue of Indulgences is the applying the Treasure of the Church upon such Terms as Popes shall think fit to prescribe in order to the redeeming Souls from Purgatory and from all other Temporal Punishments and that for such a number of Years as shall be specified in the Bulls some of which have gone to Thousands of Years one I have seen to Ten hundred thousand And as these Indulgences are sometimes granted by special Tickets like Tallies struck on that Treasure so sometimes they are affixed to particular Churches and Altars to particular Times or Days chiefly to the Year of Jubilee they are also affixed to such things as may be carryed about to Agnus Dei's to Medals to Rosaries and Scapularies they are also affixed to some Prayers the Devout saying of them being a mean to procure great Indulgences The granting these is left to the Pope's Discretion who ought to distribute them as he thinks may tend most to the Honour of God and the Good of the Church and he ought not to be too profuse much less to be too scanty in dispensing them This has been the received Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome since the Twelfth Century and the Council of Trent in a hurry in its last Session did in very general Words approve of the Practice of the Church in this Matter and Decreed that Indulgences should be continued only they restrained some Abuses in particular that of selling them yet even those Restraints were wholly referred to the Popes themselves So that this crying Abuse the Scandal of which had occasioned the first beginnings and progress of the Reformation was upon the matter established and the correcting the Excesses in it was trusted to those who had been the Authors of them and the chief Gainers by them This Point of their Doctrine is more fully opened than might perhaps seem necessary if it were not that a great part of the Confutation of some Doctrines is the exposing of them For though in Ages and Places of Ignorance these things have been and still are Practised with great assurance and to very extravagant excesâ—es yet in Countries and Ages of more Light when they come to be questioned they are disowned with an assurance equal to that with which they are Practised elsewhere Among us some will perhaps say that these are only exemptions from Penance which cannot be denied to be within the Power of the Church and they argue that though it is very fit to make severe Laws yet the execution of these must be softened in practice This is all that they pretend to justify and they give up any further Indulgences as an abuse of corrupt Times Whereas at the same time a very different Doctrine is Taught among them where there is no danger but much profit in owning it All this is only a pretence for the Episcopal Power in the inflicting abating or commuting of Penance is stated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of Indulgences They are derived from different Originals and designed for Ends totally different from one another The one is for the outward Discipline of the Church and the other is for the inward quiet of Consciences and in order to their future State The one is in every Bishop and the other is asserted to be peculiar to the Pope Nor will they escape by laying this Matter upon the Ignorance and Abuses of former Times It was published in Bulls and received by the whole Church So that if either the Pope or the diffusive Body of the Church are Infallible there must be such a Power in the Pope and the Decree of the Council of Trent confirming and approving the Practice of the Church in that Point must bind them all For if this Doctrine is False then their Infallibility must go with it For in every Hypothesis in which Infallibility is said to be lodged whether in the Pope or in Councils this Doctrine has that Seal to it As for the Doctrine it self all that has been already said against the distinction of Temporal and Eternal Punishment and against Purgatory overthrows it since the one is the Foundation on which it is built and the other is that which it pretends to secure Men from And therefore this falls with those All that was said upon the Head of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes also in here For if the Scriptures ought to be our Rule in any thing it must be chiefly in those Matters which relate to the Pardon of Sin to the quiet of our Consciences and to a future State Therefore a Doctrine and Practice that have not so much as Colours from Scripture in a matter of such Consequence ought to be rejected by us upon this single Account If from the Scripture we go to the Practice and Tradition of the Church we are sure that this was not thought on for above Ten Centuries all the Indulgences that were then known being only the abatements of the severity of the Penitentiary Canons But in the Ages in which aspiring and insolent Popes imposed on Ignorant and Superstitious multitudes a jumble was made of Indulgences formerly granted of Purgatory and of the Papal Authority that was then very implicitly submitted to and so out of all that mixture this arose Which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all publick Discipline but also all secret Penance when shorter Methods to Peace and Pardon may be more easily purchased The vast Application to the
could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to such Principles as are consistent with the Christian Religion if the Doctrine of the Roman Church is true Here then we have not only the Scripture but Tradition fully of our side Some pretended Christians it is true did very early Worship Images but those were the Gnosticks held in detestation by all the Orthodox Irenaeus Epiphanius and St. Austin tell us Iren. l. 1. c. 24. Epiph. Haeres 27. August de Haeres cap. 7. that they Worshipped the Images of Christ together with Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle Nor are they only blamed for Worshipping the Images of Christ together with these of the Philosophers but they are particularly blamed for having several sorts of Images and Worshipping these as the Heathens did and that among these there was an Image of Christ which they pretended to have had from Pilate Besides these Corrupters of Christianity there were no others among the Christians of the first Ages that Worshipped Images This was so well known to the Heathens that they bring this among other things as a reproach against the Christians that they had no Images Which the first Apologists are so far from denying that they answered them That it was impossible for him who knew God to Worship Images But as human Nature is inclined to visible Objects of Worship so it seems some began to Paint the Walls of their Churches with Pictures or at least moved for it In the beginning of the Fourth Century this was condemned by the Council of Eliberis Can. 36. It pleases us to have no Pictures in Churches lest that which is Worshipped should be Painted upon the Walls Towards the end of that Century we have an account given us by Epiphanius Epiph. ep ad Joan. Hieros of his Indignation occasioned by a Picture that he saw upon a Veil at Anablatha He did not much consider whose Picture it was whether a Picture of Christ or of some Saint he positively affirms it was against the Authority of the Scriptures and the Christian Religion and therefore he tore it but supplied that Church with another Veil It seems private Persons had Statues of Christ and the Apostles Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 7. c. 18. Aug. in Psal. 113. de Moribus Eccl. Cath. c. 34. which Eusebius censures where he reports it as a remnant of Heathenism It is plain enough from some passages in St. Austin that he knew of no Images in Churches in the beginning of the Fifth Century It is true they began to be brought before that time into some of the Churches of Pontus and Cappadocia which was done very probably to draw the Heathens by this piece of conformity to them to like the Christian Worship the better For that humour began to work and appeared in many Instances of other kinds as well as in this It was not possible that People could see Pictures in their Churches long without paying some marks of respect to them which grew in a little time to the downright worship of them A famous instance we have of this in the Sixth Century Serenus Bishop of Marseilles finding that he could not restrain his People from the Worship of Images broke them in pieces upon which Pope Gregory writ to him blaming him indeed for breaking the Images Greg. Epist. l. 9. Ep. 9. but commending him for not allowing them to be worshipped This he prosecutes in a variety of very plain Expressions It is one thing to worship an Image and another thing to learn by it what is to be worshipped He says they were set up not to be worshipped but to instruct the Ignorant and cites our Saviour's Words Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve to prove that it was not lawful to worship the work of mens hands We see by a fragment cited in the Second Nicene Council that both Iews and Gentiles took advantages from the Worship of Images to reproach the Christians soon after that time The Iews were scandalized at their Worshipping Images as being expresly against the Command of God The Gentiles had also by it great advantages of turning back upon the Christians all that had been written against their Images in the former Ages At last in the beginning of the Eighth Century the famous Controversy about the having or breaking of Images grew hot The Churches of Italy were so set on the worshipping of them This is owned by all the Historians of that Age Anastasius Zonaras Câ—drenus Glycâ—s Theophanes Sigebert Otho Pris. Urspergensis Sigonius Rubens and Ciaâ—â—nius that Pope Gregory the Second gives this for the reason of their Rebelling against the Emperor because of his opposition to Images And here in little more than an Hundred Years the See of Rome changed its Doctrine Pope Gregory the Second being as positive for the worshipping them as the first of that Name had been against it Violent Contentions arose upon this Head The breakers of Images were charged with Iudaism Samaritanism and Manicheism and the worshippers of them were charged with Gentilism and Idolatry One General Council at Constantinople consisting of about Three hundred and thirty eight Bishops condemned the Worshipping them as Idolatrous but another at Nice of Three hundred and fifty Bishops though others say they were only Three hundred asserted the Worship of them Yet as soon as this was known in the West how active soever the See of Rome was for establishing their Worship a Council of about Three hundred Bishops met at Francfort under Charles the Great which condemned the Nicene Council together with the Worship of Images The Gallican Church insisted long upon this matter Books were published in the Name of Charles the Great against them A Council held at Paris under his Son did also condemn Image-worship as contrary to the Honour that is due to God only and to the Commands that he has given us in Scripture The Nicene Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the Adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors Agobard Bishop of Lions and Claud of Turin writ against it the former writ with great vehemence The Learned Men of that Communion do now acknowledge that what he writ was according to the sense of the Gallican Church in that Age And even Ionas of Orleans who studied to moderate the matter and to reconcile the Gallican Bishops to the See of Rome yet does himself declare against the Worship of Images We are not concerned to examine how it came that all this vigorous opposition to Image-worship went off so soon It is enough to us that it was once made so resolutely let those who think it so incredible a thing that Churches should depart from the received Traditions answer this as they can As for the Methods then used and the Arguments that were then brought to infuse this Doctrine into the World Acta Con. Nic. 2. Action 4 5 6
increasing Numbers of the Christians made that both in France in the Councils of Orange and in Spain in the Council of Toledo the same Rule was laid down that the Greeks had begun In Spain some Priests did consecrate the Chrism but that was severely forbid in one of the Councils of Toledo Yet at Rome the ancient Custom was observed of appropriating the whole business of Confirmation to the Bishop Greg. Ep. l. 3. Ep. 9. even in Gregory the Great 's time Therefore he reproved the Clergy of Sardinia because among them the Priests did Confirm and he appointed it to be reserved to the Bishop But when he understood that some of them were offended at this he writ to the Bishop of Carali that tho' his former Order was made according to the ancient Practice of the Church of Rome yet he consented that for the future the Priests might Confirm in the Bishops absence But Pope Nicholas in the IX Century pressed this with more rigor For the Bulgarians being then converted to the Christian Religion and their Priests having both Baptized and Confirmed the new Converts Pope Nicholas sent Bishops among them with Orders to Confirm even those who had already been Confirmed by Priests Upon which the contest being then on foot between Rome and Constantinople Photius got it to be decreed in a Synod at Constantinople That theChrism being hallowed by a Bishop it might be administred by Presbyters And Photius affirmed that a Presbyter might do this as well as Baptize or Offer at the Altar But Pope Nicholas with the confidence that was often assumed by that See upon as bad grounds did affirm that this had never been allowed of And upon this many of the Latins did in the Progress of their Disputes with the Greeks say that they had no Confirmation This has been more enlarged on than was necessary by the designed shortness of this Work because all those of â—he Roman Communion among us have now no Confirmation In decr Con. Florent unless a Bishop happens to come amongst them And therefore it is now a commonDoctrine among them that tho' Confirmation is a Sacrament yet it is not necessary About this there were fierce Disputes among them about Sixty years ago whether it was necessary for them to have a Bishop here to Confirm according to the ancient Custom or not The Jesuites who had no mind to be under any Authority but their own opposed it for the Bishop being by Pope Eugenius declared to be the ordinary Minister of it from thence it was inferred that a Bishop was not simply necessary This was much censured by some of the Gallican Church If Confirmation were considered only as an Ecclesiastical Rite we could not dispute the power of the Church about it but we cannot allow that a Sacrament should be thus within the power of the Church or that a new Function of Consecrating Oil without applying it distinct from Confirmation and yet necessary to the very essence of it could have been set up by the power of the Church for if Sacraments are federal conveyances of Grace they must be continued according to their first Institution The Grace of God being only tied to the Actions with which it is promised We go next to the Second of the Sacraments here rejected which is Penance that is reckoned the Fourth in order among them Penance or Penitence is formed from the Latin Translation of a Greek word that signifies a change or renovation of Mind which Christ has made a necessary condition of the New Covenant It consists in several acts all which when joined together and producing this real change we become then true Penitents and have a right to the Remission of Sins which is in the New Testament often joined with Repentance and is its certain consequent The first act of this Repentance is Confession to God before whom we must humble our selves and confess our Sins to him upon which we believe that he is faithful and true to his Promises and just to forgive us our sins and if we have wronged others 1 John 1.9 or have given publick offence to the Body or Church to which we belong we ought to confess our faults to them likewise and as a mean to quiet Mens Consciences James 5.16 to direct them to compleat their Repentance and to make them more humble and ashamed of their Sins we advise them to use secret Confession to their Priest or to any other Minister of God's Word leaving this matter wholly to their discretion When these acts of sorrow have had their due effect in reforming the natures and lives of Sinners then their Sins are forgiven them In order to which we do teach them to Pray much to give Alms according to their Capacity and to fast as often as their Health and Circumstances will admit of and most indispensably to restore or repair as they find they have sinned against others And as we teach them thus to look back on what is past with a deep and hearty sorrow and a profound shame so we charge them to look chiefly forward not thinking that any acts with relation to what is past can as it were by an account or compensation free us from the guilt of our former Sins unless we amend our Lives and change our Tempers for the future The great design of Repentance being to make us like God Pure and Holy as he is Upon such a Repentance sincerely begun and honestly pursued we do in general as the Heralds of God's Mercy and the Ministers of his Gospel pronounce to our People daily the offers that are made us of Mercy and Pardon by Christ Jesus This we do in our daily Service and in a more peculiar manner before we go to the Holy Communion We do also as we are a Body that may be offended with the sins of others forgive the Scandals committed against the Church and that such as we think die in a state of Repentance may die in the full Peace of the Church we join both Absolutions in one in the last Office likewise praying to our Saviour that he would forgive them and then we as the Officers of the Church authorised for that end do forgive all the Offences and Scandals committed by them against the whole Body This is our Doctrine concerning Repentance in all which we find no Characters of a Sacrament no more than there is in Prayer or Devotion Here is no Matter no application of that Matter by a peculiar Form no Institution and no peculiar federal acts The Scene here is the Mind the acts are Internal the effect is such also and therefore we do not reckon it a Sacrament not finding in it any of the Characters of a Sacrament The matter that is assigned in the Church of Rome are the acts of the Penitent his Confession by his Mouth to the Priest the Contrition of his Heart and the satisfaction of his Work in doing the enjoined
