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
and superstition brought in Thus they pretend their Decree for the Worship of Saints and Relicks and the use of Images according to the Tradition or received Practice of the Catholick Church in the first times and consent of Fathers and Decrees of Councils when yet M. Condom contents himself with Tradition but from the fourth Century if we would allow it him And so the Gentlemen do well to plead that we should receive a Doctrine as coming from the Apostles when it is universally received without possibility of shewing its beginning by all Christian Churches thereby to obtrude that which had no beginning in it for three hundred years Thus they Decree Indulgences to have been in use in the Church in the most ancient times when yet they could not but be sensible that the use of them was perverted to a quite different purpose from its antient end and notwithstanding their desire that they might be restored to ancient Custom yet we know the Novel is still the modern practice Thus for Purgatory the Council commands that sound Doctrine be taught concerning it from the ancient Fathers when no such thing appears either anciently or universally in the Church And yet at another time that which Christ himself hath taught and was delivered both to and from the Apostles shall not serve to make it necessary Thereupon it Decrees Sess 21. cap. 1. That though Christ instituted the Sacrament under both kinds and delivered it in both to his Apostles yet this does not bind all men to receive it in both Now then for these men to press Traditions on us when they will neither let us know what nor how many they are nor prescribe any bounds to them nor six any certain Rules to discern them by nor be obliged themselves to stand by them and under that pretence to come now fifteen hundred years after the Apostles and impose on us the single Tradition of one Church nay not only her ancient and original Traditions but Novelties foisted in to maintain her corruptions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition And all this to decline an indifferent Tryal by Scripture under pretence that all necessary Truths cannot be found therein without recourse to Tradition if putting on I say so fair a disguise to so fraudulent a purpose they urge this Argument that the Apostles delivered things by word of mouth which ought to be received as of any force to oblige us to receive all which they have the confidence to tell us comes from them What is it but a vain endeavour to impose on the World as if all men had lost common sense and understanding SECT XVIII Of the Authority of the Church UPon this subject M. Condom writes after so rambling and confused a manner that I must first be at the trouble to pick out what he designs to prove before the solidity of his Arguments can be examined His aim then I take to be couched in those words pag. 45. wherein he concludes from the Article of our Creed concerning the Holy Catholick Church That they oblige themselves to acknowledge an infallible and perpetual verity in the Universal Church Now herein he has neither expresly told us what this Universal Church is whether the Church of Rome alone or all other Christian Churches with it nor whether he means the Church collective the whole body of Christians or representative the Bishops in Council or the Pope where some fix this Infallibility But whereas he afterwards confounds the Catholick Church with the Trent Council which by her Decrees if we believe him has tied herself up that she cannot make herself Mistress of our Faith I conceive I may without offence determine that the verity he intends to prove is that there is an Infallibility resting somewhere in the Catholick Church of Rome To which if he would oblige us to consent it had been but reasonable to have sixt this Infallibility in something certain though at present I will not stand upon it but consider his Discourse which begins thus The Church being established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and Tradition we receive the Canonical Scripture from her and let our Adversaries say what they will we doubt not but it is her Authority that principally determines them to Reverence as Divine Books Which first sentence is a manifest contradiction it being absolutely impossible that that which is established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and the Traditor of it to others should be the Authority that makes it Scripture which it is before it is put into its Guardianship and certainly its being Scripture or a Writing of Divine Inspiration is that which makes them principally reverenced as Divine Books not that which tells us that they are so But then he gives us instances of Three Books especially which he conceives received upon that authority The Canticle of Canticles St. James and St. Jude Where in the first place the Gentleman does ill to joyn these together as believed or to be believed upon the same grounds the Canticle of Cantiles being long before the Christian Church the others since Therefore I must answer him distinctly Supposing then that which common sence is able to inform us that this Book called The Song of Songs is more antient than the Church of Christ and that the Church never had as she has never pretended to have any express Revelation whether this Book was written by inspiration from God as we believe the Law and the Prophets beside the credit upon which it received it from the Synagogue it 's certain that the only thing questionable is whether it was received by the Synagogue as divinely inspired if