An Advertisement WHen the late Answer to the Bishop of Meaux came forth this was just finished but laid by as useless till upon an after View it was thought it might be serviceable because of a more particular Explication of the Church of England ' s Sentiments in it and likewise a more full Expression of the Romish Doctrines from the Publick Acts of that Church and its direct answering M. Condom ' s Reasons which the other Author does not propose to himself AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Condom Now of MEAVX His Exposition of the Catholick Faith c. Wherein the DOCTRINE of the Church of Rome Is DETECTED And that of the Church of England EXPRESSED FROM THE Publick Acts of both CHURCHES To which are added Reflections on his Pastoral Letter LONDON Printed by H. C. for R. Kettlewel and R. Wells at the Hand and Scepter against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street 1686. Imprimatur Guil. Needham R mo in Christo Patri ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archi-Ep Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 4. 1686. THE PREFACE HIM that shall think fit to answer this Treatise M. Condom desires pag. 51. to consider that to accomplish his intent 1st He must not undertake to refute the Doctrine contained in it it not being his design to prove but only to propose it in this Book But I hope if in persuing the design of his Book in some places I observe the falshood or danger of some of these Doctrins or the insufficience of his Reasons given to establish them it may be allowed especially if they are but such hints as are as necessary for the subverting the Design of the Treatise as his Reasons given to establish the Doctrine are for the explication of it 2ly That it would be a quitting the design of this Treatise to examine the different Methods which Catholick Divines have used to explicate the Doctrine of the Council of Trent and the different consequences which particular Doctors have drawn from it But with his leave if himself be no other than a Particular Doctor for we can allow him to be no more as yet till those Approbations collected in the Advertisement from several of the most principal Divines and others in the Church and at last from the Pope himself which are pleaded for his greater authority come to be considered it can be no quitting the design of his Book if any part of it be the Exposition of the Doctrine of that Council to take notice if there be occasion of any different Explication which others have given of it For though their Explication being different does not prove his not to be contained in it yet first it assures us that the words which are used by the Council to express its Doctrine are ambiguous since different explications pretend equally to be explications of the Council And thereby 2ly we are left uncertain in what sense the Church holds the Doctrine which we have no reason to take from him unless upon examination it shall hereafter appear that he has a greater authority to declare the sense held by the Church than the other had 3ly That to urge any thing solid against this Book and which may come home to the Point it must be proved That the Churches Faith is not here faithfully expounded and that by Acts which the Church has obliged her self to rceeive This last clause may either plead for my proving that he himself has not expounded it faithfully by such Acts or that my proof of the falsity of his Exposition must in all things be made out by such Acts. In the former case I shall hold my self obliged when I oppose him to do it from those Acts produced by himself or others as much owned by the Church In the latter presumptive proofs that conclude with greater probability for the falshood than his for the truth of his Exposition are the utmost that ought to be required there being no reason that he should oblige me to proofs of another nature than what he brings himself Or else 4ly That it must be shewn that this Explication leaves all the Objections in their full force and all the Disputes untouched Herein I shall be especially careful since he has expresly obliged me to it to consider what Objections are in force and what Disputes remain 5ly Or in fine It must be precisely shewn in what this Doctrine subverts the foundations of Faith Of this likewise I shall be careful but suppose in some cases it appear that in all probability though not precisely it subverts the Faith certainly a Church that ought to provide for the preservation cannot justifie her self in commanding things that in every mans judgment tend to the destruction of the Faith and if it appear that this Doctrine does and experience testifie it has greatly prejudiced the foundations of Faith shall the whole world be obliged to forbear providing for their common Christianity till all its Foundations be totally overthrown The Author though he seems to acquaint us with his design yet has not positively express'd the end he aims at but so far as I can dive into it it is this 1st To take off that false Idea which Protestants have framed to themselves of the Church of Rome for such he takes notice they have p. 1. upon which he thinks it beneficial to explicate to them what the Church has defined in the Trent Council upon the main Points in controversie And thereby 2ly to gain a good opinion in the Reformers of the Churches innocence 3ly By this explication of their Doctrine to shew that the main Disputes are not so material as they have been thought and that many of them are at an end 4ly That the Matters from which the first grounds of Separation were taken by this Explication being cleared and appearing not so ill as they have been judged they are no longer justifiable Causes of a Separation whereby we are concluded under a necessity of joining with the Church of Rome The first of these he intimates as his aim when he tells us he had observed many had a false Idea of their Church whereupon he took a resolution to explicate their Doctrine p. 1. The third and fourth are implied in the two effects proposed to himself from this Exposition p. 2. The conclusion that our distance is no longer justifiable is not positively inferred by M. Condom But the Advertisement as it sometimes calls for the Removal of our false Conceptions sometimes for a better opinion of the Church sometimes challenges that an end is put to the main Disputes does also in this clearly discover it self and tell us That we may hereupon be justly afraid Ado. p. 9. to persist in a Schism which is manifestly founded upon false Principles even in the most principal Points Now no man will oppose the first intent it being most just that every man be willing to lay aside his false or prejudicate Opinions Nor the second for the same
but he does not in all this say that it is the true and only Sense of the Council And further That for these Reasons he does not only think it worthy his Commendation but to be read and esteemed by all He does not say nor mean esteemed for the only Sense of the Council as is plain by the Latine Copy And further We hope this Work by the Grace of God will bring forth much Fruit and will not a little help to propagate the Orthodox Faith In all which he neither declares it for the Sense of the Council nor confirms it as such nor does any thing to make it authentick if that be to authorize it as a Truth throughout the whole Church which yet is the least that could be lookt for in this Case for the Reasons given The utmost therefore that can be made of it is only that it has the commendation of his private Judgment for a prudent useful good Book likely to work no small Effects for the propagation of the Catholick Faith So that this will be no great prejudice to any Proofs that shall be made against M. Condom where I may attempt in opposition to him to shew that he has not fully given the Doctrine of his Church But the Advertizer raising himself on this Foundation that this Exposition is as true and as authentick as he pretends it and laying on this Presumption further that it has most effectually served the Ends it aims at insults over the Reformed as if the Day was clearly gained boasting the pretended Victory not over the Answerers only but all Reformers What particular Advantages he pretends over the Answerers I meddle not with wanting both opportunity to procure and capacity to understand their Books if French nor will I be obliged to concern my self with any pretended to be gotten over any Numbers of the Reformed either for their false Opinions Doctrines or Concessions in any Cases but where the like may seem pretended from like Doctrines or Concessions of the Church of England Whether he has such real Cause to Boast will not appear till the End But what of his is added to back M. Condom shall be considered under their particular Heads in the Exposition Pag. 18. He goes on to vindicate M. Condom First That he has done well to propose the true Tenets of the Council and their Church and distinguish them from those that are falsly imputed to her No body will blame his Aim in this God forbid that any should refuse to hear what may inform them and remove their Prejudices Secondly That he has done but just in taking the Doctrine of the Church from the Council of Trent Nor will any blame him for this or require him to justifie the Council from the great suspitions that are justly had of it for be the Council what it will it 's sufficient for the Exposition that the Doctrine of it is universally received throughout their Church Nor shall Father Pont's History because he here is said to be a profess'd enemy to the Council of Trent either prejudice me against its Doctrines or make me call its Decisions ambiguous without apparent grounds for it Thirdly That his choice was not amiss in pitching upon those Points from which the subject of the Reformation was taken But however if new Matters have been added by themselves since which make the distance wider those may well be added as Obstacles to a present Union and without reflecting on the Bishops sincerity or accusing him to have on purpose left out the greatest difficulties it may be allowed me to produce others so far as they are material to shew that some great Objections are yet in force and many great Disputes untouched But whether he has been so faithful to his promise as to affirm nothing to make the Council better understood which is not approved of in the Church and manifestly conformable to it will appear when the particulars are examined There is one thing more that will greatly affect me as well as the other Answers against whom it 's urged p. 23. That it 's to no purpose to object against this Exposition the Bull of Pius the Fourth for that the design of this Book says the Advertiser has nothing of those Glosses and Commentaries which with great reason that Pope condemned some of which usually fill'd the Margins with their own Imaginations and gave them for the Text it self and such for the conservation of Unity the Pope was obliged not to permit nothing of which nature is in this Exposition But he need not have taken all this pains if himself durst have relied on his former proof of its authentickness yet to make this of any strength to back what he had said before he should have told us by what authority he declares what sort of Comments and Glosses the Pope forbids in that Bull or the Reasons upon which he did it Let this be one reason yet what shall hinder but Father Paul's may be another that it was to withstand the checks which the Council might be said to give to the Papal power and disable all from using it to the prejudice of the Court of Rome To believe which we have greater grounds than Father Paul's bare assertion but much less to believe the Advertiser since the Bull in express words forbids not only such Interpretations as Comments and Glosses but all Annotations Scholia's and every kind of interpretation whatsoever decreeing likewise all such as any should attempt to make wittingly or ignorantly with or by whatsoever authority void and null Whereas in the conclusion p. 24. he says That suppose we call for the Reformation of Abuses it is one way of suppressing them to shew the Truth in purity not excluding other means I shall here take occasion to remember out of M. Verone in his Epitome of his Methods part of whose method M. Condom exactly follows how little we can propose to our selves from these fair pretences of representing the truth in purity towards this effect which will also shew in part upon what grounds this Doctrine of the Exposition may find that approbation which it has amongst them and yet be far from being so truly and universally received as is pretended This M. Vernone is most eminent for the use of this Method to separate the Decrees of the Council from the Opinions of all particular persons whatsoever and the Doctrine he would perswade as the Churches sense seems in all things as moderate as this of M. Condom He says they do no further honor Images than as they use outward respect to the Bible and other sacred Utensils and speaks of Transubstantiation Merits c. much after the same moderation and will not have the Infallibility of the Pope to be matter of the Catholick Faith And yet this Person though he Verone's Epit. 〈…〉 Convin â—…et declares the Doctrine of their Church in a way fair to appearance tells us nevertheless that what other Doctors
of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of Sins But I say unto you that I drink not henceforth of the Fruit of the Vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the Kingdom of my Father When St. Matthew here tells us that our Lord took Bread and having blessed brake and gave it to his Disciples saying This is my Body and having took the Cup and blessed likewise gave it to them saying This is my Blood Is it not manifest that he says this Bread is my Body Can this demonstrate any thing but what he gave to them broke blest and took in order to it when there is no mark given to know that he intended to speak of somewhat else Nor will it avail to say This does not demonstrate that he took at first because he blessed after he had taken it before he said This is my Body for at least it must be that which he broke after he had given Thanks and that of necessity is the same Bread that he took Again his words This is my Body will never bear such a forced Construction as This Bread is now abolished to make room for my Body for his Affirmative Is does not in the least alter it but requires and supposes the thing true at the time he speaks it This must be This i. e. Bread and Wine which God's Word demonstrateth at the time that it is his Body and Blood But whatever This may demonstrate it will be impossible to prove the Disciples understood it to demonstrate any thing which the Scriptures express not Now when St. Matthew brings in our Lord speaking after the delivery of the Cup that he would not drink any more of the Vine does he not apparently suppose it to be Wine after his delivery of it to his Disciples or at least when he delivered it Nor will it at all advantage them to say that St. Luke makes him speak it before the Consecration or Blessing of the Elements for whether he spoke it before or after or both it is certain that if St. Matthew had understood the Wine to be no more Wine he could not have placed these words of our Lord after the delivery of the Cup. So when St. Paul says 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ Does not he say that it is Bread still though it be the Communion of the Body of Christ Nor shall any thing hinder but that the substance of Bread remaining we may spiritually communicate of his Body If our Communion were carnal possibly it might be difficult to understand but that being not proved nor to be proved for the Reasons given from the difference between the New and Old Testament no man can find any difficulty in apprehending it So then M. Condom's great Bluster about our Saviour's explicating usually to his Disciples what he taught in Parables and Figures which is not done here and his Omnipotence to work whatever he said falls to nothing For our Lord's Discourse being easily intelligible according to our Sense of his presenting his Body and Blood under these Elements to be spiritually received but not to be understood so easily in theirs they have the most need to seek for an explication that shall determine them to their Sense especially since it is thus evident that the Apostles understood it to be Bread and Wine as we do so that 't is they have made the forced Construction by denying it Nor can our Lord's Omnipotence take place here till it be proved what he intended to bring to pass thereby Whereas he says The Laws of Discourse that teach us a Sign receives often the Name of the thing represented yet will not allow it in a Sign that has no relation to the thing as in this instance of a morsel of Bread to signifie the Body of man what if we should say the less relation it has to the thing the further it is from being it and the more probable to be only a Sign how would he disprove us by the Laws of Discourse which being used only to express our Conceptions can receive no more bounds than they Yet had he considered but the purpose for which our blessed Saviour gives us his Body to be the Nourishment of our Souls he would not have determined so positively that Bread which is the Food of our Bodies has no analogy with that which is to feed our Souls He might have found Examples even in holy Writ where Christ calls himself a Door the Way and a Vine which things have yet not the least analogy with the Body of a man but yet sufficiently represent the purposes for which he calls himself so and are easily understood without conceiving him to be changed into a Door c. or any of these to be changed into him SECT XI Of the Words Do this in remembrance of Me. NOT having at all insisted on these Words Do this in remembrance of me I am not at all concerned to answer what he says to prove That a Remembrance may be consistent with a real partaking of a thing remembred being sure that let him make the best of it it can never make any thing against me or conclude that we must partake of Christ in any other manner than what I have set sorth But whereas he pretends to take an advantage from an Answer generally used by us That this Remembrance does not exclude all kind of Presence but that which strikes the Senses so as to make this his own for that they though they affirm Jesus Christ to be present yet acknowledg at the same time that he is not present after a sensible manner He must give me leave to say that not determining as yet any thing concerning our Doctrine till after it be explained and considered his Answer is perfectly an Illusion in that though they pretend him not present in a sensible manner i. e. visibly appearing to their Senses yet they own him present in a bodily and carnal manner and to be eaten carnally as if a man should swallow a Pill in a Conserve the Pill is not taken in a sensible manner but yet the very substance of it is taken into the Stomach I shall not therefore demand by that Query which he is pleased to call Equivocal why they think it not enough to say The Son of God is present to us by Faith but by that he confesses to be without equivocation how they come to know by Faith that he is present after a bodily or carnal manner And whether his Real Presence though spiritual known by Faith is not sufficient to work all the necessary Effects in the just man who lives by Faith SECT XII Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Real Presence WHereas M. Condom thinks himself to have gotten
great advantages by his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Calvinists in this point I thought my self unconcerned with his Objections the Church of England not having tyed her Faith to Calvin or any other but grounded it on the Scriptures Only that no man may suspect them to be of any force against the Doctrine held by the Church of England I saw it necessary to set down and explain her Doctrine and see whether any thing here urged can conclude it to be in the least absurd or inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures or with itself The Church of England then teaches 1 Catech. That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Prayer 2 Exhortation at the Communion That we therein spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood we dwell in Christ and Christ in us we are one with Christ and he with us 3 Art 28. 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 4 Homily of the Sacrament That we must be sure to hold that there is no vain Ceremony no bare sign no untrue figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the table of the Lord the bread and cup of the Lord the memory of Christ the annunciation of his death yea the Communion of the body and blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the souls of the faithful whereby not only their souls live to eternal life but they trust also to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality Therefore 5 Prayer of Consecration she prays that in partaking of these his Creatures of bread and wine we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood 6 Catech. That the benefits that we receive by thus partaking of the body and blood of Christ are the strengthning and refreshing of our souls by these as our bodies are by the bread and wine 7 Homily of the Sacrament Ibid. That thus much the faithful see hear and know herein the favourable mercies of God sealed the satisfaction of Christ confirmed and the remission of sins established 8 Art 28. That nevertheless there is no Transubstantiation or Change of the substance of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper 9 Hom. Ib. Wherefore we are not to regard specially the earthly Creatures which remain but always to hold fast and cleave by Faith to Christ the Rock 10 Art 28. Whose body is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner 11 Hom. Ib. Wherefore it is well known the meat we seek is spiritual heavenly and not earthly invisible and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal 12 Art Ib. The means therefore whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith 13 Hom. Ib. So that to think that without Faith we may enjoy the eating his body or drinking his blood is but to dream a gross and carnal feeding basely binding our selves to the Elements and Creatures As for those then that hold it no more than a bare sign and the Celebration and Communion thereof barely the renewing our Profession or a remembrance only of Christ Crucified whom it representeth they are wide from the Church of England on the one side as the Church of Rome on the other Nor do those who only hold it a sign effective to apply the benefits of the death of Christ not supposing it to tender Christ as present to us and to be received by us before we partake in the benefits of his death express exactly in my judgment the sense of our Church Although there is so near a conjunction of Christ with his benefits that one cannot well be apprehended without the other I conceive therefore that in the sense of our Church not only the benefits of Christ but Christ himself is tendred to us in this Holy Sacrament and is to be eaten by us before we partake of his benefits not that we are bodily to partake of him for this end but in that it seems to be the intention of our blessed Savour under these Elements to give us himself and to put us in the actual possession of himself so that in the use of this ordinance as verily as a man does bodily receive the earthly Creatures so verily does he spiritually receive the body and blood of Christ For our better apprehension of which Mystery it will be necessary more particularly to consider what it is which we do hereby receive and in what manner we are made partakers of it Concerning the first the truth which we hold you see is this that we do not here receive only the benefits that flow from Christ but the very body and blood of Christ i. e. Christ himself Crucified for as the bread and wine avails not to our bodily sustenance unless the substance of those Creatures be first received so neither do we partake of the benefits of Christ to our spiritual relief except we have first a Communion with Christ himself This the words of our blessed Saviour Joh 6. 57 Encline me to believe where he says that he that eateth him shall live by him intimating that we must be partakers of him before we can have life from him So the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16 The bread which we break Is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ evidently imply that we are therein to partake of Christ himself This I take to be that great mystery of our union with Christ whereby we are made members of his body of his flesh and of his bones And this I look upon to be that 〈◊〉 the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God in the 6th of St. John But now if it be demanded how we can eat the flesh of Christ and partake of his body and blood to conceive this eating in a carnal sense is as gross an imagination as that of those Joh. 6 who asked within themselves How can this man give us his flesh to eat we must not think then that we cannot truly feed on Christ unless we receive his substance into our bellies but must consider that the eating and drinking our Saviour speaks of must be spiritual according to the nature of his Gospel and therefore we must enquire therein what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now then if we consider what appetites are in our souls and what those appetites crave or ought at least to long after we shall easily discern what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now we know that in the 5th of St. Matthew our Saviour intimates to us that we ought to have a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness which