Penance The Aggregate of all these is the Matter and the Form are the words Ego te Absolvo Now besides what we have to say upon every one of these particulars the Matter of a Sacrament must be some visible Sign applied to him that receives it Innoc. 3. in 4. later Can. 21 22. Conc. Trid. Sess. 14. c. 5. It is therefore a very absurd thing to imagine that a Man 's own Thoughts Words or Actions can be the Matter of a Sacrament How can this be sanctified or applied to him It will be a thing no less absurd to make the Form of a Sacrament to be a practice not much elder than Four hundred Year since no Ritual can be produced nor Author cited for this Form for above a Thousand Years after Christ. All the ancient Forms of receiving Penitents having been by a Blessing in the Form of a Prayer or a Declaration but none of them in these positive words I Absolve thee We think this want of Matter and this new invented Form being without any Institution in Scripture and different from so long a practice of the whole Church are such reasons that we are fully justified in denying Penance to be a Sacrament But because the Doctrine of Repentance is a point of the highest importance there arise several things here that ought to be very carefully examined As to Confession we find in the Scriptures that such as desired St. Iohn's Baptism Matt. 3.6 came confessing their sins but that was previous to Baptism We find also that scandalous Persons were to be openly rebuked before all and so to be put to shame 1 Tim. 5.10 in which no doubt there was a Confession and a publication of the Sin but that was a matter of the Discipline and Order of the Church which made it necessary to note such persons as walked disorderly 2 Thess. 3.14 1 Cor. 5.11 and to have no fellowship with them sometimes not so much as to eat with them who being Christians and such as were called Brothers were a reproach to their Profession But besides the Power given to the Apostles of binding and loosing which as was said on another Head belonged to other matters we find that when our Saviour breathed on his Apostles and gave them the Holy Ghost he with that told them That whose soever sins they remitted John 20.23 they were remitted and whose soever sins they retained they were retained Since a Power of remitting or retaining sin was thus given to them they infer that it seems reasonable that in order to their dispensing it with a due caution the knowledge of all sins ought to be laid open to them Some have thought that this was a Personal thing given to the Apostles with that Miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost with which such a discerning of Spirits was communicated to them that they could discern the sincerity or hypocrisy of those that came before them by this St. Peter discovered the sin of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5.3 9. and he also saw that Simon of Samaria was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity So they conclude that this was a part of that extraordinary and miraculous Authority which was given to the Apostles and to them only Acts 8.23 But others who distinguish between the full extent of this Power and the Ministerial Authority that is still to be continued in the Church do believe that these Words may in a lower and more limited Sense belong to the Successors of the Apostles but they argue very strongly that if these Words are to be understood in their full extent as they lie a Priest has by them an absolute and unlimited Power in this Matter not restrained to Conditions or Rules so that if he does Pardon or retain sins whether in that he does right or wrong the sins must be pardoned or retained accordingly He may indeed sin in using it wrong for which he must answer to God but he seems by the literal meaning of these Words to be cloathed with such a Plenipotentiary Authority that his Act must be valid though he may be punished for imploying it amiss An Ambassador that has full Powers though limited by secret Instructions does bind him that so empowered him by every Act that he does pursuant to his Powers how much soever it may go beyond his Instructions for how obnoxious soever that may render him to his Master it does not at all lessen the Authority of what he has done nor the Obligation that arises out of it So these words of Christ's if applied to all Priests must belong to them in their full extent and if so the Salvation or the Damnation of Mankind is put absolutely in the Priest's Power Nor can it be answered That the Conditions of the Pardon of sin that are expressed in the other parts of the Gospel are here to be understood though they are not expressed As we are said to be saved if we believe which does not imply that a single Act of believing the Gospel without any thing else puts us in a state of Salvation In Opposition to this we Answer That the Gospel having so described Faith to us as the Root of all other Graces and Virtues as that which produces them and which is known by them all that is promised upon our Faith must be understood of a Faith so qualified as the Gospel represents it and therefore that cannot be applied to this Case where an unlimited Authority is so particularly exprest that no Condition seems to be implied in it If any Conditions are elsewhere laid upon us in order to our Salvation then according to their Doctrine we may say that of them which they say of Contrition upon this occasion That they are necessary when we cannot procure the Priest's Pardon but that by it the want of them all may be supplied and that the Obligation to them all is superseded by it And if any Conditions are to be understood as limits upon this Power why are not all the Conditions of the Gospel Faith Hope and Charity Contrition and New Obedience made necessary in order to the lawful dispensing of it as well as Confession Attrition and the doing the Penance enjoyned Therefore since no Condition is here named as a restraint upon this General Power that is pretended to be given to Priests by those words of our Saviour they must either be understood as simple and unconditional or they must be limited to all the Conditions that are expressed in the Gospel For there is not the colour of a reason to restrain them to some of them and to leave out the rest And thus we think we are fully justified by saying that by these Words our Saviour did indeed fully empower the Apostles to publish his Gospel to the World and to declare the Terms of Salvation and of obtaining the Pardon of Sin in which they were to be infallibly assisted so that they could
not err in discharging their Commission and the Terms of the Covenant of Grace being thus settled by them all who were to succeed them were also empowered to go on with the Publication of this Pardon and of those glad Tidings to the World So that whatsoever they declared in the Name of God conform to the Tenor of that which the Apostles were to settle should be always made good We do also acknowledge that the Pastors of the Church have in the way of Censure and Government a Ministerial Authority to remit or to retain Sins as they are Matters of Scandal or Offence tho' that indeed does not seem to be the meaning of those Words of our Saviour and therefore we think that the power of pardoning and retaining is only declaratory so that all the exercises of it are are then only effectual when the Declarations of the Pardon are made conform to the Conditions of the Gospel This Doctrine of ours how much soever decried of late in the Roman Church as striking at the Root of the Priestly Authority yet has been maintained by some of their best Authors and some of the greatest of their School-men Thus we have seen upon what reason it is that we do not conclude from hence that Auricular Confession is necessary in which we think that we are fully confirmed by the Practice of many of the Ages of theChristian Church which did not understand these words as containing anObligation to Secret Confession It is certain that the Practice and Tradition of the Church must be relied on here if in any thing since there was nothing that both Clergy and Laity were more concerned both to know and to deliver down faithfully than this on which the Authority of the one and the Salvation of the other depended so much Such a Point as this could never have been forgot or mistaken many and clear Rules must have been given about it It is a thing to which Humane Nature has so much repugnancy that it must in the first forming of Churches have been infused into them as absolutely necessary in order to Pardon and Salvation A Church could not now be formed according to the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome without very full and particular Instructions both to Priests and People concerning Confession and Absolution It is the most intricate Part of their Divinity and that which the Clergy must be most ready at In Opposition to all this let it be considered that though there is a great deal said in the New Testament concerning Sorrow for Sin Repentance and Remission of Sins yet there is not a Word said nor a Rule given concerning Confession to be made to a Priest and Absolution to be given by him There is indeed a Passage in St. Iames's Epistle relating to Confession but it is to one another not restrained to the Priest James 5.16 as the Word rendred Faults seems to signify those Offences by which others are wronged in which case Confession is a degree of Reparation and so is sometimes necessary but whatever may be in this it is certain that the Confession which is there appointed to be made is a thing that was to be mutual among Christians and it is not commanded in order to Absolution but in order to the procuring the Intercessions of other good Men and therefore it is added and Pray for one another By the words that follow that ye may be healed joyned with those that went before concerning the Sick it seems the Direction given by St. Iames belongs principally to Sick Persons and the conclusion of the whole Period shews That it relates only to the private Prayers of good Men for one another The effectual fervent Prayer of a righteous man availeth much So that this place does not at all belong to Auricular Confession or Absolution Nor does there any Prints appear before the Apostacies that happened in the Persecution of Decius of the Practice even of confessing such heinous Sins as had been publickly committed Then arose the famous contests with the Novatians concerning the receiving the lapsed into the Communion of the Church again It was concluded not to exclude them from the hopes of Mercy or of Reconciliation yet it was resolved not to do that till they had been kept at a distance for some time from the Holy Communion at last they were admitted to make their Confession and so they were received to the Communion of the Church This time was shortned and many things were past over to such as shewed a deep and sincere Repentance and one of the Characters of a true Repentance upon which they were always treated with a great distinction of Favour was if they came and first accused themselves This shewed that they were deeply affected with the Sense of their Sins when they would not bear the load of them but became their own Accusers and discovered their Sins There are several Canons that make a difference in the degrees and time of the Penance between those who had accused themselves and those against whom their Sins were proved A great deal of this strain occurs often in the Writings of the Fathers which plainly shews that they did not look on the necessity of an Enumeration of all their Sins as commanded by God Otherwise it would have been enforced with Considerations of another nature than that of shortning their Penance The first occasion that was given to the Church to exercise thisDiscipline was from the frequent Apostacies into which many had lapsed during the Persecutions and when these went off another sort of Disorders began to break in upon the Church and to defile it Great numbers followed the Example of their Princes and became Christians but a mixed Multitude came among them so that there were many Scandals amongst that Body which had been formerly remarkable for the purity of their Morals and the strictness of their Lives It was the chief business of all those Councils that met in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries to settle many Rules concerning the degrees and time of Penance the Censures both of the Clergy and Laity the Orders of the Penitents and the Methods of receiving them to the Communion of the Church In some of those Councils they denied Reconciliation after some sins even to the last though the general Practice was to receive all at their Death Dallaeus de Confessione Morinus de Poenitentia but while they were in a good state of Health they kept them long in Penance in a publick Separation from the Common Priviledges of Christians and chiefly from the Holy Sacrament and under severe Rules and that for several Years more or fewer according to the Nature of their Sins and the Characters of their Repentance of which a free and unextorted Confession being one of the chief this made many prevent that and come in of their own accord to confess their sins which was much encouraged and magnified Confession was at first made
Arguments to perswade us that there is somewhat that is highly necessary to the Purity of Christians of which Christ has not said a Word and concerning which his Apostles have given us no Directions We do not deny but it may be a mean to strike Terror in People to keep them under awe and obedience it may when the management of it is in good hands be made a mean to keep the World in Order and to guide those of weaker Judgments more steadily and safely than could be well done any other way In the use of Confession when proposed as our Church does as matter of Advice and not of Obligation we are very sensible many good ends may be attained but while we consider those we must likewise reflect on the mischief that may arise out of it especially supposing the greater part both of the Clergy and Laity to be what they ever were and ever will be depraved and corrupted The People will grow to think that the Priest is in God's stead to them that their telling their sins to him is as if they confessed them to God they will expect to be easily discharged for a gentle Penance with a speedy Absolution and this will make them as secure as if their Consciences were clear and their Sins pardoned so the remedy being easy and always at hand they will be encouraged to venture the more boldly on Sin It is no difficult matter to gain a Priest especially if he himself is a bad Man to use them tenderly upon those occasions On the other hand corrupt Priests will find their account in the dispensing this great Power so as to serve their own ends They will know all Peoples Tempers and Secrets and how strict soever they may make the Seal of Confession to draw the World to trust to it yet in Bodies so knit together as Communities and Orders are it is not possible to know what use they may make of this Still they know all themselves and see into the weakness the passions and appetites of their People This must often be a great snare to them especially in the supposition that cannot be denied to hold generally true of their being bad Men themselves Great advantages are hereby given to infuse fears and scruples into Peoples minds who being then in their tenderest Minutes will be very much swayed and wrought on by them A bad Priest knows by this whom he may tempt to any sort of Sin And thus the good and the evil of Confession as it is a general Law upon allMens Consciences being weighed one against the other and it being certain that the far greater part of Mankind is always bad we must conclude that the evil does so far preponderate the good that they bear no comparison nor proportion to one another The matter at present under debate is only Whether it is one of the Laws of God or not And it is enough for the present purpose to shew that it is no Law of God upon which we do also see very good reason why it ought not to be made a Law of the Church both because it is beyond her Authority which can only go to matters of Order and Discipline as also because of the vast inconveniences that are like to arise out of it The next part of Repentance is Contrition which is a sorrow for Sin upon the motives of the Love of God and the hatred of Sin joined with a renovation of Heart This is that which we acknowledge to be necessary to compleat our Repentance but this consisting in the temper of a Man's Mind and his inward acts it seems a very absurd thing to make this the matter of a Sacrament since it is of a Spiritual and Invisible nature But this is not all that belongs to this head The Casuists of the Church of Rome have made a distinction between a perfect and an imperfect Contrition the imperfect they call Attrition which is any sorrow for Sin tho' upon an inferior motive such as may be particular to one act of Sin as when it rises from the loss or shame it has brought with it together with an act formed in detestation of it without a resolution to sin any more Such a sorrow as this is they teach does make the Sacrament effectual and puts a Man in a state of Justification tho' they acknowledge that without the Sacrament it is not sufficient to Justify him Trid. Sess. 14. c. 4. This was setled by the Council of Trent We think it strikes at the root of all Religion and Vertue and is a reversing of the design for which Sacraments were Instituted which was to raise our Minds to a high pitch of Piety and to exalt and purify our Acts. We think the Sacraments are profaned when we do not raise our Thoughts as high as we can in them To teach Men how low they may go and how small a measure will serve turn especially when the great and chief Commandment the consideration of the Love of God is left out seems to be one of the greatest corruptions in practice of which any Church can be guilty A slackness in Doctrine especially in so great a Point as this in which human nature is under so fatal a biass will always bring with it a much greater corruption in practice This will indeed make many run to the Sacrament and raise its value but it will rise upon the ruins of true Piety and Holiness There are few Men that can go long on in very great sins without feeling great remorses these are to them rather a Burthen that they cannot shake off than a Vertue Sorrow lying long upon their thoughts may be the beginning of a happy change and so prove a great blessing to them all which is destroyed by this Doctrine For if under such uneasy thoughts they go to Confession and are Attrite the Sacrament is valid and they are Justified Then the uneasiness goes off and is turned into joy without their being any thing the better by it They return to their Sins with a new calm and security because they are taught that their Sins are pardoned and that all Scores are cleared Therefore we conclude that this Doctrine wounds Religion in its Vitals and we are confirmed in all this by what appears in Practice And what the best Writers that have lived in that Communion have said of the abuses that follow on the Methods in which this Sacrament is managed among them which do arise mainly out of this Part of their Doctrine concerning Attrition All that they teach concerning those Acts of Attrition or even Contrition is also liable to great abuse in Practice for as a Man may bring forth those Acts in Words and not be the better for them So he may force himself to think them which is nothing but the framing an inward Discourse within himself upon them and yet these not arising genuinely from a new Nature or a change of Temper such Acts can
these are of no Value being only Inventions to deceive Men and to expose Religion to Mockery But even severe and afflicting Fasting if done only as a Punishment which when it is over the Penance is believed to be compleated gives such a low Idea of God and Religion that from thence Men are led to think very slightly of Sin when they know at what price they can carry it off Such a continuance in Fasting in order to Prayer as humbles and depresses Nature and raises the Mind is a great mean to reform the World but Fasting as a prescribed Task to expiate our Sins is a scorn put upon Religion Prayer when it arises from a serious Heart that is earnest in it and when it becomes habitual is certainly a most effectual mean to reform the World and to fetch down Divine Assistances But to appoint so many vocal Prayers to be gone through as a Task and then to tell the World that the running through these with few or no inward Acts accompanying them is Contrition or Attrition this is liker a Design to root out all the Impressions of Religion and all sense of that Repentance which the Gospel requires than to promote it This may be a Task fit to accustom Children to but it is contrary to the true Genius of Religion to teach Men instead of that reasonable Service that we ought to offer up to God to give him only the Labour of the Lips which is the Sacrifice of Fools Prayers gone through as a Task can be of no value and can find no acceptation in the sight of God And as St. Paul said that if he gave all his goods to the poor and had not Charity he was nothing 1 Cor. 13 1 2. So the greatest profusion of Alms-giving when done in a mercenary Way to buy off and to purchase a Pardon is the turning of God's House from being a house of prayer to be a den of thieves Upon all these Reasons we except to the whole Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome as to the Satisfaction made by doing Penance And in the last place we except to the Form of Absolution in these Words I Absolve thee We of this Church who use it only to such as are thought to be near Death cannot be meant to understand any thing by it but the full Peace and Pardon of the Church For if we meant a Pardon with relation to God we ought to use it upon many other occasions The Pardon that we give in the Name of God is only declaratory of his Pardon or supplicatory in a Prayer to him for Pardon In this we have the whole Practice of the Church till the Twelfth Century universally of our side All the Fathers all the ancient Liturgies all that have writ upon the Offices and the first Schoolmen are so express in this Matter that the thing in Fact cannot be denied Morinus has published so many of their old Rituals that he has put an end to all doubting about it In the Twelfth Century some few began to use the Words I Absolve thee Yet to soften this Expression that seemed New and Bold some tempered it with these Words in so far as it is granted to my frailty and others with those Words as far as the accusation comes from thee and as the pardon is in me Yet this Form was but little practised So that William Bishop of Paris speaks of the Form of Absolution as given only in a Prayer and not as given in these Words I Absolve thee He lived in the beginning of the Fourteenth Century so that this Practice though begun in other Places before that Time yet was not known long after in so publick a City as Paris But some Schoolmen begun to defend it as implying only a declaration of the Pardon pronounced by the Priest And this having an air of more Authority and being once justified by Learned Men did so universally prevail that in little more than sixty Years time it became the universal Practice of the whole Latin Church So sure a thing is Tradition and so impossible to be changed as they pretend when within the compass of one Age the new Form I Absolve thee was not so much as generally known and before the end of it the old Form of doing it in a Prayer with Imposition of Hands was quite worn out The Idea that arises naturally out of these words is that the Priest pardons Sins and since that is subject to such abuses and has let in so much corruption upon that Church we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a Sacrament but likewise to affirm that they have corrupted this great and important Doctrine of Repentance in all the Parts and Branches of it Nor is the matter mended with that Prayer that follows the Absolution The Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ Rituale Romanum de sacr poeniten the Merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints and all the good that thou hast done and the evil that thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of Sins the increase of Grace and the reward of eternal Life The third Sacrament rejected by this Article is Orders which is reckoned the sixth by the Church of Rome We affirm that Christ appointed a Succession of Pastors in different Ranks to be continued in his Church for the Work of the Gospel and the Care of Souls and that as the Apostles setled the Churches they appointed different Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons And we believe that all who are dedicated to serve in these Ministries after they are examined and judged worthy of them ought to be separated to them by the Imposition of Hands and by Prayer These were the only Rites that we find practised by the Apostles For many Ages the Church of God used no other therefore we acknowledge that Bishops Priests and Deacons ought to be blest and dedicated to the HolyMinistry by Imposition of Hands and Prayer And that then they are received according to the Order and Practice setled by the Apostles to serve in their respective Degrees Men thus separated have thereby Authority to perfect the Saints or Christians that is to perform the Sacred Functions among them to minister to them and to build them up in their most Holy Faith And we think no other Persons without such a Separation and Consecration can lawfully touch the Holy Things In all which we separate the Qualifications of the Functions from the inward Qualities of the Person the one not at all depending on the other The one relating only to the Order and the good Government of the Society and the other relating indeed to the Salvation of him that Officiates but not at all to the Validity of his Office or Service But in all this we see nothing like a Sacrament Here is neither Matter Form nor Institution here is only Prayer The laying on of Hands is only a gesture in Prayer
