should mistake in the sense of the Scriptures yet they secure us that if we with honest and upright hearts continue to inquire after the truth designing nothing else that error shall not prejudice us But God will either discover to us his mind or not condemn us for our error of weakness not of wilfulness SECT XX. The Vanity of their appeal to Traditions AS for Interpretations of Scripture by Tradition they may be pretended and talkt of but cannot be produced in most places where we are desirous of that help which we gladly receive when we can have it by a truly Universal consent But as for particular interpretations of the ancient Fathers they do not absolutely agree with each other in their Expositions of those Texts upon which controversies of greatest moment are now grounded Nay they oft times propound divers interpretations alike probable And sometimes plainly intimate their doubtfulness and make but imperfect conjectures in such a manner as if they intended to excite Posterity to seek for further resolution Therefore we shall not dissent from them though we do not assent to all their particular interpretations Nay we cannot more dissent from them than by following their interpretations on such strict terms as the Romanists would bind us all to do when they seem to make for their advantage For then there is not the least surmise or conjecture of any one Father but must suffice against the joynt Authority of all the rest To which Rule of serving their interest they are so true that they stick not to reject any interpretation of the Fathers when they think good and which is more to prefer their own expositions before theirs And so they do in the matter of all other Traditions though called Apostolical For instance the threefold immersion in Baptism which seems to have flowed from an Apostolical Canon is long ago abolished saith their Canus by a contrary custome And so is the custome of giving the communion to Infants which prevailed says their Maldonate for 600. Years in the Church not only antiquated by them but decreed to be unlawful Which clearly shows that they might if they pleased make an end of all the controversies that trouble the Church without any disparagement but rather with the increase of its Authority For challenging a power to alter even the Institutions of Jesus Christ as they have done in taking away the Cup from the People in the Holy Communion and much more those of the Apostles what need all this stir about Apostolical Traditions or the Decrees of the Church which they may lay aside at their pleasure and have laid aside as appears by many other instances besides those now named that may be given of it But it is sufficient for the direction of every honest hearted Man to know which is as certain as any thing of that nature can be and may be undoubtedly relyed on that nothing is clearer in the Tradition of the Church than this that the Doctors of it declare the Scriptures to be full and perspicuous in all needful matters And therefore there needs no other Tradition but the Tradition of the Scriptures which satisfie us abundantly in the Truth of all those things which are universally received SECT XXI And their guilt in what they say about the holy Scriptures THERE cannot therefore be a greater demonstration of their guilt than this that notwithstanding such evident testimonies from the Scriptures themselves and the concurrent stream of the ancient Doctors of Christ's Church they have been forced to avoid this trial by the Scriptures to say so many scandalous things as they have done in disparagement of the Sacred Writings Many of them are commonly known and I am not willing to repeat the rest but only say this great truth that whether they will or no their Church such as it is receives all its Authority from the Scriptures and not the Scriptures from it For we can have no notion as was said before of a Church or of its authority but from the Scriptures Which therefore must be of greater authority than that which receives authority from them and be first supposed to be infallible before they can make us believe any thing else is so For we must be secure of the proof before we can be sure of the thing proved by it otherwise it is no proof but leaves us as much in doubt as we were before it was alledged If they say and what else can be said with any colour of reason that we must indeed learn their Churches infallibility from the Scriptures but then learn the rest from their Church mark I beseech you what follows Then it is manifest First that they themselves make the Scriptures the Rule of Faith in this one Article at least concerning the Catholick Churches infallibility Which we must therefore believe and for no other reason because the Scriptures which we first infallibly believe do teach and prove it Whence it plainly follows that private Men may and must be assured of the Truth of Scriptures without the help of their Churches Authority before they can believe any thing else because it is the ground for their belief of that infallibility which their Church pretends which to them is the General Rule of Faith And from thence it follows further that the Scriptures which to us are the only Rule of Faith ought to be acknowledged by them to be more than so even the Rule of their Rule