have said of the Popes Infallibility and his being the only Judge of Controversies is true p. 410. and that himself does hold them as truths de Fide p. 425. He tells us likewise in the Chapter entituled Calumniae â—lutae That some not of the unlearned only but learned too had clancularly aspersed him as if he had said it was not matter of Faith That the Church could not err That she was not the supream and only Judge That the Pope was not Head of the Church That he sought the union of Religion by remitting part of the Faith The cry of this was so great that he tells us he set forth a publick Programma in his own vindication wherein he declares his assent to those things which he was supposed to have denied and says they are Veritates Fidei Truths belonging to the Faith though not defined by the Council Ipsissimis terminis and that he did not intend by any of his Explications any such diminution of their Faith as his accusers mistook him to intend but only used this as a necessary method to reduce such as were gon astray He often taxes them to shew wherein he had expresly impugned those Truths which they thought him to have betray'd and tells them their oversight lay in this that when he said such and such Truths were not de fide Catholica they mistook him as though he had denied them to be necessary Truths which he denies himself to have the least implied and declares his own belief of the Popes Infallibility adding withal that the Explication which he had given of himself in this instance he would have understood with respect to all the Matters he had handled as Transubstantiation Merits Images Adoration of the Eucharist c. This he look'd upon he tells us p. 315. as the most expedient Method to propose only those Doctrines which the Council expresly commanded to be held and pass the rest in silence when they expect to win Runnagates to the Faith whom if they can bring first to the admission of this there will be opportunity gained to prevail with them in the rest I will not take the advantage given me by this mans fraud to accuse M. Condom of the like but only infer in part from hence that the Doctrine of this Exposition which differs not from Verone's has been look'd on with a jealous eye among themselves whatever approbation it may have now and again that the Gentlemen have no reason to be angry since themselves have made the detection if we fear to swallow abait that may conceal a hook What was done to remedy those Abuses which were in vain complained of will be better justifiable after examination of the particulars when we shall be capable to consider on whom the Schism and the miseries consequent upon it may be most justly charged I thank the Advertiser that he forbears reproaches though he says he could find ground enough for them in abuses that are among us for which although I hope he could find but few yet I shall hold my self indebted to him the forbearance of all Invectives and the silence of those Abuses which shall any way appear to be disallowed by their Church I likewise beg of God that they may read without bitterness and may that God from whom alone is all success who knows the progress of Error and its increase through mens making his Religion subservient to their own ambition intrests and hypocrisies so effectually touch the hearts of all that all parties may act and with their utmost strength endeavour all which true sincere Piety and a zeal for God and his glory free from all other ends and intrests does oblige them to for healing the Wounds of his afflicted Church CONSIDERATIONS ON THE Late Bishop of Condom's BOOK ENTITULED An Exposition of the Catholick Faith in Matters of Controversie SECT I The Design of his Treatise considered AS to this first Section wherein he mentions his Design having considered it in part already I have little more to add I confess it very expedient to consider the Grounds of the first Separation and the necessity of a Right Explication of their Churches Tenents and that these ought to be taken from the publick Acts of the Church and not from particular Doctors for the reason quoted out of M. Daille That the sentiments of particular persons ought not to be imputed to the whole body only here is one thing wanting which we desire might be declared that all Tenents of particular Doctors contrary to any of this which shall be delivered as the sense of the Church are false and disowned by it for to say it is implied is not sufficient when a Church pretends to declare her self to her Adversaries who charge her with other Doctrines maintained by her But for what he adds from Mr. Daille That no separation ought to be but upon the account of Articles authentickly estabished to the belief and observance of which all persons are obliged I must here observe That this Concession does not affect the Church of England till it be proved that by Reforming her self she has departed either from the true Faith or from some authority to which she was lawfully subject not that I hold National Churches less obliged to preserve the unity of the whole than every particular member that of the Church wherein he lives but that I maintain a Church that is not dependent upon others can never be said to have done any thing to prejudice the unity of the Catholick Church by reforming abuses within her self and taking the best expedients to preserve the foundations of Faith and promote good life so that all 39 Artic. of the Church of England things be done to edifying as it is express'd by the Church of England Artic. 34. Whereas he says that what he writes shall be approved of in the Church and be conformable to the Doctrine of the Council I could wish he had promised that it should be the true and only Sense of the Council and that it should likewise be the whole Doctrine of the Church in the Particulars he treats of Another thing is necessary for me to premise here that what Advantages he may take from the Principles of some Reformists in these Disputes I think my self not much concerned in having declared that I will oblige my self only to the Consequences that may be drawn from the Principles of the Church of England SECT II. Concerning the Church of Rome's embracing all the Fundamentals of Religion THis Section premiseth That the Church of Rome believes and professes all the Fundamental Articles of Faith particularly those in the Apostles Creed which we are so far from denying that we plead and challenge it being sure it will give us this Advantage that they can never charge us with Innovation nor with departure from the Faith if these are all the Fundamental and Principal Articles But M. Condom pretends that they also can draw from hence great
Desires and all men obliged upon this account to invocate them Fifthly Whether particular Persons that do not alwayes maintain this distinct intention of the Church are not chargeable even with direct Idolatry Sixthly Whether if this Distinction has not been alwayes maintained by all Persons or be difficult to be maintained the Church which teaches this from Scripture does not prejudice the Foundations of Faith Now if to the Points thus collected we subjoyn the Sentiments of the Church of England we shall see what this Exposition will make against us and what Differences it hath left untouched Touching the First then The Church of Rngland declares Homily of Prayer Par. 2. That the Saints have no such Knowledge as to make them capable of Invocation that they have no special Knowledge of the Desires or Necessities of particular men the Scripture saying Abraham is ignorant of us and that the inward Desires in which Prayer chiefly consists are only known to God As to the Second She does not say what the Sentiments of the Hom. against peril of Idolatry part 3. Church of Rome are or that some of them may not direct their Intentions as they pretend but that others of them have not done it she argues by their appropriating to particular Saints the Tutelarship of certain Countries and Defence of distinct Cities to others the Protection of several Arts and Professions to others the Cure of particular Diseases all which she looks upon as derogating from Gods Providence and Evidence of peculiar Trust in Saints But that supposing this Intention of theirs kept entire their use of external Adoration and such Forms as are only applicable to God does make them guilty of Idolatry it sayes not only in general that external Adoration is peculiar to God and that it should not be given to any thing else and upon what Ground equivocal Gestures expressive of that Adoration ought not to be given to any other in Religious Worship I have shewed Sect. 3. Concerning the Third Our Church has said That Invocation Hom. of Prayer part 2. meaning thereby Prayer as an Act of Devotion is proper only to God But in this Point M. Condom hath left us without sufficient Explication of the Sense of his Church he has told us to what end the Council commands us to pray unto them and that it teaches the profitableness of it and that it pretends not to exclude Christ when it teaches us to have this recourse to the Saints but he has not told us what Degrees or Measures our Desires are confined to I presume their Church must mean another manner of Desire than that used to our Brethren upon Earth because the Council decrees Invocation a Word never used to express any Request made to Man it also requires this to be made after an humble manner and even with Mental Supplication but it gives no Bounds to these Desires And I must and do maintain that he that prays to Saints though holding the Supposition that they pray to God for him yet if he prays with the same Intention of Mind to these as he does to God either intending to do that to these which they do to God for us or which himself does to God when he prays unto him comes so near to an Idolater that no man can possibly distinguish them But as we cannot judge how far the Intent of a man's Desire goes by any outward Expressions it is God only that can pass this Censure however the Church has not sufficiently provided Means to preserve this Distinction in all its Members in that it has left the Desires of men to go in this Worship of Saints as far as Superstition a blind zeal can carry them As to the Fourth It denies it to be any part of Faith that the Saints departed have any certain knowledge of humane Affairs as I have shewed before and consequently denies it in the Churches power to make it such or to oblige any to invocate them upon this account To the Fifth Such as have not maintained this distinct Intention but have reposed Trust in the Saints and relied upon Hom. against Idolatry pa. 2. them for Protection the Church of England plainly declares to be Idolaters And if this distinction of the Intention be that which makes their Church not to command absolute Idolatry the thing which M. Condom Pleads for then all those that do not preserve and maintain this distinction are Idolaters when they let it go So that our Church has cast no reproach upon them falsly in all her Homily against Idolatry unless she has falsified Matters of Fact which we have reason to think she has not till they disprove them since she professes to relate them as things done in that time the knowledge whereof she may be well presumed to have and since they are also no other than such as very probably flow from such Principles And such as these she also declares to destroy apparently Christ's Mediatorship who approach the Saints out of a particular dependance on their Merits To the Sixth The Church of England says of Setters up of Ibid. par 3. Images intending no less I suppose of Promoters of Devotion to Saints if they are Bishops or such as have the Care of Souls it is to shew themselves to have no regard to the Church of Christ and to account the multitude of Souls redeemed by him vile and not worthy their Care And undoubtedly the Church of Rome is so far criminal in this respect and the Idolatries or other Abuses are particularly chargeable upon her as First She teaches that for profitable Doctrine and beneficial to Salvation which is in all probability the contrary and which Experience has shewed otherwise Secondly As she has not in the judgment of any reasonable man sufficiently secured that all her Members shall preserve that infinite distance between God and his Saints and Angels of whom they demand the same Effects which if they do not at all times maintain they are Idolaters as the Heathens were And how can it be presumed that ignorant Christians in the Devotions of their Hearts understand that distance between God and his Creatures which is not signified in their Words which their Teachers can hardly find out a Distinction to difference Thirdly So far as it has contributed to raise the Reverence of Christian People towards the Saints above the Grounds that our Christianity has revealed for tho' I should in part allow the Distinction in the Roman Catechism Cat. Rom. de Cultu Invocat about the Angel's Refusal of the Worship tendered him by St. John that he refused only the Worship due to God alone yet it is plain in that place Rev. 22. 6 9. that St. John knew the Angel that shewed him the Vision to be distinct from God that sent him which is also clear throughout the whole Vision and yet he that had questionless a clear apprehension of one God tendred the
much less deny the effects of God's Omnipotent Power but every Man ought to look for sufficient evidence that this or that is the effect of his Power before he believe it especially before he ground a dependance upon any thing as endued with a vertue from him to work such effects And then to what is said before this in that Catechism concerning Ibid. the miraculous effects that God was pleased to work at the Sepulchres of the Saints and Martyrs in the Primitive times of the Church I answer That God's doing such things then is no argument that he does the like now neither does it give us any more ground to expect the like than his empowering Men to work Miracles to presume on him for the same power still Besides we know God was pleased in condescension to Mens infirmities to win them over by means that ministred to that love of the present World and the advantages of it which Christianity being received obliged them to cast off So that to assure Men or give them hopes of those things from the Saints which God assures them not of from their Christianity is still to maintain in Men those affections to the present World which are inconsistent with their Profession and the ready way to cause them to set up the Saints in the highest place of their affection when they are taught to have recourse to these for such things of the present World which God has given them no absolute promise to supply And therefore 't is in vain for M. Condom to urge us to consider That they Honour them as Victims that have been offered to God when the Honour that is paid them is not barely upon this account as he would insinuate but upon a quite different score That of obtaining help from them the hope of which from others may easily alienate a Man from God when he seeks not in all his necessities immediately to him alone Whereas he invites us further to consider how a Man's love to another propagates itself without being divided to his Children Friends and after that by several degrees to the Representation of him to any remains of him and to any thing that renews it in his remembrance and that Honour has the like Progression and that the Exterior Worship he might have added also Interior for such they give to Saints in mental supplication and seem to do the same when they confide in them and frequent their Relicks for help has its source in God himself and returns back to him so that this Worship which himself alone animates cannot create his Jealousie To say that God himself animates a Worship which they presume to frame for him and foolishly give to others out of a pretence of Honouring him upon so little grounds from their Christianity does very ill beseem a Bishop But questionless he clean forgot himself when he would have us gather from the Progress he marks of Love how pleasing this Honour that has the like Progression must be to God when the Author of the Book of Wisdom cap. 14. vers 15. has shewn us that foolish affection thus propagating itself to have been one of the chief originals of Idolatry An instance enough to make all Men afraid how through a fond zeal and carnal fancy they frame the Worship of God according to their own pleasing Notions As vain and altogether as unbecoming is his other conceit That as God is not jealous of the love of Men when they love their Neighbour for the love of him no more can he be thought to be of his Honour when out of a respect to him we Honour those whom he has Honoured For dares he say that by the Honour God has given to his Saints he has made them the objects of our Worship as he has our Neighbour the object of our Love Might not the Pharisees with greater reason and shew of wisdom have pleaded for their Corban that God being to be Honoured before and above their Parents what was vowed or designed to his Honour could not without high offence be given to their Parents and yet does not our blessed Saviour tell them that hereby they made void the Commandment of God Since M. Condom is willing after all to acknowledg a Power in his Church to abate of these things according to the Exigencies of Times that her Children might not be slavishly subject to sensible things as it makes but little for the Credit of his Church which has endeavoured to impose such things on those who only desired to be disentangled from them professing them to be Clogs that kept down their Souls and depressed them in their flight to Heaven and has thereby caused so great Division in the Church of Christ so I hope it gives us ground to say it is now high time to abate them to her Children that have so long lain under the Burthen But what great part of our Controversies are abated by this better understanding he pretends to have given us I am not able to see after so close a Consideration Then for the things he concludes with That it is great Injustice to accuse their Church of placing all her Piety in these Devotions to Saints It is a great deal more than ought to be that she places so great a part of it therein and if any have censured her as placing all or the chief of it therein themselves have given too just occasion for this Censure by their unwarrantable Means that are used among them to make men vainly zealous of these Devotions But such a Conclusion as he ends with I should little have expected from a person that has treated hitherto with such seeming Moderation To say their Church was obliged to condemn all that reject this Practice as being obliged not to suffer any Practice which is beneficial to Salvation to be despised nor a Doctrine authorized by Antiquity to be condemned by Novellists is very strange in a man that has not pretended to prove this Practice beneficial to Salvation nor at all shewed it to be authorized by Antiquity and has scarce been able by all that he has endeavoured to vindicate from absolute and direct Idolatry not in the least from leading unavoidably to it SECT VI. Of Justification NOT to dispute as yet whether this Point be the principal or was proposed by the Reformers as the most essential Cause of their Separation if M. Condom thought it so he has taken but little pains to represent the Doctrine of his Church in a Point so material out of sixteen Chapters of the Council on that Subject to mention but two Passages neither of which express the Substance of their Doctrine Whereby he has occasioned me the Trouble of drawing an Abstract of their Sentiments out of the Council before I can free my self from his confused Expressions or propose the Doctrine of the Church of England upon this Subject thereby to determine the Matters in Dispute The Council of Trent then concerning
the Justification of a Sinner Decrees as follows THat all Men are lapsed with Adam cap. 1. That Concil Trid. Ses 6. hereupon cap. 2. God sent his Son Christ whom he doth propose a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood for the Sins of the whole World But though he died for all c. 3. yet those only receive the Benefit to whom the Merit of his Passion is communicated That we are to conceive of Justification c. 4. as of the Translation of Man from the State wherein he was born as a Child of Adam to the State of Grace and Adoption through Christ which Change is not wrought without our being washed in the Laver of Regeneration or desire so to be That the beginning of Justification c. 5. in persons adult is the preventing Grace of God i. e. his free Calling whereby Man consenting and co-operating with his exciting and assisting Grace is disposed to prepare himself for Justification which he does willingly and might refuse Which Disposition is wrought after this excitement of Grace c. 6. by believihg willingly the divine Revelations and Promises particularly that God justifieth the Sinner through Grace and then out of a Sense of Sin turning from God's Justice to his Mercy hoping in him for Pardon and thereupon beginning to love him and hate Sin purposing to be Baptized and to begin a new Life That Justification followeth this Disposition c. 7 which is not only the Remission of Sins but the Renovation of the inner Man and hath five Causes the Final the Glory of God and Eternal Life the Efficient God who washeth away Sin and sanctifieth the Meritorious Christ who by his Passion hath merited Justification for us and satisfied his Father the Instrumental the Sacrament of Baptism the only Formal Cause Justice given by God whereby we are renewed in the Spirit of our Minds and not accounted only but made truly just every man receiving it according to the good pleasure of the Holy Ghost and according to his own proper Disposition receiving together with Remission of Sins Faith Hope and Charity That when it is said We are justified by Faith and freely c. 8. it ought to be understood because Faith is the beginning of Justification and the things that precede it are not meritorious of Grace That although it be necessary to believe c. 9. that Sins are not remitted to us but by the free Mercy of God through Christ yet we are not to believe they are remitted to him that vaunteth and reposeth himself only in the confidence and certainty of their Remission neither ought it to be said that Justification is perfected only by Faith excluding all doubt That those who are thus justified c. 10. by bringing forth good Works are more justified By taking the like View of the Doctrine of the Church of England in this Point we shall easily discern the things in difference She then declares 1. THat we are accounted righteous before God only for the Merit Articles of the Church of England Arti. 11. of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Works and Deservings wherefore that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesom Doctrine and full of Comfort 2. That by Justification She means the Forgiveness of our Sins 2. Hom. of Justification part 1. and Trespasses That this being received of God's Mercy and Christ's Merits embraced by Faith is taken and allowed of God for our perfect and full Justification That nothing on the behalf of Man does contribute to this Justification but only a true and lively Faith which Faith is also the gift of God But this Faith does not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God from being joyned with Faith in every man that is justified but it shutteth them out from the Office or justifying nor does it shut out the Justice of good Works necessarily to be done afterwards of Duty to God but only excludes them from deserving our Justification which comes freely from the Mercy and Grace of God whereby he has provided that Ransom to be paid by Christ which all the World in any part was not able to pay of themselves 3. That this Saying that we are justified by Faith only is not 3. Ibid p. 2. meant as if justifying Faith were alone in any without Charity c. at any time or season nor the other that we are justified freely so as to imply that we may be idle or that nothing is required to be done on our parts neither that other of our being justified without Works that we should do nothing at all but thus to take away clearly all merit of our Works to deserve Justification at God's hands and also to express the Weakness of man and the Goodness of God the imperfection of our Works and the most abundant Grace of Christ and to ascribe the merit and deserving of our Justification to Christ alone That though we have and ought to have Faith within us with Hope Charity and other Graces and do never so many good Works thereunto we must renounce the Merit of all our said Virtues that are or may be in us as things too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve remission of Sins i. e. our Justification and must trust only in God's Mercy and the Sacrifice of Christ for the same 4. That therefore Christ himself is the only meritorious Cause of 4. Ibid. pa. 3. it That our own Works do not justifie us to speak properly of Justification i. e. to say our Works do not merit or deserve Remission of Sins but God of his own Mercy gives it us through the Deservings of his Son Nevertheless because Faith doth send us to Christ for this Remission and by it we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the Remission of our Sins which thing none other of our works properly do therefore it is said that Faith without Works doth justifie us 5. But this Faith that justifies is not a dead or carnal but a 5. Hom. of Faith part 1. living Faith and this living Faith is a full Trust in God through Christ which upon the consideration of the greatness of his Mercy which it apprehends and relies upon is at the same time moved through the assistance of the Spirit to serve and please him out of this pure and only Principle the Love of God Now he that will consider and compare these Doctrines with each other will find that they both agree in the lapsed State of Mankind and the necessity of God's sending his Son whom he hath set forth to be our Propitiation and that though he died for all yet those only are benefited to whom his merit is communicated but when they come to express the nature of Justification the Church of Rome conceives it to be not only the Remission of sins but likewise the Renovation of the Inward man the Church of England by Justification means only Forgiveness of sins
