which was the VIIIth after Christ the second Council at Nice which set up the worship of Images past the same condemnation upon him and making mention of the six (Å¿) Act. VII foregoing Councils they confirm and establish all that had been delivered from the beginning only they fraudulently add to bring in their Image worship whether written or unwritten Which made the first alteration in the Doctrine of the Church all the foregoing Councils having derived their Faith wholly from the Scriptures As the following Council at Frankfort did where as the worshipping of Images was condemned so the Holy Scriptures were highly extolled in words which signified they thought them their only safe Directors The thirtieth Chapter of the second Book of the Capitulare of Charles the Great abounds with such expressions as these the Scripture is a Treasure that wants no good but is redundant in all that Good is And in the beginning of the Third Book he and the Fathers there assembled give an account of their Faith in a Creed which they intitule A Confession of the Catholique Faith which we have received from the Holy Fathers which we hold and believe with a pure heart It is that in S. Hierom's Works inscribed Symboli explanatio ad Damasum I. which they thus subscribe This is the true integrity of the Catholique tradition of Faith which we believe and confess with a sincere heart c. This is the true Faith this confession we preserve and hold which whosoever keeps whole and undefiled he shall have everlasting Salvation Thus far therefore they were not got beyond the first Creed of which this is the explanation Nor was John Damascen himself advanced any further but confined his belief to what is contained in the Law and the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (t) L. 1. Orthod Fid. cap. 1. seeking for nothing beyond these For since God is good and envies no body he concludes that he hath revealed there all that is profitable for us and concealed only those things we are not able to bear And therefore let us love saith he these things let us abide in them not removing the Eternal Boundaries nor going beyond the Divine Tradition Which they seem to have preserved without exceeding the ancient limits in the beginning of the Ninth Age. For in a Council at Mentz (u) An. 813. Can. XLV care is taken for teaching the People the Creed which they call signaculum fidei the seal of Faith and the Lords Prayer for which end they are required to send their Children to School or to the Monasteries or their Parish Priests that they might rightly learn the Catholique Faith and the Lords Prayer Hitherto therefore the Catholique Faith was contained in the common Creed which had been from the beginning But towards the latter end of that Age the Council of (x) An. 859. Act. 10. Can. 1. Constantinople which the Roman Church calls the the VIIIth General Council began to talk of the Regulae Patrum the Rules of the Fathers in stead of the ancient word Regula fidei the Rule of Faith which is the Apostles Creed and called them the Secondary Oracles And therefore professed not only to hold all that the Catholique Church received from the Apostles and the General Councils but from any Father or great Doctor in the Church Which was the ready way to change the Faith of the Church and to turn particular Mens Opinions into matter of common belief though no new Article was as yet put into the ancient Creed The two next Ages are acknowledged to be so barbarous by the Writers of the Roman Church that they are ashamed of them and in some Collections they have made of the Councils there is not so much as one mentioned in the Tenth Age. And in the following there were so many frivolous things debated and such Corruptions crept into the Christian Doctrine that they run on very fast to the introducing a new Creed into the Church Yet this is remarkable that in the time of Thomas Aquinas who flourished in the XIIIth Century the Scripture still continued the only Rule of Faith and the Apostles Creed a sufficient summary of the Faith therein contained For in the resolution of this doubt Why should Articles of Faith be put in the Creed since the Scripture is the Rule of Faith to which it is not lawfull to add or from it to substract his Anwer is (y) Secunda 2 â—ae Q. 1. Art. IX ad primum that the Truth of Faith is diffusely and after divers manners and sometimes obscurely contained in Scripture so that long study and exercise is required to find out the truth of Faith there which they that have abundance of business have not leisure to use And therefore it was necessary that out of the sentences of Holy Scripture something manifest and clear should be summarily gathered which should be propounded unto all to be believed Which truly is not added to the Holy Scripture but rather taken out of the Holy Scripture And resolving next of all that doubt There is one Faith as the Apostle saith IV. Ephes but many Creeds his answer is (z) Ib. ad 〈◊〉 that in all the Creeds the same truth of Faith is taught But it was necessary the people should there be instructed more diligently in the truth of Faith where errors sprung up lest the Faith of the simple should be corrupted by Hereticks And this was the Cause why it was needsul to set forth more Creeds which differ in no other thing but this that those things are explained more fully in one which are contained implicitly in another To the same purpose many other of that sort of Writers declare their sense in the following Ages And this also is worthy of great remark that no longer ago than at the Council of Florence begun 1438 which the Greeks call the VIIIth General Council the Authority of the above-named Ephesine Canon about holding to the Nicene Creed was pressed with great earnestness by the Greeks upon the Latins there assembled For they said it was by no means lawful to add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (†) Tom. XIII Lab. Sess X. p. 162. not so much as a syllable nor a phrase nor a word and laid such a weight upon it as to affirm No man will accuse that Faith of imperfection unless he be mad * Ib. p. 163. And they likewise backt it with a passage in a Letter of Pope Celestine to Nestorius †Ib. p. 167. where he saith who is not to be judged worthy of an Anathema that either adds or takes away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that Faith which was delivered by the Apostles requires neither addition nor diminution Unto which the Roman Bishops had nothing to reply but that the Canon did not forbid another exposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consonant to the Truth in that Creed Ib. p. 167. but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any thing that was different or contrary to it Both these they acknowledge to be prohibited in those words No man shall bring in another Faith than that at Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is contrary or opposite or different or diverse or strange from the true Faith. Where it is remarkable a different another Faith is acknowledged to be forbidden as well as a contrary Nay they acknowledge that none but a General Council could make so much as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 another explication of the Articles of that Creed though not different from it In the Creed of the Apostles that is there are some things contained implicitely as Thomas Aquinas you heard speaks and being virtually there either in the Letter or the sence may be drawn from thence by evident consequence such as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Catholique Church which was included in those words I believe the holy Church as this Article is exprest in the old Roman Creed and the like and yet such an explication these Fathers confessed could by no Man no assembly of Men less than an Oecumenical Council be lawfully made and imposed upon the Church For which they quote Aquinas whom †Ib. p. 163. they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there never was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an explication of the Creed but in an Oecumenical Council and he speaks of any Creed whatsoever which was common in the Church And therefore in conclusion they absolutely deny that the Latine Church had added any thing to the Creed For the Nicene and the Constantinopolitan Creed are both one So that the one being read the other is understood For though they differ in words they agree in sense and in truth And the like they affirm of all other Creeds and thereby answer the objection that they had added a word to the Creed about the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son which is true they confessed with respect to the words but not with respect to the sense For still the Creed remains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Ib. p. 170. one and the same though it differ in the words And therefore it follows it was not properly an addition but one and the same thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the exposition of the very self same thing All which I have set down thus largely to show that thus far therefore all things continued as they had done from the beginning that is notwithstanding the new Opinions there were in the Church there was no new Creed made no new Article added to the Creed nothing but what had been so at the first made necessary to Salvation Which is the last thing I observe that till the conclusion of the Council of Trent that is till a little more than an hundred years ago there were no other Creeds but those which we confess and believe in this Church which are the Apostles Creed expounded not inlarged by any new Articles But then indeed Pope Pius IV. in pursuance of the Councils Order framed another Confession of Faith consisting of no less than XII new Articles added to the old never heard of in any Creed throughout the whole Church till this time And it must be called and esteemed a New Faith and it makes that to be a New Church which falsly calls it self the Ancient Catholique Apostolique Church of Christ For it is none of these neither Ancient nor Catholique nor Apostolique but New Roman Tridentine Church derived I mean from the Roman Bishops at Trent It will be fit I think to set down this New Creed that the Reader may compare it with those I have shown were hitherto the intire Faith of the Catholique Church It may be found in several of our Writers but I wish it were in every bodies hand and therefore take the pains to transcribe it for the benefit of those into whose hands this Book shall come Pope PIVS his Creed IN. Believe and profess with a firm Faith all and every thing contained in the Symbol of Faith which the holy Roman Church uses viz. I believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and Earth c. to the end of that we call the Nicene Creed After which immediately follow the New Articles in these words The Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Traditions and the rest of the Observations and Constitutions of the same Church I most firmly admit and embrace I also admit or receive the Holy Scripture according to that sense which the holy Mother Church to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense hath held and doth hold nor will I ever understand and interpret it otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers I profess also that there are truly and properly Seven Sacraments of the New Law instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord and necessary to the Salvation of mankind though not all of them necessary to every Man viz. Baptism Confirmation the Eucharist Pennance Extreme Vnction Orders and Matrimony and that they confer grace and that of these Baptism Confirmation and Orders cannot be repeated without Sacriledge I likewise receive and admit all the received and approved Rites of the Catholique Church in the solemn Administration of all the above-said Sacraments All and every thing which was defined and declared about Original sin and Justification by the most holy Council of Trent I embrace and receive I profess likewise that in the Mass is offered to God a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and dead and that in the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly really and substantially the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and that there is a conversion made of the whole substance of Bread into his Body and of the whole substance of Wine into his Blood which conversion the Catholique Church calls TRANSUBSTANTIATION I confess also that under either kind or species only whole and intire Christ and the true Sacrament is received I constanly hold there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are helpt by the suffrages of the faithful As also that the Saints who Reign together with Christ are to be worshipped and invocated and that they offer Prayers to God for us and that their Reliques are to be venerated I most firmly assert that the Images of Christ and the Mother of God the always-Virgin as also of other Saints are to be had and retained and due honour and veneration to be bestowed on them I affirm also that the power of Indulgences was left by Christ in his Church and that their use is most wholesom to Christian People I acknowledge the holy Catholique and Apostolique Roman Church to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and I promise and swear true Obedience to the Bishop of Rome Successor of S. Peter the Prince of Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ All the rest also
delivered defined and declared by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils especially by the most holy Synod of Trent I receive and profess without doubt and likewise all things contrary and whatsoever Heresies condemned rejected and anathematized by the Church I in like manner condemn reject and Anathematize This true Catholique Faith without which no Man can be saved which at present I freely profess and truly hold I will most constantly retain and confess intire and inviolable by God's help to my last breath and take care as much as lies in me that it be held taught and preached by my Subjects or those whose care belongs to me in my Office. I the aforesaid N. Promise Vow and Swear So help me God and these holy Gospels This Bull as they call it bears date on the Ides of November 1564. and concludes in the usual manner with threats of the indignation of God and of his blessed Apostles S. Peter and Paul against all that shall inrringe or oppose it And every Reader I suppose discerns that this is not meerly a confession of Faith but likewise a solemn Oath And so the Title of it bears A Bull concerning a form of an Oath of profession of Faith. Which Oath all Ecclesiastical Persons whether Secular or Regular as they distinguish them and all Military Orders are bound to take And it is as easie to observe that this is perfectly New both as an Oath and as a profession of Faith. Never was there any such Creed imposed before or so much as framed much iess tyed upon Men by an Oath For when these Fathers met at Trent and were to make a profession of Faith by rehearsing the Creed which the Roman Church uses (a) Sess III. so the words are they could find none to profess but the Nicene Creed no larger Creed was in use no not there in the Roman Church but these very Men who afterward turned New Creed-makers were forced to be content with that And therefore this new Profession is most impudently pretended to be the true Catholique Faith being in no sense Catholique neither as to place nor time For it was no where used till they made it no not there nor is now every where believed and was not at all believed in any Church for above 1500 Years nor now used in that Church it self when they admit Members into the Catholique Church by Baptism but they are put into a state of Salvation by believing as before the old Nicene Creed alone Which is direct contradiction to their new Creed which they make necessary to Salvation but can never show to be contained implicitely in the old For it is as impossible to draw Water out of a Pumice as to extract out of the Apostles Creed the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Worshipping of Images Seven Sacraments the Traditions and other Constitutions used in the Roman Church Which was never so much as thought to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches or to have power to impose new Articles upon the whole Church especially such large ones as take in all the definitions of that Council of Trent which they themselves are not agreed to this day how to expound Nor had that Synod if these Articles could have been shown to be contained in the old Creed any power to explain it and declare them according to what they confessed at the Florentine Council being far from a General Council no not of these Western parts of the World. And clearly showed it self to be but a factious Party in the Church by that very Explication which they made of this Article the holy Catholique Church which they thus expound the holy Catholique Apostolique Roman Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches For it is certain the Apostles could not intend the Roman Church should be comprehended under the Catholique Church any more than every other Church which was then or should be hereafter because it was not in being there was no Roman Church at all when notwithstanding the Church was