of Faith And if it be so what reason can any Man alledge why it should not be the immediate Rule of Faith without sending us elsewhere to seek it in all other Articles of the Creed as well as in that of their pretended infallible Church We may appeal to all the World and call Heaven and Earth Angels and Men to witness between us and the Roman Church as a worthy Champion of our Cause did long ago whether the Articles of Christ's Incarnation his Death Passion Burial Resurrection Ascension Intercession the Resurrection of the Dead and life everlasting c. be not much more plainly set down in the Scriptures to any Mans apprehension whatsoever than the infallibility of the present Roman Church is in such words as these Thou art Peter c. Feed my Sheep or any other from whence they challenge it And therefore why should we be required to learn these or any other part of Christian Faith meerly from their Church when we learn them so easily by the Scriptures in which they are to be found more clearly delivered than any thing we read about their Church Let no Man doubt but if the Holy Ghost will teach us that Article of the Churches Infallibility immediately by the Scriptures without the help of the Churches infallible Authority as they themselves are forced to confess because else the Church can have no authority then He will immediately teach us by the same Scriptures any other Article of our Creed and whatsoever is necessary to Salvation
now makes the greatest differences in the Christian World requires nothing more at this day to be believed by those that are by Baptism received into the Church of Christ but only those things which are contained in the Creed commonly called the Apostles This Creed is recited there by the Priest and this alone when he comes to the Font and he interrogates the Persons to be baptized if they be adult or their undertakers if they be Infants about no other belief Upon the profession of which he bids them enter into the holy Church of God that they may receive the Celestial blessing from the Lord Jesus Christ and have a part with Him and with his Saints And having again examined adult Persons asking them Do ye believe in God the Father Almighty c. and mentioning no other Articles of Faith he baptizes them and declares them to be regenerate and to have remission of all sins And so do we do here nor is there any different practice in any other part of the Christian World but every where it is sufficient to consent to this Creed which is nothing but a brief explication what we are to believe concerning the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost in whose Name we are baptized If there were any thing beyond this which we are necessarily bound to believe it should have been then propounded when we were admitted into the state of Christianity For Baptism gives us a right and title to Salvation if we do not forfeit it afterward by Apostasie or by a wicked life and this Faith with a promise to live according to it gives us a right to Baptism Herein indeed the Roman Church contradicts it self in decreeing many other Articles of belief without which it declares Men cannot be saved and yet receiving Men at Baptism into a state of Salvation without demanding their consent to any such Articles But so they do in many other things and cannot avoid it while they forsake the ancient Universal Rule and set up their own private Authority to impose what they please under pain of Damnation SECT IV. But both contradicts it self and departs from the Ancient and truly Catholick Church FOR that no such things as they would now oblige all Christians to believe were anciently exacted it appears most manifestly by Irenaeus and Tertullian to name no others in several places Who call the Creed now mentioned the Rule of Truth and the Rule of Faith which the Church throughout all the World saith Irenaeus though it be dispersed to the most extream parts of the Earth received from the Apostles and their Disciples and believes as if there were but one Soul and one Heart in so many Men and with a perfect consent preaches and teaches and delivers these things as having but one mouth For though there be divers Languages in the World yet one and the same Tradition prevails every where For neither the Churches in Germany believe otherways or deliver any thing else nor they in Spain nor they in France nor they in the East nor they in Egypt nor they in Libya nor they that are founded in the midst of the World But as the Sun is one and the same in the whole World So is the preaching of the Truth inlightning all Men who will come to the knowledge of it And neither he who is most eloquent among the Governours of the Church preaches any thing different for no man is above his Master nor doth he that is weakest in speech lessen in the least this Tradition For there being one and the same Faith he that hath most to say cannot inlarge it nor he that hath least diminish it Thus they declared their minds in those early days when there was no Catholick Man or Woman in the World required to believe any of those Doctrines now in controversie between us and the Roman Church and set down in the Creed of Pope Pius IV. as necessary to Salvation but they all contented themselves with the simple belief of those things