than so he still may glory in his works though not as wrought by himself What he adds out of another Session will come to be considered in its proper place but so far as it relates to the point in hand that they confess man has nothing to glory nor for which he may confide in himself is true but it is upon this ground they confess it that we can do nothing of our selves but all through Christ who strengthens us not upon any supposition that what a man has wrought through Christ that strengthened him may not be confided in as meritorious upon that score for though the Council says we merit and satisfie in Christ it can mean no more than through his assistance that enables us to do such works for it sticks not to say the fruits worthy of Repentance have a virtue in them though drawn from him as wrought by his grace Besides there is ground enough to conceive that they make some distinction between the satisfactory works of Penance which are spoken of in that Session and those good works which it speaks of here in the business of Justification so that what is spoken of the merit of them cannot be drawn into consequence to prove that they understand no greater merit in these which are works of a different nature and whose virtue is endeavoured to be set forth to a different purpose viz. of meriting eternal life whereas the other pretends only to the satisfaction of adebt of temporal punishment Now then to subjoin the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point which teaches 1 Hom. of good Works Part 2. That such Works only are good which are done in obedience to God's Commandments 2 Ib. Par. 1. That no Works done without Faith are pleasing to God in that the measures of them are not taken from the facts themselves but from the ends out of which they are done 3 Hom. of Justifie Par. 2. That though a man do never so many good Works yet we must renounce the merit of all our virtues and good deeds which we either have done shall door can do as things far too weak and insufficient to deserve at God's hands 4 Ib. Par. 3. our imperfection being so great through original sin that all is imperfect that is within us and therefore cannot merit 5 Art 12. That albeit good Works which are the fruits of Faith and follow after Justification cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God's Judgment yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God 6 Hom. of Faith Par. 2. That true Faith is always productive of them and they are inseperable from it By this we may frame the comparison and find that both agree in this That good works are necessary to a Christian that they are pleasing and acceptable to God being done both in obedience to his will and out of the power of his grace that all Christian works proceed from grace that a man cannot glory in himself on this score but in Christ the Author and Finisher of them But then the difference lies First in that the Church of England says our good works though pleasing to God cannot bear the Tryal if examined by the rigour of his Justice They on the other side That a Christian by his works wrought in God does satisfie the Divine Law with respect to the present state We again disclaim all assiance in our works as things insufficient to deserve Remission of sins or merit for us eternal life They on the other side profess our works to have that intrinsick value in them upon the account of their being the effects of grace as that a Christian may be truly said to have merited by them that eternal life which he shall obtain in time if he depart this life in a state of grace These being the Two Points whereon depends the Dispute I am not moved by any thing said here by M. Condom in vindication of his Churches Sentiments to recede in the least what the Church of England has declared and professed concerning them For though the Precepts Exhortations Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel shew that we must work out our own Salvation by the grace of God assisting us yet they shew not that what is done by us does merit our Salvation or can in justice claim it of God Neither is it altogether so just that his Church should use the Word Merit to express the acceptableness of good Works with God since She limits it to a Sense different from what was anciently understood thereby Nor will I fear to maintain That those who will have the Works of Christians to merit Heaven of their own intrinsick value though supposing that value still arising from its being wrought by Grace do hold a Tenet prejudicial to the Faith whilst they hold not the Grace of God through Christ again necessary to accept of that to such a reward which the intrinsick worth of it does not deserve nor his free Mercy in bestowing Eternal Life according to his promise For though the first Principle producing such works the help granted through Christ be heavenly yet seeing that Grace does not immediately produce the work but by co-oporating with the Soul of man infected with Concupiscence it cannot be said either that such works are truly perfect or that they can demand a reward as if they had been the Effects of Grace alone without the Allay that Concupiscence and humane Weakness gives to abate their value Nor will I decline to say that he that shall maintain the Merit of our good works such as truly merit eternal Life is thereby injurious to the Merits of Christ for since the Scripture not only accounts Grace whereby good works are wrought to be given us of his Merits but likewise that Eternal Life is the Gift of God through Christ He that shall ascribe his Merits to the first Effect Rom. 6. alone and not acknowledge them to the second does not make that acknowledgment of the Merits of Christ which the Scriptures do oblige These Gentlemen may hence see by this upon what account we think them injurious to the Merits of Christ and his Grace notwithstanding their Confessions that they are not acceptable to God but by and in him because they think themselves acceptable for the value of their works which they may still say are acceptable in and by him because Effects of his Grace but we think require a further Grace still the Mercy of God through Christ accepting them to such effect as they are not worthy of Neither do the Three Points which M. Condom thinks so decisive as to this Matter shewn out of the Council give us any full satisfaction viz. That our Sins are pardoned us out of pure Mercy for the sake of Jesus Christ That we are indebted for that Justice which is in us by the Holy Ghost to a Liberality bestowed on us gratis That all the good works we
do are but so many gifts of his Grace That the first of these may give some abatement to their Doctrine of Justification so as to make it not absolutely destructive of the Faith I have already owned but that it should give the like to their Opinion of the Merit of good Works there is not the same necessity upon me to acknowledge And then it is not material to the Point to say all the good works they do are but the Gifts of his Grace unless it be added that they merit through Grace withal i. e. not of the intrinsick Grace that wrought them but of the free Grace of God that accepts them to that reward which they are not deserving of The Pharisce in the Parable that trusted in his own Righteousness did yet acknowledge it not of his own working alone for he thanks God that he was not an Extortioner c nor as other Men and yet he was not justified because he had not recourse to God's Mercy But not to conceal any thing that may encline us to a favourable Construction I must also take notice that the Council of Trent at first proposes Eternal Life as a Recompence which is faithfully rendred to the good works and merits of God's Children in virtue of his Promise And had it staid there I am obliged to confess it had not decreed any thing prejudicial to the Faith for having respect unto the Promise it does thereby respect the Grace as promising though not as bestowing the Gift But when it comes afterwards to declare an intrinsick value in our works and that eternal Life is truly merited by them its Eye is taken wholly off both from the Promise and the Grace for if it had intended to have shewn that they merit by virtue of the Promise it must have acknowledged that though they had an intrinsick and real worth yet it was not such as could render them acceptable for so great a reward not supposing God's Promise Those therefore who speak of good works as meritorious by virtue of God's Promise only though they use an unfit Expression cannot be said to destroy the Grace of God But which of these two Opinions shall be said to speak the Sense of the Council Both are indeed allowed but those who hold the Extream are the prevailing part if Bellarmine may be believed Bell. de Justif lib. 5. cap. 16. in relating Matter of Fact The Works of just men are meritorious of eternal Life ex condigno this is the common Opinion of Divines and it is most true But then will not the Church of Rome have a great advantage of us by this Concession Perhaps not near so great as they imagine when it is considered First That this Church allows though not absolutely enjoyns a Doctrine to be maintained that is contrary to the Faith and injurious to God's Grace which it cannot justifie as a Church Secondly That it likewise has given occasion by its own Definitions to this Doctrine which in words clearly express it which renders it more inexcusable Lastly In that it has further taken upon it to decree an Anathema against him that shall say That the good works Conc Trid. Sess 6. Can. 32. of a man justified do not truly merit encrease of Grace and eternal Life as also encrease of Glory Which no man can avoid acknowledging that will profess with the Scriptures that the gift of God is eternal Life and that he saves us not by the works of Righteousness which we have done but of his own Mercy What M. Condom inserts by the way That our Hope and Confidence in Christ does not wholly extinguish Fear on account of our selves I am not obliged to gainsay that I know of by any Doctrine of the Church of England provided I disallow that which is decreed Can. 16. If any say or believe that he shall certainly have by certainty of infallible Faith the gift of Perseverance to the end unless he know and have learned it by special Revelation let him be Anathema For though a careful and awful Fear does intermix with a Christians Confidence yet it may be such as may exclude all doubt without Revelation having no other foundation than that upon which St. Paul declares That nothing shall be able to separate Christians from the Love of God neither Tribulation nor Persecution c. because out of a certain knowledge of the sincerity of their own hearts and the certainty of God's never-failing Promise that he will never forsake those who forsake not him they may be certain that nothing shall be able to separate them from their Duty As to that great Advantage therefore which he may be thought to have gotten of us in that the real Difference between us in these two Points of Justification and the Merit of Works may not appear so great as it was thought and pleaded by the first Reformers who declared it one of the principal causes of their Separation I answer That I have evidenced a Doctrine generally held in the Church of Rome and exprest in the Words of the Council in the Point of Merit of good Works whilst they are taught to be deserving of eternal Life of their own intrinsick worth to be destructive of the Faith and injurious to the Grace of God however in that the Council in one place does mention God's Promise to accept of them I am unwilling to charge it expresly on the Council though it seems afterwards to leave the Promise and plead a real worth in our works which are wrought by Grace however those who say they merit ex condigno do certainly destroy the Faith which are the greater number of their Divines So in the Point of Justification I have shewn too great appearance that their Doctrine taken in the most favourable Sense does prejudice the Faith Again having produced the Doctrine of the Church of England on both Points she holds no other than she always did and still maintains the same neither does it that I know of cast any greater reproach on the Roman Church on this account than what the very Doctrine of the Council will maintain it in and therefore I see no reason to be ashamed of our Doctrine or think the worse of our Reformation for this being a part of it Again there 's none in the least versed in the History of the Reformation abroad but knows it to have been occasioned by Luther's writing against Indulgences which brought in the Disputes of Merits and Justification Purg tory Penance the Authority of the Pope and General Councils with amany others and although Luther published his Opinions in these points yet did he not separate from the Church immediately Bull. Leonâ— 10. An. 1520. but desired a Reformation instead of which Pope Leo excommunicates him and condemns 42 Articles extracted out of his Books on these and other points so that whoever may have pleaded this as the principal could never conceive it the only Point that
3 Cap. 4. That Contrition is a grief of mind joyned with the hatred of sin and a purpose of sinning no more which although sometimes it may reconcile to God yet that effect is not to be ascribed to it alone without a desire of the other parts of this Sacrament That Attrition nevertheless or sorrow arising from the fear of punishment and filthiness of sin which is not perfect Contrition so it exclude an intention of sinning again with hope of pardon is the gift of God and though without the Sacrament of itself it cannot justifie us yet in the Sacrament it disposes a man for receiving the grace of God 4 Cap. 5. That by the Institution of this Sacrament an entire confession of sins is by Divine Law necessary to all that fall after Baptism God having made his Ministers Judges to whom all mortal sins are to be laid open that they may pronounce the sentence of their Remission or Non-remission 5 Cap. 6. That although their Absolution be but the Dispensation of another's gift yet they are not barely Ministers to pronounce or declare to the Church forgiveness of sins but their sentence is a Judicial act and to be look'd upon ratified as the sentence of a Judge and being of this nature is not to be esteemed valid unless the Priest has a serious intention of pronouncing the sentence of Absolution 6 Cap. 8. That when God remits the sin he does not always remit the punishment altogether that so the order of his Justice requires him to proceed that therefore there is a necessity of those satisfactory Punishments or Penances which are imposed after Absolution to appease the Divine Justice Now by this view of their Doctrine we may discern how far the practice of Penance in this Church differs from the use it ought to have in the Church of Christ The satisfactions or penitential works which by the Church should be first imposed and enjoyned the sinner to work in him a true humiliation that thereby being satisfied of his true repentance it may with authority pronounce him absolved from those sins whereof the cure is presumed are in this Church imposed after it has warranted the Absolution to an unheard of end the satisfaction of Divine Justice Then again it exceeds its authority in warranting Absolution before it has procured the only condition to which the Gospel tenders it Repentance The Church of Rome does indeed acknowledge Contrition or the sorrow that worketh true Repentance to be a part of this Sacrament but yet she does not make it absolutely necessary but allows it to be supplied by something that is not perfect Contrition even the Council you see declares Attrition to be not only the gift of God but that which does dispose a man for God's pardon in this Sacrament which is in effect to say that what is wanting to true Repentance is supplied by submitting our sins to the Church in Confession and the sentence or acquittal of the Priest thereupon That this is indeed their meaning is more plain from their Catechism which first its true sets forth Cat. Trid. de Confess Sac. Poenit. the great benefit and advantage of Contrition yet afterwards as if that were not the only condition of pardon tendred in the Gospel it requires that the people be further taught That although it must be confess'd that our sins are blotted out by Contrition yet inasmuch as few arrive to so great a degree of sorrow for them as that requires they are therefore but very few that can place their hope of pardon in that way wherefore it was necessary that our most merciful Lord should provide for the common salvation of mankind by an easier way which out of his wise counsel he did when he delivered the Keys of his heavenly Kingdom to his Church For according to the Doctrin of the Catholick Faith it must be believed and constantly affirmed by all that if a man be but so affected in his mind as to be sorry for the sins he has committed intending withal not to sin for the time to come although he have not that sorrow which is sufficient to obtain forgiveness yet when he shall have duly confess'd his sins unto the Priest all his sins shall be remitted and forgiven to him by the power of the Keys so that it was deservedly said by our forefathers that by the Keys of the Church an entrance is opened into the Kingdom of Heaven of which it is not lawful for anyman to doubt since it is decreed by the Council of Florence That the effect of the Sacrament of Penance is Absolution from our sins Joyn then but this to their Doctrine of Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory and we shall see how full of Poysons all this Composition of their Discipline is while the people are first taught and perswaded that their sins are cured by the sentence of Absolution once pronounced that this supplies the defects of their Repentance and opens them an entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven that the Penances after imposed are not enjoyned as though their sins were not wholly pardoned but to extinguish a debt of temporal punishment that there is a stock of satisfactions remaining in the Church performed by others which they may procure by Indulgences to be applied to themselves that having this Absolution at their death they are not to doubt but that their sins are absolved and so there is no more to be feared than some pains in Purgatory and those to be ransomed too if any friends after their death will but purchase certain Services to give them ease or if themselves leave but enough to purchase these endeavours for their acquittal Who sees not that this destroys our common Christianity of which I suppose M. Condom so sensible that he durst not propose any thing of his Churches Doctrine in this point knowing that all his extenuations could not secure it from being prejudicial to the truth Extream Vnction Extream Unction being pretended to derive its Institution from St. James if we consider his words we shall better apprehend whether the Church of England be in the right in excluding it from the Sacraments Cap. 5. v. 14. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him and anoint him with oyl in the Name of the Lord and the Prayer of Faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Here the Apostle directs the sick to call for the Elders of the Church whom we allow to be the Ministers and this questionless for their assistance to those effects which the Apostle orders them to assist them in The means to which he directs are two to pray over them and anoint them with oyl in the Name of the Lord and this in order to two ends the recovery of the sick and the remission of sins Now to both these
measure of it to another and consequently we must still labour and pray to him 3 1 Thess 3. 10. to encrease our faith As we have therefore received Christ so we must walk in him 4 Eph. 4. 15. growing up unto him in all things which is our Head from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of itself in love and for this end hath God ordained Publick Officers in his Church 6 Eph. 4. 12. for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ wherefore God hath made them able Ministers of the New Testament 7 2 Cor. 3. 6. even Ministers of the spirit that giveth life 8 1 Cor. 3. 5. Ministers by whom we believe even as the Lord gives to every man When we have therefore received the spirit and faith we must desire 9 1 Pet. 2. 2. to grow thereby and as grown men too we must desire this food of the Lord's Table to continue our strength of which being made partakers the Lord doth grant us 10 Eph. 3. 16 19. to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith and being rooted and grounded in love may comprehend and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge and be filled with all the fulness of God Hereby therefore all that M. Condom argues from the Doctrines of the Reformed in this point falls to nothing that which he urges against those who say the Sacraments are bare signs proves nothing to the prejudice of the Church of England which I have shewn accounts them to be Seals exhibitive of the body and blood of Christ So for the advantage that he builds upon from the Gallican Catechism which he tells us teaches That though Christ be truly communicated to us both by Baptism and the Gospel yet nevertheless it is only in part and not fully I for my own part should not stick to say as much and I presume the reason given above for the necessity of this Sacrament will abundantly justifie me in it and that I need not upon this account be forced to hold any other participation of Christ in the holy Sacrament than that by spiritual faith Nor should I stick to say what the Gallican Confession does concerning our partaking of Christ's substance namely Although Christ be in Heaven there to remain till he come to judge the World yet we believe that through the secret and incomprehensible power of his spirit he nourisbeth and quickneth us by the substance of his body and blood apprehended or received by faith Nor need I by this be obliged to allow the substance of Christ to be otherwise than spiritually eaten or that our union is any other than the participation of his quickning spirit As little is the advantage he pretends from another thing in their Catechism That the body of our Lord Jesus offered to reconcile us to God is now given to assure us of that reconciliation it having been shewn how our blessed Saviour is truly tendred to that effect in this holy Sacrament and yet that Christ is to be received spiritually and by faith to that effect also that with this Doctrine there may be and is an apparent distinction maintained between the participation of Christ and that of his benefits Having thus shewn his Objections all invalid I need not enter into a particular discussion of the large Harangue he makes upon them which is no other than an illusion But to shew him that is so good at finding out difficulties for us that we need not seek far to find some for them Let him resolve us according to their Principles First How Christ being as they say bodily and wholly received by them into their bowels there should be any need of receiving this Sacrament more than once They cannot use the answer insisted on by us for that they plead they receive him not by faith spiritually and to find a way of solving it they must shew how Christ that is once truly received into their bodies goes out again Again Let them shew us how the body and blood of Christ which being bodily present is also bodily received and eaten both by good and bad should turn to the salvation of one and damnation of the other when our Saviour saith whoso eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood hath eternal life Joh. 6. 54. They cannot say the one eats him spiritually the other not since they make the sacramental eating not to be spiritual both therefore eating him sacramentally we are to look for a reason of its different effects Nay let them shew us how when Christ tells us his flesh profiteth nothing which must necessarily be understood if carnally received according to the gross conception of those that questioned how he would give them his flesh to eat their eating it which is no other than taking the substance of his flesh into their bodies should be at all profitable to eternal life SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration c. TO return then with M. Condom to consider their Doctrine of Transubstantiation and Adoration consequent upon it I shall not dispute with him whether those species or accidents that remain supposing according to their Doctrine the substance of the Elements changed be a sign or not But having shewn from the plain words of our Lord and evident testimonies of the Apostles that the sense of our Lord's words infer no such corporal presence of Christ as they suppose nor any such change of the Elements as they call Transubstantiation and likewise shewn all that this Gentleman seeks to prove it by insignificant I may well conclude the Church of Rome has in this point set up a new Doctrine of Faith even destructive of the Faith inasmuch as it decrees and commands Adoration even the honour due to God himself to be given to this Sacrament Which Concil Trid. Sess 13. c. 5. many of themselves confess to be Idolatry supposing this first Doctrine of Transubstantiation false Nor will it signifie any thing to say as M. Condom That some of the most learned and intelligent of the Reformed have granted those who are perswaded of the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament ought to pay him in it their adorations who they are that have said so much I am not concerned to search possibly some may have said that if he was indeed really present as they say Adoration ought to be given to him but none I believe that all who are perswaded of its being so ought to pay it him there so as to imply that men ought upon a perswasion that may be false to venture
be obeyed Now what answer would a man give to this Certainly That the Laws of God are to be obeyed before those of men that the Christian Religion though it obliges to obey God is not destructive of Government because it commands Obedience to the Higher Powers that therefore no good Christian can or will make a pretence of Conscience to the prejudice of the Peace where there is not an absolute necessity and that he will submit even where he cannot obey If this be all the answer that can be given as it is all that ever I understood to be given in this case yet still there is a possibility left for ill men to use a pretence of Religion to disturb the Peace and still the like possibility will be left and consequently the Objection remain in as much force as that Possibility gives it so long as there is a difference possible between the Laws of God and those of our Superiors and no man will have us I hope to avoid this inconvenience to acknowledge no other God than our Superiours I say therefore thirdly That as every man has a judgment of discretion to chuse his own Religion so every Christian has the like judgment to consider whether what he submits to the belief of be consistent with his Christianity That having undertaken to be a Christian he is thereby obliged to the Authority of the Church in all cases wherein Christianity requires submission to that Authority that this having appointed means by which and set her bounds within which and established ends for which she is to determine things concerning Christian Truth he is obliged to give her Obedience whilst she provides in all things for that Christianity that she ought to maintain But if he shall perceive her in any thing to have acted beyond her Power or against the interest of Christian Religion he will consider also how necessary it is that a man mistake not in a thing wherein Christianity is so greatly concerned as it is in the Churches Peace and will thereupon seek all due and possible means of Information and if it still appear that the Church requires his Obedience where his Conscience will not give him leave to pay it he will endeavour by all the ways of Peace and Meekness to prevail with his Governours to remove the burthen and will not make a breach but where he cannot comply and hold his Christianity And whilst both Governours and Governed shall thus both regard the Laws of him that is the God of all the one taking faithful care to provide in all things for the maintenance and encrease of the Christianity the Church is entrusted to preserve the other studying in all things the Will of God and giving thanks to him for so great a help as is the Ministry of his Church and gladly entertaining what is by her shewn to be his Will from those Holy Writings wherein he has revealed it What can be more conducing to the establishment of all Christian Truth and Peace 'T is true there still lies a possibility for men upon pretence of Conscience to disturb all our Peace but the same there is of abusing the greatest grace of God And no man that will not set up his own wisdom above that of God can hope or presume though every man be bound to wish and endeavour a final end of all Controversies in Religion the Apostle having told us 1 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies and our blessed Lord 2 Luke 17. that Offences will come though he denounces a woe to them through whom they come Nor ought this any more to be cast as a Reflection upon those who as much as is possible and as much as in them lies labour after peace only resolving to hold the Truth that through the wickedness of some they cannot accomplish what they so earnestly pray for and endeavour after than it ought upon our Christian Religion that it is destructive of Civil Government because some have abused it as a pretence to subvert and disturb it No man certainly dares think our Saviour to be ever less the Prince of Peace or ever the less sincerely desirous of it when he left it as his peculiar Legacy to his Disciples for that out of a foresight of the unhappy Divisions of the Christian World he tells us 3 Matth. 10. 34. That he came not to send Peace on earth but a sword to set the father against the son and the son against the father All that M. Condom objects from the Actions of the Gallican Synods falls within these two Objections which I have answered I shall not therefore lengthen this Tract by a particular application there being nothing of moment but what may without difficulty be solved by one or both of these answers which I have given to that therein which seemed to be of force against the Doctrine of the Church of England in this point whose cause it is that I have undertaken SECT XX. Of the Authority of the Pope WHereas M. Condom asserts the Popes Authority from the Primacy invested by our Lord in St. Peter and the acknowledgment of this Primacy by the Holy Councils and Fathers in the Pope as St. Peter's Successor I need only deny that which he asserts without proof and am not obliged to evidence by any proofs that he has no such Authority 'till I am shewn what obedience is claimed by or given to him and his title and right thereto Their Profession of Faith is thus I acknowledg the Holy Profess Fidei Pii Quarti Catholick and Apostolick Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistriss of all Churches And I vow and swear true Obedience to the Bishop of Rome the Successor of Peter Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ This Supremacy the Church of England denies him to have any title to a Hom. for Whitsunday Part 2. as touching that they will be termed Universal Bishops and Heads of all Christian Churches through the World we have the Judgment of Gregory expresly against them who writing to Mauritius the Emperor condemned John Bishop of Constantinople in that behalf calling him The Prince of Pride Lucifer ' s Successor c. and again b Hom. against Rebellion Part 5. The Bishop of Rome being by the order of God's Word none other than the Bishop of that one See and Diocess and never yet well able to govern the same did by intolerable ambition challenge not only to be Head of all the Church dispersed through the World but also to be Lord over all Kingdoms of the World Although he is pleased to wave those things that are disputed in the Schools concerning this extravagant Power and Authority of the Pope as not being Articles of the Catholick Faith I must tell him it would have removed great jealousies if as he has declared them not Articles of the Catholick Faith so he had owned them to be false For as the