Catholique And hereby Salvation is impiously confined to the Roman Church alone by making the Catholique Church of no larger extent than that And this against the resolution of their greatest Doctors who think it no matter of Faith to be perswaded that the Apostolique See is fixed to Rome Which Bellarmine (b) L. IV. de Pont. Romano cap. 4. proves from hence because neither Scripture nor Tradition affirm it Nay if Christ had bidden Peter to place his See at Rome he doth not think it would follow that he placed it there immoveably And therefore no Man according to their own sense is bound to believe the Apostolical Church cannot be separated from the Roman which if it should happen and the Apostolick See be removed suppose to Paris the Creed must be altered again and it must run thus I believe the holy Catholique and Apostolique Parisian Church the Mother and Mistress of all Churches In which latter part of the Exposition to this Article they force Men to swear to a downright falshood For if the Roman Church be the Mother of all Churches she must be the Mother of her Grand-mother the Church of Jerusalem And it is no truer that she is the Mistress of all Churches For all Churches were not taught the Faith by her nor do they own her Authority over them But it is time to draw to an end of this matter We in this Church of England have always professed and preserved a true reverence to the IV. first General Councils One or rather two of which hath forbidden under the greatest penalties any Man to produce or compose or offer any other Faith besides that established by the Fathers at Nice which Theodoret (c) L. I. Hist Eccla c. 7. L. II. c. 22. L. IV. c. 2. in innumerable places calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Exposition of Faith and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Faith expounded the Apostolical Faith explained And therefore even for this reason alone we cannot receive the Creed of this Council at Trent which is manifestly another Faith added to the Confession of the Nicene Creed which old Creed it is madness as the Greeks at Florence said to think insufficient For it is to think they were all damned for 1500 Years and more who knew nothing beyond this necessary to be believed which no Man in his wits can believe For it is contrary to the very Faith it self which teaches us as Tertullian speaks to believe this in the first place that there is nothing to be believed beyond this And we believe so with the greatest reason because to admit any other Articles of Faith is to make endless Schisms in the Church as to believe contrary Articles is to fall into dangerous Heresies We know not where to stay if we rest not here for by the same Authority that made these more additions may be made continually without end There is therefore no such Authority in the Church that can do this
XX. Act. 28. that the Holy Ghost had made them overseers to feed that is to rule and govern the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own Blood. And if they knew this why were they not so honest as to interpret the later by the former for there is no difference between S. Paul's words and the counterfeit S. Ambrose's S. Paul saith the Elders of Ephesus were appointed to rule the Church of God for that 's the office of a Shepherd that feeds the Flock the other saith Damasus was the ruler of God's Church If the Vniversal Church be thereby meant and not his part of it only why should it not be so expounded in the words of S. Paul and then Damasus his title to this office is crackt for there were Rulers then set over the Church Vniversal by the Holy Ghost before he or his Church of Rome perhaps was in being But if S. Paul's words must have a more limited meaning then with what conscience do they give their S. Ambrose's words an unlimited and not restrain them as they must do S. Paul's to the particular See committed to his Government And it was not easie for them to be ignorant that S. Paul in these words to Timothy speaks of the Church of Ephesus and not of Rome and was so far from having any thought of S. Peter whom these Annotators make the Ruler at that time of this House of God that it is evident Timothy was the person who presided in it and was the chief Pillar and Ground of Truth here spoken of as I doubt not I have proved in the insuing Discourse Wherein I have also shewn that other succeeding Bishops in other Churches had the same title nay many persons in the Church that were no Bishops who were far from thinking themselves or being thought by others infallible as these Annotators imagine they must needs be who are the Pillar and establishment of the Truth That 's an inference from these words for which they had no more warrant than they had to intitle S. Ambrose to those Commentaries The Author of which also did so little dream of the Infallibility of the Church when he glossed upon these words that he doth not so much as make the Church the Ground or establishment of the Truth But saith in plain terms Firmamentum as the Vulgar Latine translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hujus veritatis signa sunt prodigia the establishment of this Truth left in the Church are signs and wonders which the Apostles that is wrought to bring Men to the firm belief of that truth which they preached Which doth not rely therefore upon the credit of the Church but upon the credit of the Apostles and of those Divine Works whereby God bare Witness to them which are recorded in the Holy Scriptures From whence alone we ought to derive our knowledge of the Truth the Apostle here speaks of as is most clearly resolved by S. Cyril of Hierusalem in these memorable words (l) Catech. IV. Sect. de Spirito Saycto Concerning the Divine and Holy Mysteries of the Faith we ought not to deliver any thing though never so small without the Divine Scriptures c. neither shouldst thou believe me barely saying these things to thee unless thou receivest the demonstration of the things published out of the Divine Scriptures For this is the safety or security of our Faith which depends not upon words that we invent but upon the demonstration of the Divine Scriptures In which we hear our Lord Christ himself speaking to us who is more to be believed than the Church For the Church as S. Paul speaks is subject unto Christ they are the words of S. Augustine (m) Tom. VII Coura Crisconium Gram. l. 2. c. 21. and therefore the Church ought not to set her self above Christ so as to think that they who are condemned by him may be baptized but they that are condemned by the Church may not be baptized when he always judges truly but Ecclesiastical Judges being Men are oft-times deceived From them therefore who are fallible we appeal to Him who is infallible and hath delivered his sentence in the Holy Scriptures or from a Church particular we appeal to the Church Catholique nay from the New Church of Rome to the Old. For we are not as they would make the World believe affrighted with the Name of the Church whose judgment we truly honour as will appear in this Treatise while they dishonour it by confining the Church to themselves and then exalting it above the Scriptures of Truth and making its mere Name serve to dazzle the eyes of their own People and to keep them in profound ignorance teaching them (n) 〈…〉 in XII Luke 11. to oppose the Name of a Catholique Man and the Catholique Church as a sufficient answer to all that we most reasonably object against them Thus in their own conceit it is a kind of Gorgon's head which they fansie will immediately stupify us when it is opposed to us but blessed be God we are still in our Wits and understand very well that this is no better than his old Artifice who invented this cheat as S. Cyprian (o) L. de Vnitate Ecclesie speaks of deceiving unwary Souls by the very Title of the Christian Name For just so they now abuse the Name of Church and the name of Catholique and by good words and fine speeches as S. Paul writes XVI Rom. 18. deceive the hearts of the simple Whom I have endeavoured in this small Treatise to undeceive and direct in the way of that TRVTH of which every Church ought to be the Pillar and Ground If any one be not but in stead of the certain constant universally received Christian Truth set up uncertain nay false lately invented and particular conceits of its own it is not to be relied on but rejected though it hath been formerly a Church of never so great Authority Such the Church of Rome once was but now ceases so to be having by taking upon her too much lost that regard which otherwise it might have had in the Christian World. It is not the same Church it was in the Apostles times no nor in the days of Gregory the Great as hath been unanswerably demonstrated by Bp. Morton heretofore (p) Catholique Appeal L. 1. cap. 2. and lately by the Author of the Vindication of the Answer of some late Papers to which there will never be an ingenuous Reply Great and many alterations have been made therein to the manifest prejudice of the Christian Faith of which that Church should have been as well as others a Pillar and Establishment but hath notoriously failed in her duty by inventing another Faith which undermines and endangers that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Of this I have given so full and so clear an account in these Papers that I fear not to expose them to the examination of them that are of
he that can say but a little doth take away or make it less Which is such a plain declaration that the Creed contains the whole Apostolical Tradition or Faith for they are the same in his Language and the only Catholique Doctrine that if we were at this day to contrive words on purpose for the asserting this Truth we could not invent any more full or express than these Which show us that this Faith is sufficient not only for the ignorant the Catechumens and beginners in Religion but for the most improved in Christian knowledge for those that instructed and ruled the Church who had no Authority to preach or impose any other belief This is a thing that runs through his whole Book for he repeats it again in fewer words in the latter end of the next Chapter that the true Church hath but that one and the same Faith before mentioned throughout the whole World. Which in the 19th Chapter he calls the Rule of Truth by which all error was discovered for holding this rule though they speak very various and many things we easily evince that they have deviated from the Truth And again in the third Book (g) L. III. Chap. 3. he hath recourse to the same Rule of Truth unto which whosoever will hearken may see what is the tradition of the Apostles manifested in the whole World in every Church Where he saith they were able to tell what Bishops were settled by the Apostles and their Successors untill his time who neither taught nor thought of any thing like to the dotages of the Hereticks of those days And because it would have been too long to reckon up all the Churches he instances in the Church of Rome to which all had occasion to go upon some business or other because it was the Imperial City by whose Bishop he saith that Tradition and that Preaching or Doctrine of Truth which was from the Apostles in the Church is come to us and is a most full proof that one and the same life giving faith which was from the Apostles in the Church is conferred to this time and delivered in Truth The very same which Polycarp wrote to the Philippians mark these words which they of the present Roman Church are wont to conceal that they may make the World believe Irenaeus thought the Tradition of the Apostles that is the Christian Faith was to be sought only in their Church and which was in the Church of Ephesus founded by Paul and having John continuing in it till the time of Trajan which Church is a true witness of the Tradition of the Apostles And that there may be no mistake about this Tradition L. III. Cap. 4. he repeats it again in the next Chapter and informs us in very remarkable words it was nothing else but the Doctrine contained in the Creed Since these things are so plain we ought not to seek further among others for truth which we may easily find in the Church For the Apostles left most fully in it as in a rich Repository all things that belong to truth So that every one who will may take from thence the Water of Life c. out of the Holy Scriptures he means as appears by what follows And suppose the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures shall we not follow the Order of the Tradition or Rule of Faith which they delivered to those unto whom they committed the Churches To which Ordination many barbarous Nations who believe on Christ assent having the Doctrine of Salvation without Paper and Ink written by the Spirit in their Heart and diligently preserving the ANCIENT TRADITION believing in one God the maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things which are therein by Christ Jesus the Son of God Who out of his most eminent love to his Creature vouchsafed to be born of the Virgin uniting Man to God by himself and suffering under Pontius Pilate and rising again and being illustriously received in glory shall come again the Saviour of those that are saved and the Judge of those that are judged Sending into eternal fire the misshapers of Truth and the contemners of his Father and of his coming Those that have believed this Faith without Letters we in our Language call barbarous but as to their opinion and custom and conversation they please God because of their Faith by which they are most wise living in all Righteousness Chastity and Wisdom Vnto whom if any one should speak in their Language those things which Hereticks have invented they would presently stop their ears and run away not induring to hear the blasphemy Thus by that OLD TRADITION of the Apostles viz. the Creed they do not so much as admit into their thoughts the portentous talk of those Hereticks in his days These things I have thought fit to set down the more largely because they are an evident demonstration what the OLD TRADITION of the Apostles is which is nothing else but that summary of Christian Truth contained in the Creed unto which they would suffer no other Tradition to be added but contented themselves with this as fully sufficient and by this judged of all other things that pretended to come from the Apostles and were every where so well instructed in this that in those Churches which as yet had not received the Apostolical Writings the Holy Scriptures of the N. T. they had this Doctrine as the contents of those Scriptures and were thought most wise being wise enough to salvation in this faith alone without any other But because this is such a very important Truth I shall take a little more pains to set down the sense of the Church in all Ages concerning it that the Reader may be satisfied there is no other Truth but this alone which is absolutely necessary to his Salvation Which they sometime comprehend in fewer words but never add any one article beyond those in the Creed If we had the Letters of Ignatius intire and sincere we should be able to tell what he took for Truth immediately after the Apostles were dead And thus much is evident from them as they now are that they or he who contrived the Epistle to the Philippians under his name for it is not thought to be his took this to be the Doctrine of that Second Age when after the mention of the Doctrine of the Trinity and that the Son of God was truly made Man truly born and truly crucified dead and rose again not seemingly not in appearance only but in Truth they make him conclude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that believes these things as they are and were really done is a blessed Man. Which is an undoubted testimony they took this Creed to be sufficient to salvation which Ignatius in an unquestioned Epistle of his to the Church of Smyrna calls the unmoveable Faith wherein he blessed God they were perfected or knit together mentioning no other Articles but those before named Polycarp also in the same