it appears to have been so received it is not any authority of the Christian Church that has made it Scripture and if the Church had pretended it Scripture without evidence of its being received from them or particular Revelation shewn in the case it would have been never the more a Divine Book nor any man obliged to receive it as such And I marvel the Gentleman should be carried so far by the spirit of Contradiction and desire to bear down his Christian brethren as to set up a Principle that betrays our common Christianity by giving notice to the World that those Scriptures of the Old Testament whereby the Church pretends to convince the Jews of the necessity of becoming Christians are not to be received for the Word of God but upon the authority of her own Decrees Then for the Epistle of James rejected by Luther and St. Jude by others nothing can be more manifest to any that will but take the pains to consider it that the Writings of the Apostles were first kept by and entrusted in the hands of those Churches to which they were sent as the Epistles to Corinth Rome Ephesus c. It is therefore reasonable to conceive those Writings so dispersed when collected into one body and submitted to by
to be received for the Word of God if not confirmed by the Scripture because the Motives upon which they were received cannot be as evident as those of the Scriptures Questionless no man can deny the Traditions of the Jews to be as useful for the understanding the Old Testament as any now for that of the New but then it was they perverted the Use of Traditions when they taught them for God's Commandments But that which he infers from this that has given us both so much trouble is just nothing Upon this account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine Whoever thought that their Church ever professed the contrary or can conceive that any Church will profess otherwise the question then is not what she professes but what she has done and let me tell him that his own words are as great an argument against the Church's absolute and Infallible Authority as any can be given For if upon the account of her being established by God to be the Guardian of the Scripture and Tradition and the deliverer of them to her Children she be obliged to profess suppose what may reasonably be supposed that she be but obliged to act as she does profess that she delivers nothing new nothing from herself nothing but by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost Shall not her Authority be confined within these limits Shall she have any power to act beyond them or if she be accused as having acted against that Christianity that she ought to have maintained Shall it not be shewn de facto that she has not or if that seem too apparent Shall it be pleaded that she is infallible and cannot have acted against it though it 's visible to all but them that plead so that she has But he further tells us That there being a dispute raised in the times of the Apostles the Holy Ghost put an end to it by the Church and the method then taken by the Apostles to decide it has taught succeeding Ages by what authority all other differences are to be ended so that as often as any divisions shall happen the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles It seemeth good unto the Holy Ghost and to us What they will say I know not I am sure this gives them no warrant to say the like It 's true this practice of the Apostles has directed the Church upon differences that have hapned to assemble its Pastors for the ending them but I see no promise here that they shall have the like assistance with the Apostles who not only had the Spirit of God at all times in a measure which no man can pretend to have now at any time but had likewise frequently immediate inspirations And if a man should think they had an immediate inspiration upon the place signifying how they should order the matter he might have grounds for his opinion very considerable inspirations being then so frequent even at the common Assemblies of Christians and St. Paul being so cautions as to difference things of his own from the Commands of the Lord although he thought himself at the same time to have the Spirit of God But whether so or not no Councils can from hence presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all Truth in whatsoever they take a humour to determine because Christ promised to send his Spirit to his Apostles to lead them into all Truth for the teaching and establishing our common Christianity Father Paul tells us of a Proverb which perhaps this Gentleman may have known to pass in France That the modern Council had more Authority than that of the Apostles because their own pleasure only was sufficient ground for the Decrees without admitting the Holy Ghost whether verified in this of Trent I shall not say but the ground of it is certainly possible and God that has promised to lead men by his Spirit into all Truth has not said he will lead them whether they will or no. Whereas then he says further That when the Church has spoken her Children will be taught that they ought not to examine again the Articles so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her decisions and that they are resolved to follow the example of Paul and Silas not permitting them to be again discussed but teaching all to observe the ordinances of the Apostles He would have done well to have shewn us that the Decrees of the Trent Council are as much the acts of the Holy Ghost as that of the Apostles before he had required us to think them act as justifiably in teaching them as Paul and