which the Apostles have delivered in their Creed the greatest Men in the Church delivering no more nor the meanest saying less And with this wise and good Men satisfied themselves in times succeeding as appears by this remarkable passage of St. Hilary in his little Book which he himself delivered to the Emperour Constantius Where he thus complains Faith is now enquired after as if we had none Faith must be set down in writing as if it were not in the heart Being regenerated by Faith we are now taught what to believe as if that regeneration could have been without Faith WE LEARN CHRIST AFTER BAPTISM AS IF THERE COULD HAVE BEEN ANY BAPTISM WITHOUT FAITH IN CHRIST SECT V. Christianity therefore is not there in its purity but much corrupted WHICH is a sufficient Argument to prove that the Christian Religion is not sincerely preserved in that Church and ought to with-hold us from joyning with them in imposing thus upon the Christian World and thereby breaking the bond of Unity and turning Men away from the Faith by the palpable falsities and absurd mixtures which are brought into it and that as necessary parts of the Faith of Christ To the adulterating of which we ought by no means to consent but maintain it in that purity wherein the Apostles delivered it to their Successors as we find it set down in the Works of a great many following Doctors of the Church whose Names I forbear but are ready at hand to make good what I quoted just now out of Irenaeus Who acknowledges him for a sincere Christian who holds fast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Epiphanius recites his words which were then extant in Greek that Rule of Faith which he received in Baptism firm and unmoveable He cannot be a Heretick who thus believes on the Son of God in the sense wherein the Nicene Creed not adding any new Article of Faith but only declaring what was believed from the beginning hath explained the Word But they are Schismaticks who call him so and will not admit him into their Communion unless he consent to other things and hold them to be equally certain and necessary with the Ancient Rule of Faith SECT VI. Answer to an Evasion from the force of the foregoing Argument TO pretend that all those Articles of Faith which they now impose though not expresly mentioned in the Creed yet are contained in one Article of it Viz. in the belief of the Holy Catholick Church is in effect to make all the rest of the Creed unnecessary and to establish this sole Rule of Faith in the room of it For if by believing the Catholick Church we are to understand as they would have us whatsoever the Catholick Church propounds then it had been enough to have said to those Catechumens that came for Baptism Do you believe in the Holy Catholick Church and to add any more had been utterly superfluous But the vanity of this further appears in that
none of the ancient Doctors who have expounded the Creed and there are many of them have given any such sense of that Article of the Catholick Church Nay it was not in the most ancient forms of Faith nor doth the Church truly Catholick teach any thing as necessary to be believed to Salvation but what is contained in the Creed For we do in their own sense believe the Catholick Church but not the Roman Catholick Church which their Creed will have to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches because to omit many other absurdities which are in it there was a Catholick Church before there was a Roman and to say that they believe the Catholick Church meaning thereby the Roman is nothing more than to say they believe themselves SECT VII Their absurd Explication of the Unity of the Catholick Church NOTHING therefore can be further from the Truth than that Explication of the Vnity of the Catholick Church which is delivered in the Roman Catechism published by the Authority of the same Pope Pius IV. in pursuance of the Council of Trent Wherein the Catechumen is taught to believe and profess that the Catholick Church is one not only because of one Faith and other reasons mentioned by the Apostle Ephes iv and because it is subject to one invisible Governor which is Christ But because it is subject also to one visible Governor who holds the Roman Chair the legitimate Successor of St. Peter Concerning whom it is the unanimous opinion of all the Fathers that this visible Head is necessary to constitute and conserve the unity of the Church And to this Head or Pastor Christ hath given the authority of ruling and governing the whole Church as the Vicar and Minister of his Power Thus that Catechism teaches in the First Part the IX Article n. 11 12 13. Which besides that it is confuted by the plain demonstration now mentioned that Christ had a Catholick Church which had unity in it self when there was no Roman Church is directly contrary to the constant Doctrine not only of the Scripture but of all the Fathers whose consent they falsly boast of and of many Popes of Rome and of Councils also both General and particular even of the Councils of Lateran and Trent which by approving the Five First General Councils who condemn this Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome do in effect condemn it themselves SECT VIII Which forbids us to joyn in Communion with them upon such Terms TO that Church