or Laick anathematized Justinian himself also in his Epistle to the Bishops at Constantinople (l) In Collatione I. quintae Syn. takes special notice how the Fathers in the Council at Chalcedon anathematized those who had delivered or do deliver any other Creed but that which was expounded by the 318 Holy Fathers and explained by the 150 Fathers that is the Apostles Creed expounded by the two first General Councils at Nice and Constantinople For we * Tom. V. Labb Edit p. 422. would have you know saith he that those things which were expounded and defined by the four holy Councils of Nice Constantinople Ephesus the first and Chalcedon concerning ONE AND THE SAME FAITH we keep and defend and follow them and all that are consonant to them And whatsoever is not consonant to this or may be found by any person written against those things which were defined concerning ONE AND THE SAME FAITH in those four Councils or in one of them that we execrate as altogether abhorrent from Christian piety And this Emperor was no mean Divine though Baronius is pleased to slander him as illiterate and presumptuous for medling in matters of Faith for Pope Agatho himself and the whole sixth General Council who approved of Agatho's Letter (m) Cont. VI. Act. 4. put him in the rank of the most excellent Fathers and Ecclesiastick Writers For to prove out of the Fathers two Natures in Christ he tells Constantine Pogonatus that S. Cyril S. Chrysostome and a great many other Bishops whom he names taught this praeomnibus c. and above all these that zealous defender of the true and Apostolick Faith Justinian the Emperor of pious memory whose integrity of Faith did as much exalt the Christian Commonwealth as by the sincerity thereof it was pleasing to God c. which is enough to make the defenders of the present Roman Church blush at the insincerity of their great Annalist who makes this Emperor to have been a perfect block not past his A. B. C. (n) Ad At. 528. n. 2.551 n. 2. and many other places whom one of their own Popes who lived in the next age to him and is Sainted by them makes equal to say no more unto S. Chrysostome and the greatest Bishops that had been in the Church I might add the praises which Pope Gregory the great gives of him in many places but I shall rather observe how he in the later end of this Age concurrs with him and with the forenamed Councils in this opinion that no other Faith but this was to be admitted For giving an account of his Faith (o) L. I. Epist 24. as the manner was upon his advancement to the Papacy and speaking of the four first General Councils in so high a Style that he professed to receive and reverence them as the four Books of the Holy Gospel he gives this reason for it because on these as one a square stone the structure of the Holy Faith ariseth and the rule of every ones life and action consists So that whosever doth not hold this solid ground although he appear a Stone yet he lies out of the building After which words he also professes his veneration of the fifth Council and approves of all that they ordained This custom in the Roman Church particularly of giving an account of their Faith to their Brethren when they were newly advanced to the Priesthood is mentioned by Pope Gelasius (p) Epist 2. ad Laurentium Epise and seems to have been begun upon occasion of the great factions which were raised against the Council of Chalcedon Whereupon Childerick King of France as soon as Pelagius was advanced to the See of Rome upon the death of Vigilius whose sentence had been condemned as heretical in the 5th Council desired to know if he held the definition of the Council of Chalcedon which contained the Nicene Constantinopolian and Ephesine Faith unto which he answered in a Letter which is in the body of the Canon Law (q) Decret pars 2. Causa XXV q. 1. c. X. that he received the definitions of the 4. General Councils concerning the Catholique Faith and then having rehearsed the Creed I believe in one Lord Father and Son and Holy Ghost viz. the Father Almighty c. he thus concludes This therefore is my Faith and the hope which is in me by the gift of the mercy of God of which S. Peter commands us to be ready to answer to every one who asks a reason or an account of us From which it appears sufficiently that they had no other account to give of their Faith in those days than that which we now give in our Church who believe all that they did then and believe as they did that nothing more is necessary to be believed But it will be usefull if I give a brief account also of the sence of the following Ages in this matter And in the VII Age Pope Agatho before mentioned sent a Synodical Epistle from himself and 125 Bishops assembled at Rome to the 6th General Council held also at Constantinople in which there is a confession of their Faith which they say they were taught by the Apostolical and Evangelical Tradition which consists of no more Articles than are in the foregoing Creeds It is inserted into the Acts of that General Council (r) Sess IV. Sextae Syn. wherein those Creeds were again recited and confirmed in the same words and under the same penalties as in the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon with a severe prohibition of so much as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a new manner of speech or invention of a word to the subversion of what was then determined Which was done more largely in the Council immediately following called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being a kind of supplement to the former sitting in the same place where it was decreed in the very first Canon that the Faith delivered by the Ministers of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the divinely chosen Apostles who were eye witnesses to him should be preserved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any innovation immutably and inviolably And then they ratify distinctly the Decrees of the Nicene Council and the other five following General Councils which they name in order with the occasion of them and conclude with these words We neither intend to add any thing at all to what was formerly defined nor to take away any thing nor can we by any means do it In these two Councils Pope Honorius was condemned as an Heretick which I mention only for this reason that the ground of his condemnation was because he had consented to the defiling of the undefiled Rule of Apostolical Tradition viz. the Creed They are the words of Pope Leo the second who receiving the Acts of the sixth Synod which were transmitted to him anathematized Honorius because he had not adorned that Apostolical Church with the Doctrine of Apostolical Tradition In the next Age
discourses in that very Book against Manichaeus (q) Cap. XIV contra Epist quam vocant Fundamenti his Letter from whence the fore-named saying I had not believed the Gospel unless the Churches Authority had moved me to it is wont at every turn to be objected to us by those of the Romish perswasion Thou dost nothing but praise what thou believest and deride what I believe Now since I can be even with thee and do the very same praise what I believe and deride what thou believest what is to be done but that we leave and relinquish those who invite us to know things certain and afterwards require us to believe things uncertain let those of the Roman Church mark this and that we follow them who invite us first to believe that which we cannot yet see into that being made stronger in the Faith it self we may come to understand what we believe NOT MEN NOW BUT GOD HIMSELF INWARDLY ESTABLISHING AND ILLUMINATING OUR MIND It is impossible to read this passage and not see that this Father thought our Faith is not ultimately resolved into the Testimony of the Church but by that being invited to believe the Holy Scriptures we are established upon the serious reading of them in the Christian Faith and Knowledge of the Truth by God himself Upon whose Word in the Holy Scripture and not upon Men we bottom our Faith. Upon the Testimony and Authority of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Testimony of divine Men inspired by them who by Miracles and Signs and mighty Deeds and a prophetical Spirit proved themselves to be sent of God and have left his Mind and Will upon Record in the Scriptures of Truth Which the Church indeed in all parts of the World hath kept and preserved and faithfully transmitted down to us and now propounds to our Faith but it is not merely what the Church saith that makes us believe but what God himself saith in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ saith concerning his rising from the Dead and sending the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles Which being fulfilled evidently proved him to be the Son of God the Saviour of the World and them to be his Apostles and Ministers who declared to Men the true way of Salvation So the Church directs and guides us to the Scriptures of Truth but they resolve and assure our Faith being the very Word of God. The authority of God's Church is the first motive which leads us to esteem the Scriptures but being led thither we find in the matter of them that which gives us full satisfaction by bestowing our pains in reading or hearing and considering the Mysteries contained therein The Church holds out this light to us but it is by this light that we see what is the mind and will of God. To this the Church points us and bids us attend to it for this it disposes and prepares us it leads us by the hand to this as the only sure foundation of our Faith because herein we find God himself speaking to us and moreover by the Ministery of the Church we are assisted in understanding the sence of the Holy Scriptures but they contain in themselves that Divine Authority and Truth whereby we come to a certain Faith. The Church tells us such and such things are true and we find them to be so by examining the Scriptures Which the Beraeans searched daily whether those things were so which the Apostles preached and therefore many of them believed not merely because the Apostles told them they ought so to do but because they found what they said in the Holy Scriptures XVII Act. 11 12. And so far as any Church speaks according to the truth contained therein it is to be believed and followed But if it bring no Divine word for its warrant if it propound other Doctrines which are not there it hath no authority to make such Doctrines the matter of our Faith much less to set up its own authority above the Scriptures as they do who say The Scriptures receive their authority from the Church Which is the Doctrine of no less Men than Baronius and Bellarmine to name no more The former of (r) Ad Annum 53 〈◊〉 X XI which argues that because we receive these Holy Books to be writings of the Apostles and Evangelists and not forged under their Names upon the testimony of the Church therefore all the writings of the New Testament received their authority from the Churches tradition which is fundamentum Scripturarum as he ventures to say the foundation of the Scriptures The other (s) L. 2. de Sacrament C. 25. Tertium is no less positive that if we take away the authority of the present Church and the present Council we call in doubt the whole Christian Faith. For the firmness of all ancient Councils and of all Doctrines depends upon the authority of the present Church This is very presumptuous talk for by the Church they mean themselves and then by the testimony of the Church that is their own testimony they mean such a Divine witness as assures us by its own authority without any other proof Which are the great points of difference between us in this matter For we assert first that the office of leading Men to the Holy Scriptures and so to Faith belongs to every Church as much as to them and secondly that no Church can bring People to Faith by its own testimony and authority but by the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures nor is any Church whatsoever to be heard in matters of Divine Truth further than it can prove its Doctrines by the authority of God's Word and teaches things agreeable thereunto II. Which leads to the Second thing briefly to shew what power and authority the Church cannot pretend unto in matters of Faith. 1. And first it appears by what hath been said that it hath not a Soveraign Absolute Prophetical authority independent upon the Rule of the Holy Scriptures so that we must take whatsoever it saith for true without consulting them This is the ambitious pretence of the great Doctors of the Roman Church who give the Church meaning thereby the present Roman Church an authority over all things not depending on the Scriptures but upon which the Scriptures themselves depend So that without the authority of this Church all truth is doubtful Which is a manifest principle of Infidelity making all Religion stand to the courtesie of a company of Men who in such matters are the least to be trusted of all other Christians that we are acquainted withall 2. The Church hath no authority to propound any Doctrine as necessary to Salvation which is not delivered in the Holy Scriptures but depends solely on the authority of its own Tradition This is another of their ambitious attempts who having arrogated to themselves alone the whole power of the Church make that power so unlimited that it can supply the
defects of the Scripture and make things unwritten to become matters of Faith. Which is such an unbounded Prerogative that we may have a new Faith as often as they please to pretend a Tradition for it though they cannot prove it For we must rest in the authority of the present Church which affirms it and that against the very Scripture it self which tells us it is able to make a Man of God perfect and against the testimony of the Universal Church which I have shown forbids the producing of any other Faith but that which was evidently delivered by the Apostles there 3. We cannot allow the Church an Infallible authority that is such an assistance in her Doctrines and proposals that she cannot err in any thing she defines In Controversies indeed arising about matters of Faith we own and reverence the authority of the Church (t) Artic. XX. so as not to contest the publique judgement but to prefer it before our own private conceits in doubtful things But as it ought to proceed in its determinations by the Rule of Gods word So we think it possible it may mistake in the application of this Rule and therefore we do not blindly resign our selves to its authority without all regard to the Holy Scriptures unto which the Church ought to have a respect in all its determinations No that 's another proud pretence of the present Roman Church that they cannot mistake in their definitions and therefore we must submit unto them without examination From whence this intollerable mischief hath insued that it hath made them both insensible of their errors and careless to seek any cure of them nay utterly incapable of a remedy For as one of our own Divines excellently speaks (u) Dr. Petter's Answer to Charity mistaken Sect. 5. whose words those are this conceit of their Infallibility is to them both a sufficient reason for that which is most unreasonable and a sufficient answer to that which is most unanswerable To this they retreat upon all occasions when they are not able to maintain their ground they have no other way to defend their errors when they are plainly set before their eyes but to tell us confidently they cannot err Which is a very strange boldness for we demonstrate in manay instances that they have erred erred most grosly particularly in this that they have added new Articles to the old Creed to be believed under pain of Damnation and added a new Canon of Scripture to the Old Testament against the clearest evidence in the Records of the Universal Church that the Books they have newly received were never acknowledged for Canonical Scripture If by the Church indeed they would understand the Church truly Catholique the whole Body of Christ in all times places and ages and if by matters of Faith they would understand those grand Articles which I have mentioned in the first part of this Discourse and if by being Infallible they would understand not an absolute impossibility of erring which humane nature is not capable of but not actual error there are none of us make any question but the Church is Infallible That is the whole Church hath not erred nor shall not err in the whole Faith or in any necessary part thereof for such error would cut Men off from Christ the head and so leave him no Church at all which is impossible It hath been the very scope of first my Discourse to show that the Church hath always kept the great fundamental truths of our Religion and not erred in them but transmitted them down to us whole and undefiled till the Church of Rome in the Council of Trent corrupted the Faith by their errors which they have mixed with it For to a particular Church such as that of Rome is we cannot allow this priviledge of not erring because we know they have erred even in fundamental Truths and thereby ceased to be Churches Witness those glorious Churches to which Christ himself sent his Letters by S. John the Apostle These Prerogatives therefore not belonging to any Church every one must be content with those two Offices before mentioned which are sufficient First The Office of a Witness testifying the authority of the Holy Scriptures unto its members Secondly of Gods instrument by whose Ministry in opening expounding and urging the Holy Scriptures the Holy Ghost begets a divine Faith in us And by performing these Offices it supports and continues and propagates the Truth and so may be called the Pillar and Ground thereof The meaning of which I shall now distinctly set before the Readers eyes that I may give a short account of the fourth and last thing propounded in the beginning IV. How the Church may appropriate to it self this Title 1. First Every Church and every person in it especially the Bishops and Pastors are the Pillar and Ground of Truth officio by Duty and Office whereby they are obliged to keep maintain and uphold the Truth This always was and always will be incumbent on them which is sufficient to fill up the sense of such attributes as these which do not always note performance of Duty but only obligation to it As when our Saviour saith to his Disciples Ye are the salt of the Earth it doth not signifie that they were necessarily so for he supposes immediately the salt might lose its savour but that they ought to be so and if they were not so would be good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot Matth. V. 13. 2. But Secondly The first Churches of Christ in the Apostles times were actu effectu actually and effectually the Pillar of Truth that is they faithfully discharg'd this Office and perform'd their Duty constantly maintaining the Truth as it is in Christ in its purity and simplicity For the Apostles were a part of those Churches whom God led into all Truth which they taught sincerely and intirely while they lived and do at this day instruct us in the Holy Scriptures in the whole Truth necessary to our Salvation 3. But we cannot say the same of all succeeding Churches that they did faithfully perform this office though in duty they also were bound so to do No some of them were so far from being Pillars of the Truth that they let it fall to the ground We have strange instances of it with which I shall not fill these Papers in the History of the Church which show us that if we take not heed to our selves and the Doctrine that is delivered to us we have no security that we or any other particular Church shall continue firm and stedfast supporters of the Truth For Pillars themselves may decay and if they be not well lookt after will go to ruin and fall to the Earth 4. Even this very Church of Ephesus which was a Pillar and Ground of Truth while Timothy presided in it afterward began before all the Apostles were dead to remit its first love and zeal for