one Wife He adds upon that this is a great Mystery That is from hence another Mystical Argument might be brought to shew that Iew and Gentile must make one Body for since the Church was the Spouse of Christ he must according to that Figure have but one Wife and by consequence the Church must be One Otherwise the Figure will not be answered unless we suppose Christ to be in a State answering a Polygamy rather than a single Marriage Thus a clear Account of these Words is given which does fully agree to them and to what follows But I speak concerning Christ and the Church This which is all the Foundation of making Marriage a Sacrament being thus cleared there remains nothing to be said on this Head but to Examine one Consequence that has been drawn from the making it a Sacrament which is that the Bond is Indissoluble And that even Adultery does not void it The Law of Nature or of Nations seems very clear that Adultery at least on the Wife's part should dissolve it For the end of Marriage being the ascertaining of the Issue and the Contract it self being a mutual transferring the Right to one anothers Person in order to that End the breaking this Contract and destroying the End of Marriage does very naturally infer the Dissolution of the Bond And in this both the Attick and Roman Laws were so severe that a Man was Infamous who did not Divorce upon Adultery Our Saviour when he blamed the Iews for their frequent Divorces Matth. 5.32 Matth. 19.9 Mark 10.11 Luke 16.18 established this Rule that whosoever puts away his Wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth Adultery Which seems to be a plain and full Determination that in the Case of Fornication he may put her away and Marry another It is True St. Mark and St. Luke repeat these Words without mentioning this Exception so some have thought that we ought to bring St. Matthew to them and not them to St. Matthew But it is an universal Rule of expounding Scriptures that when a Place is fully set down by one inspired Writer and less fully by another that the Place which is less full is always to be expounded by that which is more full So tho' St. Mark and St. Luke report our Saviour's Words generally without the Exception which is twice mentioned by St. Matthew the other two are to be understood to suppose it for a general Proposition is true when it holds generally and Exceptions may be understood to belong to it though they are not named The Evangelist that does name them must be considered to have reported the matter more particularly than the others that do it not Since then our Saviour has made the Exception and since that Exception is founded upon a natural equity that the Innocent Party has against the Guilty there can be no reason why an Exception so justly grounded and so clearly made should not take place Both Tertullian Basil Chrysostom and Epiphanius allow of a Divorce in case of Adultery Tertul. lib. 4. cont Marcion c. 34. Basil. Ep. ad Amphil c. 9. Chrysos hom 17. in Matth. Epiph. haeres 59. Cath. Conc. Elib c. 65. Conc. Arel c. 10. Conc. Affric c. 102. Causa 32. q. 7. In decr Eug. in Conc. Flor. Erasm. in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. Cajetan in Matth. 19. c. 9. Cathar in 1. Ep. ad Cor. 7. l. 5. Annot. and in those days they had no other Notion of a Divorce but that it was the Dissolution of the Bond the late Notion of a Separation the Tie continuing not being known till the Canonists brought it in Such a Divorce was allowed by the Council of Elliberis The Council of Arles did indeed recommend it to the Husband whose Wife was guilty of Adultery not to Marry which did plainly acknowledge that he might do it It was and still is the constant practice of the Greek Church and as both Pope Gregory and Pope Zachary allowed the Innocent Person to Marry so in a Synod held at Rome in the Tenth Century it was still allowed When the Greeks were reconciled to the Latins in the Council of Florence this matter was past over and the care of it was only recommended by the Pope to the Emperor It is true Eugenius put it in hisInstruction to the Armenians but tho' that passes generally for a part of the Council of Florence yet the Council was over up before that was given out This Doctrine of the Indissolubleness of Marriage even for Adultery was never settled in any Council before that of Trent The Canonists and Schoolmen had indeed generally gone into that Opinion but not only Erasmus but both Cajetan and Catharinus declared themselves for the Lawfulness of it Cajetan indeed used a Salvo in case the Church had otherwise Defined which did not then appear to him So that this is a Doctrine very lately settled in the Church of Rome Our Reformers here had prepared a Title in the new Body of the Canon Law which they had Digested allowing Marriage to the Innocent Party And upon a great occasion then in Debate they declared it to be Lawful by the Law of God And if the Opinion that Marriage is a Sacrament falls the conceit of the absolute Indissolubleness of Marriage will fall with it The last Sacrament which is rejected by this Article that is the Fifth as they are reckoned up in the Church of Rome is Extreme Vnction In the Commission that Christ gave his Apostles among the other Powers that were given them to confirm it one was to cure diseases and heal the sick pursuant to which St. Mark tells Mark 6.13 that they anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them The Prophets used some Symbolical actions when they wrought Miracles so Moses used his Rod often Elisha used Elijah's Mantle our Saviour put his Finger into the deaf Man's Ear and made Clay for the blind Man and Oil being upon almost all occasions used in the Eastern Parts the Apostles made use of it But no hint is given that this was a Sacramental Action It was plainly a Miraculous Virtue that healed the Sick in which Oil was made use of as a Symbol accompanying it It was not prescribed by our Saviour for any thing that appears as it was not blamed by him neither It was no wonder if upon such a president those who had that extraordinary Gift did apply it with the use of Oil not as if Oil was the Sacramental Conveyance it was only used with it The end of it was Miraculous it was in order to the recovery of the sick and had no relation to their Souls though with the cure wrought on the Body there might sometimes be joined an operation upon the Soul and this appears clearly from St. Iames's words James 5.14 15. Is any sick among you let him call for the elders of the church and let him pray over him anointing him with
they may make the holy things to be loathed by the aversion that will naturally follow upon them yet after all though that aversion may go too far we must still distinguish between the things that the Ministers of the Church do as they are publick Officers and what they do as they are private Christians Their Prayers and every thing else that they do as they are private Christians have their effect only according to the state and temper that they are in when they offer them up to God but their publick Functions are the appointments of Christ in which they Officiate they can neither make them the better nor the worse by any thing that they join to them And if miraculous Vertues may be in Bad Men so that in the great Day some of those to whom Christ shall say I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity Mat. 7.22 may yet say to him Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works then certainly this may be concluded much more concerning those standing Functions and Appointments that are to continue in the Church Nor can any difference be made in this matter between publick Scandals and secret Sins for if the former make void the Sacraments the latter must do so too The only reason that can be pretended for the one will also fall upon the other for if the vertue of the Sacraments is thought to be derived upon them as an Answer of Prayer then since the Prayers of Hypocrites are as little effectual as the Prayers of those who are openly Vicious the Inference is good that if the Sacraments Administred by a scandalous Man are without any effect the Sacraments Administred by a Man that is inwardly Corrupted though that can be only known to God will be also of no effect and therefore this Opinion that was taken up perhaps from an inconsiderate Zeal against the sins and scandals of the Clergy is without all foundation and must needs cast all Men into endless scruples which can never be cured The Church of Rome though they reject this Opinion yet have brought in another very like it which must needs fill the Minds of Men with endless distractions and fears chiefly considering of what necessity and efficacy they make the Sacraments to be They do teach that the Intention of him that gives the Sacrament is necessary to the Essence of it so that without it no Sacrament can be Administred This was expresly affirmed by Pope Eugenius in his Decree and an Anathema past at Trent against those that deny it They do indeed define it to be only an Intention of doing that which the Church intends to do and though the surest way they say is to have an actual Intention yet it is commonly taught among them that a habitual or virtual Intention will serve But they do all agree in this that if a Priest has a secret Intention not to make a Sacrament that in that case no Sacrament is made and this is carried so far Miss Rom. Rubr. de defectu Intent art 1. that in one of the Rubricks of the Missal it is given as a Rule that if a Priest who goes to Consecrate Twelve Hosties should have a general Intention to leave out one of them from being truly Consecrated and should not apply that to any one but let it run loosely through them all that in such case he should not Consecrate any one of the Twelve that loose exception falling upon them all because it is not restrained to any one particular And among the Articles that were condemned by Pope Alexander the Eighth the 7th of December 1690. the 28th runs thus Valet Baptismus collatus a Ministro qui omnem ritum externum formamque Baptisandi observat intus vero in corde suo apud se resolvit non intendo quod facit Ecclesia And thus they make the secret acts of a Priest's mind enter so far into those Divine Appointments that by his Malice Irreligion or Atheism he can make those Sacraments which he visibly Blesses and Administers to be only the outward shews of Sacraments but no real ones We do not pretend that the Sacraments are of the nature of Charms so that if a Man should in a way of open Mockery and Profanation go about them that therefore because Matter and Form are observed they should be true Sacraments But though we make the serious appearances of a Christian action to be necessary to the making it a Sacrament yet we carry this no further to the inward and secret acts of the Priest as if they were essential to the being of it If this is true no Man can have quiet in his Mind It is a Profanation for an Unbaptized Person to receive the Eucharist so if Baptism is not true when a Priest sets his Intention cross to it then a Man in Orders must be in perpetual doubts whether he is not living in a continual state of Sacriledge in Administring the other Sacraments while he is not yet Baptized and if Baptism be so necessary to Salvation that no Man who is not Baptized can hope to be Saved here a perpetual scruple must arise which can never be removed Nor can a Man be sure but that when he thinks he is Worshipping the true Body of Jesus Christ he is committing Idolatry and Worshipping only a piece of Bread for it is no more according to them if the Priest had an Intention against Consecrating it No Orders are given if an Intention lies against them and then he who passes for a Priest is no Priest and all his Consecrations and Absolutions are so many invalid things and a continued course of Sacriledge Now what reason soever Men may have in this case to hope for the pardon of those sins since it is certain that the Ignorance is invincible yet here strange thoughts must arise concerning Christ and his Gospel if in those actions that are made necessary to Salvation it should be in the power of a false Christian or an Atheistical Priest or Bishop to make them all void so that by consequence it should be in his power to damn them for since they are taught to expect Grace and Justification from the Sacraments if these are no true Sacraments which they take for such but only the Shadows and the Phantasms of them then neither Grace nor Justification can follow upon them This may be carried so far as even to evacuate the very being of a Church for a Man not truly Baptized can never be in Orders so that the whole Ordinations of a Church and the Succession of it may be broke by the Impiety of any one Priest This we look on as such a chain of Absurdities that if this Doctrine of Intention were true it alone might serve to destroy the whole credit of the Christian Religion in which the Sacraments are taught to be both so
among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's Death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. Transubstantiation or the change of the Substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be Proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after a Heavenly and Spiritual manner and the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and Worshipped In the Edition of these Articles in Edward the VIth's Reign there was another long Paragraph against Transubstantiation added in these words Forasmuch as the Truth of Man's Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one time in divers places but must needs be in one certain place therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places And because as Holy Scripture doth teach Christ was taken up into Heaven and there shall continue unto the end of the World a Faithful Man ought not either to Believe or openly Confess the Real and Bodily Presence as they term it of Christ's Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper WHEN these Articles were at first prepared by the Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign this Paragraph was made a part of them for the Original Subscription by both Houses of Convocation yet extant shews this But the design of the Government was at that time much turned to the drawing over the Body of the Nation to the Reformation in whom the old Leven had gone deep and no part of it deeper than the belief of the Corporeal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a Definition in this matter in which the very word Real Presence was rejected It might perhaps be also suggested that here a Definition was made that went too much upon the Principles of Natural Philosophy which how true soever they might not be the proper subject of an Article of Religion Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this Paragraph though it was a part of the Article that was Subscribed yet it was not published but the Paragraph that follows The Body of Christ c. was put in its stead and was received and published by the next Convocation which upon the matter was a full Explanation of the way of Christ's Presence in this Sacrament that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that Faith is the mean by which he is received This seemed to be more Theological and it does indeed amount to the same thing But howsoever we see what was the Sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's Reign it differed in nothing from that in King Edward's Time And therefore though this Paragraph is now no Part of our Articles yet we are certain that the Clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the Truth of it we are sure it was their Opinion Since they subscribed it though they did not think fit to publish it at first and though it was afterwards changed for another that was the same in Sense In the treating of this Article I shall first lay down the Doctrine of this Church with the Grounds of it and then I shall examine the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which must be done copiously For next to the Doctrine of Infallibility this is the most valued of all their other Tenets this is the most Important in it self since it is the main Part of their Worship and the chief Subject of all their Devotions There is not any one thing in which both Clergy and Laity are more concerned which is more generally studied and for which they pretend they have more plausible Colours both from Scripture and the Fathers and if Sense and Reason seem to press hard upon it they reckon that as they understand the Words of St. Paul every thought must be captivated into the obedience of Faith 2 Cor. 10.5 In order to the expounding our Doctrine we must consider the Occasion and the Institution of this Sacrament The Iews were required once a Year to meet at Ierusalem in remembrance of the deliverance of their Fathers out of Egypt Exod. 12.11 Moses appointed that every Family should kill a Lamb whose Blood was to be sprinkled on their Door-posts and Lintels and whose Flesh they were to eat at the sight of which Blood thus sprinkled the destroying Angel that was to be sent out to kill the First-born of every Family in Egypt was to pass over all the Houses that were so marked And from that passing by or over the Israelites the Lamb was called the Lord's passover as being then the Sacrifice and afterwards the Memorial of that Passover The People of Israel were required to keep up the Memorial of that Transaction by slaying a Lamb before the Place where God should set his Name and by eating it up that Night They were also to eat with it a Sallet of bitter Herbs and unleavened Bread and when they went to eat of the Lamb they repeated these Words of Moses That it was the Lord's Passover Now tho' the first Lamb that was killed in Egypt was indeed the Sacrifice upon which God promised to pass over their Houses yet the Lambs that were afterwards offered were only the Memorials of it though they still carried that Name which was given to the First And were called the Lord's Passover So that the Iews were in the Paschal-Supper accustomed to call the Memorial of a thing by the Name of that of which it was the Memorial And as the Deliverance out of Egypt was a Type and Representation of that greater Deliverance that we were to have by the Messias the first Lamb being the Sacrifice of that Deliverance 1 Cor. 5.7 John 1.29 Compare Matt. 26.26 Mark 14.22 and the succeeding Lambs the Memorials of it so in order to this new and greater Deliverance Christ himself was our Passover that was sacrificed for us He was the Lamb of God that was both to take away the Sins of the World and was to lead Captivity Captive To bring us out of the Bondage of Sin and Satan into the Obedience of his Gospel He therefore chose the time of the Passover that he might be then offered up for us And did Institute this Memorial of it while he was celebrating the Iewish Pascha with his Disciples who were so much accustomed to the Forms and Phrases of that Supper in which every Master of a
