a Doctrine proposed to us as a Matter of Faith Is it any where to be found in the Discourses of our Blessed Saviour preserved in the History of the Gospels Did the Apostles teach it their first Converts Is it agreeable to or founded upon true Apostolick Tradition Is this Tradition un-interrupted and derived down pure from the first Ages of the Church Was it received universally by the whole number of Christians in their time Is it any where to be met with in their Writings either in express terms or by a just and clear and necessary consequence For though the Doctrine of the Christian Religion was Preach'd and received before any word of the New Testament was Penned yet to say the Apostles taught many Points of Doctrine which they did not put down in Writing and much more such Points as consequentially overthrow and destroy the plain sense and letter of the Text is a very groundless and scandalous Supposition And besides the injury done to the Scriptures which contain in them all Points necessary to be believed is confuted by the Authors of it who pretend to fetch Proofs of their fansied tenents out of them There having been that great Veneration shewn to the Inspired Writings in all Ages that Hereticks and other kind of Innovators have chosen rather to bend and warp the Scripture and pervert its true sense and meaning in favour of their tenents than not seem to have the Countenance of its Authority 2. That since the times of the Apostles and the Sealing up of the Canon of Scripture no New Doctrine can or ought to be added as Essential to the Christian Religion For all which is Essential to the Faith was delivered by the Apostles to the Church at first otherwise the Rule of Faith had been imperfect and would have had something wanting to its completion to be supplyed in after-times which is to cast a slur and a blemish upon those first Ages of Christianity which were fully Instructed in all things fit and necessary for Christians to know and believe by the Apostles themselves without the stamp of whose Authority no Doctrine could be Authentick For what ever was believed as necessary derived only from them as the Instruments which Christ made use of to convey his Doctrine to the World which they did fully and carefully and successfully by the mighty aids of his Spirit according to the trust reposed in them They establish'd the belief of the Christian Religion in the hearts of the Faithful They concealed nothing of the mind and will of God Churches were formed and modelled according to their direction and command and Episcopal Government with the inferiour and subordinate Orders settled for the better preservation of Unity and Communion The Faith of Christ was professed and acknowledged as they taught and delivered it Their Writings were among them exactly agreeing in all things with what they had Preach'd and were to be the standing Monuments of the will of Christ Registred by their Pens to direct all succeeding Generations of Christians in their belief and in their practise After their Decease no new Revelation was to be expected only a delivering down of the same Apostolical Doctrine to after-ages in which the Faith nay the Curiosity of all Christians ought to acquiesce 3. That it is not in the Power of the Church in general much less of any particular Church of what denomination soever to lay down any Doctrine as necessary to be believed in order to Salvation but what is expresly revealed or clearly deduced out of the writings of the New Testament and was acknowledged in the first Ages of Christianity For if so they must pretend to the same Authority and produce clear and convictive Evidences of such Revelations to make them credible and lay an Obligation upon the Consciences of all Christians to receive their Propositions under the grievous penalty of otherwise disobeying the voice and will of God This dotage indeed Montanus and such kind of Enthusiasts have been guilty of But their pretensions were rejected as dreams of folly arising from mis-interpretations of Scripture as if there were to be new Revelations made in after-times by way of super-addition and supplement into which errors they were led by their pride and conceitedness and an ill habit and temper of body and the Authority of the Scriptures and the Praescription of the precedent Ages were justly objected against them All that the Church can pretend to is only this not to define and make a new Article of Faith but only to declare what before was revealed and acknowledged though not so clearly understood till the iniquity of the times made it necessary for the Church in a general Council to interpose her Authority in the determination of Controversies of Faith And where this pretence is true her Authority ought to be submitted to and her Proposals embraced That is if the Doctrine proposed be the just and natural result of an Article of Faith expresly revealed in the Scripture and understood in that manner and acknowledged as such by the first Christians Contemporaries and Successors of the Apostles and constantly received from that time downward by the generality of Christians For the opposition of a few after the first and general reception of a necessary truth is not considerable who through prejudice or out of design to raise troubles in the Church or out of Ambition to be the Chiefs of a Faction or through a pretended dissatisfaction at the Mysteriousness of it or through wantonness of Wit and Humour have been so obstinate as not only to refuse to make the same acknowledgment but to maintain the contrary with violence To all which that is to Scripture Apostolick Tradition and universal consent the Fathers Assembled in the four first General Councils had regard in their determinations against the Hereticks of their time They only fixt what was Catholick Doctrine and what was believed in the Ages before they were born They founded their Declarations upon Scripture and universal Tradition And to silence all Disputes and to prevent Schism and to direct their own and after-times in the belief and understanding of the great Mysteries of Faith they reduced the Doctrine of it as it lyes scattered in several parts of Scripture into a form of plain and intelligible words and enlarged themselves in the explication of it as we shall see anon It being the very same Faith which the Apostles Preach'd and which the Scriptures hold out to us All the Anathema's are founded upon that of St. Paul Gal. 1. 8 9. Though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you then what we have Preached unto you let him be accursed If any Man Preach any other Gospel unto you than that you have received let him be accursed And if there cannot be another Gospel there cannot be another Faith The Gospel being the Revelation of God by Christ and that Revelation full and made but once in