shows that the Ancient Christians lookt upon the Church as the Pillar and Ground of Truth no other ways but as it professes preaches establishes and keeps up the Doctrine of Christ and of his Apostles recorded in the Holy Scriptures unto all which they indifferently apply these words of S. Paul which are thought immediately to speak of the Church which supports the Truth delivered in the Holy Scriptures from Christ and from his Apostles Upon which account the Creed also which is a comprehensive breviary of the great Scripture Doctrines is wont to have the same attribute given to it Particularly by Epiphanius (m) In Exposit fidei Cathol n. 19. who calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Pillar as the Greek word signifies in good Authors or prop of Truth c. our life our hope and the assurance of immortality And by S. Austin (n) De Symbolo ad Catechum L. III. C. 1. who tells the Catechumens in his Exposition of the Creed to them that it is fidei Catholicae fundamentum c. the Foundation of the Catholique Faith upon which the edifice of the Church arose built by the hands of the Apostles and Prophets Which hath made some learned Men (o) Jo. Camer Jac. Capellus refer these words of S. Paul not to what goes before but to the words following making a full stop at God and then beginning a new sentence in this manner The Pillar and Ground of the Truth and without Controversie great is the mystery of godliness c. which reading is countenanced by a Greek Edition of the New Testament at Basil 1540. where the words are so pointed as if the sence were this God incarnate and the great Truths depending thereupon ought to be the very Foundation of the Doctrine thou preachest The Doctrines of the Creed that is are the very Foundation and Pillars of the Christian Faith as the Jews it is known call the great principle of their Religion the Foundation of the Foundation the Pillar of Wisdom as Maimon speaks when he treats of this matter Stick close therefore to the Holy Scriptures and to these Articles of the Faith in the Apostles Creed which are the fundamental truths of Christianity it appears by what I have now said by which the Church maintains and defends the Truth and the Truth upholds the Church and we defend both Hold this fast as the ground of all and likewise lay up the word of God in your heart that it may setle there and take root and bring forth fruit unto Holiness that your end may be everlasting Life Make the Holy Scriptures your Rule and trust to them according to what the Son of Sirach saith of its ancient Books Ecclus XXXIII 3. A Man of understanding trusts in the Law and the Law is faithful to him as an Oracle or as the asking of Vrim That is here he may enquire and have a certain answer which will not deceive him Show your selves such Men of understanding as to enquire no where else And if any Church or Person would have you enquire of them only take that for an undoubted proof they are not to be trusted If they would not guide you by the Holy Scriptures that is by Christ the way as you have seen who hath shown us no where else that we know of what we ought to believe if they would have you follow their ungrounded Traditions whereby they would inlarge your Creed beyond the ancient bounds know that you ought not to follow them nor be led by them For such may soon cease to be the pillars and supporters of the Truth because they leave that whereby they should support it and place themselves whom they call the Church in the stead of it An evident sign they are not what they pretend for the Church it self ought to be demonstrated by the Scriptures So S. Austin (p) L. de Vnitate Ecclesiae cap. XVI tells the Donatists in those known words which are worthy to be preserved in remembrance Setting aside all such things as these which he had said they could likewise alledge let them demonstrate their Church if they can not in the discourses and rumours of the Africans not in the Councils of their Bishops not in the Letters of any disputers whatsoever not in signs and fallacious wonders for we are prepared and rendred cautious against these by the word of the Lord but in the prescript of the Law in the predictions of the Prophets in the Songs of the Psalms in the words of the SHEPHERD himself i. e. Christ in the preachings and labours of the Evangelists that is in all the Canonical authorities of the holy Books Let this be done so as not to gather and relate those things which are obscurely or ambiguously or figuratively spoken there which every one may interpret as he pleases according to his own sense For such things cannot be rightly understood and expounded unless those things which are most clearly spoken be first held by a firm Faith. This is the very sense of the Church of England which teaches all her members first to hold by a firm Faith those things which are clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures and by them to understand and expound those things that are more obscurely delivered believing nothing to be necessary which is not read therein nor may be proved thereby nor receiving the Doctrines and Decrees of any Church unless it may be declared that they be taken from thence For haec sunt causae nostrae documenta haec fundamenta haec firmamenta as he there speaks you heard before These are the proofs of our Cause these are its foundations these are its supports And therefore as he also speaks in another Chapter of the same Book (q) Cap. III. de Vnitate Ecclesiae which he begins thus Let us not hear such speeches as these These things say I Those things sayest thou but let us hear These things saith the LORD These are certainly Books of the Lord to whose authority we both consent we both believe we both obey There let us seek the Church there let us discuss our Cause And let us not so much as think of looking after any other Articles of Faith but those which were from the beginning which our Church firmly believes in the three Creeds Nice-Creed Athanasius and that commonly called the Apostles (r) Article VIII because they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture For after the Faith confessed and sworn in Baptism as S. Hilary (ſ) Ad Constantium August speaks we ought not quicquam aliud vel ambigere vel innovare either to doubt or innovate any other thing It is absurd that is to doubt whether this be sufficient or to add any other to it as if this were not enough So he interprets it a little after Faith is still inquired after as if there were no Faith already Faith is to be written as if it were not in the
Age wrote an Epistle to the Philippians wherein they that had a mind and took care of their salvation L. III. Cap. 3.4 Euseb Hist L. IV. c. 14. might learn the character of his Faith and the Doctrine of Truth which was the very same as Irenaeus relates in the forenamed Chapter with that set down by him which he calls that one and only Truth which he received from the Apostles and delivered to the Church And what they taught in Asia and Irenaeus in France that Tertullian in the latter end of the same Age taught in Africk that there is but one only immoveable irreformable Rule of Faith (h) L. de Velandis Virg. C. 1. that is there is no other form of believing but this as de la Cerda honestly interprets the word irreformabilis in one God Almighty the Creator of the World and in his Son Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary crucified under Pontius Pilate raised the third day from the dead received up into Heaven and sitting now at the right hand of the Father and shall come to judge the quick and the dead by the resurrection also of the Flesh This he calls in that place the Law of Faith which he sets down in more words in another Book where he Prefaces to it by this remarkable proposition as he calls it (i) L. de praescription c. 9. that there is one and the same certain Doctrine instituted by Christ which all people ought to believe and consequently to seek that when they have found it they may believe Now the inquisition of one certain appointment cannot be infinite which is an incouragement to seek till one find and believe when he hath found because there remains saith he Nothing more but to preserve and keep what thou hast believed For thou believest this also that there is nothing else to be believed And therefore no further inquiry to be made when thou hast found and believed that which was appointed by him who did not command thee to enquire after any thing but what he appointed Upon which principle having a little further enlarged he proceeds to lay down the (k) Ib. Chap. XIII Rule of Faith that one certain appointment which if one believe there is nothing else to be believed whereby we believe there is one God alone and no other but the Creator of the World who made all things of nothing by his Word emitted before all things That Word called his Son seen variously in the name of GOD by the Patriarchs heard in the Prophets and at last brought down by the Spirit and power of God the Father into the Virgin Mary made flesh in her Womb and born of her became Jesus Christ and thereupon preached the new Law and the new promise of the Kingdom of Heaven wrought miracles was crucified rose the third day was taken up into Heaven sitteth at the right hand of the Father sent the vicarious power of the Holy Spirit who works in believers shall come in glory to take holy persons to the enjoyment of eternal Life and the celestial promises and to condemn the prophane to everlasting fire both parties being raised up again with the restoring of the flesh This is the Rule about which he there saith there are no questions the Rule in which Faith intirely consists that Faith which will save a Man unto which curiosity ought to yeild for to know nothing against the Rule is to know all things And beyond this Rule he there expresly argues (l) Ib. Cap. X. XIV Vbi enim erit finis quaerendi Vbi statio creaendi c. there is nothing to be believed for if we still be to seek for Faith where shall we rest Where shall we make an end of seeking Where shall we make a stand and stay our believing Or where shall a full st p be put to finding And that this was the constant Doctrine of those times and places it appears from hence that as Irenaeus often repeats this Rule and this alone so doth he a third time insist upon this even after he became a Montanist as the only Rule that had run down to their times from the beginning of the Gospel which he had always professed and now much more being more fully as he fancied instructed by the Paraclete the leader into all Truth Who durst not it seems though he pretended to Revelations adventure to alter this Rule which Tertullian recites again (m) Adv. Praxeam Cap. 2. in the same terms without any inlargements as he had done in his former Books And thereby satisfies us that he did not casually make this the Rule of Faith but that it was his constant sense which though he do not express in the very same words and syllables it only shows they had no other sense but this in their minds And as Vigilius (n) L. IV. adv Entychiâ—nos speaks about this very matter nec praejudicant verba ubi sensus incolumis permanet the words do not make a wrong opinion where the sense remains safe and sound Which may be applied to all the forms of belief which were in the Church of Rome of Aquileia and in the Churches of the East before the great Council of Nice none of which differ in sense though in some words they do nor have one Article of Faith more than the Creed now contains which Tertullian (o) Apolog. Cap. 47. once more calls the Rule of Truth which comes transmitted from Christ by his companions or Apostles and in another place most significantly that ONE EDICT of GOD which hangs up as the Edicts of the Emperor did in a Table to be read by all (p) De Resurrect Carnis Cap. 18. Nor was there any other Faith in the next Age to this in the third Century as we may be satisfied from Origen who in his Preface to his Books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thinking it necessary first to lay down a certain line and manifest rule by which to inquire concerning other things and having distinguished between things necessary to be believed and those which are not necessary he gives the summ of those things which were manifestly delivered by the Apostolical Preaching and it is nothing else but the present Creed about which he saith there is one sense of the whole Church And in his first Book against Celsus who said the Christian Religion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a clancular Doctrine which they hid and concealed he avows that the Christian Doctrine was as well known in the World as the Opinions of Philosophers For who doth not know that we believe Jesus was born of a Virgin was crucified rose again from the Dead will come to Judgment and punish Sinners and reward the Righteous according to their Deeds Nay the Mystery of the future Resurrection is divulged though laught at by unbelievers These were the great things which were commonly taught and all obliged to believe as for others which were not
common the Philosophers he tells him had their abstruse Doctrines as well as Christians To this purpose we meet with a notable passage in Epiphanius in the succeeding Age which shows that the substance of the Christian Faith concerning our Saviour was commonly known even by those who did not profess it and understood to be this which Origen mentions For a Jew coming to see an eminent Man of his Nation who was sick whispered this in his Ear when they despaired of his life * Hares XXX n. 9. Believe in Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate the Governor being the Son of GOD and afterward born of Mary the Christ of GOD and raised from the dead and that He shall come to judge the quick and the dead S. Cyprian (o) Epist ad Magnum de bapt Novat edit Rig. p. 152. also plainly shows there was no other Faith in his Church when he answers those who said the Novatians held the same Law that the Catholick Church held and baptized into the same Creed believing the same God the Father the same Christ the Son the same Holy Ghost that this would not avail them for Chore and Dathan and Abiram believed the same God with Moses and Aaron and besides they did not believe remission of sins and eternal life by the holy Church since they had left the Church Lucianus also a famous Presbyter of the Church of Antioch and a Martyr for the Faith of Christ left a form of believing written with his own hand * Sozomen L. III. c. 5. if we may believe the Bishops assembled at Antioch who sent it about in the time of the Arian Controversie to prove they were none of his followers but held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Faith which had been set forth from the beginning and it is this as Socrates reports it (q) L. II. Eccles Hist c. 10. We have learnt from the beginning to believe in one God of the whole World the maker and preserver of all things intelligible and sensible and in one Only begotten Son of God subsisting before all Worlds and being together with the Father who begot him by whom all things were made whether visible or invisible who in the last days came down by the good pleasure of the Father and took flesh of the Holy Virgin and having fulfilled the whole Will of his Father suffered and rose again and returned to Heaven and sitteth at the right Hand of the Father and shall come to judge the quick and dead and remaineth King and God for ever And if it be needful to add it we believe the Resurrection of the flesh and life everlasting I will not trouble the Reader with a larger Creed of theirs which there follows more fully explaining the Doctrine of the Trinity because it belongs to the following Age Cent. IV. In which it is known the Nicene Fathers met to settle the Controversie about the Son of God but did not make any new Creed or add one Article to what had been believed before but only explain'd one Article the sense of which the Arians perverted No they were so far from inlarging the Christian Faith that when they met together they recited no other Creed but that of the Apostles as Laurentius Valla affirms he had read in some