or Services performed by their Friends afterwards whereby simple Souls must necessarily be entangled in the Snares of their Sins there being so great likelihood that Pardon being held forth upon such undue grounds the corruption of our Nature will take hold of and presume upon it when we have not wrought in our selves a true Repentance That in those things which they call Sacraments they will not suffer us to distinguish either in that Grace which the Ceremony signifieth or in the Force whereby they concur to the obtaining of it whereas our Christianity requires us to distinguish between Graces given to this or that particular effect and those that are given for the general and perpetual subsistence of Christianity and likewise between those Offices that are effective of Grace by virtue of a peculiar and special promise to those effects and others that are only used by the Church out of a hope that our Prayers shall be heard to those effects That they conceive Christ present in the Eucharist after such a manner as it does no way appear he promised his Presence therein that hereupon it is required that Adoration due to God alone be given to the Sacrament which if the Elements remain is by themselves confessed to be Idolatry and therefore may justisiably by us who know them to remain be so accounted That without warrant they make the Eucharist a Sacrifice as distinct from a Sacrament and of a greater virtue as a Sacrifice than when it is received as a Sacrament according to our Saviour's Institution That they warrant it propitiatory for those who use it not according to his Institution whereby they frustrate the End of his blessing Bread and Wine and commanding it to be received and likewise void the necessity of a Christian Life applying the Benefits of Christ's Sacrament to such as come not worthily to partake of it and pretending it efficacious to ease them of punishments which they are to suffer for sins after Death That whilst they with-hold the Cup from the Laity they void Christ's Institution who enjoyned and appointed both they likewise rob Christians of their Birthright and cannot warrant one part of this Sacrament beneficial to all those effects for which Christ was pleased to bless both Bread and Wine That whilst they plead for Traditions they thereby endeavour to obtrude upon us their own Corruptions and by these instead of interpreting pervert the Scriptures and by Traditions of men have indeed in many things made void the Comandments of God That by claiming an Authority for the Church above the Scriptures which they do to justifie what the Church of Rome has decreed against them they do indeed advance an Authority that may destroy our common Christianity That in pleading their Pope universal Bishop not to speak of their Ambition in this Aim they require us to submit to an Authority for the sake of Unity which is not only none of God's Ordinance but such as Experience has shewn to have almost wholly destroyed that Christianity which Unity should preserve Having shewn I say the danger of these Doctrines in particular and their inconsistence with Christianity when I reflect upon them all together and find that our Union with the Church of Rome requires submission to them all must conclude that whatever allowance might be made in some one of them provided that the rest of that Christian Truth which they hold did so prevail over the Error that it did not take effect in their practices to God's Dishonour or the subversion of a Christian Life yet to submit to them all as we must do if we will have peace with the Church of Rome is to redeem the Communion of the Church by transgressing that Christianity which the Church is appointed to maintain and absolutely to prostitute our own and the Souls committed to our Charge The Case is little otherwise in those other things which M. Condom lets alone as things of themselves not sufficient matter of Separation these if taken together though singly they may not be very considerable render the Means of Salvation very difficult since the Substance of Christianity being overwhelmed and choaked with a deal of Rubbish Opinions Customs Observations Ceremonies c. it is a thing very difficult for simple Christians to discern the Substance from the Shadow and almost impossible to pass through such a multitude of Observations Customs and Ceremonies which create so much business in the Practice of Religion and upon which so great Zeal is spent without Superstion and Will-Worship and a fond Opinion of those Services placing their hope of God's Favour upon these carnal Observations and humane Inventions which indeed are nothing to the Reality of Religion So that these at least must be allowed to add to that Mass of Corruption which they seek to obtrude upon us though of themselves they are not of such a poysonous Nature But though we cannot joyn with them without manifest prejudice to our Christianity yet it is most easie for them to come to us and would be for the great advantage of our Christian Religion as even themselves must and do acknowledge For first Those Doctrines which are established by the Church of England at least such as concern the Foundation of Faith have been in all Ages professed by the Church of Rome itself This M. Condom allows as to Fundamentals That the Church of Rome holds all which the Reformers do They further agree with us That we are to pray unto God through Christ That God may be worshipped in Spirit without an Image That we may have recourse to him in all our Necessities without seeking the Relicks of Saints That Jesus Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification That men may do good Works and shall never fail of Salvation through not confiding in them That there be two Sacraments which have the Promise of Grace That Christ is really and spiritually received by some in the Lord's Supper That Christ made an Oblation of himself upon the Cross for the Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction of the whole World And where they with hold the Cup from the Laity and forbid the Administration of the Sacraments in the vulgar Tongue yet even in these they condescend to us for the Lawfulness of the Practice even in respect to the Law of God and oppose them only in regard of their necessity and conveniency and for that the Church of Rome hath otherwise ordained They acknowledge likewise the Authority of written word of God and the Design of Providence in their being written for our Learning They acknowledge the Church does and ought to act in deciding Controversies of Faith according to the Scripture committed to her and to tell us nothing from herself and invent nothing new in her Doctrine Again secondly The Truths we hold even by the judgment of several of the Learned Writers of the Church of Rome have been in all ages deemed sufficient to salvation so that we reject no
pleases to reform herself need not fear this Crime she may remove those Laws that prejudice the salvation of the Members of her Communion establish those for herself that tend to the exceeding benefit of Christianity as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and thereby provide for the Purity of Faith and Unity of the Church withal And I see no reason why the Church of England being a part of the Church Catholick but no way subject to the Church of Rome may not adventure to desire them to consider the things that belong to their own Salvation as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and how much they are concerned and obliged by all the commands and bonds of Unity that are obligatory upon Christians as to lay aside their claim to an Authority over all the Churches of Christ which is not given them of God and which they chiefly challenge to maintain what they cannot otherwise defend so especially to reform all those Customs Laws and Practices that have been experienced prejudicial to the Faith and establish such as may advance and promote it since by doing this which is otherwise their duty they may procure that which themselves pretend so earnestly to seek and which we acknowledg and pray for as the greatest blessing next to Purity of Faith the Peace and Union of the Church of Christ Reflections upon his Pastoral Letter THere can be but two aims as I apprehend in dispersing this Letter among us one to persuade us that there is no such Persecution of Protestants in France as is pretended the other that the Reasons upon which such multitudes are Proselyted to the Church of Rome or those at least which M. Meaux gives in this Letter are so convincing as to oblige the rest of the World to follow their example What he affirms in relation to the first that not one among them had suffered violence either in Person or Goods is so notorious a falshood that I may leave all those to believe him that can For none certainly can admit the belief of it but such as can force themselves to believe against all the evidence of their senses and reason Waving this therefore I shall content my self to examine the main thing that concerns us Whether there be any thing of solidity in the motives he gives to confirm his Proselytes Though herein I shall not concern myself with what particularly relates to the French Protestants or with any advantages that he may seem to have over them but only with such as may be supposed of equal force against the Reformed Church of England my business being only to oppose the design that seems aimed at in their dispersing this Letter among us The first thing considerable is what he says pag. 4. That himself and his other Colleagues have this glory which they will not suffer to be taken from them that they have never condemned their Predecessors and Preached no other Doctrine than what they received from them Whereas the Bishops of England c. at their going off from the Church of Rome manifestly renounced the Doctrin of their Predecessors Now no man will envy them this glory that they have obstinately retained those Errors and Corruptions which their Predecessors had admitted The glory of the Bishops of England is this that having purged themselves from those corruptions which time and superstition and base intrests had brought into the Church of God they now retain the Doctrine of the Apostles and Primitive Christians from which the Romanists pretending to follow their Predecessors are greatly deviated For though M. Meaux has the face to say That we cannot produce any one instance of a change in Doctrine and that those changes we pretend are rightly called Insensible because we cannot make them out Yet the pitiful defence he has made for his Church in those particulars wherein we charge them with Innovations does sufficiently shew them to be such and the inconsistency of those Doctrines with Christianity does likewise evidence that though they may have been called insensible changes because insensibly introduced yet now they are visibly and palpably destructive of the Faith It 's true indeed as he says The succession of Pastors and Doctrine ought not to be separated and blessed be God our Church of England as it now holds the Christian truth in the Purity of it has also enjoyed as uninterrupted a succession of Pastors as any Church whatever But the Romanists pretences to a succession of Pastors is vain so long as the Christian Doctrine is not preserved entire which an uninterrupted succession of Pastors proves not to be so preserved whilst there is a possibility for those Pastors to admit Innovations agreeable to their own Opinions or Interests The next considerable thing that he urges is the Authority of St. Cyprian from whom he cites several passages pretended to conclude us under a necessity of holding Communion with the Church of Rome and to render all that separate from it guilty of Schism Wherein since he blames others for not taking his Doctrine entire he ought to have been sincere himself and not have caught up fragments of him here and there to adorn his deceitful discourse In the first place cited St. Cyprian does indeed say That to manifest the unity of his Church our Saviour said to Peter single Thou art Peter c. but he says likewise That he gave to all his Apostles equal power but this M. Meaux thought best to leave out His words are The Lord said unto Peter Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church c. and I give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum Ego tibi dico quia tu es Petrus super istam Petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam portae inferorum non vincent eam Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum c. Et iterum eidem post Resurrectionem dicit Pasce oves â—â—as Super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus parem potestaâ—… triona dicat sicut misit me Pater Ego mitto vos c. tamen ut unitatem manifestaret unitatis ejuâ—…m originem ab aâ—o incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit Hoc erat utique ceteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio pra diti honoris potestatis sed Exordium ab unitate proficiscitur ut Ecclesia una monstretur Cyp. Lib. de unitate Ecclesie also after his Resurrection feed my sheep He builds his Church upon Vnity And though he gave to all his Apostles equal power saying As my Father sent me so send I you c. yet that he might manifest the Vnity he dispenses his Authority to one as the original of Vnity That therefore which Peter was the same were the rest of the Apostles joyned in the same fellowship of Honour and Authority but the beginning of it proceeds from Vnity that it might evidence the Church
Advantages which we seek to deprive them of by saying they destroy those Articles by interposing others contrary to them Thus much is said and yet is more than need be said for if we say only that they have added others to them which are not necessary parts of Faith this alone is enough to bar them all Advantages which they may promise themselves from holding the Fundamentals But M. Condom foreseeing that it would be urged against him that those Doctrines which the Church of Rome hath added to the Faith do by evident consequence destroy those which it acknowledges as the necessary and fundamental Truths endeavours to prevent us this Advantage by objecting That M. Daille has owned in behalf of the Lutherans and it is a thing in it self evident that the Consequences of a Doctrine ought not to be attributed to a Church that formally rejects those Consequencs which Answer he concludes will easily defend them when they are charged with Consequences distructive of the Truth I likewise own the Maxime so far as it is grounded upon Reason but in Reason we ought to distinguish between the Persons that own such Consequences and those who do not Which Distinction will enforce at least thus much that we who being separate from the Church of Rome do evidently see such Consequences naturally following any of their Doctrines can never with safety receive them For though we should grant those Consequences which the Church of Rome rejects are not to be charged upon her yet it were to be granted only upon this very reason that she professes not to see them and she were to be allowed innocent only so far as she sees them not So that the self same Reason that would exempt her from the Charge would bring us deeply under it if acknowledging of such Consequences we should embrace the Doctrines whence they flow and the Church of Rome is therefore utterly inexcusable in enjoyning such things on those who profess they see such Consequences in them as destroy the Faith and is less excusable in its own holding them the greater Means and Opportunities she has had to discern their pernicious Effects Again Reason does oblige us to distinguish between Consequences which are only Inferences that may be drawn by remote Arguments from an Opinion and such as have a real Influence upon our Practice An Instance will explain my Meaning Suppose for the present the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone did by consequence infer good Works unnecessary he ought not to be charged with this Consequence who disowns it and disowning it shews that he thinks them necessary and therefore does them But if any holding this Opinion should neglect them out of a dependance on his being justified without them I do not think M. Condom would account it Calumny to charge him with the Consequence And therefore the Reason M. Daille gives upon which they refused not to joyn Communion with the Lutherans because their Opinion has no Poyson in it is not so contemptible for they who joyned Communion with them joyned not in their Error nor in any evil Practice consequent upon it And be Christ's humane Nature never so essential to Religion yet the Lutheran Opinion did never cause them to deny the verity of his humane Nature nor reach to what the Church of Rome does whilst it commands the Worship of that which we cannot think a lawful Object for us to give it to So that perhaps it may be a greater difficulty to defend the Church of Rome in this respect than M. Condom is willing to believe But this Gentleman has put us to a needless trouble hitherto if he make good his further Promise and shew by his Exposition that the Church of Rome is so far from ruining the fundamental Articles of Faith either directly or indirectly that on the contrary she establishes them after so solid and evident a manner that no one can question her right understanding them without great Injustice I hope he means such a right understanding them as that she holds nothing directly or indirectly prejudicial to them and hereupon I shall go on with him to the Particulars SECT III. Concerning Religious Worship as due to God alone MR. Condom's Title of this Section is Religious Worship is terminated in God alone But if he had said it is due to God alone it had been more consistent with his first Article that he is pleased to own for Fundamental Sect. 2. But that Adoration which is due to God alone he says the Church of Rome teaches to consist in believing him to be the Creator and Lord of all things and in adhering to him with all the powers of our Soul by Faith Hope and Charity as to him alone who can render us happy by the communication of an infinite Good which is himself The Church of England teaches and challenges the same as a Truth that indispensably binds us to have recourse in all our Necessities to him alone who is the Creator and Lord of all things to adhere to him alone with all the powers of our Soul without dividing our Hearts to any other to place our Hope and Confidence in him only who is that infinite and eternal Good which alone can satisfie us to love him above all things who hath first loved us with a Love so far passing all understanding out of which Love he hath created redeemed preserves us and hath provided such Rewards for them that love him This interior Adoration he says has its exterior Marks of which the principal is Sacrifice which cannot be offered to any but God because a Sacrifice is established to make a publick Acknowledgment and a solemn Protestation of God's Sovereignty and our absolute Dependance Granting but this true that this internal Adoration has some exterior Marks as Sacrifice for instance which cannot be given but to God alone it will be very difficult in my Judgment to prove that Invocation Prostration or any other exterior Forms of Adoration which are commonly used in Religious Worship are not thus peculiar to God alone For if the Reason why Sacrifice is thus peculiar to him be this its being established to make a publick Acknowledgment and solemn Protestation of God's Sovereignty and our absolute Dependance since he cannot argue it thus peculiar barely from God's establishment of it Sacrifice being the exterior part of his Worship before the Law of Moses and doubtless as much his Peculiar then as after so that it depends upon the Reason of its establishment which indeed is solid its having been used and determined by the practice of the whole World for a publick Acknowledgment of God's Sovereignty c. This will conclude no less for any external Signs of Adoration used and determined by the like universal consent and practice to express the same Sentiment and declare the like Dependance For though external Actions signifie as the inward Sentiments determine them yet in all reason general Use and Custom ought to
has read the many convincing evidences throughout that whole Book on which M. Daille grounds himself should urge against him only a bare improbability of his understanding the sentiments of foregoing Ages without the least confutation of the things on which he grounds himself So neither is it directly to the question for this does not necessarily suppose that M. Daille should know the sentiments of foregoing Ages better than they for they might know their sense well enough and yet embrace opinions which themselves thought probable and not presently apprehend wherein they contradicted the sentiments of their Predecessors As for that he says to make it still less credible that M. Daille has quoted in his Book several express Texts by which it 's shewn that they pretended in Praying to Saints to follow the example of their Predecessors It 's idle either to expect a satisfactory answer to such an uncertain Discourse or to hope to gain belief when he has not given us the particulars by which only it can be judged how far it does conclude But now the advantage he takes at present from this consent of this being in use in the fourth Age is only this That he hopes those of M. Daille's Communion will have more respect to these Men than with him in derision to give them the name of Reliquarists and that as they dare not accuse those of Idolatry by Praying to Saints or of destroying that trust which Christians ought to put in Jesus Christ so he hopes henceforwards that they will not cast the like reproaches on the Church of Rome when they consider they cannot do it without accusing at the same time those excellent Men. This he may promise himself that we shall not shew any thing like derision of those excellent Men nor give them reproachful names But what he further aims at depends upon the truth of his supposition that by accucusing the Church of Rome as Idolatrous in this respect we cast the same reproach on those famous Men A thing that he who knows the mighty difference we plead between the practice first growing into a custom and those gross extravigancies to which it is since encreased should not have supposed without shewing the practises to be the same Which how they first began and by what degrees encreased to their present height as First From Mens desires to one another to be mindful of them after-their departure Secondly From an opinion that some help was communicated to the Church from the fellowship between the Militant and the Church-Triumphant grounded upon a supposition that if Souls departed were mindful of any thing they bore the same affection to their Members as when on Earth and so would intercede with God for them which Thirdly Begun to be more confirmed by some miraculous effects which God was pleased to work in places where the memory of the Martyrs was had in Reverence Which Fourthly Gave occasion to those Prayers which were made upon a faint supposition of their knowing things below which Prayers were rather Wishes than Prayers as Cassander Vtinam Sancti orent And so grew by degrees as Men willing to justifie themselves in what they had gave entrance to persuaded themselves more of the probability by framing suppositions to themselves of God's wanting not means to make known their desires to them 'till it came at last to be received that God really did make them known by ways best known to himself which is now made matter of Faith and the practise thus encreased absolutely commanded Those who are willing to see particular information I refer to that excellent Book of Bishop Vsher's Answer to the Jesuits Challenge and for the degrees by which the publick Forms now in use got possession in the Liturgies to Dr. Chaloner's Progress of Heresie This Digression in me I hope is pardonable since M. Condom himself led me out of the way with whom I now return to follow the design SECT IV. Concerning Invocation of Saints HEre in the first place he acknowledges That the Church of Rome does teach them that it is profitable to pray to Saints Now this the Church of England declares to be 39 Articles of the Church of England Article 22. unprofitable and a vain invention not grounded upon any Warrant in Scripture but rather repugnant to the Word of God But he goes on and says The Church of Rome teaches them to pray to Saints in the same spirit of charity and according to the same order of fraternal society which moves us to demand assistance from our brethren here on earth whence their Catechism concludes that if Christ's mediatorship receive no prejudice from the intercession made to the faithful who live with us neither does it from the intercession made to the Saints But here we must take leave to observe that if the ground upon which they found this Doctrine be as he intimates that Relation and Fellowship which Saints departed have with the Church here as we the living members have one with another as I confess may be implied in the instances given in that Catechism of Job's praying for his friends c. mention'd before it insers the conclusion here spoken of yet it cannot be said that this Church teaches men to pray after no other manner to the Saints than to their brethren that are living nor with no Concil Trid. Sess 25. Dec. de Invocat greater confidence of success since the Council expresly decrees for the Invocation of them and also for Mental Supplication and M. Condom acknowledges a peculiar acceptableness of these with God upon account of their virtues p. 9. and their Catechism Cat. Rom. de Culen Inv. expresly teaches that God confers many benefits upon us for their sake and merit He passes on to shew us from their Catechism the difference between their imploring the aid of Saints and the assistance of God that they pray to Saints to undertake their cause with God but to God to give them the things they ask and therefore their Forms are different that where they are not the intention of the Church reduces them all to this difference Not denying for the present but the intention of the Church may be to reduce them to this distinction yet it shall remain questionable whether it may lawfully use such Forms as according to their nature are proper only to God and by which themselves express desires that ought to be peculiar to him to the Saints with a different intention For a further confirmation of the sense delivered he produces the injunction of the Council to the Bishops what they ought to teach the people concerning Invocation of Saints That the Saints who reign with Jesus Christ offer up to God their prayers for men that it is good and profitable to invocate them after an humble manner and to have recourse to their prayers aid and assistance to obtain of God his benefits through our Lord Jesus Christ his Son who is our sole Saviour