then we ought to adhere which hath kept the Rule of Faith once delivered to the Saints simple and unmixed with humane inventions Which if we admit as necessary to Salvation we betray the truth of Christ and are false and unjust to innumerable Christian Brethren who by Baptism are admitted into a state of Salvation but hereby unmercifully cut off from the Body of Christ though they have that Faith which makes them true Members of it This is the Great Crime of the Roman Church and may suffice instead of all other demonstrations to prove that they have corrupted themselves and departed from the simplicity that is in Christ For this very Article alone which is a part of their Faith that there is no Salvation but by union with the Roman Catholick Church and that by subjection to it thrusts out of Heaven not only the ancient Christian pious Emperors who refused such subjection But many of their ancient Popes who acknowledged their subjection was due to the Christian Emperors together with the ancient Patriarks and Fathers assembled in many Councils and the most famous Christian Churches the most glorious Martyrs and Saints of Christ that the best times of Christianity have known and to say nothing of after Ages the present Christians of Greece Russia Armenia Syria Ethiopia who by this Article of subjection to the Catholick Roman Church are all excluded from Christian communion and must perish everlastingly For Bellonius says that in his travels he met with Nine sorts of Christians at Jerusalem Eight of which Nine know nothing of this Universal Bishop or do not regard him and of the Ninth there is scarce half that acknowledges his Authority And yet there are Men among them of no mean note and number who have the confidence to tell us that by the Catholick Church which we are bound to believe is to be understood the Bishop of Rome whose Declarations when he will determine any thing to be of Faith we all ought to receive And though we are assured as much as are that there was such a Person as St. Peter that Christ never gave him much less his Successors any Authority at all over his whole Church Yet now to deny the Pope's Supremacy is such a Heresie that let a Man be never so Orthodox in all other points of the Catholick Faith this alone is sufficient to make him be excommunicated and cut off from the Body of Christ Witness our King Henry VIII who was excommunicated and his Kingdom given away for no other fault by a Bull of Paul the Third who affirms in the beginning of that Bull that herein he acted by Divine authority which according as God saith in the Prophet Jeremiah had set him over Nations and Kingdoms to root up and destroy as well as to build and plant having the supreme power over all Kings and People throughout the whole Earth Which certainly is such new Language never known in the Church for many Ages that they who are not convinced thereby of the corruption of Christian Religion in the Roman Church have their Eyes blinded with the Worldly Splendor of it SECT IX But on the other side not to slight Episcopal Authority YET on the other hand it must be acknowledged that this enormous power which they have usurped is a very strong proof of the high Authority of Christian Bishops in the Church and of the great reverence that was paid to them by Christian People Who otherways would never have thus submitted to their will and pleasure had not the obedience which they had been wont always to yield to their authority disposed them to be brought by little and little under an absolute subjection Nor would there have been reason for those Cautions which St. Peter gives to the Governors of God's Church not at Rome but elsewhere 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. not to Lord it over them if they had not been invested with a power which all Christians reverenced so much that it might more easily be abused than contemned and sooner perswade People to follow them with a blind obedience than to slight their judgment and refuse to conform to their Injunctions And therefore whosoever they are that now despise all Ecclesiastical Authority we may be sure they have swerved from the true Principles of Christianity and they also are altogether inexcusable who shake off the Episcopal Government and refuse to be subject to it under a pretence that there ought to be an equality among Christ's
Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in matters of advice and counsel and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content when the testimonies are free from all suspicion of untruth Otherwise down goes not only all the use of history and a great part of the art of Physick but all the piety also that ought to be between Parents and Children which cannot be known other ways And indeed it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so far forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Word of the Gospel may be as a touchstone whereby Mens dispositions may be tried whether they be curable or not For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise Men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other Mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their affections and desires It being that is an hard matter for them to make no great account of honours