Silas did But by the way if he speaks this as the fix'd resolution of all their Church not to admit a new discussion of what has been decided but to require all to observe it he lets us know an excellent Resolution of his Church and how much it is for her turn that differences in Religion be everlasting But thus it is he tells us the Children of God acquiesce in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her mouth they hear the Oracle of the holy Ghost This he should have forborn to have said till he had shewn by something more than he has hitherto that God has bid his children to hear his Word from the mouth of any Church speaking without the Scripture that contains it but especially methinks he should not have presumed to say this is the ground why in our Creed having said I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The holy Catholick Church if we had no other ground to believe the Holy Catholick Church than he has hitherto shewn I am sure we should have but very little for so great an Article of Faith But no wonder he builds his faith on no better grounds since he has framed a new sense of the Article of which if I convince him by the Catechism of his own Church I suppose he may be inclinable to hear it even that then teaches him That the word Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Ecclesia quibus siguris Church in this Article does chiefly denote the whole number of Believers including both good and bad not the Rulers only but those likewise who are to obey and if so I know not how a man is obliged by believing this Article to acknowledge any Infallibility in the governours of any Church or to think that if they err this Article of our Creed should become false or that he has ever the less faith in God if he apprehend or fear least the Rulers of the Church should abuse their power Whereas after this he endeavours to perswade us That the Catholick Church meaning that of Rome is so far from making herself Mistress of our Faith as she is accused that on the contrary she has done what she could to limit and deprive herself of all the means of
reason any further than to prevent the swallow of their Errors with this bait What I intend is to evidence that there are Matters of that weight in controversie notwithstanding the pretence of this Book to have discussed and answered the most material as will abundantly justifie the Reformed in their distance from the Church of Rome and which is more conclude them under a necessity of maintaining that distance as things now stand THE ADVERTISEMENT TO THE Bishop of Condom's Book Considered THE Advertisement begins with a Supposition which it thinks we must necessarily allow That M. Condom has faithfully expounded the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Treatise from his beng a Bishop in the Church whose Understanding therefore and Sincerity ought not to be suspected and afterwards from his being called to be Praeceptor to the Dauphin Son to so great a King and Defender of the Catholick Religion But yet he tells us Though the sincerer part of the Reformed acknowledged it would take away great Difficulties if approved and owned for their Doctrine yet they would never believe it such or that it would be approved at Rome being prepossessed with Prejudice and false Opinion But without reflecting either upon the Bishop's Understanding or Sincerity we have a great deal of reason to expect he shew us an Authority that warrants him to give us this Exposition and declare it to us as the faithful and true Sense and only Doctrine of the Church since the Pope hath peremptorily forbidden Bulla Pii quarti super Confirm Concil Trid. all Prelates of whatever Order Condition or Degree to set forth any Exposition of the Doctrine of the Trent-Council reserving it to the Apostolical See Setting then his Authority as questionable for the present aside I am no more convinced by the Nature of the Exposition that it is the genuine Sense of the Church of Rome in all points than those who first saw the Book Whether it be Prejudice or Prepossession that blinds my Understanding will not appear till after the Discussion of Particulars Pag. 2. He tells us of two Answers to this Treatise and that both of them agreed in questioning M. Condom's Authority to expound the Council and that his Exposition agrees not with the Decisions of the Council nor with their Profession of Faith Concerning these things I shall determine nothing till I come to the Particulars But whereas he saies Pag. 3. That one of them has drawn a wrong Conclusion from those Softnings of M. Condom to confirm themselves in a better Opinion of the Reformation I do not think the Inference altogether so absure as the Advertizer pretends it for do not they in a great measure justifie the Reformed who call for the Reformation of those Abuses which the Church of Rome herself pretends to condemn but will not or has not rectified The next Thing it endeavors is to prove p 4. That this Exposition of M. Condom's is the true Sense of the Church which is grounded first upon the general Approbation his Book received throughout the whole Church testified by Lerters from all sorts of People not in France only but at Rome especially in Eight Letters concerning it from Cardinals and others of great Merit But taking it for granted without any further Examination That all these Men by their Approbations of this Book do consent that this Exposition is the true Sense of the Church which is more than need be granted since some only say it is a Method very ingenious and good to force the Calvinists to confess the atholick