person than the fixt rules of a community and by how much again the voluntary enslaving my self is more excuseless than that which the principles of my Profession and consequently a seeming obligation of Conscience exposes me to And as to the matter of Fact I think 't is evident enough that the admiration of mens Persons is a spreading disease that has over-run Christendom and though a great part of it inveigh against implicite faith yet if it be throughly scanned 't will appear 't is rather the object than the act we differ about He that vehemently opposes that homage to the Conclave will yet tamely pay it to a Classis and he that refuses it there yields it to the Votes of a Congregational Church or if he hold out against that too yet chuses to himself some private Teacher on which to cast it Like Micah Iudg. 16. Makes him a Teraphim and a Priest too for his private use and then confidently consults his Oracle and has nothing to do but believe its responses Nay that which makes the matter yet more sadly ridiculous is that the very Opposition to one Usurpation makes them deliver themselves up to another How many when they have heard a Preacher rail fiercely at the Pope have presently made him theirs and supposing that Zeal an indication of a safe guide have given him as absolute a rule of their Consciences as that he exclaim'd against perhaps Envied elsewhere And the like instances might be given among our other dissenting parties And this has taught some Seducers a lucky artifice made them observe to what opinions their Proselytes had the greatest aversion and by complying with their anger so steal away their love that they might after lead them to what they pleas'd yea perhaps to that which they so much detested For there want not examples of some who have by back ways been brought to those Opinions which at first they most defied What have been the attempts or success of the Emissaries of Rome this way I shall not pronounce though some not improbably speak them great FROM this blind and passionate esteem of several Teachers have flowed many pernicious consequents particularly those distinct Appellations which form differences into Sects many of which expresly own this original by bearing the names of their first Authors I might here put them in mind that they are illegitimate persons whom our Law directs to write with an alias and ask them whether the Church from their superinduced name has not cause so to repute them But I am sure I may with the utmost seriousness say that this practice is to the great violation of Christian unity and reproach of Christian profession which seems to be abandon'd and disown'd by us who instead of denominating our selves from the Author and finisher of our Faith find out new Patrons as if we were asham'd of our first Relation Alas how is the title of Christian which was so glorious to the Primitive owners that they gladly bought the occasion of boasting it with Torments and Death become so despicable to us that every the obscurest name is courted to supplant it Have any of our Idolized readers bought their Interest in us so dear as Christ has done why then are we rather ambitious to be accounted their dependants than his 'T is the Apostles own argument 1 Cor. 1. 13. when he refutes their factious entitling themselves to Paul and Apollo c. by asking them if Paul were crucified for them And indeed he there says so much upon this point that I need only refer the Reader thither to learn either the unreasonableness of this Schismatical zeal for our several Teachers or the inevitable contentions and animosities which spring from it only let me observe that every of his Arguments are more pressing upon us than on the Corinthians those taken from the unreasonableness sure are by how much the names we so adore are less venerable than those of Paul and Cephas or Apollo and those from the consequencies are so also For those Teachers were industrious to prevent whereas ours commonly are no less busie to promote contentions on their behalf and so we are more ascertain'd never to want them BUT besides this kinder prepossession towards some mens persons there is another of a different nature a sinister one I mean prejudice and disgust and this has done no less harm in Ecclesiastical affairs than the former Men take up piques and displeasures at others and then every opinion of the disliked person must partake of his fate and be engaged in the quarrel Nor will those that are enemies ever allow one another the honour of being in the right Nay some have been so perversly malicious that they have given up their understandings to their spleen forsaken an Opinion themselves approved only that they might find matter of contest with one they maligned A memorable instance of this Socrates gives in his Eccl. Hist. in Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria who having formerly attested the Orthodox belief that God was incorporeal yet upon a sudden indignation against Dioscorus and his brethren who maintain'd the Tenet he embraced the contrary Heresie of the Anthropomorphites that so under the Colour of a difference in faith he might the more advantageously pursue his malice the Effects of it were very Tragical not only to private persons in Tumult and Blood-shed but to the Church by reviving that Error which was before near expiring and might as Socrates affirms have lain in the dust had it not been thus awaken'd And indeed in Church story scarce any thing occurs more frequently than examples of those who upon private grudges have either begun or fomented Heresies and Schisms Thus Marcion being denied the Communion of the Roman Church having before by a scandalous crime been cut off from his