and other worldly advantages which they must do if they receive what Christ hath taught and so become ingaged to observe his Precepts Which is discovered to be true by this very thing that they take many other Historical Narrations to be true which notwithstanding appear to be so meerly by authority and not by any such foot-steps of them remaining at this day as the History of Christ hath partly in the confession of the Jews who are now in being and partly in those things which are every where found in the Assemblies of Christian People of which it must needs be granted there was some cause Lastly seeing the long duration or continuance of Christian Religion and the large extent thereof can be ascribed to no humane power therefore it must be attributed to miracles or if any deny that it came to pass through a miraculous manner this very getting so great strength and power without a miracle may be justly thought to surpass any miracle The THIRD Book OF THE TRUTH OF Christian Religion SECT I. To prove the authority of the Books of the New Covenant AFTER that a Man is once perswaded by the reasons abovesaid or is induced by any other arguments to believe that this Religion which Christians profess is the truest and absolutely the best if he desire to learn all the parts thereof then must he have recourse unto the most ancient writings that contain the same Religion which commonly we call the Books of the New Testament or rather new covenant For he is very unreasonable who denies this Religion to be contained in those Books as all Christians affirm Since it is but equity to believe every Sect be it good or be it bad when it says its opinions are to be found in such or such a Book as we believe the Mahometans that the Religion of Mahomet is contained in the Alcoran Forasmuch then as we have before proved that the Christian Religion is most true and it is manifest withal that it is contained in these Books if there were no other ground yet this alone is sufficient to prove and avouch the authority of those Books But if any body requires a more particular demonstration of it I must first lay down this Rule which all indifferent Judges will allow that it is incumbent upon him who will impugne the authority of any writing received for many Ages to produce Arguments which prove that Writing to be false which if he cannot do that Book is to be defended as in possession of its Authority SECT II. Here is shown that such Books were written by the Authors whose names they have prefixed WE say then that those Books which are not in question amongst Christians and carry before them a certain Name are the very Works of those Authors whose names they bear Because those primitive Fathers Justin Irenaeus Clemens and others after them do quote those Books under these very names As also because Tertullian witnesseth that there were Original Copies of some of those Books extant in his time And besides all the Churches received those Books for authentical before there were any common publick Meetings Neither did ever the Pagans or Jews raise any controversie about this as if these were not the works of those Men whose they were said to be but Julian himself plainly confesseth that those were the writings of Peter and Paul Matthew Mark and Luke which Christians under those names have read and received For as no Man in his wits can doubt that those Writings which go under the names of Homer and Virgil are truly theirs because the one hath been so long time received among the Latine and the other among the Greek Authors in like manner it were more absurd to bring the Authors of those Books in question which are granted almost by all the Nations in the World SECT III. Some Books were anciently doubted of IN the Volume of the new Covenant there are some Books indeed now received which were not so received from the beginning as the second Epistle of St. Peter that of St. James and Jude two of St. John the Elder the Revelation and the Epistle to the Hebrews Yet this is certain that they were acknowledged by many Churches which appears sufficiently from hence that the ancient Christians use their Testimonies as Sacred Which makes it credible that such Churches as from the beginning had not those Books either were ignorant of them or doubtful Yet afterward when they were better informed touching the same they admitted them into the Canon as we now see according to the example of other Churches Neither can any good reason be given why any Man should counterfeit those Books since there is nothing comprised in them neither can ought thence be collected which is not abundantly expressed in other Books unquestioned SECT IV. The Authority of such Books as have no Titles is proved from the quality of the Writers AND here let no Man mistrust the verity of the Epistle to the Hebrews because the Writer of it is unknown nor doubt of the two Epistles of St. John and the Revelation because some Men do question whether the Author of them was John the Apostle or some other of that name For the name is not so much to be regarded as the quality or condition of Writers Hence it is that we receive many Books of History whose Authors are to us unknown As that concerning the Alexandrian War by Caesar because we may perceive that whosoever writ the same