Faith yet this will not suffice where there are so many Writers of as great Authority and Eminence in the Church as any of these that have though not perhaps undertook to expound the Council as this Author yet to declare and defend a Doctrine much different from this from the same Council and in behalf of the same Church And suppose the Number that approved it great yet Cardinal Bona's Letter informs us that some found fault with it and those he must mean of their own Church when he gives this Reason that he does not wonder at it Because all Works great and above the common Level find Persons still to contradict them And be the Number what it will I suppose he will not as it is not reasonable seek for the Churches Doctrine by counting Noses Then for the Letter of Cardinal Sigismond which says the Advertizer shews how ill grounded that Scruple is against this Exposition from the Pope's Prohibition to explicate the Council To me it rather shews how well it is grounded for his Words are Certainly it was never his intention to give the interpretation of the Tenets of the Council but only to deliver them in his Book rightly explicated in such sort that Hereticks may be convinced and especially in those things which the holy Church obliges them to believe Which if it signifie any thing must be That his Exposition is not an interpretation of the Council obliging any to believe it as Matter of Faith but a Design of explicating it in such sort as he judged useful for convincing Hereticks But if this will not content we have an Approbation from the Pope himself after which 't was needless to mention others says the Advertizer and let me add without which his others signifie little to his Point The Gentleman calls it a Breve wherein the Pope gives his Approbation and that so express as to leave no further doubt and in the most authentick manner that could be expected I have considered it and yet my Doubt is not vanished and when the least that could have been expected in reason on Account of the difficulty of believing it express'd by the Reformed five or six years before the Date of this Breve from the Pope as also from the Nature of the thing which being an exposition of Faith ought to be so received by all that not one man hold Tenets different from it as also from the former Pope's Prohibition of all Explication of this Council is that the Pope should have declared that this Exposition did perfectly contain the true and whole Faith of the Church in the Points expounded and that it should be lookt upon as authentick as if made by the Apostolick See it self We may have that Charity for the Advertizer as to think its his good desire to have it made authentick that makes him look upon it as such and suppresses all his Doubts But we who desire no less than he that it were so have yet some peculiar Reasons to see to our selves that we are not imposed on and therefore to examine what Authority this Approbation gives it All which the Pope here saies to approve it is no more than this That it contains such Doctrine and is composed in such a Method and with so much Prudence that it is thereby rendred proper to instruct and to extort even from the unwilling a Confession of the Catholick Faith
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
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
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
the whole Church were submitted to upon the certain testimony of those parts of it wherein they had been kept those which had not so evident a testimony being laid aside and received only according to the evidence that appeared of their being Divine Inspirations Nevertheless when they come to be received from the hands of such particular Churches who knew themselves to have had them from Authors known to be divinely inspired there might be some expressions in them which might appear not altogether so agreeable with our common Christianity when they came first to know them which from the beginning they had not And this was certainly the case of Luther in refusing St. James's Epistle notwithstanding the scorns cast upon him for it as of Erasmus in questioning the Epistle to the Hebrews But yet there is always means of redressing such a mistake either in any part of the Church or in any particular member of it so long as there remains means to certifie them from what hand they have been received and how derived from persons in whom the Church was assured the holy Ghost spoke but to set up the Churches bare Authority for this is indeed what our Adversaries desire but what destroys all the nature of the holy Scriptures and makes them to be believed for another reason than this that they are the Dictates of the holy Ghost But in fine he tells us It can only be from this authority that we receive the whole body of the Scripture which all Christians accept as divine before their reading of it has made them sensible of the Spirit of God in it But that there is some little difference between those that are educated in the Christian Church and others that turn Christians at years of understanding he might even as well have said whether the Spirit of God be in it or not in it For if the authority of the Church be that which principally determines them to reverence as Divine Books and upon that authority a man be obliged to receive the whole body of Scripture before he know the Spirit of God to be in it he shall upon the same grounds be obliged still to hold the same whether he find it there or not I am sorry that he thinks all Christians so blind as himself that they build their belief of the Scriptures