their joining to the Idol Feasts for an Idol was nothing and so that wstich was offered to an Idol could contract no defilement from the Idol it being nothing Now if the meaning of their being partakers with Devils imports only their joining themselves in Acts of Fellowship with Idolaters then the Sin of this would have easily appeared without such a re-inforcing of the Matter For tho' an Idol was nothing yet it was still a great Sin to join in the Acts that were meant to be the Worship of this nothing This was a dishonouring of God and a debasing of Man But St. Paul seems to carry the Argument farther that how true soever it was that the Idol was nothing that is a dead and lifeless thing that had no Vertue nor Operation and that by consequence could derive nothing to the Sacrifice that was offered to it Yet since those Idols were the Instruments by which the Devil kept the World in Subjection to him all such as did partake in their Sacrifices might come under the Effects of that Magick that might be exerted about their Temples or Sacrifices By which the Credit of Idolatry was much kept up And though every Christian had a sure defence against the Powers of Darkness as long as he continued true to his Religion yet if he went out of that Protection into the Empire of the Devil and joined in the Acts that were as a Homage to him he then fell within the reach of the Devil and might justly fear his being brought into a Partnership of those magical Possessions or Temptations that might be suffered to fall upon such Christians as should associate themselves in so detestable a Service In the same Sense it was also said 1 Cor. 10.18 that all the Israelites who did eat of the Sacrifices were partakers of the Altar That is that all of them who joined in the Acts of that Religion such as the Offering their Peace-Offerings for of those of that kind they might only eat all these were partakers of the Altar That is of all the Blessings of their Religion of all the Expiations the Burnt-offerings and Sin-offerings that were offered on the Altar for the sins of the whole Congregation For that as a great Stock went in a common Dividend among such as observed the Precepts of that Law and joined in the Acts of Worship prescribed by it Thus it appears that such as joined in the Acts of Idolatry became partakers of all that Influence that Devils might have over those Sacrifices and all that continued in the Observances of the Mosaical Law had thereby a partnership in the Expiations of the Altar so likewise all Christians who receive this Sacrament worthily have by their so doing a share in that which is represented by it the Death of Christ and the Expiation and other Benefits that follow it This seemed necessary to be fully explained For this Matter how plain soever in it self has been made very dark by the ways in which some have pretended to open it With this I conclude all that belongs to the first Part of the Article and that which was first to be explained of our Doctrine concerning the Sacrament By which we assert a real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ but not of his Body as it is now glorified in Heaven but of his Body as it was broken on the Cross when his blood was shed and separated from it That is his Death with the merit and effects of it are in a visible and federal Act offered in this Sacrament to all worthy Believers By Real we understand True in opposition both to Fiction and Imagination And to those Shadows that were in the Mosaical Dispensation in which the Manna the Rock the brazen Serpent but most eminently the Cloud of Glory were the Types and Shadows of the Messias that was to come With whom came Grace and Truth that is a most wonderful Manifestation of the Mercy or Grace of God and a verifying of the Promises made under the Law In this Sense we acknowledge a real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament Though we are convinced that our first Reformers judged right concerning the use of the Phrase real Presence that it were better to be let fall than to be continued since the Use of it and that Idea which does naturally arise from the common acceptation of it may stick deeper and feed Superstition more than all thoâ—e larger Explanations that are given to it can be able to cure But howsoever in this Sense it is innocent of it self and may be lawfully used though perhaps it were more cautiously done not to use it since advantages have been taken from it to urge it farther than we intend it and since it has been a snare to some I go in the next Place to explain the Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning this Sacrament Transubstantiation does express it in one Word but that a full Idea may be given of this Part of their Doctrine I shall open it in all its Branches and Consequences The Matter of this Sacrament is not Bread and Wine For they are annihilated when the Sacrament is made They are only the remote Matter out of which it is made But when the Sacrament is made they cease to be And instead of them their outward Appearances or Accidents do only remain Which though they are no Substances yet are supposed to have a Nature and Essence of their own separable from Matter And these Appearances with the Body of Christ under them are the Matter of the Sacrament Now though the Natural and Visible Body of Christ could not be the Sacrament of his Body yet they think his real Body being thus veiled under the Appearances of Bread and Wine may be the Sacrament of his glorified Body Yet it seeming somewhat strange to make a true Body the Sacrament of it self they would willingly put the Sacrament in the Appearances but that would sound very harsh to make Accidents which are not Matter to be the Matter of the Sacrament Therefore since these words This is my Body must be literally understood the Matter must be the true Body of Christ so that Christ's Body is the Sacrament of his Body Christ's Body though now in Heaven is as they think presented in every Place where a true Consecration is made And though it is in Heaven in an extended State as all other Bodies are yet they think that Extension may be separated from Matter as well as the other Appearances or Accidents are believed to be separated from it And whereas our Souls are believed to be so in our Bodies that though the whole Soul is in the whole Body yet all the Soul is believed to be in every Part of it but so that if any Part of the Body is separated from the rest the Soul is not divided being one single Substance but retires back into the rest of the Body They apprehend that Christ's Body is present after
Arguments for the Negative yet that was not necessary For as a Negative always proves it self so that holds more especially here where that which is denied is accompanied with so many and so strange Absurdities as do follow from this Doctrine The last Topick in this Matter is the Sense that the ancient Church had of it For as we certainly have both the Scriptures and the Evidence of our Senses and Reason of our side so that will be much fortified if it appears that no such Doctrine was received in the First and best Ages And that it came in not all at once but by degrees I shall first urge this Matter by some general Presumptions And then I shall go to plain Proofs But though the Presumptions shall be put only as Presumptions yet if they appear to be violent so that a Man cannot hold giving his Assent to the Conclusion that follows from them then though they are put in the Form of presumptive Arguments yet that will not hinder them from being considered as concluding ones By the stating this Doctrine it has appeared how many Difficulties there are involved in it These are Difficulties that are obvious and soon seen They are not found out by deep enquiry and much speculation They are soon felt and are very hardly avoided And ever since the Time that this Doctrine has been received by the Roman Church these have been much insisted on Explanations have been offered to them all and the whole Principles of natural Philosophy have been cast into a new Mould that they might ply to this Doctrine At least those who have studied their Philosophy in that System have had such Notions put in them while their Minds were yet tender and capable of any Impressions that they have been thereby prepared to this Doctrine before they came to it by a Train of Philosophical Terms and Distinctions so that they were not much alarmed at it when it came to be set before them They are accustomed to think that Ubication or the being in a Place is but an Accident to a Substance So that the same Bodies being in more Places is only its having a few more of those Accidents produced in it by God They are accustomed to think that Accidents are Beings different from Matter like a sort of cloathing to it which do indeed require the having of a Substance for their Subject But yet since they are believed to have a being of their own God may make them subsist As the Skin of a Man may stand out in its proper Shape and Colour though there were nothing but Air or Vacuity within it They are accustomed to think that as an Accident may be without its proper Substance so a Substance may be without its proper Accidents And they do reckon Extension and Impenetrability that is a Bodies so filling a Space that no other Body can be in the same Space with it among its Accidents So that a Body composed of Organs and of large Dimensions may be not only all crouded within one Wafer but an entire distinct Body may be in every separable Part of this Wafer At least in every piece that carries in it the Appearances of Bread These besides many other lesser Subtilties are the evident Results of this Doctrine And it was a natural Effect of its being received that their Philosophy should be so transformed as to agree to it and to prepare Men for it Now to apply this to the Matter we are now upon We find none of these Subtilties among the Ancients They seem to apprehend none of those Difficulties nor do they take any pains to solve or clear them They had a Philosophical Genius and shewed it in all other things They disputed very nicely concerning the Attributes of God concerning his Essence and the Persons of the Trinity They saw the Difficulties concerning the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and Christ's being both God and Man They treat of Original Sin of the Power of Grace and of the Decrees of God They explained the Resurrection of our Bodies and the different States of the Blessed and the Damned They saw the Difficulties in all these Heads and were very Copious in their Explanations of them And they may be rather thought by some too full than too sparing in the canvassing of Difficulties But all those were more speculative Matters in which the Difficulty was not so soon seen as on this Subject Yet they found these out and pursued them with that Subtilty that shewed they were not at all displeased when occasions were offered them to shew their Skill in answering Difficulties Which to name no more appears very evidently to be St. Augustin's Character Yet neither he nor any of the other Fathers seem to have been Sensible of the Difficulties in this Matter They neither state them nor answer them nor do they use those reserves when they speak of Philosophical Matters that Men must have used who were possessed of this Doctrine For a Man cannot hold it without bringing himself to think and speak otherways upon all natural Things than the rest of Mankind do They are so far from this that on the contrary they deliver themselves in a way that shews they had no such Apprehensions of Things They thought that all Creatures were limited to one Place And from thence they argued against the Heathens who believed that their Deities were in every one of those Statues which they consecrated to them From this Head they proved the Divinity of the Holy Ghost Because he wrought in many different Places at once Which he could not do if he were only a Creature They affirm that Christ can be no more on Earth since he is now in Heaven and that he can be but in one Place They say that which hath no Bounds nor Figure and that can neither be touched nor seen cannot be a Body That Bodies are extended in some Place and cannot exist after the Manner of Spirits They argue against the Eternity of Matter from this that nothing could be produced that had a Being before it was produced And on all Occasions they appeal to the Testimony of our Senses as Infallible They say that to believe otherwise tended to reverse the whole State of Life and Order of Nature and to reproach the Providence of God since it must be said that he has given the Knowledge of all his Works to Liars and Deceivers if our Senses may be false That we must doubt of our Faith if the Testimony of hearing seeing and feeling could deceive us And in their Contests with the Marcionites and others concerning the Truth of Christ's Body they appeal always to the Testimony of the Senses as Infallible And even treating of the Sacrament they say without Limitation or Exception that it was Bread as their Eyes witnessed and true Wine that Christ did Consecrate to be the Memorial of his Body and Blood and they tell us in this very Particular that we ought not to
doubt of the Testimony of our Senses Another presumptive Proof that the Ancients knew nothing of this Doctrine is that the Heathens and the Iews who charged them and their Doctrine with every thing that they could invent to make both it and them odious and ridiculous could never have passed over this in which both Sense and Reason seemed to be so evidently on their side They reproach the Christians for believing a God that was Born a God of Flesh that was crucified and buried They laughed at their belief of a Judgment to come of endless Flames of a heavenly Paradise and of the Resurrection of the Body Those who writ the first Apologies for the Christian Religion Iustin Martyr Tertullian Origen Arnobius and Minutius Felix have given us a large Account of the Blasphemies both of Iews and Gentiles against the Doctrines of Christianity Cyril of Alexandria has given us Iulian's Objections in his own Words who having been not only initiated into the Christian Religion but having read the Scriptures in the Churches and being a Philosophical and Inquisitive Man must have been well instructed concerning the Doctrine and the Sacraments of this Religion And his Relation to the Emperor Constantine must have made the Christians concerned to take more than ordinary Pains on him When he made Apostacy from the Faith he reproached the Christians with the Doctrine of Baptism and laughed at them for thinking that there was an Ablution and Sanctification in it conceiving it a thing Impossible that Water should wash or cleanse a Soul Yet neither he nor Porphiry nor Celsus before them did charge this Religion with the Absurdities of Transubstantiation It is reasonable to believe that if the Christians of that time had any such Doctrine among them it must have been known Every Christian must have known in what Sense those Words This is is my body and This is my blood were understood among them All the Apostates from Christianity must have known it and must have published it to excuse or hide the shame of their Apostacy Since Apostates are apt to spread Lies of them whom they forsake but not to conceal such Truths as are to their Prejudice Iulian must have known it and if he had known it his Judgment was too True and his Malice to the Christian Religion too Quick to overlook or neglect the Advantages which this part of their Doctrine gave him Nor can this be carried off by saying that the eating of human Flesh and the Thyestean Suppers which were objected to the Christians relate to this When the Fathers answer that they tell the Heathens that it was a downright Calumny and Lie And do not offer any Explanations or Distinctions taken from their Doctrine of the Sacrament to clear them from the mistake and malice of this Calumny The Truth is the execrable Practices of the Gnosticks who were called Christians gave the Rise to those as well as to many other Calumnies But they were not at all founded on the Doctrine of the Eucharist which is never once mentioned as the Occasion of this Accusation Another Presumption from which we conclude that the Ancients knew nothing of this Doctrine is that we find Heresies and Disputes arising concerning all the other Points of Religion There were very few of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion and not any of the Mysteries of the Faith that did not fall under great Objections But there was not any one Heresy raised upon this Head Men were never so meek and tame as easily to believe things when there appeared strong Evidence or at least great Presumptions against them In these last Eight or Nine Centuries since this Doctrine was received there has been a perpetual Opposition made to it even in dark and unlearned Ages In which implicite Faith and blind Obedience have carried a great sway And though the Secular Arm has been employed with great and unrelenting Severities to extirpate all that have opposed it Yet all the while many have stood out against it and have suffered much and long for their rejecting it Now it is not to be imagined that such an opposition should have been made to this Doctrine during the nine hundred Years last past and that for the former eight hundred Years there should have been no Disputes at all concerning it And that while all other things were so much questioned that several Fathers writ and Councils were called to settle the Belief of them yet that for about eight hundred Years this was the single Point that went down so easily that no Treatise was all that while writ to prove it nor Council held to establish it Certainly the Reason of this will appear to be much rather that since there have been Contests upon this Point these last Nine Ages and that there were none the first Eight this Doctrine was not known during those First Ages and that the great Silence about it for so long a time is a very strong Presumption that in all that time this Doctrine was not thought of The last of those Considerations that I shall offer which are of the nature of presumptive Proofs is that there are a great many Rites and other practices that have arisen out of this Doctrine as its natural Consequences which were not thought of for a great many Ages but that have gone on by a perpetual progress and have increased very fruitfully ever since this Doctrine was received Such are the Elevation Adoration and Processions together with the Doctrine of Concomitance and a vast number of Rites and Rubricks the first occasions and beginnings of which are well known These did all arise from this Doctrine it being natural especially in the Ages of Ignorance and Superstition for Men upon the supposition of Christ's being Corporally present to run out into all possible Inventions of Pomp and Magnificence about this Sacrament and it is very reasonable to think that since these things are of so late and so certain a date that the Doctrine upon which they are founded is not much ancienter The great Simplicity of the Primitive Forms not only as they are reported by Iustin Martyr and Tertullian in the Ages of the Poverty and Persecutions of the Church but as they are represented to us in the Fourth and Fifth Century by Cyril of Ierusalem the Constitutions and the pretended Areopagite have nothing of that Air that appears in the latter Ages The Sacrament was then given in both kinds it was put in the hands of the Faithful they reserved some portions of it It was given to Children for many Ages The Laity and even Boys were imployed to carry it to dying Penitents what remained of it was burnt in some places and consumed by the Clergy and by Children in other places the making Cataplasms of it the mixing the Wine with Ink to sign the Condemnation of Hereticks are very clear Presumptions that this Doctrine was not then known But above all their not adoring the Sacrament which