Constantinople under Theodosius the Emperor by which enlargement all good Christian People were to be establish'd in the belief of the Catholick Doctrine declared so to be according to Scripture and Universal Tradition By these mighty Arguments they convinced the Hereticks and justly subjected them to the Punishment which their refractoriness and guilt deserved They settled the Peace of the Church and secured the Faith from the like assaults in after-times Their Creed was the Test by which they discerned Truth from Heresie and it was received and acknowledged as such by all the Orthodox Christians in the Churches of Greece the lesser Asia Syria and Egypt and taught the Catechumeni as a necessary qualification of their admission into the number of the Faithful which is the true reason that the other short form which had been in use hitherto the sum and substance of it with all its necessary deductions being transfused into this began to be dis-used and in process of time wholly omitted and left out of their Liturgies Whereas at Rome and in the other Churches of the West where those Controversies about matters of Faith which had exercised the Wits and Curiosities of the Orientals whose prying and restless Genius drove them upon those subtilties never were admitted or made no considerable progress among them they continued constant and steddy in the profession of the Ancient Faith and therefore stuck to and retained the old form of words as they are summ'd up in the Creed which we call the Apostles with some little addition and needed not a larger explication 2. It follows from this that the Doctrine of Faith must necessarily be one and the same every where according to the assertion of the Text It was the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. not appropriated to any particular Sect but it lay in common and open to all The whole Faith that is so much as was necessary to denominate them true Believers was received by all without any difference in the main points of it For how could it be otherwise while they adhered so close to the Doctrine of the Apostles who all Preach'd the same Faith in the most distant parts of the World between which there could not possibly be as the times stood then that is before the Polarity or directive vertue of the Load-stone was known any communication or intercourse There was a perfect agreement and harmony of Confessions among all who had embraced the Doctrine of Christianity The Christians here in Britain believed no otherwise than those at Jerusalem and those in India whom St. Thomas Converted and all who lived in the intermediate spaces between those two vastly distant extreams which were the boundaries of the then known World exactly agreeing with both Though they differed in Language Customs Laws Behaviour and way of Living and were under different Governments yet they all held the same thing Which Argument is excellently handled by Irenoeus in his 1st Book 3d. Chap. adv Hoereses There cannot be a more convictive Argument of the truth of the sense of the Articles of Faith which the Hereticks reject than the profession of them in all Churches of the World For how came this universal Consent establish'd but from the soundness of the Doctrine and the Authority of its first Publishers Among that great variety of Opinions which prevailed every where there were certain essential points of Faith wherein they were all unanimous and so long as they were held and maintained a liberty of Judgment and Opinion was allowed in lesser matters witness those Ancient forms before-mentioned long before the Civil Power took the Christian Religion into its protection which whosoever admitted and processed was received into their Communion So that from this Unity of Faith which was received every where by the whole number of Christians except some obstinate Heretical Dissenters who were a small and inconsiderable Party at first in comparison of the rest the Christian Church was styled Catholick or Universal just as the great Ocean is one and the same though it receives particular denominations from the several shores which it washes as the Brittish Cantabrian Atlantick and the like and not from any pretended subjection to one Sovereign Pastor And the word Catholick became another name for Orthodox and the Bishops afterwards subscribed themselves Bishops of the Catholick Church of such a place as founded on the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Universally received throughout the World and by vertue of the same Faith in Communion with all Christians Upon these two Suppositions I shall lay down these following Propositions That 1. Diversity of Opinions in matters of Religion of less moment does not interrupt and dissolve the Unity of Faith Opinions arise either from want of Evidence in the things themselves which causes a fluctuation and unsettlement in the mind as not knowing where to fix and rest to which we yield a wavering kind of assent more or less according to greater or lesser degrees of Probabilities or else from the weakness of the understanding which not being able to take a comprehensive view of things and resolve them into their first Principles and Original Causes or for want of a sure Foundation whether of Nature or Reason or Authority or Revelation takes up with Arguments and motives of assent which fall short of certainty and which cannot quiet the mind and secure it from all suspicion and fear of the contrary And indeed considering the great variety of mens tempers and complexions Education and Interests and the greater or lesser degrees of Knowledge Industry Curiosity and the like there is a Moral impossibility that Opinions should be one and the same And where God has left a liberty no Power upon Earth can oblige the Conscience and Understanding to admit them any otherwise than as Opinions That is either as true in their kind but far from the Infallibility of Divine Revelations or as piè credibilia Or as means and instruments of Agreement and Uniformity in Judgment to prevent Schism and Confusion so as yet no one particular Church shall prescribe to another but leave each to its liberty of securing their peace and quiet by what Confessions they judge best for that end and nothing be imposed as a matter of Doctrine which thwarts the Ancient Christian Doctrine and the Catholick Tradition of the Church 2. All truths are not fundamental and necessary to be believed with the same firmness of assent For several Propositions may be true and useful and yet not necessary and essential to the Faith the ignorance or dis-belief of which does not throw a man out of the Communion of the Church The neglect of this distinction has been one great cause of the troubles and turmoils of Christendom whilst fierce and eager Disputants have been engaged in the defence of several tenents which have no necessary dependance on the Doctrine of Faith and which are not determined in the Scriptures and by reason of their difficulty