on no firmer a foundation than he seems to do and am therefore obliged to shew him the ground whereon I build my own belief concerning them When therefore I first seek whereon to ground this belief I enquire after the Testimony not the Authority of the Church i. e. of all those that make profession of Christianity whose consent I look after concerning the Scriptures and when I have found what Writings they agree upon and admit for such the next enquiry is upon what grounds they submit unto them as such and this I find to be their having received them from former Ages successively together with their Christianity then must I trace this successive reception of them from one time to another till I come to those who first received them and there I find the reason upon which they submitted to them to be the evident proofs which the Writers of them had given to shew themselves inspired by God and commissioned to teach his will to the obedience of which they ought to give up themselves whereupon they who had seen God bearing them witness with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost became obliged as to obey their Doctrine so to acknowledge their Writings for the Word of God they being Records of those miraculous Actions which they saw wrought and of those Truths which were taught and proved to be the Will of God And here the very same Motives cause my belief of the Scriptures which caused those first Christians to receive them and submit unto them so that the same reason that moves me to be a Christian resolves me to believe the Scripture But if a man shall ask me since I believe the Scriptures only upon the works done by those Holy Writers which testifie them to have had his Spirit how I am assured that those works were really done I am not afraid to confess my Belief of this to rely on the Credit of God's People all Ages of Christ's Church which have born testimony of it successively so that I submit not my Faith to any Authority that can command it but I see it reasonable to allow my Belief to the Credit of the Church as so many men of common Sense attesting the Truth of those Reasons which the Gospel tenders why they ought to believe Neither is my Faith in either of these Respects a humane Faith but the work of Gods Spirit for as it is that Spirit only which after I have seen the Motives to Christianity inclines me to believe and become a Christian so it is the same Spirit which having shewn me the Evidence that the Scriptures were written by the Messengers of God that works in me an acknowledgment of and submission to them as the Word of God He goes on Being inseparably bound as we are to the holy Authority of the Church by means of the Scriptures which we receive from her hands we learn Tradition also from her and by means of Tradition we learn the true Sense of the Scripture upon which account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrines she does nothing but declare the divine Revelation according to the interior direction of the Holy Ghost which is given to her as a Teacher I profess all the Skill I have cannot make this hang together If by his first words he means we are so inseparably bound to the Authority of the Church by receiving the Scriptures from her that we ought thereupon to receive all that shall be commanded by that Authority I that have shewn we do not believe the Scriptures upon her Authority as a Church but upon her Testimony witnessing the Motives of Faith as a number of men that would not conspire to testifie an Untruth can never own it to have an Authority of itself to command our Faith Indeed as we receive the Scriptures upon her Testimony we learn from the Scriptures that she has an Authority but such an Authority as perhaps will not content M. Condom which being derived from the Scriptures can never have power to act against them and being established only for the Maintenance of Christianity which was before it can never have power to make that a part of Christianity which was not so before the Church was in being Then again though we learn Tradition from her and that Tradition be useful to interpret the Sense of the Scriptures yet we receive not any Tradition upon her Authority as making them Traditions of the Apostles but upon her Testimony shewing that she has received them from them and again those Traditions she does deliver ought not certainly
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
to be one It 's evident therefore that St Cyprian did not hereby intend to acknowledg St. Peter to be the Head of the rest of the Apostles or that they derived their Authority from him since he says That they had an equal Power and Authority given them by Christ His meaning then can be only this that to evidence the necessity of Unity in the Church our Saviour gave that Authority first to Peter single which he afterwards gave to all together to shew them that they ought in their several functions to aim all at the same thing the Vnity of his Church He says indeed that Episcopacy is one but he adds what M. Meaux thought best for his Cujus à singulis in solidum Pars tenetur Ibid. purpose to leave out Whereof every one holds a part with full and ample Power He says likewise Adulterari non potest sponsa Christi incorrupta est Pudica but he does not say it for any such reason as this Gentleman pretends lest we should imagine some cases might happen in which it might be lawful to separate from the Church or reform her Doctrine as thought it were impossible for a Church to fall into error or to have need of being reformed The coherence of the Discourse makes them bear a