and Redeemer After which it condemns those who teach a contrary Doctrine I shall find it necessary for my purpose to set down the particulars how it declares it to be impiety to say Sess 26. Dâ—… de 〈◊〉 that Saints ought not to be invocated or that they do not pray for us or that it is folly to pray unto them Hence he again concludes That to Invocate the Saints in the sense of this Council is to have recourse to their Prayers for obtaining benefits from God through Jesus Christ so that in reality they are obtained no otherwise than by Jesus Christ since through and in his Name And here M. Condom not taking notice that aid and protection are mentioned by the Council as distinct from the Prayers of the Saints the Advertiser has p. 13. and tells us That it is a kind of aid succour and protection to recommend the miserable to him who alone can comfort them Such protection he says we may receive from Saints but yet he does not say it 's the only protection to be received or expected from them though for my own part I am as desirous that this should be the only sense of their Conceit as themselves pretend to be so they will grant for the future what I desire that those who have or do place any further reliance on them or seek them for greater purposes are hereby declared to be condemned as Idolaters which if they refuse to grant they argue both to little purpose From the premises thus laid he presumes they shall be no more accused of forsaking Jesus Christ when they beseech his members who are also ours his children who are our brethren and his Saints who are our first fruits to pray with us and for us to our common Master in the Name of our common Mediatour Plansibly said I confess but not so well considered on by one that should have known that the hope of our acceptance with God depends upon his promise which promise is made to those that ask of God immediately in his Son's Name and again that the honour due to Christ as our Mediator is not given him in that acceptable manner when we pretend to give it him by means of our own chusing as by those applications which he has taught us to make unto God through and in his Name and Merits upon which ground the Church of England well argues That we are to make our application to God Homily of Prayer through Christ alone for that the promise is made to them that pray in his Name and the Apostles tell us that he is our Advocate and only Mediator He further informs us That the Church of Rome when she offers to God the dreadful sacrifice to honour the memory of his Saints does not sacrifice to them but God in memory of them rendring thanks to him for their victories and demanding their assistance to the end those whose memory they celebrate upon earth would vouchsafe to pray for them in heaven Suppose it and yet hereby is confest by their demanding the assistance of these persons by vertue of this sacrifice that they do it in expectation of something from their intercession as well as from Christ's merits which seems to me a gross absurdity that they say the benefits they seek from the Saints are sought through Christ's merits and yet when they offer the sacrifice of Christ which pleads all his merits to God they should not so totally depend on that but expect another assistance from the Saints From the Doctrine thus proposed he infers That they neither rob God of the perfections of his essence nor attribute to the Creature any of those qualities which are peculiar to him only in that they do not as he says ascribe immensity or the knowledge of the secrets of our hearts to the Saints as having any such of themselves but to say a creature may have some knowledge communicated to it by God is not to elevate a creature above his condition God himself by making known future things to his Prophets having shewn that he can when he pleases communicate such things unto a creature whereas none of them hold the Saints to have any such knowledge by their own power But if this should not be to elevate the creature above the condition it is capable of if God please to communicate such knowledge to him yet it is raising him to such a condition which we are not sure he has and whereas he says they do not hereby rob God of any perfections peculiar to him because a creature is capable of having such as they give to Saints communicated to it it is worth considering whether to give perfections peculiar to God till he does communicate them to such as we are not assured he has given them will not be looked on by God as a Dishonour to him if he has really not communicated them for otherwise how can it ever be a Dishonour to him to ascribe the peculiar Properties of his Nature to any other there being none but he can when it pleases him possess with them in great part After which he concludes They cannot in respect of this Doctrine be Idolaters which he endeavors to prove by an Induction of several Arguments the strength of all which depends on these Suppositions That the Saints in Heaven do know our Deâ—ires and have certainly the Knowledge of humane Affairs communicated to them by God that they do and have a power of assisting us by their Prayers which Power proceeds from their Acceptableness in God's sight for their Virtues which are the gifts of his Grace But if these Suppositions fail of Truth as they are altogether without ground all there said avails nothing to exempt them from Idolatry Whereas he infers at last That the exterior Veneration which they give to Saints ought to be judged of from their interior Sentiments This is a thing that must be left in Dispute for the Reason given by me Sect. 3. Now after our View and Remarks upon M. Condom's Explication of this Particular it is sit we should collect the Points in difference which are these First Whether the Saints have such a certain Knowledge of humane Affairs as can be sufficient Ground for us to request their Help Secondly Whether supposing the Intention of their Prayers to the Saints be quite different from what they have in those they make to God this can justifie them in the Use of Forms couched in the same Terms Thirdly Whether as the Church of Rome grounds in part these Prayers to Saints upon the Fellowship of Christ's Members one with another so the Invocation of these which it requires be nothing but a bare desire of them to pray for us or be not taught to be an humble supplicatory Desire and a Religious Worship as that signifies an Act of Devotion and piece of Gods Service Fourthly Whether this ought to be made a part of Faith that the Saints do know our Necessities and
referred to what they represent So that in this M. Condom seems to use a little extenuation or at least ambiguity for his instance tells us only that he humbles himself before the Image and from thence he pretends to infer a direct conclusion which dares not conclude positively his intention to be only to honour the Apostle or Martyr before an Image but not so much to honour the Image as the Apostle whose it is and then cites the Trent Council as making for both this instance and the conclusion from it when he does not positively infer that which his instance intended to infer and which the following instances seem to infer The Pontisical might something favour his purpose if it did Pont. de 〈…〉 Imaginam not at the same time pray that God would bless and sanctifie that Image for the purpose of obtaining the prayers and help of the Apostle or Martyr which implies a supposition that they shall be rather heard for this honour given to their Images But the intention of the Church when she honours Images he says may be seen by that honour which she renders to the Cross and to the Bible In the first he appeals to all the world whether they do not see that before the Cross she adores him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood What the world sees of their adoring Christ who suffered on the Cross is not material so long as it sees they give a distinct worship to the Cross it self as well as unto Christ Witness their Missa de 〈◊〉 Rom. exâ—… Concil Triâ—… Mâ—… Sancta Cruce Sancta Cruce where in the Gradual we read thus We adore thee O Christ for that by thy Cross thou hact redeemed the world and then We adore thy Cross O Lord. So that M. Condom has chosen an ill instance to make us believe they give no worship to the Image but only to those represented by them nay if they put the same trust and reliance on other Images as on their honour of the Cross we may conclude they do not think them so void of virtue as is pretended for in respect of their honour given to the Cross they pray thus God who by the blood of thy Son Ibid. didst intend to sanctifie the sign of the quickning Cross grant that they who rejoice in honouring the same holy Cross may ever joy in the protection The instance of the Bible is wide from the purpose for their Church has no where decreed any Religious Worship to be given to that and though some of them may use it with a foolish or perhaps superstitious respect does that give excuse to their extravagant use of other things But M. Condom presuming upon the strength of what he has said concludes It would be very great injustice to accuse these practices as idolatrous there being an excessive difference between such as put their trust in Images and those who declare they use Images only to excite and raise their memories and minds towards heaven All which does enable me to conclude that where this difference is not maintained this use of Images in Religious Worship shall be absolute Idolatry There is another sort of Images not mentioned by M. Condom though I suppose not designedly omitted because he is treating about Images commanded to be worshipped which those are not but I am obliged to take notice of them because mentioned by the Advertisement p. 14. and also because the Church of England charges the making them as a Crime upon the Roman Church Images of God made for an Historical use to express the Histories of the Old Testament in Forms which God sometimes appeared under to his Prophets such Images says the Church of England ought not to made because God cannot be represented and Moses forbid the Jews to make any Representation of him because when he gave them the Law they saw no shape The Advertizer endeavours to defend the Church of Rome by saying That it does no more pretend to derogate from God's invisible and spiritual nature than God himself when he exhibited himself under that form And possibly it may not pretend to it but yet it may derogate from the glory of his nature nevertheless But he tells us The Council does not pretend thereby to represent or express the Divinity or give it any colours But 't is not what they pretend to do but what they do that can vindicate them in this matter now their Catechism says The Pastor shall teach the people that Cat. Rom. de Cultu Venerat certain properties and actions which are attributed to God are signified thereby as for instance when the antient of days in Daniel is painted sitting on a Throne with the Books opened before him they are to understand that thereby is signified the eternity and infinite wisdom of God whereby he sees both the thoughts and actions of men that he may pass judgment on them And is not this evidently to do the things they pretend not to do No Man can say certainly the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks of which kind were the Statues of their Gods and to which the prohibition of Moses may reasonably be thought to relate were used by them to give a full and perfect expression of the things they designed them to represent but rather for some seeming Analogy which those Natures had with what they intended But to return to the Controversie before us and to collect the points in difference that we may see how much of it M. Condom's explication has put an end to The First dispute is Whether Images ought to be set up in Churches and used in Religious Worship The Second What sort of Image-Worship is commanded by the Church of Rome The Third Whether that practised in the Roman Church be not Idolatrous or does not necessarily tend to Idolatry The Fourth Whether the Idolatrous practises of particular Persons are not in a great measure chargable justly on the Church itself whilst it commands the use of Images without warrant from the Word of God Touching the first of these the Church of England declares that in part she would not stick to grant them that Images may be Hom. against Idol 3d. p. made but with this limitation that it be such as are not used in Religion such as are not in danger to be Worshipped nor of any Worship'd but that Images cannot be set up in Temples without danger of Idolatry arguing that so the Jews understood their Law which made them so zealously oppose the Roman Emperors who endeavoured to introduce Images into their Temple that the Cherubs over the Altar cannot justifie the use of them for that we must obey God's general Law and not run to particular dispensations That such Images as have been so set up have been and were at that time Worshipped and that they cannot be set up long without Idolatry since there can be no sufficient means to prevent it so long as they are suffered there
which is the main difference that runs through the whole Controversie For hereupon the Church of Rome pursuing it 's own notion makes the beginning of Justification to be the answer to God's call and the following his exciting grace to the belief of God's promises thence hoping in him for pardon and thereupon beginning to love him and hate sin purposing a new life which disposition is followed with Justification of which it sets up different causes particularly making the only formal cause of it to be Justice or Righteousness given by God whereby we are renewed in the spirit of our minds and not accounted only but rendred just every man receiving it according to his disposition The Church of England on the other side holding a quite different sense of Justification declares Christ the only meritorious cause of it by what he suffer'd for the expiation of our sins and Faith the only means of receiving and applying his merits for this purpose which Faith it declares to be a full trust in God's mercy through Christ for the remission of our sins supposing always Repentance as necessary to make this confidence lively and Christian not carnal and presumptive excluding nevertheless even Faith it self as well as all other graces and works from being any way meritorious of this remission of sins which is only wrought by Jesus Christ not that it does in the least deny that Christ merited grace as well as pardon or that God by his grace doth infuse into our hearts Faith Hope and Charity and all other graces whereby the renovation of the inner man is wrought but supposing always that this sanctification is wrought by God's spirit in all justified persons it denies any of these graces and all inherent righteousness to be deserving of this Remission of sins which God gives us freely out of meer grace upon the score of Christ's merits Now then upon a view of the whole we see the ground of the difference lies in the different apprehension of Justification and herein certainly the Church of Rome is mistaken whilst she confounds Justification with Sanctification Remission of Sins with the Renovation of our Minds and taking Justification for what it properly signifies Remission of Sins the Council of Trent has made that the formal cause of Justification which has nothing to do in the Remission of Sins which are not remitted by being extinguished by contrary dispositions but by the Merits of Christ purchasing their pardon Again By departing from the Scripture-language and the true meaning thereof in making Justification consist in the infusion of Righteousness which it does not properly signifie there is appearance of reason great enough to cause men that are jealous of the glory of God's grace and the merits of Christ to think they claim remission of sins as due to that infused righteousness by having whereof they say they are righteous before God But yet inasmuch as it makes Christ to be the meritorious cause of Justication and says in the place M. Condom quotes that it is necessary to believe that our sins are not remitted but by the free mercy of God through Christ I dare not charge it as destroying his Merits by this Doctrine but wherein I do charge them with this will appear in the next Section But however it has gone beyond its power in making that matter of Faith which before was only a position of the Schools and which in it self is not true especially since it has proceeded further to declare that Doctrine of Justification which it has thus Vid. Preface to the Canons set down to be so necessary to be received that without believing it a man cannot be justified and has thereupon proceeded to make Canons whereby they condemn him that says 1 Can. 10. We are formally justified by the merits of Christ 2 Can. 11. That we are justified only by the imputation of Christs righteousness or only by remission of sins without inherent grace and charity 3 Can. 12. That justifying Faith is nothing but confidence in the mercy of God who remitteth sins for Christ 4 Can. 24. That Justification is not increased by good works but that they are fruits only and signs of it All which Propositions though condemned by them are true taking Justification in its proper notion for the forgiveness of sins for what is a man justified by but only the justice of Christ and by remission of sins if Justification be only the Remission of sins and that effected only by Christ and supposing the same what are we formally justified by but his merits and what is justifying Faith else supposing the same but a confidence in the mercy of God who remitteth sins for Christ's sake and how is Justification increased by works if it be the free remission of sins through Christ without consideration of them To come therefore at length to M. Condom who says That seeing the Scripture explicates Remission of sins sometimes by God's covering them sometimes by his blotting them out by his grace that makes us new creatures to form a perfect Idea of Justification both these are to be joined together Could he have shewn any one place of Scripture wherein Remission of sins signifies their being blotted out by making us new creatures I might allow his Idea reasonable But the place he cites in the Margin Tit. 3. v. 5 6 7. is not of that clearness as to make much for him when the Scriptures every where distinguish the Remission of our sins from our being turned from them the pardon of them from our having sin destroyed within us and consequently our Justification from our Sanctification and though both are wrought by Christ yet it speaks of them as things distinct ascribing the benefit of the one to the sufferings and satisfaction of Christ and God's mercy the other to the effect of his grace and holy spirit The words in that passage of the Epistle to Titus are these But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs of eternal life Now it 's true the Apostle here setting forth our salvation effected through the mercy of God in Christ for the manner of it sets down no more than the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost but though the laver of Regeneration effects both the remission of our sins by the death and merits of Christ and the renovation of our minds by the Holy Ghost which is shed on us we are not therefore to think of them as if both were the same thing because both are conferred by the same Sacrament when it 's apparent that they are different mercies one the effect of Christ's death and
other ground in Christian Discipline than as means for the cure of sin which the Church being obliged to see to the performance of that Christianity men profest with good authority obliged those to undergo who had visibly fallen from that profession not as Punishments satisfactory to Gods Justice but as Medicines to work their cure and to recover them to the state of Grace and God's Favour which the Communion of the Church ought to suppose them in And therefore as they were debarred of that Communion when they were fallen from Grace the Church would not re-admit them to it 'till by submitting to such works of Humiliation as were likely to produce Repentance they had given reasonable Evidence to her of their having recovered the state of Grace and thereby a right to her Communion Now those Penitents indeed who shewed some extraordinary zeal and fervour in these works of Humiliation or by some other eminent acts of Piety shewed themselves to have truly repented and that the love of God had taken place in their hearts were many times admitted to the Communion before their performance of all those acts that had been enjoyned them and loosed from the further severities of that Discipline that cure of sin appearing to be wrought in them which the Discipline intended But for Penances imposed to make satisfaction to the Divine Justice and relaxations from them by the application of a stock of Merits in the Church there is not the least appearance After this laying open the foundation we must likewise examine the building and enquire what their Doctrine is in these points In that of satisfaction it 's evident they hold those Penitential Works to be satisfactory and that to God's Justice inasmuch as they design them for payments of a Debt of Temporal Punishment but then after what nature they satisfie is not so fully exprest The Council of Trent uses the words cited by M. Condom in the former Section which I have shewn not clear for they say These Works of Penance have a vertue though drawn from Jesus Christ and we are still in doubt whether they count them satisfactions upon account of their intrinsick value being performed by the help of Grace if so they give them a worth which they ought not Their Catechism seems to confirm this sense saying That from Christ through our good actions we obtain two great benefits one that we merit the rewards of everlasting glory the other that we can satisfie for our sins And this it says illustrates the satisfaction of Christ whose Grace is herein more abundant that not only those things are communicated to us which himself alone but those also which as head over his Members he hath merited and pay'd for his Saints upon which account it 's evident that the good actions of the Pious are of great weight and dignity And this also their very accounting them satisfactions to the Divine Justice requiring this Temporal Punishment does most strongly imply And if so then all M. Condom's Maxims will not clear them from depending on these works for that which is not in them But if we must take his word that after all what they call satisfaction is only the application of the infinite satisfaction of Christ we hope to find nothing inconsistent with it But here we meet with another Doctrine that one man may satisfie for another thus their Catechism tells us That those Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Quae ad verum satisfact who are endued with Divine Grace may in another's stead pay that which is owing to God so that after a sort we bear one anothers burthens And these works by which men satisfie for others are commonly called works of Supererogation which the Church of England declares cannot be taught without arrogancy Art 14. of the the Church of England and impiety inasmuch as by them men declare that they not only render to God as much as they are bound but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that ye can say that you are unprofitable servants She likewise deplores that gross Superstition that had crept into the World by which men were lead Hom. of good Works Part 3. to place righteousness in Vows Meats Drinks c. out of which the People were told of a stock of merits in the Church of which others made their Markets And herein I shall not fear to maintain what is said by her upon the reasons given and more namely that this conceit of one man's satisfying for another and that thereby there is a stock of merits which the Church by Indulgences may allow to the account of those to whom it grants them is not only without warrant from Scripture or the practice of the Primitive Church but is also prejudicial to the faith and injurious to the merits of Christ whose merits are the only consideration of all Pardon and Mercy Nor will it avail to say the merits of the Saints are not such but through him for then it would be enough to apply his only to that effect but whilst his are infinite those who shall pretend to joyn others with them when God has only proposed his both as the consideration of his giving mercy and the foundation of our hope do plainly derogate from Christ and delude the People who hearing of other merits than those of Christ vainly purchase them as a new means to place themselves in God's favour But M. Condom speaks here very sparingly of Indulgences telling us The Council of Trent proposes nothing else to be believed concerning them but that there is a power in the Church from Jesus Christ to grant them and that the use of them is beneficial to salvation and does withall intimate that these principally regard Discipline which it seeks to prevent from being reassumed by an over-great facility in granting them But still it teaches all this without warrant no power of Indulgences to such purposes as they pretend to grant them being ever given to the Church by Jesus Christ nor any such beneficial use of them to be learnt from him upon this score Nor is it material to observe that the Council intimates them to regard Discipline unless we knew how far their Ecclesiastical Discipline does extend If it reach to the imposing Punishments for the satisfaction of Gods Justice for the debt of Temporal Punishment Concil Trid. Sess 14. c. 8. which is mentioned as the ground of their exacting these satisfactions and which the Priest is to have regard to and to enjoyn them ad vindictam castigationem it 's a Discipline the Church never had All the World knows that Luther in the first breach about Indulgences did not deny them as to the relaxing of Canonical Penances but inveighed against the pretences of those that advanced them to a further purpose and that one of his greatest objections against them was That the Pope