is not done to this day in the Greek Church and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ of the Offices of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries so copiously this I say of their not adoring it is perhaps more than a presumption that this Doctrine was not then thought on But since it was established all the Old Forms and Rituals have been altered and the Adoring the Sacrament is now become the main act of Devotion and of Religious Worship among them One ancient Form is indeed still continued which is of the strongest kind of Presumptions that this Doctrine came in much later than some other Superstitions which we condemn in that Church In the Masses that are appointed on Saints-days there are some Collects in which it is said that the Sacrifice is offered up in honour to the Saint and it is prayed that it may become the more valuable and acceptable by the Merits and Intercessions of the Saint Now when a practice will well agree with one Opinion but not at all with another we have all possible reason to presume at least that at first it came in under that Opinion with which it will agree and not under another which cannot consist with it Our Opinion is that the Sacrament is a federal act of our Christianity in which we offer up our highest Devotions to God through Christ and receive the largest Returns from him It is indeed a Superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a Saint but howsoever upon the supposition of Saints hearing our Prayers and Interceding for us there is still good sense in this but if it is believed that Christ is Corporally present and that he is offered up in it it is against all Sense and it approaches to Blasphemy to do this to the Honour of a Saint and much more to desire that this which is of infinite value and is the foundation of all God's Blessings to us should receive any addition or increase in its value or acceptation from the Merits or Intercession of Saints So this tho' a late practice yet does fully evince that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence was not yet thought on when it was first brought into the Office So far I have gone upon the Presumptions that may be offered to prove that this Doctrine was not known to the Ancients They are not only just and lawful Presumptions but they are so strong and violent that when they are well considered they force an assent to that which we infer from them I go next to the more plain and direct Proofs that we find of the Opinion of the Ancients in this Matter They call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration Iustin Martyr calls them Bread and Wine Apolog. 2. and a nourishment which nourished He indeed says it is not common Bread and Wine which shews that he thought it was still so in Substance And he illustrates the Sanctification of the Elements by the Incarnation of Christ in which the human Nature did not lose or change its Substance by its Union with the Divine So the Bread and the Wine do not according to that Explanation lose their proper Substance when they become the Flesh and Blood of Christ. Irenoeus calls it that Bread over which thanks are given and says it is no more common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and a heavenly Lib. 4. de haer c. 34. Lib. 1. adver Marcion c. 14. Lib. 3 adver Marcion c. 19. Tertullian arguing against the Marcionites who held two Gods and that the Creator of this Earth was the bad God but that Christ was contrary to him urges against them this that Christ made use of the Creatures And says he did not reject Bread by which he represents his own Body And in another Place he says Christ calls Bread his Body That from thence you may understand that he gave the figure of his Body to the Bread Origen says we eat of the Loaves that are set before us Lib. 8. contâ—a Celsum Which by prayer are become a certain holy body that sanctifies those who use them with a sound purpose St. Cyprian says Christ calls the Bread that was compounded of many grains Ep. â—6 Ep. 63. his Body And the Wine that is pressed out of many grapes his Blood to shew the Vnion of his People And in another Place writing against those who used only Water but no Wine in the Eucharist He says we cannot see the Blood by which we are Redeemed when Wine is not in the Chalice by which the Blood of Christ is shewed Epiphanius being to Prove that Man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he is not like him urges this In Anchoreto That the Bread is not like Christ neither in his invisible Deity nor in his Incarnate likeness for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue Gregory Nyssen says the Bread in the beginning is common In orat de baptis Christi but after the Mystery has consecrated it it is said to be and is the Body of Christ To this he compares the Sanctification of the mystical Oil of the Water in Baptism and the Stones of an Altar or Church dedicated to God St. Ambrose calls it still Bread De Benedict Patriarch c. 9. Hom. 24. in Ep. ad Cor. and says this Bread is made of the food of the Saints St. Chrysostom on these words the Bread that we break says What is the bread The Body of Christ What are they made to be who take it The Body of Christ. Which shews that he considered the Bread as being so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers became his Body which is done not by a change of Substance but by a Sanctification of their Natures St. Ierom says Christ took Bread Comm. in St. Matth. c. 26. that as Melchisedeck had in the figure offered Bread and Wine he might also represent the truth that is in Opposition to the Figure of his Body and Blood St. Augustin does very largely compare the Sacraments being called the Body and Blood of Christ Cit. apud Fulgent de Baptismo with those other Places in which the Church is called his Body and all Christians are his Members Which shews that he thought the One was to be understood Mystically as well as the other He calls the Eucharist frequently our daily Bread and the Sacrament of Bread and Wine All these call the Eucharist Bread and Wine in express Words But when they call it Christ's Body and Blood they call it so after a sort or that it is said to be or with some other mollifying Expression St. Augustin says this plainly Aug. Ep. 23. ad Bonifac Serm. 2. in Psal. 33. Chrys. Ep. ad Caesâ—r in coâ—ment in Ep. ad Gaâ— c. 5. after some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and
our Saviour's speaking of giving his Flesh to them to eat it he adds They foolishly and carnally thought Lib. 20. con Faust. c. 21. in Psal. 98. v. 5. that he was to cut off some parcels of his Body to be given to them but he shews that there was a Sacrament hid there and he thus Paraphrases that Passage The words that I have spoken to you they are spirit and life Vnderstand spiritually that which I have said for it is not this Body which you see that you are to eat or to drink this Blood which they shall shed who crucifie me But I have recommended a Sacrament to you which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And tho' it be necessary that it be celebrated visibly yet it must be understood invisibly Primasius compares the Sacrament to a Pledge Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. which a dying Man leaves to any one whom he loved But that which is more Important than the Quotation of any of the words of the Fathers is that the Author of the Books of the Sacraments which pass under the Name of St. Ambrose Lib. 4. dâ— Sacram. c. 5. tho' it is generally agreed that those Books were writ some Ages after his Death gives us the Prayer of Consecration as it was used in his time He calls it the Heavenly Words and sets it down The Offices of the Church are a clearer Evidence of the Doctrine of that Church than all the Discourses that can be made by any Doctor in it the one is the Language of the whole Body whereas the other are only the private reasonings of particular Men And of all the Parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that which does most certainly set out to us the sense of that Church that used it But that which makes this Remark the more Important is that the Prayer as set down by this pretended St. Ambrose is very near the same with that which is now in the Canon of the Mass only there is one very Important variation which will best appear by setting both down That of St. Ambrose's is Fac nobis hanc oblationem ascriptam rationabilem acceptabilem quod est figura Corporis Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi qui pridie quam pateretur c. That in the Canon of the Mass is Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quae sumus benedictam ascriptam ratam rationabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi We do plainly see so great a resemblance of the later to the former of these two Prayers that we may well conclude that the one was begun in the other but at the same time we observe an Essential difference In the former this Sacrifice is called the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. Whereas in the later it is Prayed that it may become to us the Body and Blood of Christ. As long as the former was the Prayer of Consecration it is not pofsible for us to imagine that the Doctrine of the Corporal Presence could be received for that which was believed to be the true Body and Blood of Christ could not be called especially in such a part of the Office the Figure of his Body and Blood and therefore the change that was made in this Prayer was an evident proof of a change in the Doctrine and if we could tell in what Age that was done we might then upon greater certainty fix the time in which this change was made or at least in which the inconsistency of that Prayer with this Doctrine was observed I have now set down a great variety of Proofs reduced under different Heads from which it appears evidently that the Fathers did not believe this Doctrine but that they did affirm the contrary very expresly This Sacrament continued to be so long considered as the Figure or Image of Christ's Body that the Seventh General Council which met at Constantinople in the Year 754 and consisted of above Three hundred and thirty Bishops when it condemned the Worship of Images affirmed that this was the only Image that we might lawfully have of Christ and that he had appointed us to offer this Image of his Body to wit the Substance of the Bread That was indeed contradicted with much confidence by the Second Council of Nice in which in opposition to what appears to this day in all the Greek Liturgies and the Greek Fathers they do positively deny that the Sacrament was ever called the Image of Christ and they affirm it to be the true Body of Christ. In conclusion I shall next shew how this Doctrine crept into the Church for this seems plausible that a Doctrine of this nature could never have got into the Church in any Age if those of the Age that admitted it had not known that it had been the Doctrine of the former Age and so upwards to the Age of the Apostles It is not to be denied but that very early both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus thought that there was such a Sanctification of the Elements that there was a Divine Vertue in them And in those very Passages which we have urg'd from the Arguings of the Fathers against the Eutychians tho' they do plainly prove that they believed that the Substance of Bread and Wine did still remain yet they do suppose an Union of the Elements to the Body of Christ like that of the Human Nature's being united to the Divine here a Foundation was laid for all the Superstructure that was afterwards raised upon it For tho' the Liturgies and Publick Offices continued long in the first simplicity yet the Fathers who did very much study Eloquence chiefly the Greek Fathers carried this matter very far in their Sermons and Homilies They did only apprehend the Profanation of the Sacrament from the unworthiness of those who came to it and being much set on the begetting a due reverence for so holy an action and a seriousness in the performance of it they urg'd all the Topicks that sublime Figures or warm Expressions could help them with and with this exalted Eloquence of theirs we must likewise observe the state that the World fell in in the Fifth Century Vast Swarms out of the North over-run the Roman Empire and by a long continued Succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined In the West the Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alans the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and the Lombards some of these Nations but in conclusion the Saracens and Turks in the East made Havock of all that was polite or learned by which we lost the chief Writings of the first and best Times but instead of these many spurious ones were afterwards produced and they passed easily in dark and ignorant Ages All fell under much oppression and misery and Europe was so over-run with Barbarity and Ignorance that it cannot be easily
apprehended but by such as have been at the pains to go through one of the ungratefullest pieces of Study that can be well imagined and have read the Productions of those Ages The understanding the Scriptures or Languages or History were not so much as thought on Some affected Homilies or Discantings on the Rituals of the Church full of many very odd Speculations about them are among the best of the Writings of those Times They were easily imposed on by any new Forgery witness the Reception and Authority that was given to the Decretal Epistles of the Popes of the first Three Centuries which for many Ages maintained its credit tho' it was plainly a Forgery of the Eighth Century and was contrived with so little Art that there is not in them colour enough to excuse the ignorance of those that were deceived by it As it is an easie thing to mislead ignorant multitudes so there is somewhat in Incredible Opinions and Stories that is suited to such a state of Mankind and as Men are apt to fancy that they see Sprights especially in the Night so the more of darkness and unconceivableness that there is in an Opinion it is the more properly calculated for such times The Ages that succeeded were not only times of Ignorance but they were also times of much Corruption The Writers of the Fourth and Fifth Century give us dismal Representations of the Corruptions of their times and the scandalous unconstancy of the Councils of those Ages is too evident a proof of what we find said by the Good Men of those days But things fell lower and lower in the succeeding Ages It is an amazing thing that in the very Office of Consecrating Bishops Examinations are ordered concerning those Crimes the very mention of which give horrour De Coitu cum Masculo cum Quadrupedâ—bus The Popes more particularly were such a Succession of Men that as their own Historians have described them nothing in any History can be produced that is like them The Characters they give them are so monstrous that nothing under the authority of unquestioned Writers and the Evidence of the Facts themselves could make them credible But that which makes the Introduction of this Doctrine appear the more probable is that we plainly see the whole Body of the Clergy was every where so Influenced by the management of the Popes that they generally entred into Combinations to subject the Temporalty to the Spiritualty and therefore every Opinion that tended to render the Persons of the Clergy Sacred and to raise their Character high was sure to receive the best entertainment and the greatest incouragement possible Nothing could carry this so far as an Opinion that represented the Priest as having a Character by which with a few words he could make a God The Opinion of Transubstantiation was such an Engine that it being once set on foot could not but meet with a favourable reception from those who were then seeking all possible colours to give credit to their authority and to advance it The numbers of the Clergy were then so great and their contrivances were so well suited to the credulity and superstition of those times that by Visions and wonderful Stories confidently vouched they could easily infuse any thing into weak and giddy Multitudes Besides that the Genius of those Times led them much to the love of Pomp and Shew they had lost the true Power and Beauty of Religion and were willing by outward Appearances to balance or compensate for their great Defects But besides all those general Considerations which such as are acquainted with the History of those Ages know do belong to them in a much higher Degree than is here set forth There are some Specialities that relate to this Doctrine in Particular which will make the Introduction of it appear the more Practicable This had never been condemned in any former Age for as none condemn Errors by Anticipation or Prophesy so the Promoters of it had this Advantage that no formal Decision had been made against them It did also in the outward sound agree with the Words of the Institution and the Phrases generally used of the Elements being changed into the Body and Blood of Christ Outward sound and appearance was enough in Ignorant Ages to hide the Change that was made The step that is made from believing any thing in General with an indistinct and confused Apprehension to a determined way of explaining it is not hard to be brought about The People in General believed that Christ was in the Sacrament and that the Elements were his Body and Blood without troubling themselves to Examine in what Manner all this was done So it was no great step in a dark Age to put a particular Explanation of this upon them And this Change being brought in without any visible Alterations made in the Worship it must needs have passed with the World more easily For in all Times visible Rites are more minded by the People than speculative Points which they consider very little No Alterations were at first made in the Worship the Adoration of the Host and the Processions invented to Honour it came all afterwards Greg. Doâ—râ—t Lib. â— Tit. 42. cap. 10. Honorius IV. who first appointed the Adoration does not pretend to Found it on ancient Practice Only he commands the Priests to tell the People to do it And he at first enjoined only an Inclination of the Head to the Sacrament But his Successor Gregory IX did more resolutely Command it and ordered a Bell to be rung at the Consecration and Elevation to give notice of it that so all those who heard it might kneel and join their Hands and so Worship the Host. The first Controversy about the Manner of the Presence arose incidentally upon the Controversy of Images The Council at Constantinople decreed that the Sacrament was the Image of Christ in which the substance of Bread and Wine remained Those at Nice how furiously soever they fell upon them for calling the Sacrament the Image of Christ yet do no where blame them for saying that the substance of Bread and Wine remained in it For indeed the Opinion of Damascene and of most of the Greek Church was That there was an Assumption of the Bread and Wine into an Vnion with the Body of Christ. The Council of Constantinople brought in their Decision occasionally that being considered as the setled Doctrine of the Church whereas those of Nice did visibly Innovate and Falsify the Tradition For they affirm as Damascene had done before them that the Elements weâ—e called the Antitypes of Christ's Body only before they were consecrated but not after it Which they say none of the Fathers had done This is so notoriously False that no Man can pretend now to justify them in it since there are above twenty of the Fathers that were before them who in plain words call the Elements after Consecration the Figure and Antitype of Christ's