own he reveng'd himself by publishing his detestable doctrine In like manner Miletius upon a displeasure at Peter Bishop of Alexandria first separated from the Church and after took part with the Arians So also Lucifer incensed at Eusebius for not approving of his Electing Paulus to the See of Antioch broke Communion and gave both rise and denomination to a new Sect. The like is said of Apollinaris that he was excited to the broaching his Heresie by his impatience of the Excommunication inflicted on him and his Father by Theodotus Bishop of Laodicea and several others might be given to the same purpose out of the Records of those first Ages AND certainly the World seems not to have so much improved in meekness since as that we should think the same principle is not still as active and if the Task were not more envious than hard many recent instances might be given to Parallel the former especially of such as having justly smarted under the stroke of Ecclesiastical discipline have sought to revenge themselves both on it and the inflicters by Factions and Tumults so making the publick at once cloak the Infamy and bear the charge of
contrives more compendious methods of destruction Frames such Engines as take off whole ranks nay troops compounds such active Poyson as like a Pestilence kills multitudes at once It is too trivial a Mischief to annoy the outward parts it is his Mastery to spread an unseen venome in the Bowels thence to diffuse its self through 't mix with the vital spirit and convert that kindly heat which should animate into those wild irregular flames which ravine and consume And this is done by that Pestilential spirit of division that heat of disputation which has for so many ages possest and wasted the Catholick Church and by an unhappy kind of Magick transform'd the zeal of Christian practice into an itch of unchristian Dispute made the questions about our Creed more numerous than the letters of it and by multitudes and contrariety of Paraphrases so confounded and obscur'd the Text that what was anciently the badge and tessera of Christian Communion serves us for no other purpose but as an occasion of breaking it SO long as the Church retain'd the simplicity of Christian doctrine lookt on her faith as the Foundation of her obedience and endeavour'd to propagate to her Children such an understanding of the one as was most apt to promote the other She happily made good the title Christ gives her Can. 6. of his love his dove his undefil'd one but when the Serpent had once got into this Paradise infus'd his subtilties and nice intricacies into mens Brains and least that should not be ruinous enough his venome also into their Hearts Then began all those unhappy Metamorphoses in comparison of which those of the Poets are as trivial as they are Fabulous then that faith which was once inseparably joyn'd with the patience of the Saints forsook that tame company and linkt its self with the most contrary qualities of wrath and bitterness and those whose Profession it was to resist unto blood striving against sin pursued to blood those that resisted them in any of their speculations Then that passive Valour which had rendred them so venerable to their Heathen Enemies converted some tired out others and amaz'd all sadly degenerated into that active malice which from persecuted Christians entituled them to that monstrous style of Christian persecutors And that ardent love which had offered up so many Holocausts to God was supplanted by that fiery hatred that made no less acceptable oblations to Satan THIS miserable and destructive change was so much the interest of the Enemy of Souls that we cannot wonder he should so studiously promote it and indeed never did he at once so approve his malice and subtilty I would I could not say success also as in this design in comparison whereof all his other Projects speak him but a Puny this is his one Goliah Stratagem which has serv'd him not only to defie but even defeat the Armies of the living God NOR is his Sagacity more observable in the choice and main drift of the Design than in the ways of Effecting it had he brought into the Primitive Church those large scrolls of disputable points wherewith he has fill'd the Modern that more charitable Age must needs have startled and discern'd that that seeming Iealousie for Truth was indeed nothing but a real design against Peace and would surely never have parted with that sacred depositum that precious legacy so lately bequeath'd by Christ for those vain janglings those School subtilties which now entertain the world But as he that would divert a man from the guard of some important Treasure alarms him in some other of his greatest interests so he at first raises up Heresies of the greatest magnitude whose blasphemous consequencies so shook the whole Fabrick of Religion that what was Uzzahs Rashness seemed then every man 's advised Duty to put his hand to the upholding of the tottering Ark. How could those who had been baptiz'd into the faith of the Blessed Trinity suffer the Arians to rob them of the Second Person the Macedonians of the Third the Valentinians and Manichees so to despise the First as to set up against him a Rival principle of being How could those who had so solemnly renounc'd the World the Flesh and the Devil see them all bowed to by the temporizing unclean idolatrous Gnosticks these were such invasions as seemed to commissionate all that could weild the sword of the Spirit to take it up and engage in this Warfare But all this while 't was a sad Dilemma to which the Church was driven if she gave countenance to these seducers she betrayed her faith if she entred the contest she violated her unity the one would