Can. 14 Or that these satisfactory works are not the Worship of God but men's Traditions 4 Can. 15. Or that the Keys of the Church were not given to bind to this effect and therefore that the Priests who enjoyn these punishments use not the Keys to a right end and according to Christs institution or that it is a fiction that after the Remission of the Eternal punishment there most commonly does remain a Temporal the payment of which the Church in its exercise of the Keys ought to see to 5 Sess 6. Can. 30. Or that every fault and punishment is so wholly remitted to every Justified and Penitent man at the time of death that there remains no pain to be endured in Purgatory before an entrance is opened to him into Heaven All which Anathema's are denounced without the least warrant of Scripture rather in opposition to it And now in all this you see I have waved the charge of those abuses which are too apparent in each of these practices SECT IX Of the Sacraments COncerning Sacraments in general the Church of England Art 25. holds That they are more than badges of our Profession or than representative signs of Grace being sure witnesses and effectual signs of it by which God does invisibly work in us and seems to allow them Instruments of the Holy Ghost for it says of Baptism that thereby as by Art 27. an Instrument we are grafted into the Church of Christ Only as to that which renders them effectual to us we differ in two things for they seem to leave out that which we make absolutely necessary and on the other side make something of absolute necessity which we deny to be such The Church of England necessarily requires Faith in the receivers and the rest of those preparations which the Scriptures require in those that come unto them The Roman Church teaches that they confer Grace by vertue of the words which are pronounced and the exteriour action which is performed upon condition that we put not any impediment by not being rightly disposed But in that many of that Church have since explained themselves that when they say the Sacraments do confer Grace ex opere operato they do not mean to exclude the necessity of repentance faith and all other necessary qualifications in the receiver but only that the Sacraments have a virtue in them from Christ's institution which virtue is not barely the effect of faith in him that receives but also of the promise of Christ annext to that work this Controversie seems to be chiefly about words and their ill and offensive manner of expressing themselves for we as we require faith and other qualifications in the receiver do also in owning these Sacraments to be Christ's Institution acknowledge their virtue from that Institution though those qualifications are requisite in us to partake of their efficacy according to the Divine Promise What they on the other side require as absolutely necessary is the intention of the Priest to do what the Church intends without which the Sacrament is not effectual This is by us rejected in that since no man has assurance of securing the Priest's intention if this were absolutely necessary to produce the effect there could be no assurance of its ever coming to effect upon us We therefore say that the Sacraments being of Christ's Institution and taking effect by his promise all that preparedly come to wait on him in the Ordinances of his Church have warrant of their effect from that promise be the Minister's intention what it will As to the necessity of these Sacraments we that allow their virtue and efficacy from Christ's promise to work in us the graces of the Holy Ghost and communicate the benefits of our blessed Saviour's death cannot be thought to think them necessary or that the neglect of them in any is not the neglect of their salvation But then as to the number of them we find another difference The Church of Rome counts seven Baptism Eucharist Penance Confirmation Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction The Church of England acknowledges but two Baptism and the Eucharist Artic. 25. i. e. as ordained of Christ in the Gospel and as generally necessary to salvation the other five she counts not Sacraments of the Gospel being such as have grown partly from the corrupt following of the Apostles partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures but yet have not like nature with the other two for that they have not any visible sign ordained by God There might indeed have been an easie end put to this dispute if both sides had but considered one anothers meaning and the Church of Rome had not put so great a bar to this consideration by denouncing Anathema against all that should say the Sacraments are more or less than Seven without sufficiently explaining the difference that is really between them For the word Sacrament in the general may says our Homily be attributed to Hom. of Common Prayer and Sacraments any thing whereby an holy thing is signified but in a strict acceptation or according to the exact signification of a Sacrament it means a visible sign expresly commanded in the New Testament whereto is annext the promise of free forgiveness of sins and of our union with Christ and in this sense our Church acknowledges but two and there acquaints us with the reasons why she does not receive the other Sacraments necessary to salvation and in what manner she does receive them Absolution she owns to have the promise of forgiveness of sins yet since this promise is not by any express words in the New Testament annext to the visible sign Imposition of hands used with it she counts it not a Sacrament as the other That though there be a grace by promise annext to the exercise of it yet there is no particular visible sign of necessity to be used in it to which that promise is confined as to Water in Baptism That though Order has both a visible sign and a promise of grace yet it has not the promise of forgiveness of sins i. e. it has a promise of grace only to a particular effect not to the general effect of the Gospel That Confirmation used in examining persons in the Christian faith and joyning thereto the Prayers of the Church for them also Matrimony Visitation of the Sick are still retained by the Order of the Church and ought to be though not as properly Sacraments yet either as states of life worthy to be set forth by publick action and by the Ministry or as such Ordinances as make for the instruction comfort and edification of Christ's Church Supposing hereby undoubtedly that they want not grace to their proper effects in what the general promise of God to hear the Prayers of his Church may give them leave to hope from those Prayers that are used with them And it is not without reason that our Church maintains this distinction
there being so vast a difference between those Sacraments which by virtue of our blessed Saviour's peculiar Institution are Seals exhibitive of all the promises of the Gospel and which take effect to this purpose from that Institution and others that are only means of particular graces to this or that particular effect some of which also can be hoped to take effect only in consideration of the Prayers of the Church and have no other virtue than what these Prayers can be hoped to produce Baptism About Baptism in particular I know but one material difference for the Church of England sufficiently presses its efficacy and necessity and has provided what she can that none may want it only she dares not determine it of that absolute necessity as to deny salvation to those Infants that dye without it The Romanists themselves allow the desire of it to supply the want of it to Justification in the adult and when St. Peter tells us that it is not the washing away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God that saves us in Baptism why therefore they should not think the design of Christian Parents dedicating them to God's service and the profession of Christianity should not as well supply the want of it in case of necessity as it does render the washing effectual in the use of it I cannot apprehend Confirmation Confirmation is not in the least rejected by us but used with solemnity becoming such an Exercise and intended to the utmost effect that the Bishops Prayer and the Suffrages of the whole Congregation joyned with it can be hoped to procure of that grace which may enable all that come thereto both to will and to do what before their coming to that action they are taught they must then resolve upon viz. the prosession of Christianity in their own names undertaking to abide by it with their lives Penance Touching Penance we believe that Christ having committed to his Church the power of binding and loosing mens sins for edification and likewise committed to her the dispensation of the Mysteries of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist has given her authority as of admitting to so of casting out of the Church so that when it shall appear that any have visibly transgress'd that profession upon which they were admitted members of the Christian Church by Baptism she has full authority to call such to an account and to exclude them in part or altogether from her communion till they shall have submitted to and peformed such acts of humiliation as may both warrant her to admit them to her communion again by some assurance of their true repentance and recovery of the state of grace which alone entitles to it and likewise satisfie the Church for the scandal given by their Apostasie Likewise we believe that all who being baptized have made profession of Christianity are by that profession obliged to submit themselves to this discipline which the Church exercises for the cure of sin Further we prove that when the Church proceeds aright in the exercise of this authority excluding those from her communion who are visibly faln from the state of grace and admitting them again into it after it has wrought the cure of sin by enjoyning such acts of humiliation as have wrought a true repentance she acts according to Christs commission and what she does is valid and ratified by him to so great effect that what she binds on earth is bound in heaven and what she looses on earth is loosed in heaven We further say That God having provided this means for the procuring and assuring the pardon of sin by his Church does both teach private Christians what course they ought to take for the working in themselves a true repentance by acts of mortification and self-denial and invite them to bring their secret sins unto the Church so far as they shall be convinced within themselves that the Ministry of the Church may be beneficial to them by her Prayers or Discipline to work this effect But we declare on the other side That though we believe the Church has full authority thus to act in the cure of sin yet it has no authority to pardon sin till after it has wrought the cure so that if it shall absolve any from their sins in whom it has not first wrought a true repentance that act is null for the Church which is only ministerial to procure can have no authority to abate that condition which the Gospel requires to the remission of sins true Repentance And therefore 2ly we further declare That though the Churches Discipline be of great efficacy to procure this condition necessary to the remission of sins yet inasmuch as it is possible for men to work it in themselves without it by their earnest Prayers Humiliation and other Endeavours assisted by God's grace that the sins of such are pardoned by God without this discipline of the Church And therefore 3ly we also declare That whatever benefit may be in mens laying open their secret sins to the Church in obtaining the pardon of their sins yet there is no absolute necessity on them so to do for that their sins shall assuredly be forgiven without it so they be truly penitent Also out of a due apprehension of the exceeding usefulness of this Discipline i. e. Publick Penance in the Church of Christ and the great decay of Christian Piety sensibly fell through the want of it our Church laments its loss and the abominable abuses that crept into it of which the iniquity of the age took so great advantage as has for the present rendred it almost impracticable but to the utmost effect she can she does exercise it and to the best for the edification of her children But whilst we thus lament that this Discipline left by our blessed Saviour in his Church is in so great a measure lost and become impracticable yet there will not be so much reason to repent of our Reformation upon this account It was not the Reformation that cast off this necessary and saving Discipline but the corruptions of former ages that had brought in abuses to that excess that rendred it not possible for the Reformation at the removal of them to maintain it in the authority it ought to have had To what degree those abuses were arrived we shall be able to guess when we have considered those that are still maintained in Concil Trid. Sess 14. the Church of Rome which teaches thus 1 Cap. 1. That those who fall from grace after Baptism have need of another Sacrament to restore them and therefore our Saviour instituted this of Penance 2 Cap. 3. Can. 4. That the Form of this Sacrament consists in the words I absolve thee the matter of it is Contrition Confession Satisfaction condemning those who say Penance is no other than a Conscience terrified for its sins and faith to lay hold on Christ for forgiveness
effects I suppose the Church of England does allow the help of the Elders of the Church useful to the sick and therefore has provided that none lack this assistance but inasmuch as the Promises relating to these effects are different the Promise to one effect being perpetual and common to the Church in all ages to the other temporary whilst God empowered it to work such effects the Church which thinks she can only ground her Faith upon God's promises does still retain and declare her power in the cure of sin having a continued promise of God's grace to go along with its Ministry in effecting of it but not being assured nor having any promise to assure it that its Ministry shall be effectual to the recovery of bodily health it dares not warrant it to her children and therefore does not think fit to use the Ceremony of anointing the sick with oyl which was then used as a sign effective of their recovery Not that she is not ready to pray for this on their behalf grounding herself upon the general promise God has pride to hear the Prayers of his Church but not having any sure word of promise to ground a firm Faith upon as to the absolute recovery of the sick and it being the Prayer of Faith to which the Apostle here attributes this recovery as Faith indeed and that special and extraordinary was always necessary to all miraculous effects she therefore thinks she cannot use that sign which was then applied to the sick to assure him of his recovery by that power which God was then pleased to give for the working such cures That this Reason is not inconsiderable the Church of Rome herself is forced to allow and thereupon is greatly perplexed to find out a Reason why the first of these effects the Forgiveness Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Extrem Vnct. qua praep of Sins being provided for by the Sacrament of Penance there should be another Sacrament provided for this purpose To solve which she has invented a Distinction not to be found in the Apostles words I am sure that the Grace of this Sacrament is to extinguish our Venial Sins the other being chiefly provided for the forgiveness of Deadly Sins No less is she perplexed as to the other for seeing de facto that the Ministry of the Church does not take effect to the bodily recovery and withal knowing it necessary that all who come to a Sacrament ought to come with a Faith that they shall receive the Benefit tendred by it she orders that the Priest shall labour to perswade Ibid. the Sick to offer himself to this Unction with no less a Faith than those tendred themselves who were miraculously cured by the Apostles That if the Sick reap not so much Benefit Ibid. by it at this time as of old this must not be ascribed to any defect in the Sacrament but we are to believe it so happens for this cause rather that Faith is weaker in the greatest part of those that are anointed with this sacred Oyl or in those that administer it the Gospel telling us that our Lord did not many mighty works in his own Country because of their Vnbelief And yet for all this at last she is forced to confess the true Reason That Miracles do not seem so necessary now since Christianity has taken so wide and deep a root as they were in the beginning of the Church Which Reason as it shews that we ought not to expect the like effects now as then does likewise fully justifie the practice of the Church of England in not using Vnction to warrant the recovery of the Sick tho' she be ready to assist them with her Prayers which may be hoped effectual in an ordinary way to all that is consistent with the Divine Will Marriage Whereas our Blessed Saviour was pleased to reduce this State of Marriage to its first Institution and to make the Bond of it insoluble we do believe it the Concern yea the Duty of the Church to see that its Members joyned together in this holy State do preserve this Bond inviolable And the preserving it thus requiring as all other Christian Duties the assistance of God's Grace our Church thinks herself obliged as to see to the Marriages that shall be contracted between its Members so to implore a Blessing on them at their entrance into that State begging the Assistance of the Divine Grace to enable them to live as Christians ought in the State of Wedlock And whereas the Apostle has thought fit to represent to us the near Conjunction and inseparable Union of Christ with his Church by that near and inseparable Union which this State supposes we forget not the Thanks we owe our blessed Lord who is thus pleased to unite himself to his Church nor the Concern that lies on us the Members of it to preserve an Vnion with him inviolable But we cannot think that because the State of Matrimony is a Sign of that Mystical Union between Christ and his Church having some analogy with it that therefore the entrance into this State has the promise of any Grace to joyn or preserve us in that Union with Christ and his Church and for that reason we exclude it from the Sacraments of Christ's Church as these are Signs effective of Grace Order We allow the Necessity of ordaining Ministers for the Service of Christ's Church and acknowledge not only the Ceremony of Imposition of hands in that Action to be of Apostolical Institution but also that there is a Promise of Grace annex'd to enable persons so ordain'd to act according to their several Functions and that with effect to those Ends which their Ministries serve in the Church of Christ But we admit it not properly a Sacrament as I said before because the Grace promised does peculiarly relate to their Office and the Benefit of the Church not particularly to the Salvation of him that receives it Neither do we allow the Grace here promised to belong to any but those Orders that we find from the Beginning in the Church of Christ viz. Bishops Priests and Deacons SECT X. Of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist NOW we are come to the great Points that are in dispute about the Eucharist wherein M. Condom has greatly enlarged himself as confident of the Victory Here in the first place he tells us The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour is established by the Words of the Institution which they understand literally and therefore are not to give Reasons for so doing but expect Reasons why they should not We should take this Gentleman off a great Advantage which he presumes himself to have if we should deny theirs to be the Literal Sense and plead ours to be it and oblige them to give Reasons for their imposing a new construction upon them However leaving that in question for a time I must at present examine the Reasons he gives to
appetites being necessarily required in us no man can hence have so gross an imagination as to conceive that we must take in the righteousness thus hungred and thirsted after at our mouths as we do our bodily food Consider then withal the words of our Lord Joh. 6. 35 36 I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst But I said unto you You have also seen me and believed not And compare it with Vers 63 64 It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh prositeth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life But there are some of you that believe not And judg from hence Whether our Lord does not propose himself as that food which can give satisfaction to the spiritual hunger and thirst of our souls and if so whether it can be thought that he is to be received any otherwise than spiritually for the satisfaction of those appetites that are spiritual And then withal consider Vers 27 Labour not for the meat that perisheth but that which shall endure to eternal life and Vers 28 What shall we do to work the works of God And 29 This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent And I suppose it will perfectly appear that our Saviour speaks not here of any eating but what is spiritual and that inasmuch as when the People questioned him What they should do to work the works of God upon his exhorting them to labour after the meat that endureth to life eternal he answers them that to do his works is to believe on him whom he hath sent and again tells us that he that cometh to him shall never hunger and he that believeth on him shall never thirst and again that his words are spirit and life but 〈◊〉 of them would not believe them Hereby he fully shews us thâ—… â—…at him is to believe and lay hold on him by Faith As for the Corporal eating we are expresly told that the flesh thus taken if it might be so taken prositeth nothing whereas taken after that manner that Christ recommendeth to us it is of such profit that it preserveth the eater from death and maketh him to live for ever It is not therefore such an eating with which every man that brings a bodily mouth can receive him but a spiritual uniting of us to Christ whereby he dwelleth in us and we in him Neither is it in the least necessary that Christ should be bodily present which were indeed necessary were our eating corporal or carnal but being altogether spiritual and supernatural there is no necessity of his local presence It is sufficient for a spiritual union with Christ that he and we though distant in place be knit together by that spiritual nexture which is intimated to us by St. John namely the quickning spirit derived from him our Head to us his Members and a lively faith wrought by the same spirit proceeding from us to lay hold on him That this operation of the spirit is that which constitutes our union with Christ cannot be doubted by any that will consider how the Scripture tells us on the one hand 1 1 Cor. 15. 45. That Christ is made unto us a quickning spirit 2 Joh. 5. 21. That he quickneth whom he will 3 Joh. 1. 16. That he having received the spirit without measure we all partake of his fulness And on the other side 1 1 Cor. 6. 17. That he that is joyned the Lord is one spirit 2 Eph. 4. That we are all partakers of the same spirit 3 1 Joh. 4. 13. That hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us by the spirit that he hath given us For what can give a more plain evidence than this that our union with Christ is wrought by the operation of this spirit of his descending from him upon us and working those graces in us that lift up our souls to take hold on and cleave unto him The same is also plain from hence that the Just are said to live by faith for are we not properly said to live by that whereby we receive our food Thus Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3. 17. That this is perfectly the sense of the Church of England is evident from what I have made appear already in that she teaches 1 Artic. 28. That the body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Lord's Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner and the means whereby it is received and eaten is faith And again 2. That this marvellous incorporation of Christ with us is wrought by the operaration of the holy Ghost the very bread of our conjunction with Christ through faith in the hearts of the faithful And having thus truly received the body and blood of Christ by faith and being hereby perfectly united to him we partake in all the benefits of his Death and Passion and are put in the possession of these benefits by our first possessing him But if still it be pleaded by M. Condom that we cannot thus distinguish between the participation of our blessed Saviour and our participation of the fruits of his Death unless we distinguish between the participation of his divine body and all spiritual participations by faith and that if we participate of both spiritually by faith we cannot participate of them as things distinct I may upon good reason deny his supposition and say that we do perfectly distinguish them and yet participate of both by faith spiritually for what should hinder but that a man may conceive he partakes of things distinct and yet partakes of both the same way as a man eats different meats in one way of eating but yet discovers them to be different If he should yet require me to explain what I mean by eating Christ spiritually by Faith he puts me upon a thing very difficult not because it is not easily conceived but because it is most obvious to our apprehensions for who can by plainer words express what our Saviour means by hungring and thirsting after righteousness whereas it is not any difficulty of apprehending his meaning that makes it thus difficult to be expressed otherways but that those words are so obvious to our understandings that nothing can better express it to our conception But however to give a more full satisfaction I shall endeavour if possible to be yet more plain For this purpose therefore I must suppose That God's tender of his Son Christ to us in the Sacrament does not greatly differ from his tender of him to the World when he became flesh and dwelt among us any further than a general tender to the whole World from a peculiar tender to this or that particular person and an offer of him as of one that was sent to be the Saviour of the World from the offer of him as he has saved