Body Here then was the Tradition and Practice of the Church falsified which is no small Prejudice against those that support the Doctrine as well as against the Credit of that Council About thirty Years after that Council Paschase Radbert Abbot of Corby in France did very plainly assert the corporal Presence in the Eucharist He is acknowledged both by Bellarmin and Sirmondus to be the first Writer that did on purpose advance and explain that Doctrine He himself values his Pains in that Matter and as he laments the slowness of some in believing it so he pretends that he had moved many to assent to it But he confesses that some blamed him for ascribing a Sense to the Words of Christ that was not consonant to Truth There was but one Book writ in that Age to second him the Name of the Author was lost till Mabillon discovered that it was writ by one Herigerus Abbot of Cob. But all the Eminent Men and the great Writers of that time wrote plainly against this Doctrine and affiâ—med that the Bread and Wine remained in the Sacrament and did nourish our Bodies as other Meats do Those were Rabanus Maurus Archbishop of Mentz Amalarius Archbishop of Triers Heribald Bishop of Auxerre Bertram or Ratramne Iohn Scot Erigena Walafridus Strabus Florus and Christian Druthmar Three of these set themselves on purpose to refute Paschase Rabanus Maurus in an Epistle to Abbot Egilon wrote against Paschase for saying that it was that Body that was born of the Virgin that was crucified and raised up again which was daily offered up And though that Book is lost yet as he himself refers his Reader to it in his Penitential so we have an Account given of it by the Anonymous defender of Paschase Ratramne was commanded by Charles the Bald then Emperour to write upon that Subject which he in the beginning of his Book promises to do not trusting to his own Sense but following the Steps of the Holy Fathers He tells us that there were different Opinions about it Some believing that the Body of Christ was there without a Figure Others saying that it was there in a Figure or Mystery Upon which he apprehended that a great Schism must follow His Book is very short and very plain He asserts our Doctrine as expresly as we our selves can do He delivers it in the same Words and proves it by many of the same Arguments and Authorities that we bring Raban and Ratramne were without dispute reckoned among the first Men of that Age. Iohn Scot was also commanded by the same Emperour to write on the same Subject He was one of the most Learned and the most Ingenious Men of the age and was in great Esteem both with the Emperour and with our King Alfred He was reckoned both a Saint and a Martyr He did formally refute Paschase's Doctrine and assert ours His Book is indeed lost but a full Account of it is given us by other Writers of that Time And it is a great Evidence that his Opinion in this Matter was not then thought to be contrary to the general Sense of the Church in that Age For he having writ against St. Augustin's Doctrine concerning Predestination there was a very severe Censure of him and of his Writings published under the Name of the Church of Lions In which they do not once reflect on him for his Opinions touching the Eucharist It appears from this that their Doctrine concerning the Sacrament was then generally received Since both Ratramne and he though they differ'd extreamly in that Point of Predestination yet both agreed in this It is probable that the Saxon Homily that was read in England on Easter-day was taken from Scot's Book which does fully reject the corporal Presence This is enough to shew that Paschase's Opinion was an Innovation broached in the Ninth Century and was opposed by all the Great Men of that Age. The Tenth Century was the blackest and most ignorant of all the Ages of the Church There is not one Writer in that Age that gives us any clear Account of the Doctrine of the Church Such remote Hints as occur do still savour of Ratramne's Doctrine All Men were then asleep and so it was a fit time for the Tares that Paschase had sown to grow up in it The Popes of that Age were such a Succession of Monsters that Baronius cannot forbear to make the saddest Exclamations possible against their Debaucheries their Cruelties and their other Vices About the middle of the Eleventh Century after this Dispute had slept almost two hundred Years it was again revived Bruno Bishop of Angiers and Berengarius his Archdeacon maintained the Doctrine of Ratramne Little mention is made of the Bishop but the Archdeacon is spoken of as a Man of great Piety So that he past for a Saint and was a Man of such Learning that when he was brought before Pope Nicolaus no Man could resist him He writ against Paschase and had many followers The Historians of that Age tell us that his Doctrine had overspread all France The Books writ against him by Lanfranc and others are filled with an impudent corrupting of all Antiquity Many Councils were held upon this Matter and these together with the Terrours of Burning which was then beginning to be the common Punishment of Heresy made him renounce his Opinion But he returned to it again yet he afterwards renounced it Though Lanfranc reproaches him that it was not the Love of Truth but the Fear of Death that brought him to it And his final Retracting of that renouncing of his Opinion is lately found in France as I have been credibly informed Thus this Opinion that in the Ninth Century was generally received and was condemned by neither Pope nor Council was become so odious in the Eleventh Century that none durst own it And he who had the Courage to own it yet was not resolute enough to stand to it For about this Time the Doctrine of extirpating Hereticks and of deposing such Princes as were Defective in that Matter was universally put in Practice Great Bodies of Men began to separate from the Roman Communion in the Southern Parts of France and one of the chief Points of their Doctrine was their believing that Christ was not corporally Present in the Eucharist and that he was there only in a Figure or Mystery But now that the contrary Doctrine was established and that those who denied it were adjudged to be burnt it is no wonder if it quickly gained Ground when on the one hand the Priests saw their Interest in promoting it and all People felt the Danger of denying it The Anathema's of the Church and the Terrours of Burning were infallible Things to silence Contradiction at least if not to gain Assent Soon after this Doctrine was received the Schoolmen began to refine upon it Lib. 4. Dist. 11. as they did upon every thing else The Master of the Sentences would not determine how Christ was Present
is offered in this matter is that since the declared Object of Worship is Iesus Christ believed to be there present then whether he is present or not the Worship terminates in him both the secret acts of the Worshippers and the professed Doctrine of the Church do lodge it there And therefore it may be said that tho' he should not be actually present yet the act of Adoration being directed to him must be accepted of God as right meant and duly directed even tho' there should happen to be a mistake in the outward application of it In answer to this we do not pretend to determine how far this may be pardoned by God whose Mercies are infinite and who does certainly consider chiefly the Hearts of his Creatures and is merciful to their Infirmities and to such Errors as arise out of their weakness their Hearts being sincere before him We ought to consider this action as it is in it self and not according to Mens Apprehensions and Opinions about it If the conceits that the Ancient Idolaters had both concerning their Gods and the Idols that they Worshipped will excuse from Idolatry it will be very hard to say that there were ever any Idolaters in the World Those who Worshipped the Sun thought that the great Divinity was lodged there as in a Vehicle or Temple but yet they were not by reason of that misconception excused from being Idolaters If a false Opinion upon which a practice is founded taken up without any good authority will excuse Mens Sins it will be easie for them to find Apologies for every thing If the Worship of the Elements had been commanded by God then an Opinion concerning it might excuse the carrying of that too far but there being no Command for it no hint given about it nor any insinuation given of any such practice in the beginnings of Christianity an Opinion that Men have taken up cannot justifie a new practice of which neither the first nor a great many of the following Ages knew any thing An Opinion cannot justifie Mens practice founded upon it if that proves to be false All the softning that can be given it is that it is a sin of Ignorance but that does not change the nature of the action how far soever it may go with relation to the Judgments of God If the Opinion is rashly taken up and stiffly maintained the Worship that is introduced upon it is aggravated by the ill foundation that it is built upon We know God by his Essence is every where but this will not justifie our Worshipping any Material Object upon this pretence because God is in it we ought never to Worship Him towards any visible Object unless he were evidently declaring his Glory in it as he did to Moses in the Flaming-bush to the Israelites on Mount Sinai and in the Cloud of Glory or to us Christians in a sublimer manner in the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ. But by this parity of Reason tho' we were sure that Christ were in the Elements yet since he is there Invisible as God is by his Essence every where we ought to direct no Adoration to the Elements we ought only to Worship God and his Son Christ Jesus in the grateful remembrance of his Sufferings for us which are therein commemorated We ought not to suffer our Worship to terminate on the Visible Elements because if Christ is in them yet he does not manifest that visibly to us Since therefore the Opinion of the Corporal Presence upon which this Adoration is founded is False and since no such Worship is so much as mentioned much less commanded in Scripture and since there can scarce be any Idolatry in the World so gross as that it shall not excuse it self by some such Doctrine by which all the acts of Worship are made to terminate finally in God we must conclude that this Plea cannot excuse the Church of Rome from Idolatry even though their Doctrine of the Corporal Presence were true But much less if it is False We do therefore condemn this Worship as Idolatry without taking upon us to define the Extent of the Mercies of God towards all those who are involved in it If all the Premises are True then it is needless to insist longer on explaining the following Paragraph of the Article that Christ's Body is received in the Sacrament in a heavenly and spiritual Manner and that the Mean by which it is received is Faith For that is such a natural result of them that it appears evident of it self as being the Conclusion that arises out of those Premises The last Paragraph is against the reserving carrying about the lifting up or the worshipping the Sacrament The Point concerning the Worship which is the most essential of them has been already considered As for the reserving or carrying the Sacrament about it is very visible that the Institution is Take eat and drink ye all of it which does import that the consumâ—ng the Elements is a part of the Institution and by consequence that they are a Sacrament only as they are distributed and received It is true the practice of reserving or sending about the Elements began very early the state of things at first made it almost unavoidable When there were yet but a few converted to Christianity and when there were but few Priests to serve them they neither could nor durst meet all together especially in the times of Persecution so some parts of the Elements were sent to the absents to those in Prison and particularly to the Sick as a Symbol of their being parts of the Body and that they were in the Peace and Communion of the Church The Bread was sent with the Wine and it was sent about by any Person whatsoever sometimes by Boys Eus. Hist. lib. 6. c. 44. as appears in the famous Story of Serapion in the Third Century So that the condition of the Christians in that time made that necessary to keep them all in the sense of their obligation to Union and Communion with the Church and that could not well be done in any other way But we make a great difference between this practice when taken up out of necessity tho' not exactly conform to the first Institution and the continuing it out of Superstition when there is no need of it Therefore instead of Consecrating a larger portion of Elements than is necessary for the occasion and the reserving what is over and above and the setting that out with great Pomp on the Altar to be worshipped or the carrying it about with a vast Magnificence in a Procession invented to put the more honour on it or the sending it to the Sick with Solemnity we chuse rather to Consecrate only so much as may be judged fit for the number of those who are to communicate And when the Sacrament is over we do in imitation of the practice of some of the Ancients consume what is left that there may be no occasion
were a mere question of Words to dispute concerning the term Sacrifice to consider the Extent of that Word and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a Sacrifice In general all Acts of Religious Worship may be called Sacrifices because somewhat is in them offered up to God Let my Prayer be set forth before thee as Incense and the lifting up of my Hands as the evening Sacrifice Psal. 141.2 Psal. 51.17 The Sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit A broken and a contrite Heart O God thou wilt not despise These shew how largely this Word was used in the Old Testament So in the New we are exhorted by him that is by Christ to offer the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually that is the Fruit of our Lips giving Thanks to his Name A Christian's dedicating himself to the Service of God Hebr. 13.15 Rom. 12.1 is also expressed by the same Word of presenting our Bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God All Acts of Charity are also called Sacrifices an odour of a sweet smell Phil. 4.10 a Sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So in this large Sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving And our Church calls it so in the Office of the Communion In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a Sacrifice One is because there is an Oblation of Bread and Wine made in it which being sanctified are consumed in an Act of Religion To this many passages in the Writings of the Fathers do relate This was the Oblation made at the Altar by the People And though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of a Religion in which they had neither Temples Altars nor Sacrifices because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the Heathens had yet both Clemens Romanus Ignatius and all the succeeding Writers of the Church do frequently mention the Oblations that they made And in the Antient Liturgies they did with particular Prayers offer the Bread and Wine to God as the Great Creator of all things Those were called the Gifts or Offerings which were offered to God in imitation of Abel who offered the Fruits of the Earth in a Sacrifice to God Both Iustin Martyr Irenaeus the Constitutions and all the antient Liturgies have very express Words relating to this Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a Sacrifice is because it is a Commemoration and a Representation to God of the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross In which we claim to that as to our Expiation and Feast upon it as our Peace-offering according to that antient Notion that Covenants were confirmed by a Sacrifice and were concluded in a Feast on the Sacrifice Upon these Accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a Sacrifice But still it is a commemorative Sacrifice and not propitiatory That is we do not distinguish the Sacrifice from the Sacrament as if the Priests consecrating and consuming the Elements were in an especial manner a Sacrifice any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the Elements is an Act that does reconcile God to the Quick and the Dead We consider it only as a federal Act of professing our Belief in the Death of Cstrist and of renewing our Baptismal Covenant with him The Virtue or effects of this are not General they are limited to those who go about this piece of Worship sincerely and devoutly they and they only are concerned in it who go about it And there is no special Propitiation made by this Service It is only an Act of Devotion and Obedience in those that eat and drink worthily and though in it they ought to pray for the whole Body of the Church yet those their Prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout Intercessions but not by any peculiar Virtue in this Action On the other hand the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is that the Eucharist is the highest Act of Homage and Honour that Creatures can offer up to the Creator as being an Oblation of the Son to the Father So that whosoever procures a Mass to be said procures a new piece of Honour to be done to God with which he is highly pleased and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such Masses to be said whether they be still on Earth or if they are now in Purgatory And that the Priest in offering and consuming this Sacrifice performs a true Act of Priesthood by reconciling Sinners to God Somewhat was already said of this on the Head of Purgatory It seems very plain by the Institution that our Saviour as he blessed the Sacrament said Take eat St. Paul calls it a Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord and a Partaking of the Lord's Table and he through his whole Discourse of it speaks of it as an Action of the Church and of all Christians but does not so much as by a Hint intimate any thing peculiar to the Priest So that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it represents it as an Action of the whole Body in which the Priest has no special share but that of officiating In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long Discourse concerning Sacrifices and Priests in order to the explaining of Christ's being both Priest and Sacrifice There a Priest stands for a Person called and consecrated to offer some living Sacrifice and to slay it and to make reconciliation of Sinners to God by the shedding offering or sprinkling the Blood of the Sacrifice This was the Notion that the Iews had of a Priest And the Apostle designing to prove that the Death of Christ was a true Sacrifice brings this for an Argument that there was to be another Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec He begins the fifth Chapter with settling the Notion of a Priest Heb. 5.10 according to the Iewish Ideas And then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a Priest called of God and Consecrated But in this Sense he appropriates the Priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ in opposition to the many Priests of the Levitical Law And they truly were many Priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason of Death But this Man Heb. 7.24 because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood It is clear from the whole Thread of that Discourse that in the strictest Sense of the Word Christ himself is the only Priest under the Gospel and it is also no less evident that his Death is the only Sacrifice in opposition to the many Oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away Sin Which appears very plain from these Words Who needeth not daily as those High-Priests to offer up
express in this matter as is possible The whole Constitution of their Worship and Discipline shews it Their Worship concluded always with the Eucharist Such as were not capabl e of it as the Catechumens and those who were doing Publick Penance for their Sins assisted at the more general parts of the Worship and so much of it was called their Mass because they were dismissed at the Conclusion of it When that was done then the Faithful staid and did partake of the Eucharist and at the conclusion of it they were likewise dismissed from whence it came to be called the Mass of the Faithful The great Rigor of Penance was thought to consist chiefly in this That such Penitents might not stay with the Faithful to communicate And though this seems to be a Practice begun in the Third Century yet both from Iustin Martyr and Tertullian it is evident that all the Faithful did constantly communicate There is a Canon among those which go under the name of the Apostles Can. 9. Aâ—ost against such as came and assisted in the other parts of the Service and did not partake of the Eucharist The same thing was decreed by the Council of Antioch Con. Antioch Can. 2. Const. Apost l. 8. cap. 11. Hom. 3. in Ep. ad Eph Lib. 2. And it appears by the Constitutions That a Deacon was appointed to see that no man should go out and a Subdeacon was to see that no Woman should go out during the Oblation The Fathers do frequently allude to the Word Communion to shew that the Sacrament was to be common to all It is true in St. Chrysostom's time the Zeal that the Christians of the former Ages had to communicate often began to slacken so that they had thin Communions and few Communicants against which that Father raises himself with his Pathetick Eloquence in words which do shew that he had no Notion of Solitary Masses or of the Lawfulness of them And it is very evident that the Neglect of the Sacrament in those who came not to it and the Prophanation of it by those who came unworthily both which grew very scandalous at that time set that Holy and Zealous Bishop to many Eloquent and Sublime Strains concerning it which cannot be understood without making those Abatements that are dâ—e to a copious and Asiatick stile when much inflamed by Devotion In the succeeding Ages we find great Care was taken to suffer none that did not communicate to stay in the Church and to see the Mysteries There is a Rubrick for this in the Office mentioned by Gregory the Great Dialog Conc. Mogunt Can. 43. The Writers of the Ninth Century go on in the same Strain It was decreed by the Council of Mentz in the end of Charles the Great 's Reign That no Priest should say Mass alone for how could he say The Lord be with you or Lift up your hearts if there was no other Person there besides himself This shews that the practice of Soâ—itary Masses was then begun but that it was disliked Walafridus Strabus says That to a lawful Mass it was necessary that there should be a Priest Walaf Strab. de rebus Eccles c. 22. together with one to answer one to offer and one to communicate And the Author of Micrologus who is believed to have writ about the End of the Eleventh Century does condemn Solitary Communions as contrary both to the Practice of the Antients and to the several parts of the Office So that till the Twelfth Century it was never allowed of in the Roman Church as to this day it is not practised in any other Communion But then