undermine her foundation the other would make a breach in her walls AND the Devil was too old an Artist to lose the advantage he knew well that even a just and necessary defence does by giving men acquaintance with War take off somewhat from the abhorrence of it and insensibly dispose them to farther Hostilities and therefore he fail'd not to provide sparks for that matter which was now grown so combustible nor did he always send them from the bottomless pit but sometimes borrowed fire from the Altar to consume the Votaries and by the mutual collision of well meant zeal set even Orthodox Christian in flame A memorable instance of this was the dispute about Easter wherein while the veneration they had of the glorious Resurrection of Christ prompted them to commemorate it in the exactest manner they could the Serpent creeps into this Paradise and though they had the same common end yet on occasion of some little dissenting in the way the heat of devotion insensibly degenerated into that of contention and by being very tenacious of a circumstance of that celebration they lost the more essential requisite that of Charity kept the Feast indeed but with the leven of malice and absurdly commemorate the redintegration of his Natural Body by mutilating and dividing his Mystical So likewise in the business of Rebaptization while one side in a pious abhorrence of Heresie thought the stain like that of Original Sin could not be done away by any Purgation less solemn than that of Baptism and the other in a just reverence of ancient custom and jealousie of innovation opposed it the Dispute lasted till the Scene was changed and those who deliberated of the manner of receiving Hereticks into the Church were themselves as such turn'd out of it No less well meant were the Originals of the Novatian and Donatist Heresies as equally unhappy were their issues For in them all when bitter Zeal was once fermented through its aptitude to receive and the Devils vigilance to administer occasions the Orthodoxy or Heresie of lives soon became terms out-dated and men were measur'd only by opinions That sword of the spirit which was at first design'd against vicious practices had its edge turn'd against speculative notions in so much that at last like that of Ioab 2 Sam. 28. 8. it had
not so perfectly Camaelion as to subsist upon this meer air there is another kind of it that proposes to its self something beyond this such is the affectation of rule and dominion which though in respect of any real good to the ruler is as very a Chimera as the former yet commonly they that are under such a Iurisdiction find to their cost 't is more than Imaginative And God knows this aspiring humour has been no less fatally active in Ecclesiastick than in Civil affairs nor has the Church ever been in more danger of Anarchy than by those who most impatiently coveted a share in its government for where this spirit of ambition is the Impellent it does like the Demoniack in the Gospel burst asunder all fetters and chains violates the unity both of doctrine and discipline nor is any attempt too bold for men thus animated They who long to be in authority think the door opens not quick enough for their entry and impatient of so tedious an expectation chuse rather to make breaches in the walls nay sometimes to undermine the foundation than to want an access to their Desires Neither is there any thing so sacred which upon this occasion they cannot prostitute when Diotrephes 3 Ioh. 9. seeks preheminence the Dictates even of an Apostle shall be rejected and even the divinity of Christ God blessed for ever be trampled on when Arius wants a footstool to climb up to his affected greatness In a word if we Examine the occurrencies of all ages we shall find that either the eagerness of acquiring or the Revenge of missing dignities have been the great instigators of Ecclesiastick Feuds and sure our Modern stories are not likely to fall short of the Ancient in examples of this kind And as Pride makes some thus passionately desirous of rule so it makes others as impatient of being ruled and even those who cannot hope to arrive to give Laws will not endure to be under those already established That this is indeed the Christian liberty for which many in our daies have so unchristianly contended is too apparent the fundamental quarrel has been against subjection Yet to countenance and abett that whole Armies of frivolous cavils have been rais'd and the Church attacqued in every its remotest concern and though there be nothing farther from that unity of mind to which the simile was first affixt yet in a perverse sense it imitates the Ointment of Aaron in descending from the head to the skirts of the cloathing not only the supreme and more eminent parts but the most slight extrinsick and inferior relatives to Religion being asperst and depraved and the most innocent Circumstances of Civil or Natural actions made criminal when applied to Divine things A strange infective power which these men have convey'd into Gods service that it must thus pollute every thing that approaches it That the place where his Honour dwells must become a Pesthouse and diffuse contagion to all in it I wish by the way their Sacriledge had not been too valiant in despising the Danger of those infected utensils which may perhaps sadly verifie the reproach and prove treacherous prizes and when mens zeal operates thus unkindly when the pretence of internal sanctity devours all outward decency and God is to be honoured and exalted by those ways whereby men would think themselves affronted and vilified we have too great reason to think such a zeal as little according to godliness as knowledge and that it is not so much the