us And I conceive my supposition is not groundless for if God out of the abundance of his love sent his Son into the World that through him we might have everlasting life and that the World through him might be saved as the Apostle tells us John 3. 16. and his flesh in the Sacrament be given us only that we may live thereby John 6. 51. who shall deny but that when Christ is tendred to the same effect of giving us life these several tenders are only different as a general tender from a particular application especially when we consider again that both take effect only in them that believe as is plain by comparing Joh. 3. 16. with Chapter 6. 35. and shall it not then from hence follow that our receiving him as first tendred by God to the whole World and our eating him in the holy Sacrament are of the same nature preserving only that difference I have premised if believing be that which makes him ours in both offers undoubtedly receiving in one respect and eating in the other are no more than believing in both still maintaining the difference between Faith grounded upon a general Promise and a particular Application He that shall consider what belief of him was then required viz. 1 Joh. 17. 3. To know the only true God and his Son Jesus Christ whom he has sent 2 Joh. 5. 24. To hear the Word of Christ and believe on him that sent him 3 Rom. 10. 9. To confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in the heart that God hath raised him from the dead 4 Rom. 3. 25. To rely on him whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through faith in his blood may easily resolve what it is to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament namely that a man does then partake of Christ when he considers the death of Christ i. e. the crucifying of his flesh and the pouring out of his blood with that faith that supposes all this to be true and the ends of it to be such as God has declared him to be given for and by a further consideration of the particular tender of Christ that is in this Sacrament made to him for all those ends and effects if Christ who is thus particularly tendred be received by him as he ought to be is induced to resolve and undertake all which that belief does oblige him to and with faith grounded upon that resolution lays hold on and firmly relies on Christ for those effects for which he was first given to the World and is now peculiarly tendred unto him Then I say it is that a man truly eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ and certainly there cannot be found a more exact analogy than is between that nourishment of the body in the strength whereof it moves and those reasons whereupon the mind frames its resolutions to direct our conversation and then God having further promised to communicate his holy spirit to all that out of a true faith resolve upon the doing his will and as many as have the holy Ghost having thereby an union with Christ from whom this spirit is derived have also an assurance that by the holy Ghost that dwelleth in them their bodies shall be raised to life everlasting Rom. 8. 11. whereby they that eat the body and blood of Christ are united and incorporated into one body with him and shall not die but have everlasting life What then have I fully express'd hereby all that the spiritual eating of Christ by faith implies no certainly it is not possible to express by words that infinite love of God wherewith he tenders his Son unto us in this holy Mystery nor the mysterious supernatural but efficacious application of him unto us nor on the other side the strength the vigor the resolution the confidence of that faith wherewith the pious soul transported with that abundant love of God that infinite and peculiar mercy which it sensiblâ— feels in this Sacred Action receives embraces and lays hoâ—… in Christ nor is it possible to express the eagerness and impatience of those appetites wherewith it hungers and thirsts after him panting as the Hart after the water-brooks till it be satisfied with him or those transcendent gusts which are tasted in receiving this divine immortal Food But by what I have been able to express I cannot but think any man may apprehend my conceptions and how I clearly distinguish the participation of Christ from the partaking of his benefits the latter not being to be obtained but by first partaking of the former although all these benefits are indeed obtained so soon as we can conceive a man to have partaken of Christ And that the Church of England does fully preserve this distinction appears more evidently by her Thanksgiving after the Communion which begins thus Almighty and everliving God we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy Mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness toward us and that we are very members incorporate into his mystical body c. And hereupon I conceive I am enabled to determinate upon what ground he that eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord and eats and drinks his own damnation although he does not therein eat or drink the body and blood of Christ for he discerns not the Lords body For if this was the condemnation when God first sent his Son into the World that men believed not in the Name of the only begotten Son of God John 3. 18. who can deny but that this shall be the greater condemnation to all that come to this Sacrament wherein Christ is pleased to make a peculiar tender of himself requiring every one to receive him that they have not believed on nor received the blessed Son of God who is herein so peculiarly and particularly so graciously and so mercifully tendred to their reception I foresee an Objection levelled against the Doctrine that I have thus explained which must be here answered it is this That if Christ be only here eaten spiritually by faith we have many times faith and the spirit of God before and so might eat him without coming to this Sacrament To which I answer The spirit is received in divers measures and faith bestowed upon us in different degrees upon which account our conjunction with Christ may every day be made straiter and our hold firmer To receive the spirit not by measure is the priviledge of our Head we that receive it out of his fulness must daily look for it to be 1 Phil. 1. 19. supplied unto us 2 Rom. 1. 17. So also the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith i. e. from one degree and
upon an action that is Idolatry if it should be false without examining the grounds on which they hold such a vain perswasion and destructive practice Questionless we are to adore God wherever he is present yet to pay our Adorations where he has not assured his presence though we fondly imagine it shall not excuse us from Idolatry SECT XIV Of the Sacrifice of the Mass COncerning this the Church of England declares Article 31. Articles of the the Church of England Article 31. The offering of Christ once made is that perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in the which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and dead to have remission of pain or guilt were blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits Nevertheless it must be observed that she does not stick to call the holy Sacrament 1 Thanksgiving after the Communion A Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving 2 Ibid. yea and to plead before God the Merits and Death of his Son that through faith in his blood we and all his whole Church may obtain Remission of sins and all other benefits of his Passion So that she does not deny it to be after some sort propitiatory Further She directs us most fully to render our souls and bodies an acceptable Sacrifice to the service of Almighty God So that whilst M. Condom has thus ambiguously explicated their Doctrine the difference does not appear so great as really it is for the Church of Rome is not content if we say that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving or a commemorative Sacrifice representing that upon the Cross but requires Concil Trid. Sess 22. can 3. that we acknowledge it a true propitiatory Sacrifice and decrees Anathema against all that do not own it to be truly such So that when M. Condom tells us from the Council of Trent That this Sacrifice is instituted only to represent that which was once accomplished on the Cross to perpetuate the Memory of it and to apply its saving Virtue for the remission of sins which we daily commit All this must be allowed true and the proper ends of the Institution of the Holy Sacrament But the Council pleads them for the Institution of a different thing a Sacrifice as distinct from a Sacrament as is plain in that very Sess 22. cap. 1. Chapter Which is more fully exprest in the Catechism which teaches That the Eucharist was instituted by our Lord for Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Euch. Sacrif Two Causes one to be our heavenly Food and to preserve us in our spiritual Life the other That the Church might have a perpetual Sacrifice for the expiation of Sins Then it tells us that these two Ends are greatly different the Sacrament is perfected by the Consecration but the efficacy of the Sacrifice consists in its being offered Wherefore the Eucharist whilst it is in the Pyx or when it is carried to the Sick is only a Sacrament not a Sacrifice Again as a Sacrament it is only Matter of Merit to them that receive but as a Sacrifice it is effectual both to Merit and Satisfaction for as Christ by his Sufferings merited and satisfied for us so those that offer Concil Trid. Sess 22. this Sacrifice merit the Fruits of his Passion and satisfie also Hereupon the Council further decrees 1 Cap. 2. That this Sacrifice be offered as propitiatory not only for the Sins Punishments satisfactions and other Necessities of the Living but likewise for the Dead that are not throughly purged from their Guilt And then 2 Cap. 6. It approves and commends private Masses wherein the Priest alone communicates offering the Sacrifice for all the People Thence 3 Can. 3. It condemns those who say it is profitable only to them that communicate or that say it ought not to be offered for the Sins Punishments Satisfactions and other Necessities both of the Dead and Living The whole Dispute then ought not to be reduced to the Real Presence only as M. Condom would perswade us but to these further Queries First Upon what ground they make our Saviour in the Institution of his last Supper to have instituted it to a different Purpose than that of a Sacrament so as it may be a Sacrament to a man when it is not a Sacrifice and a Sacrifice propitiatory for them that partake not of it as a Sacrament Secondly Upon what ground they make this Action as a Sacrifice distinct from that of communicating propitiatory for the Quick and Dead Thirdly Upon what account they attribute a certain Satisfaction to this offering of Christ which a man obtains not by partaking of his Body and Blood in the Sacrament whereas if all the virtue be by them confess'd to be from Christ's Sacrifice upon the Cross he that is a partaker of Christ must certainly by being so be partaker of all the Merits and Satisfaction of his Death Fourthly Upon what ground they warrant their private Masses to be propitiatory for particular persons whether dead or living for whom they offer them having no warrant from their Christianity to make application of his Merits to them in this way Nor does any thing said by M. Condom give us the least satisfaction to these Demands for he shews us but a very insufficient ground upon which he does not doubt but this Action as distinct from that of communicating makes God propitious to us viz. because it represents his Son Christ unto him as crucified For to ground a Hope he should have shewn us a Promise that God would be propitious upon such a Representation We doubt not but Jesus Christ presenting himself before the face of God is powerful in his intercession for us but what assurance have we that upon every fancied Representation of ours we can cause him thus to present himself For presume him present from the Consecration we cannot till the End to which his Presence is applied by private Masses be first shewn to be the End of Christ's Institution and blessing Bread and Wine to be used to such a purpose and after such a way Nor does M. Condom pretend to shew us by what authority his Church warrants the application of this Sacrifice to the Dead that are in Purgatory-pains or to the Living that come not to partake thereof View then but this Doctrine which the Church of Rome maintains that as it is a Sacrifice it is more available than as a Sacrament that as a Sacrifice it is applied to those who do not partake of it as a Sacrament that also as such it is propitiatory for the sins punishments satisfactions and all other necessities not of the living only but likewise of the dead and judge whether this Doctrine does not in effect yea in reality void the
to God himself The Lutherans on the contrary knowing the Sacrament to consist of two things the one earthly the other heavenly direct their Adoration not to the Elements that remain lest worshiping them they should be found Worshippers of a Creature but to Christ alone God and Man who in that Action gives them his Body and Blood Secondly That the Romanists when they plead for the Adoration and worship of the Sacrament do not principally intend that Christ God and Man should be adored in the Action or Vse of his divine Institutions but labour to establish an Adoration of the bread at other times than in the use commanded by Christ namely when they carry it about in Processions which the Council of Trent does in the very Chapter wherein it commands the Adoration of the Sacrament And then afterwards he fully informs us of the manner of the Lutheran's worship viz. That they look not upon Christ as locally present in the bread or that there is any personal union between the bread and the body of Christ but that Christ hath promised in that action his presence by his grace after a peculiar manner Therefore as the Israelites worshipp'd not the Wood nor Gold nor the Cherubims that were upon the Ark of the Testimony but God alone who promised his presence there so the Adoration which they give to Christ in the Sacrament is to be understood to be directed to him only not at all to the outward Elements And the reason why they did not worship him out of the Sacramental exercise he says was because the promise of Christ's presence cannot be extended beyond the intent and action which he instituted So that there appears a visible and most considerable difference between these two the one cannot be Idolatrous because it directs not any worship to a creature the other certainly is if the creatures remain because their worship is terminated in the Sacrament as its object Again whereas M. Condom further endeavours to persuade us That their Sacrifice is a consequent Doctrine upon the real Presence and that the Lutherans understand not themselves so well as they in that they have not admitted it The Reader may judge which have the better understanding if he does but consider that the reason upon which the Lutherans reject the Sacrifice is the same upon which they reject Adoration out of the Sacramental Action namely because we have no warrant to promise our selves Christ's Presence in the Eucharist but only in that Action which he commands and for those ends for which he instituted it This I remember is that which Chemnitius pleads at large in his Book de Sacrificio Missae SECT XVI Of Communion in both kinds UPon this point the Church of England declares The Cup Art 30. of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-People for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament by Christ's Ordinance and Commandment ought to be administred to all Christian men alike And certainly nothing can be more plain from our Lord's institution of this Sacrament when he blessed both bread and wine and said Take eat drink do this in remembrance of me that all that are obliged to any part of it are obliged to the whole There being not the least limitation of the Lawgiver's intent in the precept itself nor in any other part of Scripture nor which is more in the practice of the Church originally under the Apostles or generally throughout Christendom Now because we are so frequently desired by these Gentlemen to take special notice of the first grounds of the separation I am obliged to take notice here that this was one of the principal causes of it their with-holding the Cup being that which was universally complained of that which was most expresly desired and Petitioned for both to Pope and Council but in vain We therefore may reasonably expect something satisfactory in this Point To answer our expectation M. Condom lets us know That under one Species all that is essential to the Sacrament is received in that there being now no real separation betwixt the Body and the Blood we receive entirely him who is solely capable to satiate us And this he tells us is the solid foundation upon which his Church interpreting the precept of Communion has declared we may receive the satisfaction which this Sacrament carries with it under one sole Species and has reduced her Children to it But now if this be the foundation she builds upon and it be solid too we may well seek for it in the Apostles or in Christ himself but certainly neither of these support the building nay the foundation which Christ has laid is rejected and laid aside hereby For to what purpose does this Doctrine serve but to make it appear that our Lord instituted this Sacrament in both kinds to no end since as much must needs be received in one as in both But whereas he endeavours to ground this Doctrine upon the real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament it 's certain that if he be really present by virtue of the Consecration he can be present only according to it if therefore his words This is my body make his body present in the bread and the other This is my blood render his blood present instead of the wine then his blood can be no more present in the bread than his body in the wine neither can any thing more be present under bread than his body nor under wine than his blood according to their Principles which found the necessity of his presence upon the literal sense of the words And to how little purpose has M. Condom laboured to persuade us that it is a Sacrifice because the word of God is the spiritual Sword which makes a mystical Separation betwixt the body and blood of Christ if now at last there be no sacramental Separation of his blood from his body but they are both together under one species But the Church says he has not thus reduced her Children to one Species out of dis-esteem of the other but on the contrary to hinder those irreverences which the confusion and negligence of the People had occasioned in these later Ages Had he told us what Irreverencies had been occasioned that could not have been prevented but by this means he had said something that possibly might have shewn the care of his Church but because he has not been so kind I shall transcribe the many and those said to be great and important Reasons which she gives as the account of her so doing to her Children in her Catechism First Because special care ought to be taken that the blood of Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Euch. Sac. quando sumend the Lord be not spilt on the ground which cannot easily be avoided in administring to a great multitude Secondly Because the Eucharist being to be kept for the sick it was greatly to be feared that the Species of the wine would not keep but might sour
a thing very greatly to be feared whilst the substance under it is the blood of Christ. Thirdly Many men cannot abide the taste nor smell of wine wherefore that that which was ordained for spiritual health might not prejudice the health of the Body it was very wisely enacted by the Church that all her faithhful Children should receive one kind alone To this may be added other reasons That in some Countries wine is scarce and cannot be gotten without long and tedious Journeys But that which is most of all to the purpose the Heresie of such was to be rooted out as declared whole Christ to be under both Species and said the Body only was contained in the bread and the blood in the wine But he further tells us That the Church has reserved to her self the re-establishment of both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity 'T is well she has kept to herself a Power of re-establishing that which she never had Power to dis-establish but how forward she has been to do any thing towards Peace and Unity all the World sees by her sirst occasioning so great a breach by this very thing And to me her last reason that she gives makes it evident that she still maintains and justifies her Sacriledg which robs Christians of their Birthright to the apparent prejudice of Peace yea to the rendring Unity impossible unless men will part with their Christianity But it 's most ridiculous when he comes to conclude from the concession of some Protestants That bread alone might be administred in case a man made protestation of a natural aversion to wine that therefore according to the Principles of the Reformed the matter in question regards not Faith and so is altogether in the Power of the Church For without determining whether their decision be right or wrong can it be argued from them that allow the Church may administer it only in one Species in case of such necessity that therefore the Church has authority to refuse administring it in both wheresoever she pleases to refuse it Can it be said that those who allow her a Power to dispense with some in case of absolute necessity do thereby allow her any Power to prohibit all People who are not comprehended in the case and being not comprehended look upon themselves greatly injured by being thus deprived of it And whereas he infers from hence that it regards not Faith his argument is as strong as if because the Jews were not circumcised in the Wilderness it should be said the Synagogue might have dispensed afterwards with that Law and said that Circumcision was not essentially necessary to a Jew because in a case of necessity where it could not be used Jews had lived without it SECT XVII Of the written and unwritten Word WHereas he says That the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this did not lose its Authority so that whatever was taught by the Apostles by Writing or Word of Mouth is to be received with equal veneration and that it is a sign that a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally received by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning I must not admit it but with these limitations First That nothing shall be imposed on us as a Doctrine coming from the Apostles but what shall evidently appear to have been universally received by all Christian Churches without beginning and that as fully to in all the parts of it that shall now be pleaded for For it is in vain to tell us that some things were delivered by the Apostles by Word of Mouth and those that have been from the beginning so received in the Christian Church universally throughout all Ages and Places ought to be looked upon as such unless what ever they would have us submit to as such be made appear so to be Secondly That these Traditions be not acknowledged of themselves sufficient to build any matter of Faith upon and this for two Reasons one because we cannot have that certainty of these as ought to be had to ground any thing as necessary to salvation of this all the Scriptures are an evident proof for undoubtedly the Apostles wrote not any thing to their Churches which they had not by preceding instructions gave them ability to understand notwithstanding which we see those instructions are now in great part lost though the Scriptures are preserved and they were so soon gone out of the Church that in a few Ages after the Apostles we find men giving them divers interpretations The other because we are told The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. which though spoken of the Writings of the Old Testament yet since none can deny the Divine Providence to have had the same end in ordering and inspiring the Writers of both namely that the Scriptures should be written for our Learning is as undeniable a Truth with reference to the New as Old Testament so that whatsoever is necessary to salvation must be either contained in or deducible from them Whereupon the Church of England professes That Holy Scripture containeth Art 6. all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be requiredof any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation These exceptions which were necessary in respect of the premises laid down are altogether needless if we look to the Conclusion inferred viz. That we ought not to wonder if they being careful to gather all their Fathers left them should conserve the Deposition of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures Certainly no man ever blamed the Church of Rome for keeping the Tradition she received from the Apostles but for setting up Traditions that were never deposited with her much less with the whole Church The Council of Trent indeed in its first Decree is very reserved concerning Traditions and speaks cautiously thus The Holy Synod finding Christ's Truth and Holy Discipline partly in Scriptures and partly in unwritten Traditions which either were taken from Christ's Mouth by the Apostles or were Sess 4. delivered by the Apostles themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost and have passed as it were from hand to hand to us and following the example of the Orthodox Fathers doth with the like Religious affection receive all the Books of the New and Old Testament as also the Traditions themseves pertaining to Faith and Manners But under this fair pretence of receiving Traditions either taken from Christ's Mouth or delivered by the Apostles themselves and passed from hand to hand unto them they make their Decrees by Traditions of a quite different nature Traditions of yesterday such as appear neither always nor universally received abusing likewise their more ancient to justifie all the abuses time