the days of his flesh Whatever therefore the Church believes or proposes to be believed must necessarily be founded upon such a Revelation and consequently that Doctrine if it be of Faith must Originally derive from Christ and his Apostles the Doctrine of Faith being nothing else but what He and They from Him have delivered and consequently one and the same yesterday to day and for ever That is in all Ages Now into the Unity of this Faith and wherein it consists I shall enquire in the next place which brings me to The second Proposition That the Unity of Faith only respects the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion In order to the clearing of which I will premise these two things 1. That there was a form of words containing a brief Summary of the Principles of the Christian Religion in the Apostles times This seems to be presupposed in the writings of the New Testament and most probably may be the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or form of sound words which St. Paul advises Timothy to hold fast 2 Epist. 1. 13. and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the good depositum or Doctrine committed to his trust which undoubtedly refers to the grounds and fundamentals of Christianity purely and abstractedly considered as the rule of Faith to which he was precisely to adhere against all the noise and clamours of vain and idly-curious talkers and the contradictions of the Gnosticks the Hereticks of that Age who not content with the express and plain Revelations of the Gospel pretended to higher and greater degrees and measures of Divine knowledge as is plain from 1 Tim. 6. 20. O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane and vain bablings and oppositions of Science falsly so called It being most agreeable in the nature of the thing if there were no places of Scripture to countenance and make out the supposition that the Apostles should for the use of the new Converts put the necessary Articles of Faith together into certain heads of Discourse and that to these they should refer as to a Rule Gal. 6. 16. Phil. 3. 16. as to a form of Doctrine Rom. 6. 17. as to the first Principles of the Oracles of God Heb. 5. 12. as to the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. 1. and as to the Faith once delivered to the Saints Jude v. 3. All which several circumlocutions are expressive of the same thing and suppose those Doctrines whatsoever they were universally taught and as universally acknowledged and received But whether this form be the same with that which bears the name of the Apostles Creed which undoubtedly in the main is very ancient and most probably as ancient as their time the Church in succeeding Ages indeed to serve and maintain the interests and necessities of Religion against the innovations and assaults of Heresie adding several clauses and expressions to it is not here to be disputed at large But however this is certain that long before the times of the Council at Nice there was a Confession of Faith in use among Christians as the Standard of Catholick verity as is demonstrable from the Testimonies of Irenoeus Tertullian and others which Creed though there might be some variation of expression in it that is might be more contracted or enlarged at different times yet agreeing in the main as to the sense and wording too of most of the Articles being of general usage and of great Authority deriving neither the one nor the other from the Canon or Decree of any Council it may more than probably be supposed from the spreading and universal reception of it in the Churches of the East and West and from the general silence of its first establishment that it was delivered down from the very first Ages as having the Apostles for its Authors Against this if it be objected that if such a Creed had been extant at that time the same respect and reverence would have been given to it as to their other writings and consequently that there would have been no addition nor alteration of it much less any new form as the Nicene may seem to be framed and introduced as if the other had been defective it may be fully and satisfactorily replyed that whosoever considers the estate of the Church in the Southern parts of the Empire that is in Egypt and Libya and Thebais under Constantine how it was rent and torn and the dissolution of its very Being threatned by the new and blasphemous Opinions of Arius and his numerous followers he will quickly find that the Fathers who were conven'd at Nice to put a stop to those Commotions and allay the fury of the Tempest which began to shake the foundations of the Government as well as of Religion lay under a necessity of fencing about the hitherto uncontradicted and established Doctrine of Christianity with a larger and more explicite form of Words retaining for the most part though with some little interpolation referring to the Arian controversies which they hoped to put an end to this way the old form which Eusebius Bishop of Coesarea in Palestine presented the Emperour and that Council as having received it from the Bishops his Predecessors and which himself and the Catechumeni were first taught and profest at their Baptism and by these means adding a Commentary and explication of what was more closely couch'd in the Apostolical form which they did not pretend to alter but to draw forth in its full meaning and consequence For it was not enough for the Arians to say which is the Plea of the Socinians at this day that they acknowledge the Apostles Creed and are willing to subscribe to it unless at the same time they will admit the full sense of the words with the several propositions that are necessarily included in them as they are and have been understood by the Catholick Church from the first times of Christianity For if they pretend to say they believe Christ to be the only begotten Son of God in a private sense of their own to the prejudice of his God-head that is if they will not for all this believe him to be God begotten of his Father before all Worlds but fancy there was a time when he was not and so make him a Creature though the most glorious and perfect of all the Creation and so deny him to be of the same substance with the Father what is this but to destroy the Faith of Christ which is built upon this Foundation to make a mock-profession of Faith to retain the Apostles words only and deny in the mean while the truth of the Doctrine which they were intended to establish And so afterward when the Heresie of Macedonius brake out threatning new troubles and distracting the minds of the People with their Blasphemous Novelties The Article concerning the Holy Ghost was enlarged by the Assessors of the first General Council held at