tenderness of their Consciences no nor generally the weakness of their Brains but the Iron sinew in their Necks which makes them at once so scrupulous and so clamorous for though the former might be suppos'd owing to Error the later can surely proceed from nothing but Pride Several other instances might be given to shew how that pernicious temper has contributed to the rise and first being of our divisions and having thus given them birth it does not like the Ostrich abandon its Brood but has as great an influence in the cherishing and maintaining as it had in creating them Of this there need no other proof than the meer nature of Pride which as it averts nothing more than self-condemnation so upon pain of that appearance 't is irreversibly engag'd in the pursuit of its first undertakings any desisting being interpretatively a confession either of an Error or a Defeat both which are insupportable to an assuming temper So that besides the original incentives forementioned it has this of disdain superadded to actuate its motions And accordingly we find they are at this rebound the more violent not only the success but the credit of the first enterprize depending upon a vigorous prosecution So that Catilines Maxim of Villany seems to have been adopted into some mens divinity and they think past Crimes are only to be secur'd by more and greater Nor is it only hope to atchieve their design or hide their shame which thus animates them despair will do it to a yet higher degree Our Concupiscible and Irascible appetites dwell not so remote but they are ready reserves to one another and what was desire in the pursuit becomes anger and revenge in the disappointment and sure we need not be told the wild effects of those passions How many men have in a furious despair over-acted even their own projects and have made it a malicious consolation in their ruine to get it attended with that of the publick As Herod who to secure a lamentation at his death commanded a Massacre should accompany it or to give a more Ecclesiastical instance like Aerius who sought the abolishing of that order in the Church whereof himself could not partake I wish no mans Conscience in our days were qualified to suggest a fresher example But whilest 't is so many ways the interest of Pride to abet our contentions we cannot think it so sluggish or unindustrious an agent as not to find out expedients for its purpose I shall not attempt to give a particular of its instruments when I have said that Schism is one of them I need not add more since that alone serves both to complete and perpetuate the Mischief of all our speculative dissentions How close a Band of concord the communicating in holy duties is we may learn by Ieroboam who seems so well to have understood its unitive efficacy that he durst not trust the newly divided Tribes in a joynt resort to the Temple and therefore least the rupture he had made in the State should close again he thinks it necessary to make another in the Church and secure his defection from his Prince by that from his God But we need not borrow a testimony from that his impious Policy we have a more Authentick attestation from the holy Psalmist who when he would describe the greatest entireness Exemplifies it by the walking to the house of God as friends Psal. 55. 14. And the Apostle goes yet higher and from our
memorable disturbance given to the Church as well as State of Germany by the Anabaptists is a pregnant instance whose new opinion was but an expedient of investing themselves in new possessions and their second Baptism but the Solemnity of espousing not only the flesh but the world also which they had renounced in the first AND would God they had been the only set of Men whose doctrines were subservient to their interests for such tumultuous and Plebeian projects though like a land-floud they make great spoil at the present yet soon sink again Such avowed and excessive greediness devours its self and the instruments by which it wrought so that the defeat of the secular Design is commonly the routing those Opinions which were formed for the promoting it But when the same desire has the advantage of a sober guidance when Avarice puts on the Canonical habit and twists its self not only with the practice of Men but the doctrines of the Church when articles of Religion shall be estimated by their profitableness and Ecclesiasticks dispute as Lay-men fight for Money then alas the mischief seems fatal the disease so fixt and radicated as at once discourages and mocks the attempts of cure THAT this is the case not only in a particular and private Church but that which assumes to be the Universal and Catholick is too apparent The one Position of the Popes right to dispose Kingdoms outstrips all other principles of rapine this is to drive a whole-sale trade when all other petty Merchants deal but for parcels which as it is a much bolder so is it a more prejudicial attempt than the invading of private possessions and this Duo gladii the double armature of S. Peter a more destructive Engin than the tumultuary weapon snatcht up by a Fanatick but sure S. Peter's sword though once rashly managed by himself was never design'd to arm his successors to invade Kingdoms This property of it seems rather to have been derived from the Praetorian souldiers who insolently assumed the disposing of the Empire wherein they at the last arrived to that impudence that after the Death of Pertinax they made open port sale of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a base and sordid manner as if it had been of common marketable wares I cannot say the Court of Rome transcribes that indecent owning of the traffick but it has in other instances so