with the Doctrine of Purgatory and Transubstantiation mixt together the saying of Masses for other Persons whether alive or dead grew to be considered as a very meritorious thing and of great Efficacy Thereupon great Endowments were made and it became a Trade Masses were sold and a small Piece of Money became their Price So that a prophane sort of Simony was set up and the holiest of all the Institutions of the Christian Religion was exposed to Sale Therefore we in cutting off all this and in bringing the Sacrament to be according to its first Institution a Communion have followed the Words of our Saviour and the constant Practice of the whole Church for the first Ten Centuries So far all the Articles that relate to this Sacrament have been considered The variety of the Matter and the Important Controversies that have arisen out of it has made it necessary to enlarge with some Copiousness upon the several Branches of it Next to the Infallibility of the Church this is the dearest piece of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and is that in which both Priests and People are better instructed than in any other Point whatsoever and therefore this ought to be studied on our side with a Care proportioned to the Importance of it That so we may govern both our selves and our People aright in a matter of such Consequence avoiding with great Caution the Extremes on both hands both of excessive Superstition on the one hand and of Prophane Neglect on the other For the nature of Man is so moulded that it is not easy to avoid the one without falling into the other We are now visibly under the Extreme of Neglect and therefore we ought to study by all means possible to inspire our People with a just Respect for this Holy Institution and to animate them to desire earnestly to partake often of it and in order to that to prepare themselves seriously to set about it with the Reverence and Devotion and with those Holy Purposes and Solemn Vows that ought to accompany it ARTICLE XXXII Of the Marriage of Priests Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the Estate of Single Life or to abstain from Marriage Therefore it is lawful for them as well as for all Christian Men to Marry at their own discretion as they shall judg the same to serve better to Godliness THE first Period of this Article to the word Therefore was all that was published in King Edward's time They were content to lay down the Assertion and left the Inference to be made as a Consequence that did naturally arise out of it There was not any one Point that was more severely examined at the time of the Reformation than this For as the irregular Practices and dissolute Lives of both Seculars and Regulars had very much prejudiced the World against the Celibate of the Roman Clergy which was considered as the occasion of all those Disorders so on the other hand the Marriage of the Clergy and also of those of both Sexes who had taken Vows gave great Offence They were represented as Persons that could not master their Appetites but that indulged themselves in Carnal Pleasures and Interests Thus as the Scandals of the Unmarried Clergy had alienated the World much from them so the
delivered Hymenaeus and Alexander unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme And he ordered that the incestuous person at Corinth should be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Iesus Certainly a Vicious indulgence to Sinners is an encouragement to them to live in Sin whereas when others about them try all methods for their Recovery and Mourn for those Sins in which they do perhaps Glory and do upon that withdraw themselves from all Communication with them both in Spirituals and as much as may be in Temporals likewise this is one of the last means that can be used in order to the reclaiming of them Another Consideration is the Peace and the Honour of the Society S. Paul wished that they were cut off that troubled the Churches Gal. 5.12 Great care ought to be taken that the Name of God and his Doctrine be not blasphemed and to give no occasion to the Enemies of our Faith to reproach us as if we designed to make Parties to promote our own Interests and to turn Religion to a Faction Excusing such as adhere to us in other things though they should break out into the most scandalous Violations of the greatest of all the Commandments of God Such a behaviour towards Excommunicated persons would also have this further good Effect It would give great Authority to that Sentence and fill mens minds with the Awe of it which must be taken off when it is observed that men converse familiarly with those that are under it These Rules are all founded upon the Principles of Societies which as they associate upon some common designs so in order to the pursuing those must have a power to separate themselves from those who depart from them In this Matter there are Extremes of both hands to be avoided Some have thought that because the Apostles have in general declared such persons to be accursed 1 Cor. 16.22 or under an Anathema who preach another Gospel and such as love not the Lord Iesus to be Anathema Maranatha which is generally understood to be a total cutting off never to be admitted till the Lord comes that therefore the Church may still put men under an Anathema for holding such unsound Doctrines as they think make the Gospel to become another in part at least if not in whole and that she may thereupon in imitation of another practice of the Apostles deliver them over unto Satan casting them out of the protection of Christ and abandoning them to the Devil Reckoning that the cutting them off from the Body of Christ is really the exposing them to the Devil who goes about as a Roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour But with what Authority soever the Apostles might upon so great a matter as the changing the Gospel or the not loving the Lord Iesus denounce an Anathema yet the applying this which they used so seldom and upon such great occasions to every Opinion after a Decision is made in it as it has carried on the Notion of the Infallibility of the Church so it has laid a Foundation for much Uncharitableness and many Animosities It has widened Breaches and made them incurable And unless it is certain that the Church which has so decreed cannot err it is a bold assuming of an Authority to which no fallible Body of men can have a Right That delivery unto Satan was visibly an act of a miraculous Power lodged with the Apostles For as they struck some blind or dead so they had an Authority of letting loose Evil Spirits on some to haunt and terrify or to punish and plague them that a desperate Evil might be cured by an extreme Remedy And therefore the Apostles never reckon this among the Standing Functions of the Church Nor do they give any Charge or Directions about it They used it themselves and but seldom It is true that S. Paul being carried by a just zeal against the Scandal which the incestuous person at Corinth had cast upon the Christian Religion did adjudg him to this severe degree of Censure But he judged it and did only order the Corinthians to publish it as coming from him with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ That so the thing might become the more publick and that the effects of it might be the more conspicuous The Primitive Church that being nearest the Fountain did best understand the Nature of Church-Power and the Effects of her Censures thought of nothing in this matter but of denying to suffer Apostates or rather scandalous persons to mix with the rest in the Sacrament or in other parts of Worship They admitted them upon the profession of their Repentance by an imposition of Hands to share in some of the more general parts of the Worship and even in these they stood by themselves and at a distance from the rest And when they had passed through several Degrees in that state of Mourning they were by steps received back again to the Communion of the Church This agrees well with all that was said formerly concerning the Nature and the Ends of Church-Power Which was given for edification and not for destruction 2 Cor. 10.8 This is suitable to the designs of the Gospel both for preserving the Society pure and for reclaiming those who are otherwise like to be carried away by the Devil in his snare This is to admonish Sinners as Brethren and not to use them as Enemies Whereas the other method looks like a power that designs Destruction rather than Edification especially when the Secular Arm is called in and that Princes are required under the Penalties of Deposition and losing their Dominions to extirpate and destroy and that by the cruellest sort of Death all those whom the Church doth so Anathematize We do not deny but that the form of denouncing or declaring Anathemas against Heresies and Hereticks is very Antient. It grew to be a Form expressing horror and was applied to the Dead as well as to the Living It was understood to be a cutting such Persons off from the Communion of the Church if they were still alive they were not admitted to any Act of Worship if they were dead their Names were not to be read at the Altar among those who were then commemorated But as heat about Opinions encreased and some lesser matters grew to be more valued then the weightier things both of Law and Gospel so the adding Anathemas to every point in which men differed from one another grew to be a common practice and swelled up at last to such a pitch that in the Council of Trent a whole Body of Divinity was put into Canons and an Anathema was fastened to every one of them The delivering to Satan was made the common Form of Excommunication an Act of Apostolical Authority being made a Precedent for the standing practice of the Church Great Subtilties were also set on foot concerning the force and
effect of Church-Censures The straining this matter too high has given occasion to extremes on the other hand If a man is condemned as an Heretick for that which is no Heresy but is an Article founded on the Word of God his Conscience is not at all concerned in any such Censure Great Modesty and Decency ought indeed to be shewed by private persons when they dispute against publick Decisions But unless the Church is Infallible none can be bound to implicit Faith or blind Submission Therefore an Anathema ill founded cannot hurt him against whom it is thundred If the Doctrine upon which the Censures and Denunciations of the Church are grounded is true and if it appears so to him that sets himself against it he who thus despises the Pastors of the Church despises Christ In whose Name and by whose Authority they are acting But if he is still under Convictions of his being in the right when he is indeed in the wrong then he is in a state of Ignorance and his Sins are Sins of Ignorance and they will be judged by that God w ho knows the sincerity of all mens Hearts and sees into their secretest Thoughts how â—ar the Ignorance is wilful and affected and how far it is sincere and invincible And as for those Censures that are founded upon the Proofs that are made of certain Facts that are scandalous either the person on whom they are charged knows himself to be really guilty of them or that he is wronged either by the Witnesses or the Pastors and Judges If he is indeed guilty he ought to consider such Censures as the Medicinal Provisions of the Church against Sin He ought to submit to them and to such Rebukes and Admonitions to such publick Confessions and other Acts of Self-Abasement 2 Tim. 2.26 by which he may be recovered out of the snare of the Devil and may repair the publick Scandal that he has brought upon the Profession of Christianity and recover the honour of it which he has blemisht as far as lies in him This is the submitting to those that are over him and the obeying them as those that watch for his soul and that must give an account of it But if on the other hand Heb. 13.17 any such person is run down by Falshood and Calumny he must submit to that Dispensation of God's Providence that has suffered such a load to be laid upon him He must not betray his Integrity he ought to commit his way to God and to bear his burden patiently Such a Censure ought not at all to give him too deep an inward concern For he is sure it is ill founded and therefore it can have no effect upon his Conscience God who knows his Innocence will acquit him though all the World should condemn him He must indeed submit to that separation from the Body of Christians But he is safe in his secret Appeals to God who sees not as man sees but judges righteous Judgment And such a Censure as this cannot be bound in Heaven In the pronouncing the Censures of the Church great care and tenderness ought to be used for men are not to be rashly cut off from the Body of Christ nothing but a wilful Obstinacy in Sin and a deliberate Contempt of the Rules and Orders of the Church can justify this Extremity Scandalous Sinners may be brought under the Medicinal Cure of the Church and the Offender may be denied all the Privileges of Christians till he has repaired the Offence that he has given Here another Extreme has been run into by men who being jealous of the Tyranny of the Church of Rome have thought that the World could not be safe from that unless all Church-Power were destroyed They have thought that the Ecclesiastical Order is a Body of Men bound by their Office to preach the Gospel and to offer the Sacraments to all Christians but that as the Gospel is a Doctrine equally offered to all in which every man must make the particular Application of the Promises the Comforts and the Terrors of it to himself as he will answer it to God so they imagin that the Sacraments are in the same promiscuous manner to be offered to all Persons and that every man is to try and examine himself and so to partake of them but that the Clergy have no Authority to deny them to any Person or to put marks of distinction or of Infamy on men And that therefore the Antient Discipline of the Church did arise out of a mutual Compromise of Christians who in times of Misery and Persecution submitted to such Rules as seemed necessary in that state of things but that now all the Authority that the Church hath is founded only on the Law of the Land and is still subject to it So that what Changes or Alterations are appointed by the Civil Authority must take place in bar to any Laws and Customs of the Church how Antient or how Universal soever they may be In answer to this it is not to be denied but that the degrees and extent of this Authority the methods and the management of it were at first framed by common consent In the times of Persecution the Laity who embraced the Christian Religion were to the Church instead of the Magistrate The whole concerns of Religion were supported and protected by them and this gave them a Natural Right to be consulted with in all the decisions of the Church The Brethren were called to join with the Apostles and Elders in that great Debate concerning the Circumcision of the Gentiles which was settled at Ierusalem and of such Practices we find frequent mention in St. Cyprian's Epistles The more Eminent among the Laity were then naturally the Patrons of the Churches But when the Church came under the Protection of Christian Princes and Magistrates then the Patronage and Protection of it fell to them upon whom the Peace and Order of the World depended Yet though all this is acknowledged we see plainly that in the New Testament there are many general Rules given for the Government and Order of the Church Timothy and Titus were appointed to ordain to admonish and rebuke and that before all The Body of the Christians is required to submit themselves to them and to obey them which is not to be carried to an indefinite and boundless degree but must be limited to that Doctrine which they were to teach and to such things as depended upon it or tended to its Establishment and Propagation From these general Heads we see just grounds to assert such a Power in the Pastors of the Church as is for Edification but not for Destruction and therefore here is a Foundation of Power laid down though it is not to be denied but that in the application of it such Prudence and discretion ought to be used as may make it most likely to attain those Ends for which it is given A general Consent in time of Persecution was necessary
the concurrence of other Churches In the way of managing this every Body of Men has somewhat peculiar to it self and the Pastors of that Body are the properest Judges in that matter We know that the several Churches even while under one Empire had great varieties in their Forms as appears in the different Practices of the Eastern and Western Churches And as soon as the Roman Empire was broken we see this Variety did increase The Gallican Churches had their Missals different from the Roman And some Churches of Italy followed the Ambrosian But Charles the Great in compliance with the desires of the Pope got the Gallican Churches to depart from their own Missals and to receive the Roman which he might the rather do intending to have raised a New Empire to which a Conformity of Rights might have been a great Step. Even in this Church there was a great Variety of Usages which perhaps were begun under the Heptarchy when the Nation was subdivided into several Kingdoms It is therefore suitable to the Nature of Things to the Authority of the Magistrate and to the Obligations of the Pastoral Care That every Church should act within her self as an entire and independent Body The Churches owe only a Friendly and Brotherly Correspondence to one another but they owe to their own Body Government and Direction and such Provisions and Methods as are most likely to promote the great Ends of Religion and to preserve the Peace of the Society both in Church and State Therefore we are no other way bound by Antient Canons but as the same reason still subsisting we may see the same cause to continue them that there was at first to make them Of all the Bodies of the World the Church of Rome has the worst Grace to reproach us for departing in some Particulars from the Antient Canons since it was her ill Conduct that had brought them all into desuetude And it is not easy to revive again Antiquated Rules even though there may be good reason for it when they fall under that tacit Abrogation which arises out of a long and general disuse of them ARTICLE XXXV Of Homilies The Second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for these Times as doth the Former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the Time of Edward the Sixth and therefore we judg them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understanded of the People The Names of the Homilies 1. Of the right use of the Church 2. Against Peril of Idolatry 3. Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches 4. Of Good Works First Of Fasting 5. Against Gluttony and Drunkenness 6. Against Excess of Apparel 7. Of Prayer 8. Of the Place and time of Prayer 9. That common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known tongue 10. Of the reverent estimation of God's Word 11. Of Alms-doing 12. Of the Nativity of Christ. 13. Of the Passion of Christ. 14. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 15. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. 16. Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost 17. For the Rogation-days 18. Of the state of Matrimony 19. Of Repentance 20. Against Idleness 21. Against Rebellion AT the time of the Reformation as there could not be found at first a sufficient Number of Preachers to instruct the whole Nation so those that did comply with the changes which were then made were not all well-affected to them so that it was not safe to trust this matter to the Capacity of the one side and to the Integrity of others Therefore to supply the Defects of some and to oblige the rest to teach according to the Form of sound Doctrine there were two Books of Homilies prepared the first was published in King Edward's time the second was not finished till about the time of his Death so it was not published before Queen Elizabeth's time The Design of them was to mix Speculative Points with Practical matters Some explain the Doctrine and others enforce the Rules of Life and Manners These are plain and short Discourses chiefly calculated to possess the Nation with a Sense of the Purity of the Gospel in opposition to the Corruptions of Popery and to reform it from those crying Sins that had been so much connived at under Popery while men knew the Price of them how to compensate for them and to redeem themselves from the Guilt of them by Masses and Sacraments by Indulgences and Absolutions In these Homilies the Scriptures are often applied as they were then understood not so critically as they have been explained since that time But by this Approbation of the two Books of Homilies it is not meant that every Passage of Scripture or Argument that is made use of in them is always convincing or that every Expression is so severely worded that it may not need a little Correction or Explanation All that we profess about them is only that they contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine This ratheâ— relates to the main Importance and Design of them than to every Passagâ— in them Though this may be said concerning them That considering thâ— Age they were written in the Imperfection of our Language and some lesser Defects they are Two very extraordinary Books Some of them arâ— better writ than others and are equal to any thing that has been writ upon those Subjects since that time Upon the whole matter every one whâ— subscribes the Articles ought to read them otherwise he subscribes a Blank he approves a Book implicitely and binds himself to read it as he may be required without knowing any thing concerning it This Approbation is not to be stretched so far as to carry in it a special Assent to every Particular in that whole Volume but a man must be persuaded of the main of the Doctrine that is taught in them To instance this in one particular since there are so many of the Homilies that charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry and that from so many different Topicks no man who thinks that Church is not guilty of Idolatry can with a good Conscience subscribe this Article That the Homilies contain a good and wholesom Doctrine and necessary for these times for according to his sense they contain a false and an uncharitable Charge of Idolatry against a Church that they think is not guilty of it and he will be apt to thâ—nk that this was done to heighten the Aversion of the Nation to it Therefore any who have such favourable thoughts of the Church of Rome are bound by the force of that Persuasion of theirs not to sign this Article but to declare against it as the authorizing of an Accusation against a Church which they think is ill grounded and is by consequence both unjust and uncharitable By necessary for these times is not to be meant