different meaning viz. That the true Spouse of Christ cannot admit this Vnity to be interrupted will not be corrupted to division This Father further says That he that separates himself from the Church has no part in Christs promises c. We readily affirm the same of such as do it without a cause But no advantage can be hence taken against us 'till M. Meaux has first proved that the Church of Rome is this only true Church of Christ He would have gained a great point indeed if we were obliged to take it for granted that the Roman is this only true Church of Christ and if the true Church was not to be sought and known by an examination of her Doctrines and their consistency with the Faith But he grosly abuses this good Father when he would persuade us that St. Cyprian would not suffer men to enquire after the true Church by examining her Doctrine but to know her first and then believe we cannot have salvation out of her For so far as I can observe he does not give the least intimation of any such thing in his Book De unitate Ecclesiae And if he should I see no reason that any have to subscribe to him when indeed the Church being a Society professing the Faith of Christ and subsisting for the maintenance of it there can be no means of knowing which is that Church but by knowing first the Faith of Christ and also that this Church professes and holds the same But I need not dispute about that for which he falsly pretends this Authority It 's true in this Book De Vnitate St. Cyprian only urges the Unity of the Church and the Crime of those that break it but there would be no reason to look upon his Arguments so strong if the Church he defends had done any thing to the prejudice of the Faith and therefore in other places he defends the cause of the Church in this case by the righteousness of it by proofs from Scripture of the innocency and lawfulness of that which was imputed to her as a Crime And therefore I most of all admire that he could have the face to abuse those other words of St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Antonian to so false an intent as if he had used them to forbid an enquiry after mens Doctrine and to oblige us to submit to that which the Church holds without enquiry Whereas not only the case St. Cyprian writes upon is utterly different but even the method he takes in this very Epistle to satisfie Antonian and the connection of his Discourse shew his sense to be as different from what M. Meaux would impose on us as possibly can be For in the beginning of the Epistle he tells him That his careful and Epist 51. ad Anton. solicitous enquiry after the truth was not to be blamed tho' he was in part blamable in that he wavered in the Resolution he had first taken and certified him and Cornelius of that he would not communicate with Novatian After which he proceeds to give him an account of the cause of the Church upon what account they admitted lapsed persons to the Communion which was charged as a crime on the Church by Novatian relating the matter of fact the reasons of it and its consistency with Christian Discipline proving it out of the holy Scriptures Then he further gives account of the Election of Cornelius to the Bishoprick of Rome of his Manners and Life and purges him from the scandal his Adversaries had thrown upon him And then indeed he says As for that which concerns the person of Novatian since you desire to be informed what Heresie he has introduced you must know before all things that we need not curiously enquire what he has taught since he hath taught out of the Church who or what soever he be he can be no Christian being out of the Church of Christ. But in the following words he gives the reason of it because he had broke the Vnity of the Church by ambitiously aspiring to the Bishoprick and getting himself made Bishop by some deserters and to make a greater party setting up several other salse Bishops in those Provinces and Cities wherein were already seated Bishops of an approved Faith and tried Constancy Whereupon he indeed says It was no matter whether Novatian introduced any Heresie or not solong as he was the Author of so great a Schism Whereby it appears that he is far from supposing what M. Meaux pretends he only telling Antonian That it was no matter what Doctrine Novatian taught because he had shewn himself unchristian by breaking the Vnity of the Church and making a Schism without cause So that the case supposed is that of man breaking the Unity of the Church be his Doctrine what it will tho' the same which the Church teaches not a case wherein the Church needs a Reformation and the adverse party has Truth and Scripture of his side as it must have been to be applicable to the Church of Rome and the Reformed It 's true St. Cyprian likewise says The promise of our blessed Saviour to be in the midst where two or three are gathered together supposes them assembled in Christ which he thinks they cannot be whilst they are seperate from the Church of Christ But this is begging the Question to use this against us till it appears that the Church of Rome is the only True Church of Christ But M. Meanx says The Church of which this holy Martyr speaks is that which acknowledges at Rome the head of her Communion and in the Place of Peter the eminent degree of the Sacerdotal Chair which there acknowledges the Chair
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
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
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
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
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