well attested its good managery that 't is not very credible that Crowns and Scepters are conferred gratis And to this so advantageous a Doctrine others bear proportion Those of Purgatory Indulgences and Supererogation are ready instances wherein the Assertors themselves seem to be unanimous in nothing but in a joynt reference to profit for when they come to minute definitions they vary and disagree satisfie one another as little as their common Antagonists and therefore in the Council of Trent they prudently chose in their decrees to propose the bare Articles backt by the Authority of the Church and Anathemas of the Council as having by precedent discussions of the points in their congregations discern'd the small accord that was among themselves when they descended to particulars And indeed the Opinions were so various as to the grounds of the Doctrines that one would wonder how from so differing premisses they should all inferr the same conclusion were it not that the conspiration of Interest was too potent for the diversity of Judgment And sure 't was a strange deference was given to it when in the matter of Indulgences there was by the Testimony of their own Writers four different Opinions and yet all Catholick which moderation towards Speculative dissenters compar'd with the great severity against those that opposed its Practice speaks loud enough that the Orthodoxy of the point lay wholly in the Profitableness and that Luther himself had been no Heretick had he busied himself only in such disquisitions as impeded not the gain of that Doctrine Nor is this meerly surmise and conjecture for if we consult the memorials of those transactions we shall find this was the thing that most alarm'd Rome put that Court in almost as great a commotion as the birth of Christ did Herods and accordingly in their private consults the closer cabals of the Colledge the securing this part of their invaded treasure was the grand deliberation upon which account it was that when Adrian shewed some Inclination to the reforming abuses both in this and other instances one of his Cardinals who better knew the entrigues of affairs admonisht him against that unskilful piece of Ingenuity not only from the Example of his Predecessors who were resolute never to confess Faults by mending them but by representing to him That no reformation could be made which would not notably diminish the rents of the Church which having four foundations the one Temporal the other three Spiritual Indulgencies Dispensations and Collations of Benefices no one of them could be stopped but that one quarter of the revenues would be cut off What a resemblance this advice carries to the oration of Demetrius to his fellow crafts-men Act. 19. 25. I need not stand to demonstrate but while such considerations as this bear sway in Church matters where Profit shall be the Touch-stone both for faith and manners we are not to wonder if no gainful Tenet be deposited or Peace bought with that which in most mens esteem is of far more value AND this is it which ominates sadly as to our divisions with the Romanists were our differences meerly the product of Heat and Passion they would like the smaller clefts in the ground want nothing but a cooler season to cement and close them but when they are thus form'd into an interest become the Design not of single persons or ages but of corporations and successions the Breach seems like the scissures and ruptures of an Earthquake and threatens to swallow all that attempt to close it and reserves its cure only for omnipotence Indeed till spiritual and secular Concerns be reduced into their proper ranks which are now mixt and confounded the better to disguise the preposterous subordination of the nobler to the inferior till we have forgotten the unhappy Chymistry of turning all even Religion its self into Gold we must never hope to get out of the Furnace our flames will still grow fiercer and with this unnatural effect to consume not the Dross but the purer Metal In a word till men can sever themselves from their Avarice and mean pursuits of gain they will never cease to seperate from their brethren For as the most soveraign Balsoms cannot cure a hurt while the arrow remains in the flesh so neither can the most pacifick Remedies at all avail so long as the same worldly Aims which made the wound still stick in it BUT in the mean time 't is a Melancholick consideration that Christianity should be by its Professors thus unworthily prostituted that the many various and opposite Religions for which
own not its proper native dictates but such as are presented to it by the prejudicate Phancy And as it thus lays restraint upon the superior part of the Mind keeps the understanding in fetters so to complete the inversion it takes off all ties from the inferior Gives not only licence but incitation to the other Passions to take their freest range to act with the utmost impetuosity And sure there can nothing more be requir'd to render it a most apt instrument of Tumult and Confusion For when every opinion that is taken up shall instead of reason and argument arm its self with heat and violence there can be no end of contending And the truth of this is God knows too sadly discernible in our Church-controversies which derive a great deal of their warmth and bitterness from this Fountain OF this prepossession there are two Sorts the one relating to Doctrine the other to Persons by the first I mean not a sober constancy to those principles which being first imbibed by education are afterwards retain'd upon Iudgment but an eager tenacity of Opinions not so much upon Truth or Evidence as upon a confus'd irrational kindness a Platonick love of some Doctrine