ancient Books of Isidore who collected the Canons of old Councils And accordingly when they had drawn up that Creed which they published they did not think they had made the least change in the matter of Faith but declared that this (r) Epiphanius in Anchorat was the Creed delivered by the Holy Apostles Which S. Ambrose (s) Serm. 38. Hieron Epist ad Pammach in that Age calls clavem the key S. Hierom indicium the mark or sign of Faith in which after the confession of the Trinity and of the Vnity of the Church the whole Mystery of the Christian Religion is concluded in the Resurrection of the flesh And which Greg. Nazianzen in his second Letter to Cledonius calls * Orat. L. II. beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a short boundary and rule of our sense or judgment i. e. of the Faith of Christians S. Austin especially in a great number of places declares that this is the only Faith required to make a Man a Christian Particularly in his (t) L. de Fid Symbolo Tom. III. Book he wrote on purpose about this matter which he begins thus Since the just live by Faith the greater care must be taken that Faith be not corrupted and then adds Now the Catholique Faith is made known to the faithful in the Creed Which having explained he concludes his Book in these words which few words are known to the faithful that believing they may be subdued to God and being brought under his Yoke may live aright and living aright may cleanse their Heart and their Heart being cleansed they may understand what they believe In like manner before he begins the Explication of the Book of Genesis (u) De Genesi ad literam L. imperfectius he sets down what the Catholique Faith is because Hereticks were wont to draw the Scriptures to their own sense against the Catholique Faith. And the Catholique Faith by which he considers all things is nothing else but that in the Nicene Creed beginning with the belief of God the Father Almighty and concluding with the belief of eternal Life and the promise of the heavenly Kingdom Which is agreeable to the direction he gives to others in his Book of Christian Doctrine (x) L. III. c. 2. that in all ambiguous things the rule of Faith be consulted lest any sense that is contrary thereunto be admitted Which he elsewhere saith * Epist LVII is the rule of Faith common to little and great in the Church It is needless to add any more out of that Father and I shall but briefly mention the Creed of Pope Damasus in the same Age among S. Hierom's Works †Tom. IV. which is only a confession of the blessed Trinity with the rest of the Articles concerning the Conception Birth Death Resurrection Ascension Exaltation and coming again of our blessed Saviour to raise us from the Dead and to give to every Man according to his works concluding with these observable words Read these things believe these things retain these things subjugate thy Soul to this belief and thou shalt obtain life and reward from Christ But the words of the great Athanasius alone are sufficient to this purpose in the Letter which he and the Bishops with him sent to the Emperor Jovinian (z) Tom. I. pag. 245. 〈…〉 where they tell him the Faith confessed by the Nicene Fathers is that which was preached 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the very beginning unto which all the Churches every where consent whether they be in Spain or Britain or France or all Italy with those in Dalmatia Dacia Mysia Macedonia and all Greece all Africk Sardinia
Cyprus Crete Pamphylia Lycia Isauria Egypt Lybia Pontus Capadocia and their next Neighbours with all the Churches of the East a few excepted who were Arians whose minds they knew and whose Writings they had to produce And then having set down the Nicene Creed they conclude In this Faith it is necessary for all to remain as Divine and Apostolical and not to change it For which he gives this reason in another account of it to Epictetus (a) Tom. I. pag. 582. Bishop of Corinth because it is sufficient for the overthrow of all ungodliness and for the establishment of a pious Faith in Christ Which is a plain declaration that this Faith is not defective and that in the Creed commonly ascribed to him there was no intention to add any new Article of Faith but only to explain the old For a whole Synod viz. that at Sardis forbad he tells us in another place (b) Epist ad Antioch p. 576. any other Faith to be written but this with which all should rest contented 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because there was nothing wanting in it but it was full of godliness and that there ought no new Faith to be set forth lest this should seem to be imperfect and occasion should be given to them that had a mind to be often writing and defining concerning Faith. I omit that Confession of Faith which S. Basil makes in his Book of the true Faith (c) Tom. II. pag. 354. and two others in Epiphanius of both which he saith that the Faith of the Holy Church (d) In Anchor and that they were delivered by the Apostles Which is a further confirmation that though they added many more words to the Apostles Creed yet they added no new Article of Faith but only expounded more largely the meaning of some part of it upon the occasion of some Heresies which troubled the Church in those times When it was so far from their thoughts to add any new thing to the first Creed that among the numerous Creeds we find in Athanasius (e) Epist de Sâ—â—â—dâ—s Arim. Selâ—â—ciae in Eusebius and others there is not one of them that makes any such attempt Nor did the Second General Council of Constantinople design any more but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to strengthen and confirm the Nicene Faith as Socrates * L. V. cap. 8. speaks Which Constantinopolitan Creed or one very like Cyril of Hierusalem expounded in his Church and saith it was the only Faith delivered by the Church and fortified by all the Scripture (g) Cateches V. p. 44. For since all are not able to read the Scriptures and some by their want of understanding others by their business are hindred in acquiring that knowledge therefore lest Mens Souls should be lost by ignorance we have comprehended in a few sentences 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Doctrine of Faith. Which he carnestly presses them to have written not in Paper but in their Heart and to carry it about with them as their Viaticum in the whole course of their life and besides this to receive no other No saith he if I should change my mind and teach the contrary do not believe me no nor an Angel from Heaven as the Apostle speaks if he should Preach any other Gospel but that you have received For these Articles of Faith were not as it seems composed by Men but the principal things being gathered together out of the SCRIPTVRE they fill up one Doctrine of Faith. But it is more than time to proceed to the Fifth Age in which we find them so stedfast in this perswasion that the ancient Creed contained all things necessary to be believed that the Fathers assembled in the Third General Council (h) Can. VII at Ephesus expresly decreed that it should not be lawful for any Man to produce or write or compose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other Faith besides that defined by the Nicene Fathers And that if any durst be so bold as either to compose or offer any other Faith to those that would be converted from Heathenism or Judaism or whatsoever Heresie if they were Bishops or Clergy-men they should be deposed if Lay-men they should be anathematized By which we may learn what would have become of the Pope himself if he had attempted then what his Successors in these latter times have done For so sacredly did they keep to this that S. Cyril of Alexandria (i) Tim. V. pars 2. p. 103. tells Joh. Antiochenus they could not indure that the Faith defined at Nice or the Symbol of Faith there made should by any means be shaken nor do we suffer our selves or others to change one word of what is there or to go besides it so much as in one syllable remembring him that said remove not the ancient Land-marks which thy Fathers have set thee for it was not they that spake but the Spirit it self of God and the Father Which he confirms by the fore-mentioned Letter of Athanasius to Epictetus which some he saith had set forth adulterated and depraved and therefore he transmits it to him sincere and uncorrupted out of ancient Copies And he had the greater reason to say they could not alter one word of it because the Council of Ephesus it self though it decreed against Nestorius that the blessed Virgin was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God yet they would not add that word to the ancient Creed but thought it sufficient to determine the point against him This Cyril further declares in an Epistle to Acacius (k) Ib. p. 112. where he confutes those who accused him of receiving a new Creed in these words None ever required of us a new Exposition of Faith nor do we admit of any from others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. for the divinely-inspired Scripture sufficeth us and the vigilance of the Ancient Fathers and the Symbol of Faith which is exactly conformed to all right opinions And it is well known that the next General Council at Chalcedon renewed this Canon of the Council of Ephesus Decreeing in the very same words with very little alteration that no Man should produce or write any other Faith nor think or teach otherways under the penalties before-mentioned only with this difference that to Lay-men are added Monks against whom the Synod decreed an Anathema if they presumed to teach any other Faith. In the Sixth Age the same was again repeated in the Fifth General Council at Constantinople under the Emperor Justinian they solemnly professing in their Third Session that they embraced all the Four foregoing General Councils which is renewed in their Eighth Session and all their Decrees confirm'd with a particular defence of the last Council at Chalcedon concluding with the same solemn Decree that none should dare to teach or write any thing contrary to those constitutions but if he were a Bishop or Clergy-man he should be deposed if a Monk
but that Church which pretends to it hath thereby forfeited the Authority which otherwise it might have had As the Church of Rome hath done which in the conclusion of that Council contradicted what it asserted in the beginning For there in its entrance as I observed (d) Sess III. Decretum de Symbolo fidei they thinking it necessary according to the example of the Fathers to make in the very first place a confession of their Faith and pretending to arm themselves thereby as with a Shield against all Heresies they repeat the Creed quo Sancta Romana Ecclesia utitur which the holy Roman Church useth as that Principle in which all that profess the Faith of Christ necessarily agree and the firm and ONELY Foundation against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail And they think fit to express it totidem verbis in so many words as it is read in all Churches And then they say the Nicene Creed and not one word more Which is a plain Confession that this was the Faith of all Christians and no more till that time that it was the Only firm Foundation that which was read in all Churches in which all agree the Shield against all Heresies the whole Faith then used in the Roman Church And therefore with what Conscience could they make such a division and miserable destruction in the Christian World as they have done by a vast number of new Articles in which all Christians neither do nor can agree and which were not to be found in their own Creed before No reason can be given of this but the immense ambition of that Church to give Law to all others Unto which we cannot with a good Conscience submit especially when they impose such a heavy Yoke as this belief Which is the true Makebate between them and us the manifest cause of that fearful Schism which they not we have made by altering the true Catholique Faith and Church and Communion into a Roman This is the true distinction between them and us We are Catholiques they are Romans We believe the Catholique Faith of all Christians they as distinguisht from us believe the Roman Faith which none believe but themselves We believe that which hath been ever believed they believe that which was never believed till yesterday in comparison with the Ancient Faith. Ours is the belief of the whole Body of Christian People their 's the belief of a Sect. For the Truth I have shown which ought to be supported in the Church in nothing else but those uncontroverted mysteries of godliness contained in the Apostles Creed which I have proved to be the only Catholique Doctrines embraced by all Churches whatsoever They being not the Doctrines of a Sect meerly but in which we the Roman the Greek the Ethiopian the Syrian and all other Christians are perfectly agreed There are particular Men and some small companies of them here and there who understand some few of these Doctrines otherwise than they ought but there is no national Church of any Country but entertains all these intirely and sincerly as they have been expounded from the beginning according to the Nicene Creed which by the way is the only Creed the Abassines have that Creed called the Apostles being not found among them (e) Ludolph Histor Aethiop l. 3 c. 5. num 20. and therby are members of Christ's Body though they do not believe other Doctrines which are only boldly called Catholique by the Roman Church but are not truly so but only particular Doctrines of their own Church in which the Catholique Faith and Church is not concerned As they themselves confess by admitting persons into the Catholique Church which I noted before unto remission of sins and eternal life without any other belief but that which we profess Which makes us think that we might more safely swear they themselves believe this to be sufficient than they swear as they do that none can be saved without the new Faith which they have added to the ancient Creed I have been the larger in this second observation because it is of great moment for the setling of our minds in peace about right belief and this being setled I may sooner dispatch those that follow III. And the next is that these therefore and these alone are the fundamental Truths upon which our Religion and the very Church it self is built By fundamental Truths or Doctrines we mean such Catholique principles as are necessarily to be distinctly believed by every Christian whereby they being built as it were upon them become a Church Such truths no doubt there are for the Church being called here the House of God must have a Foundation Which Foundation is either Personal or Doctrinal The personal foundation is Christ the chief Corner-stone and the Apostles and Prophets as Ministers of his who laid this foundation Ephes II. 20. The Doctrinal are those grand Truths taught by them which make up our Faith in Christ That Common Faith as it is called Titus I. 4. that Faith which is alike precious in all 2 Pet. 1.1 the first principles of the Oracles of God Heb V. 12. or as it is literally in the Greek the Elements of the beginning of the Oracles of God the principles of the Doctrine of Christ or the word of the beginning of Christ Hebr. VI. 1. the form or draught the breviate or summary as it may be translated of sound words or doctrines 2 Tim. I. 13. the Faith once or at once delivered to the Saints Judge 3. and particularly committed to the trust 1 Tim. VI. 20. of those who were to instruct others in the common Salvation And what can those truths be but those great Doctrines contained in the Creed which it appears from what I have said the Apostles left in all the Churches which they planted For we find these were in every Church as Irenaeus assures us and these altogether one as Tertullian speaks and the immovable unreformable Rule of Faith and therefore may thence conclude they were that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which S. Paul deposited with Timothy 1. VI. 20. that good or that fair most excellent thing deposited with him or commended as an ancient Writer translates it to his trust to be preserved by him the Creed as Cyril * Catech. IV. p. 24 edit Paris 1640. of Hierusalem pithily speaks being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a brief summ of necessary Doctrines In some sense it is true there is nothing revealed in Holy Scripture but it may be called fundamental if we respect only the divine Authority by which it comes unto us upon which account nothing there delivered may be denyed but ought to be believed with all humility when the knowledge of it is offered to us But if we respect the matter and moment of all things contained therein we cannot but see there is a great difference and that the knowledge of every thing there is not equally necessary but we may be truly pious