Conceit brought in a Superstitious Error in Practice among the Ancient Christians of delaying Baptism till Death as hoping that all Sins were then certainly pardoned A much more dangerous Error than even the Fatal One of trusting to a Death-bed Repentance For Baptism might have been more easily compassed and there was more offered in the way of Argument for building upon it than has been offered at for a Death-bed Repentance St. Peter's Denial his Repentance and his being restored to his Apostolical Dignity seem to be Recorded partly on this account to encourage us even after the most heinous Offences to return to God and never to reckon our Condition desperate were our Sins ever so many but as we find our Hearts hardened in them into an obstinate Impenitency Our Saviour has made our pardoning the offences that others commit against us the measure upon which we may expect pardon from God and he being asked What limits he set to the number of the faults that we were bound to pardon by the Day if Seven was not enough he carried it up to seventy times seven a vast number far beyond the number of offences that any Man will in all probability commit against another in a Day But if they should grow up to all that vast number of 490 yet if our Brother still turns again and repents Luk. 17.4 we are still bound to forgive Now since this is joined with what he declared that if we pardoned our Brother his offences our heavenly Father would also forgive us Matt. 18.35 then we may depend upon this That according to the sincerity of our Repentance our sins are always forgiven us And if this is the Nature of the New Covenant then the Church which is a Society formed upon it must proportion the Rules both of her Communion and Censure to those set in the Gospel A heinous Sin must give us a deeper sorrow and higer degrees of Repentance Scandals must also be taken off and forgiven when the offending Persons have repaired the offence that was given by them with suitable degrees of sorrow St. Paul in the beginnings of Christianity in which it being yet tender and not well known to the World was more apt to be both blemished and corrupted did yet order the Corinthians to receive back into their Communion the Incestuous Person 1 Cor. 5.5 whom by his own Directions they had delivered to Satan they had excommunicated him 2 Cor. 2.7 and by way of reverse to the Gifts of the Holy Ghost poured out upon all Christians he was possessed or haunted with an evil Spirit And yet as St. Paul declares that he forgave him so he orders them to forgive him likewise and he gives a reason for this Conduct from the common principles of pity and humanity lest he should be swallowed up by overmuch sorrow What is in that place mentioned only in a particular instance is extended to a general rule in the Epistle to the Galatians If any one is overtaken in a fault Gal. 6.1 ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the Spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Where both the supposition that is made and the reason that is given do plainly insinuate that all Men are subject to their several infirmities So that every Man may be overtaken in faults 2 Tim 4.2 Tit. 1.13 1 Joh. 5.16 The charge given to Timothy and Titus to rebuke and exhort does suppose that Christians and even Bishops and Deacons were subject to faults that might deserve correction In that passage cited out of S. Iohn's Epistle as mention is made of a sin unto death for which they were not to pray so mention is made both there and in S. Iames's Epistle of sins for which they were to pray Jam. 5.15 16. and which upon their Prayers were to be forgiven All which places do not only express this to be the tenor of the New Covenant That the sins of Regenerated Persons were to be pardoned in it but they are also clear precedents and rules for the Churches to follow them in their Discipline And therefore those words in S. Iohn that a man born of God doth not and cannot sin must be understood in a larger sense of their not living in the practice of known sins of their not allowing themselves in that course of Life nor going on deliberately with it By the sin unto death is meat the same thing with that Apostacy mentioned in the 6th of the Hebrews Among the Iews some sins were punished by a total excision or cutting off Heb. 6.6 and this probably gave the rise to that designation of a sin unto death The words in the Epistle to the Hebrews do plainly import those who being not only Baptized but having also received a share of the Extraordinary Effusion of the Holy Ghost had totally renounced the Christian Religion and apostatized from the Faith which was a Crucifying of Christ anew Such Apostates to Judaism were thereby involved in the crime and guilt of the crucifying of Christ and the putting him to open shame Now Persons so Apostatizing could not be renewed again by Repentance it not being possible to do any thing toward their conviction that had not been already done and they hardning themselves against all that was offer'd for their conviction were arrived at such a degree of wickedness that it was impossible to work upon them there was nothing left to be tried that had not been already tried and proved to be ineffectual Yet it is to be observed that it was an unjustifiable piece of rigor to apply these words to all such as had fallen in a time of trial and persecution for as they had not those miraculous means of conviction which must be acknowledged to be the strongest the sensiblest and the most easily apprehended of all Arguments so that they could not sin so heinously as those had done who after what they had seen and felt revolted from the Faith Great difference is also to be made between a deliberate sin that a Man goes into upon choice and in which he continues and a Sin that the fears of death and the infirmities of Human Nature betray him into and out of which he quickly recovers himself and for which he mourns bitterly There was no reason to apply what is said in the New Testament against the wicked Apostates of that time to those who were overcome in the Persecution The latter sinned grievously yet it was not in the same kind nor are they in any sort to be compar'd to the former All affectations of excessive severity look like Pharisaical Hypocrisy whereas the Spirit of Christ which is made up of Humility and Charity will make us look so severely to our selves that on that very account we will be gentle even to the failings of others Yet on the other hand the Church ought to endeavour to conform her self so far to her Head and to his
Doctrine as to note those who obey not the Gospel 2 Thess. 36.14 15. and to have no company with them that they may be ashamed yet not so as to hate such a one or count him as an Enemy but to admonish him as a Brother Into what neglect or prostitution soever any Church may have fallen in this great point of separating Offenders of making them ashamed and of keeping others from being corrupted with their ill Example and bad Influence that must be confessed to be a very great defect and blemish The Church of Rome had slackned all the ancient Rules of Discipline and had perverted this matter in a most scandalous manner and the World is now sunk into so much corruption and to such a contempt of holy things that it is much more easy here to find matter for lamentation than to see how to remedy or correct it ARTICLE XVII Predestination and Election Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the World were laid he hath constantly decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting Salvation as vessels made to honour Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season They through grace obey the calling they be justified freely they be made Sons of God by Adoption they be made like the Image of his only begotten Son Iesus Christ they walk religiously in good works and at length by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity As the godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things as well because it doth greatly establish anâ—â—â—â—firm their Faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God So for curious and carnal persons lacking the Spirit of Christ to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination is a most dangerous downfall whereby the Devil doth thrust them either â—nto desperation or into wrechlesness of most unclean living no less perillous than â—esperation Furthermore We must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doings that Will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared unto us in the Word of God THere are many things in several of the other Articles which depend upon this and therefore I will explain it more fully For as this has given occasion to one of the longest the subtilest and indeed the most intricate of all the Questions in Divinity so it will be necessary to open and examine it as fully as the Importance and Difficulties of it do require In treating of it I shall First State the Question together with the consequences that arise out of it Secondly Give an account of the differences that have arisen upon it Thirdly I shall set out the strength of the Opinions of the Contending Parties with all possible Impartiality and Exactness Fourthly I shall see how far they agree and how far they differ and shall shew what reason there is for bearing with one another's Opinions in these matters and in the Fifth and last place I shall consider how far we of this Church are determined by this Article and how far we are at liberty to follow any of those different Opinions The whole Controversy may be reduced to this single Point as its head and source Upon what Views did God form his Purposes and Decrees concerning Mankind Whether he did it merely upon a design of advancing his own Glory and for manifesting his own Attributes in order to which he setled the great universal Scheme of his whole Creation and Providence Or whether he considered all the free motions of those rational Agents that he did intend to create and according to what he foresaw they would chuse and do in all the various circumstances in which he might put them formed his Decrees Here the Controversy begins and when this is setled the three main Questions that arise out of it will be soon determined The First is Whether both God and Christ intended that Christ should only dye for that particular number whom God intended to save Or whether it was intended that he should dye for all so that every Man that would might have the benefit of his Death and that no Man was excluded from it but because he willingly rejected it The Second is Whether those Assistances that God gives to Men to enable them to obey him are of their own nature so efficacious and irresistible that they never fail of producing the Effect for which they are given or Whether they are only sufficient to enable a Man to obey God so that their Efficacy comes from the freedom of the Will that either may co-operate with them or may not as it pleases The Third is Whether such persons do and must certainly persevere to whom such Grace is given or Whether they may not fall away both entirely and finally from that State There are also other Questions concerning the true Notion of Liberty concerning the Feebleness of our Powers in this lapsed State with several lesser ones all which do necessarily take their determination from the decision of the first and main Question About which there are four Opinions The First is of those commonly called Supralapsarians who think that God does only consider his own Glory in all that he does and that whatever is done arises from its first Cause from the Decree of God That in this Decree God considering only the Manifestation of his own Glory intended to make the World to put a Race of Men in it to constitute them under Adam as their Fountain and Head That he decreed Adam's Sin the lapse of his Posterity and Christ's Death together with the Salvation or Damnation of such Men as should be most for his own Glory That to those who were to be saved he decreed to give such efficacious Assistances as should certainly put them in the way of Salvation And to those whom he rejected he decreed to give such Assistances and means only as should render them inexcusable That all Men do continue in a state of Grace or of Sin and shall be saved or damned accâ—rding to that first Decree So that God views Himself only and in that View he designs all things singly for his own Glory and for the manifesting of his own Attributes The Second Opinion is of those called the Sublapsarians who say That Adam having sinned freely and his Sin being imputed to all his Posterity God did
Austin's Doctrine So the Breach was formed in Holland But when the Point of State was no more mixed with it these Questions were handled with less heat Those Disputes quickly cross'd the Seas and divided us The Abbots adhered to Austin's Doctrine while Bishop Overal but chiefly Archbishop Laud espoufed the Arminian Tenets All Divines were by Proclamation required not to preach upon those Heads But those that favoured the new Opinions were incouraged and the others were depressed And unhappy Disputes falling in at that time concerning the extent of the Royal Prerogative beyond Law the Arminians having declared themselves highly for that they were as much favoured at Court as they were censured in the Parliament which brought that Doctrine under a very hard Character over all the Nation Twisse carried it high to the Supralapsarian Hypothesis which grew to be generally followed by those of that Side But that sounded harshly and Hobb's grafting afterwards a Fate and Absolute Necessity upon it the other Opinions were again revived and no Political Interests falling in with them as all prejudices against them went off so they were more calmly debated and became more generally acceptable than they were before Men are now left to their liberty in them and all Anger upon those Heads is now so happily extinguished that diversity of Opinions about them begets no Alienation nor Animosity So far have I prosecuted a short View of the History of this Controversy I come now to open the chief Grounds of the different Parties And First for the Supralapsarians They lay this down for a Foundation That God is Essentially Perfect and Independent in all his Acts So that he can consider nothing but himself and his own Glory That therefore he designed every thing in and for himself That to make him stay his Decrees till he sees what free Creatures will do is to make him Decree dependently upon them which seems to fall short of Infinite Perfection That he himself can be the only End of his Counsels and that therefore he could only consider the Manifestation of his own Attributes and Perfection That Infinite Wisdom must begin its designs at that which is to come last in the Execution of them and since the Conclusion of all things at the Last Day will be the Manifestation of the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God we ought to suppose that God in the Order of Things designed that first though in the Order of Time there is no First nor Second in God this being supposed to be from all Eternity After this great Design was laid all the Means in order to the End were next to be designed Creatures in the sight of God are as nothing and by a strong Figure are said to be less than nothing and Vanity Now if we in our Designs do not consider Ants or Insects not to say Straws or Grains of Sand and Dust then what lofty Thoughts soever our Pride may suggest to us we must be confessed to be very poor and inconsiderable Creatures before God therefore he himself and his own Glory can only be his own End in all that he designs or does This is the chief Basis of their Doctrine and so ought to be well considered They add to this That there can be no certain Prescience of future Contingents They say it involves a contradiction that things which are not certainly to be should be certainly foreseen For if they are certainly foreseen they must certainly be So while they are supposed to be contingent they are yet affirmed to be certain by saying that they are certainly foreseen When God decrees that any thing shall be it has from that a certain futurition and as such it is certainly foreseen by him An uncertain foresight is an Act of its nature Imperfect because it may be a mistake and so is inconsistent with the Divine Perfection And it seems to imply a contradiction to say that a thing happens freely that is may be or may not be and yet that it is certainly forseen by God God cannot foresee things but as he decrees them and so gives them a futurition and therefore this Prescience Antecedent to his Decree must be rejected as a thing impossible They say further That Conditionate Decrees are imperfect in their nature and that they subject the Will and Acts of God to a Creature That a Conditionate Decree is an Act in suspence whether it shall be or not which is inconsistent with Infinite Perfection A general Will or rather a willing that all Men should be Saved but also plain Characters of Imperfection in it As if God wished somewhat that he could not accomplish so that his Goodness should seem to be more extended than his Power Infinite Perfection can wish nothing but what it can execute and if it is fit to wish it it is fit also to execute it Therefore all that Stile that ascribes Passions or Affections to God must be understood in a Figure so that when his Providence exerts it self in such Acts as among us Men would be the effects of those Passions then the Passions themselves are in the Phrase of the Scriptures ascribed to God They say we ought not to measure the Punishments of Sin by our Notions of Justice God affâ—cts many good Men very severely and for many Years in this Life and this only for the Manifestation of his own Glory for making their Faith and Patience to shine and yet none think that this is unjust It is a method in which God will be glorified in them Some Sins are punished with other Sins and likewise with a course of severe Miseries If we transfer this from Time to Eternity the whole will be then more conceivable for if God may do for a little time that which is inconsistent with our Notions and with our Rules of Justice he may do it for a longer duration Since it is as impossible that he can be unjust for a Day as for all Eternity As God does every thing for himself and his own Glory so the Scriptures teach us every where to offer up all Praise and Glory to God to acknowledge that all is of him and to humble our selves asbeing nothing before him Now if we were Elected not by a free Act of his but by what he foresaw that we would be so that his Grace is not efficacious by its own force but by the good use that we make of it then the Glory and Praise of all the good we do and of God's purposes to us were due to our selves He designs according to the other Doctrine equally well to all Men and all the difference among them will arise neither from God's Intentions to them nor from his Assistances but from the good use that he foresaw they would make of these Favours that he was to give in common to all Mankind Man should have whereof to glory and he might say That he himself made himself to differ from others The whole strain of the