meerly for themselves and then making them the standards by which all others are to be measured And this kind of Prepossession is no Stranger in the world there being multitudes of men who assert opinions with all imaginable vehemence who can give no better ground of it but because they like them And as the wiser sort chuse a Tenet because 't is right so these conclude 't is right because they have chosen it And having thus enamour'd themselves of their Helena they expect all should adore nor can he scape the note of Profaneness that refuses By this absurd partiality it is that some doctrines which would themselves ill abide the Test are become the Touch-stone both of Doctrines and Men and no Opinion or Person sanctified which bears not this impress I need not stand to give instances either of the Doctrines or the unhappy influence this espousing of them has had on our dissentions but indeed this kind of Prepossession is oftentimes the consequent of another and this great veneration of some Opinions is founded in the reverence of their Authors Men take up a confidence of the learning or sanctity of a Person and then all his notions are received implicitly strictly embraced but not so much as slightly examin'd and this admiration of mens Persons has in all ages been of huge mischief to the Church has nurst up private Phancies into solemn publick Errors and given an unhappy perpetuity to many Heterodox opinions which would else have expired with their first Propugners This seems to have been foreseen by St. Paul when he so earnestly exhorts the Corinthians against the ascribing their Faith to their several respective Teachers But sure I am 't was sadly experimented by the succeeding Christians who owed many of their divisions to it A pregnant instance hereof was the Millennium which in spight of its improbability prevail'd long and almost universally against the Truth upon the strength of Authority Papias a holy man and Scholar of St. Iohn having delivered it the esteem of his Person canoniz'd his mistake and men chose rather to admit a doctrine whose unagreeableness to the Gospel Oeconomy rendred it suspicious than think an Apostolick man could seduce them And the force of this is yet more considerable when 't is remembred that it found Proselytes not only among the Vulgar who are commonly flexible to any new Impression but among those of a higher rank men that were lights in their generation Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus having own'd the Opinion and intimated it to have been received by many others no less Orthodox and if such a seduction could prevail so early in those purer times before mens interests or spleen were adopted into their Religion and begot voluntary errors if I say the meer reputation of a Teacher was then singly so operative we cannot wonder at its efficacy in conjunction with those auxiliaries which worse times have brought in What concurrence of those there was in the several Heresies which after infested the Church I shall not now examine but 't is visible that many of them grew considerable chiefly from the fame of their Authors thus Tatianus upon the credit of being Iustin Martyr's disciple had an advantage to disseminate his errors and not only his but those of Origen Apollinaris and Novatus gain'd abettors from the reputed Orthodoxy of the Persons that propos'd them who having asserted the Faith in some points were qualified the more prosperously to appose it in others NOR has it been only the mishap of elder times to have felt the mischiefs of such praepossession the disease has still advanced and every day improved in worse effect by how much men have more degenerated from primitive integrity so that the easie Proselyte is now in danger not only from the blindness but the treachery of his guide and is often led out of the common road as thieves draw passengers into by-ways for the better opportunity of robbing them But 't is not my present business to send Hue and cry after them to examine what the intentions of those leaders are who misguide their tractable admiring followers 't is enough for my purpose to observe that those who so deliver up themselves in a blind assent to the dictates of any man are in his power to be abused by him if he pleases I shall leave it to others to estimate the probability that they shall not be actually so But certainly this may be said that these later ages have beyond all the former given Opportunities of seducing to any that will use them The one establisht Doctrine of infallibility among the Romanists is eminent for its propriety that way while under pretence of submission to something they call Infallible 't is evident that the faith of the ignorant Vulgar resolves its self into that which they acknowledge most fallible the Doctrine of their immediate Teachers But indeed take it at the best such a perswasion is not only an error in its self and an apt foundation for innumerable others but it necessarily renders them incorrigible the least retractation of a mistake being so inconsistent with the claim of infallibility that while they retain the one they must never attempt the other nor can they cease to Erre till they confess it possible they may do so How much more than possible that has been the many Innovations of that Church sufficiently witness and consequently the danger of presuming upon the unerrableness of a guide But would all that upbraid it there were themselves secure from it and that many did not in their practice transcribe that decried doctrine and that too with the improvement of worse circumstances I must call them worse by how much the probabilities of Erring are greater under the extemporary conduct of a Private