though we should be ignorant of some of them For who can think for instance that it is of the same necessity to be able to give an account of the Genealogy of our Saviour mentioned I. Matth. III. Luke and to believe that he is the Son of God made flesh for our Salvation That foundation therefore which was laid in every Church as it was at Corinth 1 III. 11. were such Doctrines concerning Jesus Christ as every Christian was bound to learn and actually believe in other points it sufficed if they had a pious preparation of mind to learn and believe any thing revealed in the Scriptures when it was sufficiently cleared to them Now these two things that there are such fundamental truths or first principles and that they are no other than those contained in the Creed ought to be asserted and maintained for the honour and glory of God our Saviour which is much concerned herein For it tends much to the glory of the Almighty lover of Souls that it should be believed he doth not lay equall weight upon all truths nor made them alike necessary to be received for the obtaining his favour and grace and that it should be certainly known and be without Controversie and question what those truths are which he expects should be received and heartily embraced in order to our Salvation For otherwise the most of Christian people must necessarily perish who either are not capable of knowing more than these great things or have not the means of knowing more or not with any certainty but must be content to rest here As well they may for why was the Creed called by the name of the Symbol of Faith but because it was the mark or sign which might serve to distinguish true Christians who embraced it from Infidels or misbelievers who did not receive it or were defective in it This is the true reason of the name of Symbol which is as much as tessera signaculum quo inter fideles persid s secernitur (f) Maximus Taur de Trad. Synb the token mark or badge whereby the faithful were known and distinguisht from the persidious And therefore it comprehends briefly all the Fundamental points of Faith else it could not be a distinctive note or character sufficient to sever right Believers from Infidels Hereticks and Apostates But so it was that they who owned this Creed were owned for Christians they who did not confess it were rejected for by a Man's answer to this who was examined he was discovered just as a Soldier is by the Word si hostis sit an socius as both Isidore and Ruffinus before him speaks whether he were an Enemy or a fellow Souldier of Jesus Christ To this Test alone every one was brought by this touch-stone he was tried whether he were a Christian of the right Stamp or a false adulterate coyn as the Ancients speak which is a demonstration that they lookt upon this as a perfect summary of the Catholique Faith sufficient of it self as you heard Athanasius (g) 〈…〉 speaks for the overthrow of all impiety and for the establishment of piety in Christ Nay this sense of the word Symbol is owned by the Roman Catechism it self Cap. 1. Quaest 3. IV. From whence it necessarily follows that no man can justly be called an Heretick who heartily embraces and stedfastly holds to this Faith. How should he when there is no Catholique no Fundamental Article of Christian Truth but he is perswaded of it and professes it No part of that Creed which is the Sign the Mark and Note as you have heard whereby Christians are approved and discerned from misbelievers as well as unbelievers which he doubts of and doth not acknowledge It is a very lamentable thing that the imputation of Heresie should be so frequent and familiar among Christians upon the account of different Opinions only which they are passionately in love withal though no parts of the Catholique Faith. They of the Church of Rome especially are so foully guilty of this and so strangely fiery that they not only account us Hereticks but look upon us as little better than Infidels nay seem to have more kindness for Jews which they tolerate among them when they will not suffer us who believe all the Creeds that were known in the Church for above 1500 years For they call themselves Catholiques in distinction from us whom they will not allow to be members of the Catholique Church though we have a clearer title to it than themselves For I have shown that we unfeignedly believe whatsoever is truly Catholique and reject nothing but what is merely Roman We embrace that form of Faith which they themselves say (b) Catech. Rom. pars 1. cap. 1. Q. 2. was composed by the Apostles for this very end that all might think and speak the very same thing and that there might be no schisms among them whom they had called to the unity of Faith but they might be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment It is not our fault then that there is not this unity and perfect agreement for we stedfastly hold that which should thus link us all together but it is their fault who have forsaken this Apostolical method by making another form of Faith which instead of uniting hath broken Christians all in pieces For we cannot agree to that because it doth not contain Catholique truths which according to Vincentius his rule have been held every where always and by all but are the Tenents only of a particular Church which hath no power to lay any other Foundation than that which was long ago laid in the truly Catholique Church Which Catholique Church we believe better than themselves who appropriate the name of Catholiques to their own party and thereby restrain the Catholique Church to those of their opinion This certainly was the Heresie of the Donatists who esteemed all other Christians to be no better than Pagans (i) Optatus L. III. tait Parn. 1631. and were reproved by the true Catholiques just as we now answer for our selves in such words as these Do you call one a Pagan after the profession of the Faith Can he be a Pagan who hath believed in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost For that is a short Creed which comprehends all the Articles of the Christian Faith as S. Hilary (k) L. 2. de Tâ—â—â—itate discourses who not only calls this forma fidei certa the certain form of Faith but having mentioned those words Go baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost asks this question what is there that is not contained in that same Sacrament of humane Salvation or what is there that remains or is obscure All things are full and perfect as coming from him that is full and perfect And thus he concludes all his Books on that Subject with this Prayer (l) L. XII
de Trin. I beseech thee preserve this undefiled Religion of my Faith and grant me this voyce of my Conscience to the last breath that what I professed in the Symbol of my Regeneration being baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost I may always obtain viz. I may adore thee our Father and thy Son together with thee and do honour to thy Holy Spirit who is of thee by thine only begotten For he is a sufficient witness to Faith who said Father all mine are thine and thine are mine my Lord Jesus Christ who remains in thee and from thee and with thee always God who is blessed for ever and ever Which I the rather mention because it serves to illustrate the prudence and charity of S. Austin and the rest of the Christian Bishops of those days who though they looked upon the Donatists as Hereticks in denying the Church to be Catholique by confining it to themselves yet distinguished them from such Hereticks as erred in the prime and most Fundamental truths of our Religion about the Divinity and the Incarnation of our Christ and such like That is they made a difference even in the Articles of Faith and lookt upon some as more Fundamental than others being of more importance and of greater weight and moment and therefore judged more mildly of them than they did of such as denyed the Holy Trinity or held any Doctrines which impeached the glory of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Ghost And therefore they still called these Donatists Brethren they pitied them as Men seduced by their Guides and professed sincere love and affection to them whether they accepted it or no. Though such was the peevishness of that Sect that they abused this charity of good Catholique Christians towards them just as they of the Church of Rome do our charity now For from thence they took occasion to argue that they were in the right even by the Concessions of their Adversaries which justified both them and their heretical Schism For you said they (m) August L. 2. contra lit Petiliavi cap. ult can find no faults in our baptism nor consequently in our Faith into which we baptize for if you could you would baptize those over again who come from us to you as we baptize those again who come from you to us Which is as much as to say you allow there is a Church and Salvation among us but we allow no Church no Salvation among you therefore it is safest for all to joyn with us not with you Which is the very Charm whereby they of the Church of Rome endeavour now to work upon the spirits of simple people among us though no wiser than this argument of a company of mad men would be if they had so much cunningremaining as to say to us we deny you to be Men but you allow us to be Men therefore we are fit for all Mens society not you who are but a herd of Beasts And what S. Austin answers to the Donatists is a full answer to the present Romanists which is this in short (n) L. 1. de Baptisino contraâ— Donatistas C. X. for it is besides my business to do more than mention these things when we speak favourably of you it is for the sake of What you have of ours not for what you have of your own let that which you have of ours be set aside and we approve of nothing at all among you But I will not further enlarge upon this nor say much of the next which is very plain V. They therefore who condemn those as Hereticks who Excommunicate them and pronounce Anathema's against them that believe the whole Catholique Faith are the great disturbers of the Christian World and the true cause of the Divisions and breaches that are in the Body of Christ And who they are that do thus is visible to every eye the Church of Rome having thought fit not to rest satisfied with the simplicity of those often mentioned Catholique fundamental Truths which are without Controversie and unquestionable but as if that Faith which the old Christians thought compleat they take to be defective have adjoyned as many more nâ—w Articles to the old body and that under the pain of damnation if we do not believe them I have told you what they are and if you look them over again you will find that upon those have all the Contests risen between us and them The necessary fundamental Truths which constitute the Church which was built upon no other for many Ages are on both sides unquestioned but because we question or rather deny those which they would impose which we are certain are no part of the Christian Doctrine they call us Hereticks That is because we will not yield Obedience to their usurpt authority because we cannot believe their new inventions to be Catholique and fundamental Doctrines Here is the true reason of all the miserable ruptures that are in this part of the World nay this is the just grievance and complaint of all Christians who know any thing of these matters but themselves alone VI. And their guilt is herein the greater because the best learned among themselves have confessed these Additions to the Creed to be doubtful opinions unnecessary and superfluous Doctrines Novelties unknown to the ancient Church Concerning every one of which three things our Authors have given the clearest evidence 1. The first of them the doubtfulness of those Doctrines appears in this that there is not only variety but contrariety of judgment about them in their own Church which argues plainly great perplexity and uncertainty Of which there needs no other proof as Doctor Potter (o) Answer to Charity mistaken p. 69. observes but the famous Books of Bellarmine who in the entrance upon every Question there stated gives an account of the Contentions and Contradictions of those who have-written upon it among themselves And at this day they are not better agreed in the Explication of several Points in difference between us See the late Answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition of Faith. particularly about the Worship given to Images and the Invocation of Saints which some of their greatest Doctors mollifie and sweeten as they do other points into downright Heresie as such Explications are accounted by others 2. The very same may be clearly shewn out of their own Authors and hath been demonstrated by our Divines concerning the Second thing that those Doctrines are not necessary but superfluous For the Roman Catechism (p) Praefat. Sâ—ct 12. it self having observed that their Ancestors had most wisely distributed all that belongs to saving Doctrine into these four heads for the help of the Peoples understanding and memory the Apostles Creed the Sacraments the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer immediately confess concerning the first that all things which are to be held by the Discipline of the Christian Faith whether
Almighty against every such refractory opposer of the Truth which he should obey There is no exception from this Rule for as it there follows v. 11. there is no respect of persons with God. Would to God they would seriously lay this to heart who now seem to be possessed with a mighty Zeal for Truth and for a right Faith that they be not so deceived by this warm Zeal as to miss the end of Faith the Salvation of their Souls which can by no means be obtained no not by Faith it self without an Holy Life PART II. What it is to be a Pillar and Ground of Truth and to whom this Office belongs HAving shown with some care what the Truth is of which S. Paul speaks which was the first thing I propounded the two next may be explained together with less pains viz. what and who is the Pillar and Ground of these great Truths which are necessary to be believed by all that will be saved I. And as for the first of these they of the Church of Rome would have us by a Pillar and Ground to understand that which is the very Foundation of our Faith that upon whose Credit and Authority all Christian Truth and the certainty of our Religion depends For taking it for granted that the Church is this Pillar and presuming also that they only are the Church they thence infer that we can be sure of no Truth but from them and that they give authority and certainty to the very Word of God it self and likewise whatsoever the Church i. e. they declare to be Truth is therefore to be received insomuch that if they make any new Articles or Faith we are to give a full assent to them because all Truth depends upon the credit of their Church This sounds strangely in the Ears of those that are not accustomed to such Language and may be thought perhaps a misrepresentation of their Doctrine But â—â—â—larmine to name no more vouches this to be the Catholique sense of this place and from the words Pillar and Ground of Truth proves that the Church cannot err either in Believing or in Teaching (y) L. II. de Concil 〈◊〉 c. 2. and again that whatsoever the Church approves is true and whatsoever it disapproves is false (z) L. III. de 〈◊〉 Milit. c. 14. But this only shows that they are hard put to it to find proofs for their high pretences For it will appear in the process of this Discourse first that it can never be proved the words Pillar and Ground have respect to the Church and not rather to Timothy for which there is good Authority as well as Reason I shall let the Authority alone till its proper place and only note Secondly That there is good reason not to refer this to the Church for having called the Church a House it doth not seem a congruous speech immediately to call the same Church a Pillar as on the other side it is very agreeable to call Timothy a Pillar in that House and to wish him to behave himself therein like other great Persons to whom in other places he gives the name of Pillars But Thirdly if it do relate to the Church it no more concerns the Church of Rome than any other Church and immediately relates to the Church of Ephesus in which Timothy presided Which Church of Ephesus (a) Concil Floreat 〈◊〉 ult with other Churches of the East condemned this Headship of the Bishop of Rome upon which they build a Soveraignty over our Faith. And further if we should suppose Fourthly That the Apostle respects the Church Universal and likewise that it is not only bound in duty to be but also actually is the Pillar and Ground of Truth yet Lastly it can never be proved that he speaks of any other Truth but those grand Fundamental Articles of Faith those Catholique Doctrines which were once delivered to the Saints and which blessed be God are maintained in every Church to this day not of all truth whatsoever much less of an absolute freedom from all manner of error For letting these things alone at present I shall shew that this is all that can be meant by the Pillar and Ground of Truth if it refer to the Church as I am content to admit not that the Church as they absurdly affirm is the very foundation of our Faith upon which it relyes but that it firmly retains upholds and professes the Christian Truth against all the force violence and opposition of Earth and Hell of Men and Devils that indeavour to overthrow it That this is the natural import of the phrase I will manifest First from the propriety of the words Secondly from clear reason and the Holy Scripture I. First from the propriety of the words in the Greek Language In which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently signifies such a Pillar as stood before their common Halls and Courts of Judicature upon which the Decrees and Orders of the Court were wont to hang or be fixed Unto which Tertullian alludes when speaking of an Article of the Creed in the place above named * L. de Resurrect Carnis C. 18. he saith Vnum opinor apud omnes EDICTVM DEI PENDET I suppose one Edict of God hangs up among all viz. to be read by them having just askt before quonam titulo Spes ista proscripta est by what TITLE this hope viz. of the resurrection is proposed and held forth to all And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ground signifies not the foundation but the Seat where any thing is placed so as to be settled and laid up to remain and abide there And at the most can mean no more than the stay or establishment the seat or settlement of Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumenius renders it the confirmation of truth or if we will have these words allude to a building because the Church is here called the House of the living God as elsewhere the Temple of God which is the same they signifie no more but supporters and upholders without which the edifice would fall to the ground And the most we can make of them when they are applied to the Church with respect to the truth is this that the Church sustains and keeps it from sinking or falling as a Pillar firmly setled upon a Basis sustains and upholds the fabrick laid upon it This consists in these three things which I shall distinctly though but briefly mention for the Reader 's clear information in this matter First The Church is that Body of Men which preserves and keeps which maintains and holds up the Christian Faith which God hath committed to its care as he did to the Jews the Divine Oracles delivered in old times And as the Church will answer it to God and not be guilty of betraying its trust it must constantly preserve the truth committed to it that it be not lost and do not perish This might be divided into two that the Church