innovation seeing she not only submits herself to the Holy Scriptures but has obliged herself to interpret them in what relates to Faith and Manners according to the sense of the holy Fathers from which she promiseth never to depart declaring in all her Councils and in all the Professions of Faith she has published that she does not receive any Doctrine which is not conformable to the Tradition of all preceding ages If it be really so that she does in all things thus submit herself what need he have given us all this trouble to prove that she ought against his vain endeavours to exempt her from it Then all that we have depending is only Tryal of Matters of Fact whether she has really contained herself within the bounds she professes ought to limit her decisions and this claim of infallibility ought to be by them wholly laid aside otherwise the World will never believe she has confined herself to bounds that she endeavours to claim a power of exceeding as I cannot think this Gentleman in conscience knows her to have acted only within them when he takes so much pains to create her an authority above them But to what purpose does M. Condom tell us No one prudent man amongst us but if he found himself the only man of a perswasion though it appeared to him never so evident but would be ashamed of that singularity for is this the case of the Reformed part of the Christian World are they but as one man But since he wishes us to consult with prudence we may desire him to do the like and consider what prudence it is for a man blindly to give up his judgments to others and be of a Religion because he has many companions refusing out of idleness either to examine or come to a tryal of that Religion or fearing the event of such a tryal resolving before he enter upon it on a ground from which he will never be dispossessed such as I have too great cause to fear himself has resolved on that what he cannot by his skill make good from Scripture and Truth he will still believe upon the Authority of the Church And I think this reason if any thing may be grounded upon humane prudence concerning God's commands does more evidently shew that God has never required us to give up a blind obedience to any authority of man than that given by him that God has set up an authority to which every private man must subject his understanding in all truths though appearing never so evidently unto him SECT XIX Of the Sentiments of the Reformed about the Authority of the Church ALthough I need not concern my self with several Objections which M. Condom makes from several determinations of Synods in France about the Authority of the Church yet having shewn the Church to have no such absolute and infallible Authority as he claims for it I ought to set down the Church of England's Sentiments and consider whether any thing in them is liable to those Objections She then supposes that a Church may err even in matters of Faith and 1 Artic. 19. declares several to have thus erred nevertheless she claims 2 Art 20. for the Church Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies and even Authority in Matters of Faith though however it be not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word nor so to expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another nor inasmuch as she is a keeper of Holy Writ ought she to decree any thing against the same or besides the same to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation 3 Art 21. And even General Councils may err and have erred even in things pertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture Now herein you see our Church claims a power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and even an authority in Matters of Faith but then she confines it so within the limits of God's Word that she can decree nothing against the same nor impose any thing besides the same to be believed of necessity to salvation And herein till it be proved that she has exceeded those limits which truth obliges her to own prescribed unto her by God's Word I see but two Objections that will lie against her The first How not claiming Infallibility she claims Authority in Matters of Faith To which I answer That God having left means in his Church when Matters of our common Faith shall become disputable to end and decide them she that has proceeded according to those means may well require submission to her Authority whilst she shews herself to all to have proceeded aright in the use of those means which God has left in his Church and there is no more necessity that she should be infallible upon this account to make her Authority received than that she should be able actually and immediately to forgive sins when she requires a subjection to her Ministry in working their cure The second That if she be not infallible in her decisions then they may be subject to the examination of every private man and being so any one may find fault with them and so away is open for the introducing as many Religions as men To which I answer first That it is one thing to clear the Truth another to answer an Objection and if I should not be able to give satisfaction to this Objection yet the Truth that I have cleared will stand firm till the contrary be proved by evident Principles of our Christianity To this I say then secondly That it 's an Objection of that absurdity that it can never rationally be used by any considering man View it but in other instances a Father may command a Son to do wickedness the Son certainly is not bound to obey him though he be to obey his Father any Son may under this pretence refuse obedience to commands just and good but to avoid this inconvenience shall it be made a necessary Truth that a Father cannot command an unlawful act Or go to a greater case All the World knows we have had a Leviathan that has pleaded that the Supream Magistrate ought to be obeyed in all his commands that the Scriptures are not Laws to a People till the Laws of the Land have made them so that the sense of them is to be interpreted by the Civil Magistrate that man may even deny Christ with his mouth so he believe in his heart at the command or compulsion of his Superior and all upon this ground because otherwise if men may pretend any Laws of God to exempt them from obedience to their King any man may use this pretence and so under a pretence of conscience all government may be destroyed unless the commands of the Supream Magistrate be allowed such as are absolutely to
Doctrine the explicit Belief whereof is absolutely necessary For first in respect of Knowledge the Schoolmen hold That much less is needful to be explicitly believed than what is contained in our Doctrines For whereas we entertain and embrace not only the Doctrine of the three Creeds but also sundry other Truths as appears by our Homilies and Articles they declare it needful to believe some but the whole Creed others the Nicene and Athanasian joyned with the Apostolical to make a man a compleat Believer and this although we go no further than the proper Sense of the words and have no great distinct knowledge of the Matters whereof however there is none will deny but the Church of England has a perfect understanding as also a right apprehension of them according to their true Christian Sense in which the whole Christian Catholick Church ever understood them Secondly For Practice they grant That we may obtain Salvation without undergoing such Duties as we refuse For if one worships God without an Image they do not deny this worship to be acceptable If a man pray immediately to God through Christ they will not say this Devotion is fruitless If one perform the best works he can Bellar. de Justif l. 5. c. 7. which we also require and stand not upon their Merit but only upon the Mercy of God as we do they judge it to be not only profitable but also commend it as most secure They deny not but sometimes true Contrition does obtain Pardon without Penance or the Priest's Absolution They cannot deny but Concil Trid. Sèss 13. cap. 8 that to receive Christ spiritually in the holy Sacrament is sufficient to all the Effects of it for the Council places the difference between those that receive it worthily and those that receive it to their own destruction in this that the former receive him both sacramentally and spiritually the other only sacramentally Nor I suppose will they deny that he that relies only on Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross has a sufficient expiation for Sins whilst he confides only in him whom God hath set forth to be our Propitiation Nor that we receive the Sacrament aright when we communicate in both kinds Likewise if a man believes no more than is contained in the Scriptures they confess him to believe as much as is necessary and profitable to all men And if a man submits to the Authority of the Church in all things which she acts for the maintenance of that Christianity she ought to preserve whilst she acts according to God's Word and her own Commission both given and limited by it they cannot say I presume that such aman disowns her Authority or voids Gods Ordinance or that the Church which professes herself to have no other Authority but acts according to this which is given her of and limited by the Scriptures does not do what she ought for the maintenance of Chrstianity and discharge of her Trust Again Thirdly The Doctrines which we disown were not received as Articles of Faith nor the contrary judged heretical by the Church of Rome for many hundred years after Christ For a Bellarm. l. 4 de Verbo Dei c. 11. that Church held at first by our Adversaries own confessions all things which the Apostles used to preach openly and which were necessary and profitable for all men to be contained in the Scriptures b Greg. Patriarch Alexan. Even the Popes themselves disowned the Title of Vniversal Bishop neither has that Church as yet decreed itself infallible though pretended by her Champions so to be c Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 9. Neither did they anciently worship Images or approve the Image of God to be made nor does any worship of Saints appear therein for 300 years after Christ and it grew therein by degrees and came in by custom says Bellarmine d Bellar. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 8. Wherein Purgatory for a time was not known nor for a long time after resolved which way it concerned Salvation e Bell. lib. 2. de Purgat c. 1. either in regard of the Persons thereby to be purged whether the damned justest or middle sort or in regard of the Ends and Effects which it hath whether to satisfie God's Justice by punishing Sin or to diminish and take away the Affections of Sin yet remaining by corrections and chastisements Wherein f Bell. l. 2. de Indu c. 17. Indulgences as now practised were not known nor any instance of them till a thousand years after Christ wherein Transubstantiation was not heard of till the Council of Lateran Wherein a thousand years after Christ and more the Sacrifice in the Eucharist was said g Aquin. par 3. quaest 83. art 1. to be only a Memorial and Representation of our Saviour's Sacrifice upon the Cross wherein the Cup was administred to the Laity and the Priests received not the Eutharist alone but together with the People Further It 's evident that we run no hazard neither do we venture upon any dangerous practice but walk in the safe way to salvation There is no danger in offering our Devotions to God through Christ and to him only as there is in the worship of Saints which is not only without warrant and most likely to be offensive to God but is even Idolatry if a right distinction be not always preserved which is very difficult to be preserved at all times nor in omitting the use of Images nor in having recourse to God's Providence only leaving the Reliques of Saints as is confessed to be if the use of Images seduce us to believe any divinity or vertue in them to place any trust in them or hope any thing from them Nor is there any danger in relying on Christs Merits and God's Mercy for the Remission of our sins not depending upon our own works but doing what we are able in obedience to God and after all saying we are unprofitable servants vilifying ourselves but magnifying the grace of God as there may be in trusting to our own Righteousness Nor in requiring Contrition as absolutely necessary to the Remission of sins as there is if we content our selves with less Nor whilst we reject the Adoration of the Sacrament so we offer up our souls to Christ in Heaven as may be in worshipping the Sacrament which themselves confess to be Idolatry if the opinion of Transubstantion be false Nor in not relying on the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but frequenting it as a Sacrament with due preparation nor in receiving it in both kinds according to Christ's institution as may be in supposing it beneficial when we use it not according to Christ's institution which obliges us to partake of it as a Sacrament and in withholding part of it when it does not appear that he has left any such power in the Church to minister but a part of what he commanded Nor in chusing the Scriptures for a Guide so we sincerely follow
them as there is if Tradition should lead us as it did the Jews to void the Commandments of God Nor does that Church run so great a hazard which owns the limits that God has set her and acts according to them as the Church that having acted against our common Christianity or at least being accused so to have done claims an absolute and infallible authority to justifie what she cannot defend by God's Word There are but two things wherein they possibly can object to us any hazard or danger that we incur One is That if the Church be not acknowledged Infallible and all obliged to an Absolute submission a way is open for men under this pretence to cast off her Authority and set up Religions according to their own fancies This I have shewn we labour to prevent so far as the Divine Providence has appointed means for its prevention and we think it not safe to set up others of our own invention which may be liable to equal or greater mischiefs another way Nor that it is as certainly probable on the other side That by advancing an absolute and unlimited Authority of the Church our common Christianity may be destroyed by Decrees that may be made which may subvert the foundations of Faith cannot be doubted but must needs be evident to all that know it possible for men to be led by their own Interests or Opinions and have also actually seen by what interests late Councils have been managed and swayed in their Determinations whereby men of good intentions have not been able to bring to pass what they intended and endeavoured for the good of Christianity being overruled by a greater number of men prejudiced and less considerate which has been confess'd even by sincere men of the Roman Communion If they tell us That according to our Principles the Churches Authority is insignificant it being in every man's power to reject it so that it is a very unsufficient means for Peace such as became not the Divine Wisdom to constitute because not certain to take effect Not to repeat what is said before Section 19. but only to shew them how unreasonable it is that they should require us to shew the Reasons of the Divine Providence in its Constitutions that are evident to us when the Reasons of them are not Let them resolve us if the Scriptures be not our Rule of Faith and Manners or if we cannot understand the sense of them without the Churches Authority why they were written or if the Churches Authority be absolute and unlimited why it had not been plainly and expresly told us by God that we must submit our selves in all things to this Authority or why we are bidden to search the Scriptures why God should have suffered the Scriptures to be written when he could not but foresee that the pretence of the Churches Authority clashing with that of the Scriptures is that which has and will disturb our Peace If they tell us of the many Heresies Schisms and Divisions that are seen to have faln out by mens expounding the Scripture for themselves They will give us leave I hope to tell them of the Idolatries Superstitions and other Irreligious Customs and Practices which we see to have fallen out through their exalting the Churches Decrees to the prejudice of Christianity And further that as to those Heresies and Divisions which we see and lament among our selves we are beholden to the Church of Rome and her Emissaries in great part for them who have endeavoured to ruin our common Christianity by another extream only because we would not yield to those things which they have first done to the prejudice of it Besides I am apt to think that even such will have a great Plea at the day of Judgment from the rigorousness of the Church of Rome extending the Churches Authority beyond all bounds that our common Christianity will allow and necessitating well-disposed Christians to refuse submission to it whereby it becoming visible that Christianity is not in all things maintained by the Church necessarily and it not being evidently visible to common sense what bounds being kept her Authority does by God's Law claim submission they have presumed upon their own understandings for the sense of the Scriptures and framed their Religion according to them This I only urge that they may look about them lest they become guilty of the many souls that may miscarry in both extreams whilst they have rendred the means of salvation difficult among themselves and have by pretending to justifie that occasioned others to oversee the due means they should betake themselves to and run as dangerous a way in the other extream So then we are altogether as safe yea much more secure than the Church of Rome for we take that way to confute Heresies and to preserve the purity of Faith which the Divine Providence has appointed appealing to the Scriptures and using the best means for the understanding them and declaring the Authority of the Church acting within the limits set her by God's Word and for the maintenance of that Christianity she is established to preserve They on the contrary pretending to maintain their Church in what she has decreed to the prejudice of Christianity seek to establish a Power that has already prejudiced even in the foundations of Faith and may in probability utterly subvert our Christianity and have thereby given occasion to others to place their Reformation of the Church in the utter renouncing her Authority Nor are they ever the nearer putting an end to Heresies hereby for all their pretences to Infallibility will never end the differences of those that disown it and yet it 's apparent that in the mean time they prejudice our common Christianity by those Laws which make the means of salvation very difficult if not altogether ineffectual by denying hitherto those helps to salvation which those Laws intercept The other danger which they pretend we run is that of Schism a great crime questionless and that which all Christians ought not only to lament but seek to remedy and if it be possible and as much as in them lies to follow after Peace which by so many obligations the Christian Church is bound to preserve But we know that both Parties are liable to be charged with the breach till it appear which is guilty and the guilt of it will certainly fall on those who have made the separation necessary so that if a Church requires such conditions of Communion which are inconsistent with Christianity and subvert the Faith it ought to preserve they certainly are to be charged with the Crime who will not suffer us to hold our Christianity together with the Churches Communion Besides there is nothing of this Charge can lye against the Church of England 'till they prove her either to have rejected any Authority to which she was legally subject or to have departed from the Faith by her Reformation But the Church of Rome if she
things represent which we look not upon as any derogation from God and therefore should not account their use of Images such To which I answer First That the Cases are very different the one though a solemn Action yet not being any part of God's ordinary worship as the other is That secondly Though an Oath be indeed a calling God to witness the Truth yet we never find that he prescribed any Rules concerning or forbid the use of any Ceremonies in it but has left it to the liberty of men to use it with what Ceremonies they please That therefore this cannot be drawn into consequence where the case is not parallel That again it does not appear that this custom of swearing upon the Gospel did ever occasion that dishonour of God that palpable Idolatry in some and danger of it in others which the use of Images in Religious worship has that if it did appear I should think it unlawful to be used any longer But to the pitiful evasion That an Image is but another manner of writing that therefore this Scripture of Images should be as venerable as that which is made upon Paper Paper and Letters being the work of mens hands as well as Sculpture and Painting I shall only say this That if such honour and worship were given to the Paper and Prints of the Bible as they give to Images I see no reason why it should not be thought highly offensive to God Besides he that shall look upon this as conclusive that we may as well use these in Gods Service as the writings of Scripture might conclude by the same reason that it was as lawful for the Jews to make Images and set them up in their Temples for God's worship as to use the Books of the Law and Prophets therein But why says he should you be more scrupulous of making your Prayers to Christ before an Image than before a Pillar or a Wall He might have forborn this Question unless he had professed the case to be the same that the Church of Rome matters not if we give no more respect to these than to the Wall or Pillar we kneel by but this I believe he dares not affirm in Behalf of his Church He further tell us It is Superstition to fear that our Devotions should terminate in the Image when we direct them to Christ. Now I would willingly know what it would terminate in if Christ should refuse to accept it and whether he can secure us that an intention to do this or that in honour to Christ shall be accepted by him though it be not what he directs us to for his honour but an invention of our own But what I most of all admire is that he should have the Face to call it Superstition for us to fear lest in honouring Images we should have our hearts drawn from honouring Christ and fix them upon these he might as well have called it Folly in God Almighty to suffer Image-worship to be the provocation of his Jealousie for if there be no reason for us to fear its drawing off our hearts from God there can be none for God to be jealous of us upon that score There will be some reason for his limiting the Commandment that forbids to make or bow down to Images only to the doing this in the Spirit of Pagans believing them filled with a divine virtue or that the Divinity is incorporated with them when he shall shew what he says he easily can That the Philosophers that bore above the common Error of Mankind and declared that they did not worship the Image but used them only to put them in mind of God did indeed notwithstanding their Declaration to the contrary put their trust in the Images themselves But till then for the same Reasons that the Scriptures call the Pagans worshippers of Stocks and Stones though they declared otherwise of themselves we can account those of the Church of Rome but little better whilst some of less understanding have been known to place a Trust and Confidence in the Images they use and the more intelligent tho' professing otherwise have relapsed into it in some kind and confirmed the Impiety of the publick Worship in adhering to and commanding of it For it is but a pitiful shift to say that the abuse of this Practice among particular persons if it be tolerated yet it is not approved by the Church since the Church continues to command that which has been the occasion of it Wherefore though I dare not with M. Meaux pass so severe a censure or pronounce any man accursed of God yet I am sure he is more likely to be accursed of him who defends a Practice that has been experienced to be the occasion of Idolatry and labours notwithstanding to seduce men to it than those who refuse submission to a Practice so manifestly destructive of God's true Worship and make it their business to prevent others from the danger of such Snares As to their Ceremonies which he seeks to defend by the use of some such in the Church of England I have before observed that it is the multitude of them that makes them so dangerous because they are hereby apt to take up the greatest part of Religion and draw men off from the spiritual Worship of God and those that spend too great a Zeal upon them will be apt to look upon them as all the Services they need pay to God and thereupon neglect the principal Duties of Religion Whereas he will have it a Calumny on their Church that they conceal the Mysteries of Religion from the People whilst they perform the Service of God in the Latine Tongue that very Decree which he thinks to get off his Church by does indeed make it the more culpable For if it be necessary lest the little ones want Bread that the Pastors explain to them some part of the Mysteries This very Reason proves that the whole Service of God ought to be performed in the vulgar Tongue that they may at all times and in all particulars understand and joyn in the Services of God to his Honour and their own growth and encrease in Grace and Virtue But at length he comes to the Doctrine of the Sacrament and herein compares us to Socinus and the Disciples of Paulus Samosatenus because we follow our humane Sense and Reason and are resolved to believe that Bread and Wine remain because they appear to our Senses But before he had fixt this Charge upon us he should have shewn us as clear a Revelation for the proof of their feigned Transubstantiation as there is for Christ's being God as well as Man and as clear a Command for us to worship the Sacrament as there is for us to worship Christ God and Man The difference betwixt the Lutheran Worship of Christ in the Sarament and that of the Adoration of the Sacrament itself which is the Roman Doctrine has been already stated p. 87. For that the
Roman Doctrine obliges to worship the Sacrament not only Christ in the Sacrament as M. Meaux would here insinuate has been evidenced already from the Words of the Trent-Council and that so the generality of their Authors understand it we are sure from hence That they confess this their Adoration would be Idolatry if Transubstantiation were not true There is one peculiar Notion which M. Meaux has concerning the manner of the Efficacy of this Sacrament to wit That Jesus Christ by uniting himself to our bodies makes his Grace and his Vertue pass into our souls supposing that his flesh taken in the Sacrament becomes incorporated with ours which does both certainly vacate the necessity of our receiving this Sacrament more than once unless it can be shewn how that flesh of his which is once united to us should become disunited and also makes it impossible to give a reason why the body of Christ which according to their Doctrine is received by all alike should not be alike effectual to all His Harangue about their being content to Communicate in one kind may be easily turned upon him by demanding Ought you not to let us communicate according to our Saviour's Institution as our Saviour communicated his Disciples as the Apostles communicated the first Christians as pious Antiquity communicated for several hundred years But in that we own the Church of Rome to have been a true Church and Salvation to be had in it he presumes we are thereby obliged to own that this Sacrament is administred to its full effect in that Church tho' given only in one kind however tho' we should allow it to be the mark of a true Church that it rightly Administers the Sacraments yet there is no necessity that a defect herein must presently cause it to cease to be a Church tho' it will be indeed a corrupt one when the Ministry shall deprive the People of part of that Food that is necessary to Spiritual Life perhaps therefore it may be allowed that this Sacrament may be effectual in one kind to those that cannot obtain any more from the Church and yet the Church herself by thus depriving her Children of a part of this Sacrament may lye under the guilt of withholding the necessary means of Salvation and of voiding Christ's Institution and it will be no thanks to the Church if God may out of the greatness of his mercy supply the want by some extraordinary way of those means which the Curch unjustly withholds from her Children But says he You content your selves upon the Faith of the Church as to your Baptism in that you are not then plunged and dipt under Water which the Word Baptized doth properly signifie Whereas the Case is very different for in that of Baptism there is nothing thereby of the Essence of the Sacrament diminished which depends only upon the washing with Water not upon the quantity wherewith we are washed however the Rubrick of the Church of England requires that where the Child is able to bear it it be dipt under the Water whereas in the other a part that essentially constitutes the Sacrament is wholly taken away for as to the quantity of Wine there would certainly be no Contention These as near as I could collect them are all the material things in his Letter the rest of it either concerns not us or is only a Noise of Words made to amuse the Understandings and work on the Fancies of weaker men It is the usual way 't is true for the Romanists having neither Scripture nor Reason to alledge to cant and make a great Stir with high Words such as Catholick Church Successor of Peter Apostolick See Principal Church c. urging these as undeniable Proofs of their Churches Authority and Infallibility whereas indeed they signifie nothing though they have been prevalent with some beyond their true force But since after so perfect a view of the utmost of all they can with any colourable pretence say for themselves their Errors and Corruptions appear so great none I hope will suffer themselves to be frighted into a Subjection to them by those high Words which without the least reason they have the confidence to use and appropriate to themselves FINIS ERRATA PAg. 10. 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