better from one of their society who calls them brethren than from one that separates from them as mere Strangers and Foreigners with whom they have nothing to do in matters of Religion Would to God this were more seriously practised among us that we would be as forward charitably to reprove Men for their wickedness as we are even to reproach them perhaps uncharitably for their false opinions It might be a means of their cure an effectual remedy for their amendment when piously and prudently administred and a means of bringing those back who are gone astray from us that there may be no divisions among us but we may be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment PART III. How the Church discharges this Office of a Pillar and Ground of Truth WHAT the Psalmist saith concerning Jerusalem or the Church of the Jews which was wont there to assemble is more fully verified in the Christian Church Great and glorious things are spoken of thee O thou city of God LXXXVII Ps 1. This great City S. John saw descending out of Heaven having the glory of God XXI Rev. 10 11. And in the Verse before calls this Church the bride the lambs wife There is a special presence that is of God in it and a special love of the Lord Jesus to it For it is the body of Christ and the fulness of him that fills all things To this S. John saith they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations against this our Saviour promises the gates of hell shall not prevail The pure water of life clear as crystal runs therein here grows the tree of life XXII Rev. 1 2. and it is as it were the paradise and garden of God. Which things show what an honour what an happiness it is to be a Citizen of this Holy Jerusalcm Whosoever they be that by a cordial Faith in Christ and sincere love to him joyn themselves to this Body are made Members of Christ Children of God Companions of Angels and Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven They are under the protection of the Almighty under the guidance of his Holy Spirit under the care and tender love of that great and glorious Lord who is the Prince of all the kings of the earth and hath all power in heaven as well as earth invested in him For the Church is the house and family of God nay the temple of the living God 2 Cor. VI. 17. for he hath said as it there follows I will dwell in them and walk in them and will be their God and they shall be my people I will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord God Almighty These things are great indeed and exceeding glorious But not content with these priviledges which are as a Royal Diadem and Crown of Glory on the Head of the Church there are those who would adorn her with prouder Titles and set her forth in an adulterous dress and a presumptuous glory making her in a manner equal to her Head the Lord Christ For they have snatcht one of the incommunicable properties of God and fixt it as a Jewel on the top of the Churches Crown telling us that she is an infallible Guide who cannot mislead us That is though she may go astray and play the Harlot in life and practice yet she cannot err nor mistake in her judgment So that if we listen to what she says we shall never wander but always be in the right For the proof of this they first suppose themselves to be the Church of Christ and they alone and then they abuse this place of Holy Scripture to assert this Divine Prerogative to be in his Church that is in themselves But I have exposed the bold folly of these pretences by showing that the Church here spoken of is the Church of Ephesus and that Timothy was the principal Pillar and Ground of Truth in this Church Which doth not signifie I have shown that either the Church or Timothy were the very Foundation of the Christian Faith upon whose credit the Authority the Truth and Certainty of all Religion depends but the Supporters of the Truth who testified maintained upheld and propagated the Faith of Christ For the more full understanding of which I shall briefly show before I proceed to the last thing propounded first what power it is that we herein ascribe to the Church particularly to the Bishops and Governors thereof Secondly what power it cannot pretend unto nor ought to be yielded to any Church or Person whatsoever I. As for the first of these what the power is we allow the Church when we say it upholds maintains and testifies to the Truth it is as much as to enquire of what Authority the Testimony of the Church is how much it ought to weigh with us and how far we ought to yield to it to the Testimony for instance of the present Church of which we are Members for it hath as much Authority as any other when it propounds Truth to us and presses it upon our belief Are we to believe it meerly because the Church saith it In answer to which we affirm that the Testimony of the Church is that whereby we are both informed of the Truth and induced as by the first external motive to Faith in Christ Mr. Hooker calls it the Key as others do the Door which lets us into the knowledge of the great Mystery of Godliness which is preserved in this House of God. If we allow it not this we allow it nothing nor can it or any Person in it be said to be a Pillar and Ground of Truth unless it do something to the bringing us acquainted with the Truth which it propounds and sets before us and testifies to be that which Christ hath left with his Church to be delivered down to all Generations For it conveys the Holy Scriptures to us and calls upon us to consider and study them that therein by the help of the Pastors of the Church to whom this Office I have shown principally belongs we may find all necessary Truths in order to our Salvation Which Testimony being the Testimony of Men that profess Faithfulness Honesty and a good Conscience as the great thing in their Religion is the highest of all humane Testimonies and cannot but work very strongly and powerfully upon Mens minds when Christians are such as they profess to be and as they are it ought to work thus far upon all sorts of Men even upon those who are out of the Church as to incline them to have a reverend regard to that Faith and those Scriptures and to look into them and consider them which they see such multitudes of People and some of them very wise as well as devout constantly esteem as the very Truth of God transmitted to them from his Son by the Apostles who attended on him from his first appearing till he went to Heaven This moved S.
Austin when he was yet in part an Infidel being a Manichee to believe the Gospel according to that famous Discourse of his in answer to the Epistle of Manichaeus which contained in a manner the whole Belief of that party Ego non crederem Evangelio nisi me Ecclesiae Catholicae authoritas commoveret (m) Tom. VI. contra Epistolam Fandamenti Cap. 5. which is to be thus translated according to the Phrase of the Asricans I had not believed the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholique Church had moved me thereunto For it is evident as hath been shown by our Writers since the beginning of the Reformation * D. Whitakeram de saâ—â—a Scâ—iâ—t Q. 3. cap. 8. he speaks of himself when a Manichee as the words immediately following declare Those whom I obeyed when they said Believe the Gospel why should I not obey when they say Do not believe Manichaeus Which doth not signifie that the credit of the Gospel is founded upon the Churches Authority but that this was the first motive to incline him to look into the Gospel and consider it as a Divine Book which would inform him in the way of Salvation Thus he explains himself in the very foregoing Chapter where setting aside the sincere Wisdom taught in the Church which they would not believe he reckons up abundance of other things which might serve to keep him in the Catholique Church viz. the consent of People and Nations c. and then thus concludes These numerous and great and most dear tyes of the Christian name may very well hold a Man that believes in the Catholique Church although by reason of the slowness of his understanding or the defects of his life the truth do not yet show it self most openly unto him Whereas among the Manichees there were none of these things to invite or to hold him but a bare promise of Truth wherewith they made a noise which if they could have shown so manifestly that it could not be doubted he confesses it was to be preferred before all those things whereby he was held in the Catholique Church Which words are an evident proof that he speaks of the Authority of the Church as only moving and inducing him to believe the Scriptures and to joyn himself to their Society before the TRUTH was manifested to him which he was to sind there in the Scriptures and which he preferred before the Authority of the Church Which he elsewhere tells the Donatists was not to be believed upon its own credit L. de unitate Ecclesie cap. 16. But whether they hold the Church let them not show but from the Canonical Books of the Divine Scriptures for we neither do not say that we ought to be believed because we are in Christ's Church because that Church which we hold was commended to us by Optatus or Ambrose or other innumerable Bishops of our Communion or because it is approved by Councils or because Miracles are every where wrought in it These and such like things are therefore to be approved because they are done in the Catholique Church but it is not therefore manifested to be the Catholique Church because these things are done in it Our Lord Jesus himself when he rose from the dead and offered his Body to be toucht as well as seen by his Disciples lest they should think there was any fallacy in it judged it meet rather to confirm them by the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets and Psalms showing how all things were fulfilled which were predicted And so he commanded his Church saving that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his Name beginning at Hierusalem This he testified was written in the Law the Prophets and Psalms this we hold commended from his Mouth These are the Documents these the Foundations these the strong Grounds of our Cause We read in the Acts of the Apostles of some Believers that they sought the Scriptures daily whether those things were so What Scriptures but the Canonical Books of the Law and the Prophets to which are added the Gospels the Apostolical Epistles the Acts of Apostles and the Revelation of S. John. Search all these and bring forth something manifest whereby ye may demonstrate the Church either to have remained only in Africa or to be to come out of Africa c. This is an illustrious Testimony he thought the Church it self was to be warranted by the Scriptures which did not therefore receive their Authority from the Church but give it all the Authority it hath And after all it was not the Authority of the present Church barely that moved him when he was a Manichee but of the Catholique Church from the beginning Occham * Fr White 's Answer to Fisher's second Conference p. 24. thinks he speaks of the Church in the Apostles times alone which moved him to Believe And others as Gabriel Biel confess he speaks of the Authority of the Church à tempore Christi Apostolorum c. from the time of Christ and of the Apostles down to his days Such Authority cannot but weigh 〈◊〉 much even with those that do not yet believe if 〈…〉 â—eriously pondered but much more with those that are already Christians Whether they be Novices and weaklings who are as yet doubtful in the Faith though in the Church the Testimony and Authority of it ought to confirm and quiet their minds as it did S. Austin's it appears by the place before-named and keep them close to the Christian Society till they may themselves come better acquainted with the Truth and more fully understand the Holy Scriptures which the Church delivers to them and puts into their hands as the Word of God. Or whether they be more grown Christians and indeed all sorts of Persons in the Church who ought to be so far wrought upon even by its Authority as to be perswaded thereby to read constantly to consider and ponder seriously and to practise those plain Lessons faithfully which the Holy Scripture teaches them till it work effectually upon their hearts and purge them so throughly from all bad affections that they may more perfectly understand the Truth Thus much is indisputable for God hath appointed outward means for the conveying Divine Truth to our Belief and this means is ordinarily the Church to which we ascribe these two great things in this business (p) Answer to Charity mistaken Sect. V. First the office of a Witness testifying the Authority of Holy Scripture to us Secondly of an Instrument in Gods Hand to lead us into the understanding of the Scriptures and by its Ministry in preaching and expounding them to beget a Divine Faith in us But further than this we cannot we must not go For the last resolution of our Faith is not into the Testimony of the Church but into the Testimony of God himself which we find recorded in the Holy Scripture delivered by the Church unto us Thus S. Austin most admirably
exalted himself when he got it declared in the Lateran Council that he was above a General Council and the Universal Church (z) Sess XI being blasphemously called by his flatterers the Spouse of the Church the Lyon of the Tribe of Judah From which very Phrase of Spouse no less Man than Bellarmine (a) L. II. de Concil Auctor c. 17. himself labours to prove the Pope to be absolutely above the Vniversal Church and above a General Council because it is contrary to the Apostle and to the order of Nature that the Wife should be above the Husband This is sufficient to show what we ought to think of the present Roman Church which is so far from being Infallible that it hath erred more than any other Church 6. But though there be no promise either to that or any other particular Church of being preserved from Error yet the Universal Church in some part or other of it we are sure will always be a Pillar and Ground of the whole Truth necessary to Salvation because our Saviour hath promised the gates of hell shall not prevail against it That is the Church shall be perpetual which it cannot be unless it hold the Truth intirely it is joyned to Christ its Head. And thus one of their own Cardinals (b) 〈…〉 de 〈◊〉 L. II. c. 〈◊〉 L. III. 〈◊〉 understood the Infallibility of the Church with which they now make so much noise When we say The Church cannot err in Faith or Manners it must be thus taken according to the Doctrine of the Fathers that God doth so assist his Church to the end of the World that the true Faith shall never fail out of the same For to the World's end there shall be no time wherein some though all shall not have true Faith working by Love. Unto this exposition we heartily submit but that the present Church of Rome or indeed any other particular Church cannot degenerate and depart from the right Faith we can by no means allow but think our selves bound by the most sacred tyes to oppose these arrogant pretences that the Church is Infallible and that they are the Church They are no more the Church than any other company of Men professing the Christian Faith nor so much neither for there are truer Believers than they I have proved also that other Churches have erred and therefore so may they nay they have erred and that so grosly as to be able by no other means to maintain their errors but by pretending they cannot err And therefore let no Man be so forgetful of these things as to trust them to be his Guides fancying they cannot mislead him They have misled those that rely upon them and have led them into a maze or labyrinth in which it is impossible for them to find their way and know what is the Truth For if we should grant them their Church cannot err they are not agreed nor ever will what they mean by the Church Whether the whole body of Christian People which is the new Heresie among them as some of themselves call it or a General Council which the learnedst and best Men among them maintain or the Pope who hath a great many on his side but they cannot agree about the manner of his definition whether alone or in a General Council nor about the time whether at any time or only when he resolves to publish Doctrines as matter of Faith nor about the matter whether all things even matters of fact or only matters of Faith and after all no body can tell when there is a true Pope So that all their Faith falls to the Ground and they cannot be certain of any thing they believe because they cannot be certain of the very Ground and Foundation of their Faith which is their Church These things I have only briefly toucht which are more largely handled in other Books that the Readers may be sensible how happy they are who are freed from these Impostures And that our People may know their duty in this Church of England whereof by the Grace of God they are Members I shall conclude this Treatise with Six Considerations more whereby the whole I hope will be made more useful I. First I desire every one to consider from what I have said that this Church in which we are is certainly as much a Pillar and Ground of Truth as any other nay more than many other Churches For we openly profess and recite twice a day in our own Language that every one may understand it the whole Christian Faith comprised in the Apostles Creed with the explication of some part of this Faith by the Nicene Fathers once every week or more and a more distinct Explication of the same Articles by Athanasius once a month That is we hold and assert and maintain all those things which have always been and are confessed by all Christians the True Ancient Catholique and Apostolique Faith and the Holy Scriptures wherein this Faith is Originally contained And if we knew any thing else to be the mind of God delivered to us from Christ and his Apostles by the Universal Church we are prepared to receive it and did it appear would immediately embrace and propagate it But the Vniversal Church as I have shown hath declared this to be sufficient nay full and perfect and moreover forbidden any other Faith to be either composed or offered to those who would become Christians To all which that I have said in the First Part this memorable saying of Pope Leo (c) Epist ad Pulcheriam Augustam the Great may be added The short and perfect Confession of the Catholique Symbol or Creed it self which is sealed in as many sentences as there were Apostles i. e. XII Articles is so instructed with Caelestial munition or defence that all the opinions of Hereticks with this Sword alone may be cut in pieces II. And therefore Secondly every one of us is bound â—nless we will betray our trust and as we will answer it to our Lord Christ the Author of our Faith to hold fast this Faith to preserve it intire and to defend it not suffering any of it to be lost or any addition to be made to it as if this were not sufficient to Salvation Take fast hold of instruction of those great substantial unquestionable Truths mentioned in the beginning let them not go keep them for they are your life as Solomon speaks of Wisdom IV. Prov. 13. They are the Wisdom of God our Saviour the Rule which the Apostles preached equally among all Nations as Venantius Fortunatus (d) Praefat. in Symbol speaks the comprehension and perfection of our Faith as S. Austin (e) Sâ—rm CXV de Teâ—p or an Ancient Author under his name the Test as I have shown and Mark whereby the Faithful are distinguisht from Unbelievers and Hereticks And having this Note of a Christian you ought neither to seek for nor to admit of any other being indued
heart being regenerated by Faith we are now taught what to believe as if that Regeneration were without Faith. We learn Christ after Baptism as if there could be any Baptism without the Faith of Christ It is most safe for us as it follows a little after to retain that first and only Evangelical Faith confessed and understood in Baptism V. And that a good and righteous cause may have good defenders and supporters let us read the Holy Scriptures wherein this Faith is contained chiefly for this end that we may order our steps that is our Lives and Conversation according to the rule of God's word Let us always remember that our Religion is a mystery of godliness as was shown before in which we are not well instructed if it do not teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in the World. Which is the best way also to continue in the Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks most agreeable to these words which he writes to Timothy grounded and setled or stable and stedfast Colos I. 23. For they are the good ground in the Church who in an bonest and good heart having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience Luk. VIII 15. As much as to say if we would stand fast in the Faith and not fall away as our Saviour saith others would do in time of trial v. 13. we must first come to hear and read the word of God with unprejudiced minds and upright hearts desiring to know the Truth and resolved to receive it though never so contrary to our present inclinations and interests This is the honest and good heart which secondly must keep and preserve in mind and heart what it hath thus received and not presently let it slip or lay it aside as a thing never to be thought of more after we have heard it And lastly we must not only in a warm fit of zeal begin to put in practice what we learn but bring forth fruit with patience or continuance This is the way both to draw others into the Church and to continue our selves in it and to make us constant defenders of the Christian Faith That is to do our part in this great Office of being the Pillar and Ground of Truth Which is a thing incumbent upon the whole Church and consequently upon every one of us who are members of it And therefore remember that the Christian Religion for which we are to be Zealous is the acknowledgement of the Truth after godliness as I said before Tit. I. 1. It is the Doctrine of piety to the study of which if we seriously and heartily apply our selves it will be our best security against all impostures and preserve us from the subtil and crafty insinuations of those who corrupt or pervert the Christian Doctrine and finally be the most powerful means to make Christianity prevail in the World. Remember the advice of S. Paul to this Church of Ephesus Ephes IV. 14.15 where you may find the true way to continue firm and stedfast and not to be tossed about as Children with every blast of Doctrine c. and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by speaking or rather following the Truth in love or according to the Hebrew Dialect being fixed and established in the love of God and of one another For the Hebrew word Aman to which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answers signifies not only to speak Truth but likewise to be firm and constant fixed and established which if we be we shall have a settled unmoveable confidence of God's Love and Favour towards us For he that heartily loves God and his Neighbour will never be startled much less shaken by their bold Anathemas though all the World should tell him he shall be damned if he do not believe this or that proposition which they say is absolutely necessary to his Salvation because there is something within him that gives them the lye and assures him there is no truth in them who say that God hates and will reject him who believes all the ancient Faith which works by Love. God himself testifies the contrary by making the Truth efficacious in his heart to purge him from all filthiness both of Flesh and Spirit and by changing him into his own likeness in Holiness Love and Goodness And the more thoroughly any Man is renewed in the spirit of his mind the more perfectly will he be assured that they pronounce a false judgment upon him and consequently be the more heartily resolved against that Religion which makes men so liberal in pouring out Curses upon all them that do not embrace its novel opinions Which brings me to the last thing I would have considered that VI. We do not perform our duty I may safely affirm nay confidently aver we are not the Pillar and Stay of Truth as we ought to be unless every one of us in our several Places and Stations oppose with a becoming Zeal the Errors Innovations and Incroachments of the Church of Rome who are the Men that are of all other most guilty of the just-now named Uncharitableness or rather Pride and Cruelty For they utterly un-Church us and as much as in them lies cut us off from the Body of Christ and bar the Gates of the Kingdom of Heaven against us By this alone if there were nothing else we are sure they have grosly erred and live in error that they deny us to be a part of Christ's Church who believe and confess with Heart and Mouth the whole Catholique Faith every thing that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confessedly and by Universal consent the Ancient Christian Belief in which the Apostles and Martyrs died by which alone Righteous Souls for many Ages went to Heaven knowing nothing of the Pope's Supremacy of Transubstantiation of the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass for quick and dead and the rest of their new inventions We deserve not the name of Christians no nor of Men if we stand not up resolutely against such usurpations and corruptions of the Christian Doctrine and maintain that Faith which we profess and wherein we stand to be the true Grace of God the Faith once delivered to the Saints Which is incumbent chiefly upon the Bishops and Pastors of the Church who I have shown are the Principal Pillars of the Truth as Timothy was in the Church of Ephesus and therefore ought to appear with all their might for the support of God's true Religion here established instructing teaching exhorting all committed to their charge to be stedfast and immoveable in it to the death And every honest hearted Christian ought to do the same in his rank and condition by following those instructions by fortifying himself against Romish delusions by indeavouring to understand the Truth and to detect their Errors Which are the more earnestly to be opposed because the new Articles of their Creed are not a Mystery of Godliness but tend many
right hand of God angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him So subject that from henceforth he expects till all his enemies be made his footstool X. Hebr. 13. and having vanquished Death which is the last Enemy and raised Men out of their Graves he will judge them according to their Works For he was received up into Glory to be the Judge of quick and dead These are the Principal Points of that Truth which ought to be supported and maintained in the Christian Church being the substantial and necessary Articles of our Faith without the belief of which we cannot be Christians For the fuller Explication of which I shall make Six observations the first of which the Apostle himself here suggests and the rest will fairly follow from thence 1. First the Apostle notes them to be such Truths as were without Controversie about which there was no dispute among serious Christians 2. And therefore these are the truly Catholique Doctrines and these alone 3. The fundamental Truths upon which our Religion and the Church it self is built 4. And therefore he that holds close to these cannot be a Heretick 5. But they that call Men so because they believe not other things which they have made necessary have rent the Christian Church and are guilty of that sin of which they falsly accuse others 6. Which guilt is the greater because the best and most learned Men among them have confessed those Doctrines which they have superadded to the Ancient Truth to be doubtful superfluous and unknown to the first Ages of the Church that is not truly Catholique Doctrines I. The first of these ought to be well weighed that the Truth which is to be supported and maintained in the Church is so evident and so abundantly attested that it is confessed by all Christians Thus that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without controversie or confessedly signifies as we may learn from the use of it among the Ancient Greeks one of which Diodorus Sinopensis speaks of their Supreme God just as the Apostle doth of the Mystery of Godliness (a) Apud Athenaeum Lib. VI. cap. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jupiter the Friendly is without controversie or by common consent agreed to be the greatest of the Gods. In like manner the Apostle is to be understood when he saith the same of these great and venerable Doctrines of Godliness Which are such as are confessed by all by a common agreement and doubted of by none For they are no other than those which are contained in the Apostles Creed about which there is no question among Christians but they all consent unto it being baptized into the belief of those Truths in which the whole Church hath agreed every where in all times down from the Apostles days to this present Age. For the Church saith Irenaeus (b) L. I. Contra Haeres c. 2. though dispersed throughout the World to the ends of the Earth received from the Apostles and their Disciples the Faith which is in one God the Father Almighty who made the Heaven and the Earth and Sea and all that is in them and in one Christ Jesus the Son of God who was Incarnate for our Salvation and in the Holy Ghost who preached by the Prophets the dispensations and approaches of God and the Birth of the Virgin and the Suffering the Resurrection from the Dead and the Bodily Ascension of our Dear Lord Christ Jesus into the Heavens and his coming from thence in the Glory of the Father to gather together all things and to raise all humane flesh that according to the good pleasure of the Father invisible every knee of things in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth may bow to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Saviour and King and every Tongue may confess him and he may do Righteous Judgment upon all and send the Spirits of wickedness and the Angels that transgressed and apostatized together with ungodly unjust lawless and blasphemous Men into eternal fire but to the just and the holy and such as observe his Commandments and persevere in his Love either always or by Repentance graciously bestow life give immortality and put them in possession of eternal Glory This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he calls it a little Body of Truth the Rule of Faith as Tertullian often speaks instituted by Christ which nullas habet apud nos quaestiones (c) L. de praescript cap. XIV is not doubted of nor hath any questions about it among Christians but such as Heresies have brought in and which make Men Hereticks And therefore this is the Truth of which the Church ought to be the Pillar and Ground to the end of the World but not presume as I shall show anon to bind all Christians upon pain of perishing everlastingly to believe what is not contained in this Rule of belief For it alone is sufficient as appears by this that into it all the Articles or Parts as a learned Man of the Roman Church speaks (d) Rigaltius Ib. of which a Christian consists are digested as it were into one Body II. From whence it follows that these are the true Catholique and the only Catholique Doctrines Catholique they are because spread every where and the only Catholique because none besides these till very lately were received as part of the Christian Truth which must necessarily be believed if we hope to be saved Hear how Irenaeus (e) L. I. cap. 3. proclaims this immediately after the foregoing words which (f) Haeres XXXI n. 30 31. Epiphanius thought so considerable that he hath transcribed both these Chapters into his Book against Heresies The Church as we have said having received this Preaching or Doctrine and this Faith preserves it most carefully as if it inhabited but one House though it be dispersed through the whole World. And with unanimous consent Preaches and Teaches and Delivers these things as having but one Mouth For though there be different Languages in the World yet the force of that which is delivered is one and the same So that neither the Churches situated in Germany believe otherwise or have any other Tradition nor those in Spain nor those in France nor those in the East nor those in Egypt nor those in Libya nor those in the midst of the World but as the Sun that Creature of God is one and the same in the whole World so the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Preaching or Doctrine of the Truth shines every where and inlightens all Men who are willing to come to the knowledge of the Truth And neither he among the Governors of the Church who is most powerful in Speech teaches different things from these for no Man is above his Master nor he that is weak in Speech diminishes the Tradition For there being one and the same Faith neither he that is able to speak a great deal concerning it doth inlarge or exceed nor