OF FAITH Necessary to SALVATION And of the NECESSARY GROUND OF Faith Salvifical Whether this alway in every Man must be INFALLIBILITY OXFORD Printed in the Year M DC LXXXVIII FIVE SHORT TREATISES I. Concerning Faith Necessary to Salvation II. Of Infallibility III. Concerning the Obligation of not Professing or Acting against our Judgment or Conscience IV. Concerning Obedience to Ecclesiastical Governors and Trial of Doctrines V. Concerning Salvation possible to be had in a Schismatical Communion Estius in Sent. 3. d. 23. §. 13. Utrum in haereticis vera sit Fides Articulorum in quibus non errant Quaestio est in utramque partem probabiliter a Doctoribus disputata Ibid. Fidei impertinens est per quod medium primae veritati credatur id est quo medio Deus utatur ad conferendum homini donum Fidei Ibid. Nihil vetat quo minus haeretici quamvis in multis errent in aliis tamen sic divinitus per fidem illustrati sint ut recte credant Courteous Reader THese Treatises by divers passages may seem to have been written before the Author was fully united to the Catholick Church So that some things in them are not so cautiously and clearly explained as had himself liv'd to publish them they would have been But we thought it our duty rather to represent them as he left them than to make any breach in the Discourse it self or to pull any threads out of so close and well wrought a contexture CORRIGENDA Page 8. Marg. such points very few p. 9. l. penult necessary besides the assent p. 32. l. 18. and is in some l. 38. some degree of incredulity Of Infallibility Pag. 15. l. 12. tho this can never p. 20. l. 1. pertaining to Faith methinks sufficient ibid. l. 9. in Doctrinals pertaining to Faith certain of truth p. 28. l. 17. But I say he shall never be so Of Submission of Judgment Pag. 30. l. 7. that it was generally practised Trial of Doctrine Pag. 21. l. 18. by most of differing p. 28. l. 5. He may be free l. 7. from the sin of Schisin and invincibly ignorant of the errors which are profess'd in his Communion he may attain in such a Church life everlasting because in desire he is hoped to be of the true Church l. 22. sufficient thro Godâ—s infinite goodness l. 23. crimes and invincibly errs in not-fundamentals errors unknown to them l. 30. we may hope Danger of Schism Pag. 3. l. 13. and if she deny it l. 14. which are accounted THE CONTENTS PART I. 1. COncerning Faith necessary for Salvation § 1. 1. Concerning the object or matter of Faith. 2. Concerning the necessity of our belief of such object of Faith. § 2. 1. That it is necessary to our salvation to believe whatever is known by us to be Gods word Where 1. Concerning our obligation to know any thing to be Gods word which knowledg obliges us afterward to belief § 3. 2. And concerning sufficient proposal § 6. 2. That it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is Gods word be known by us to be so or in general be known by us to be a truth § 10. Where 1. That it is necessary to salvation that some points of Gods word be expresly known by all Such points very few Not easily defined § 13. In respect of these the Apostles Creed too large 2. That it is highly advantageous to salvation that several other points of Gods word besides these be known § 14. 3. And our duty each one according to his calling to seek the knowledg of them In respect of which the Apostles Creed is too narrow § 15. 4. That the obligation of knowing these varieth according to several persons c. And § 17. That the Decrees of Councils not obligatory at least to some against a pure nescience but only opposition thereof and not any opposition but only when known to be their Decrees PART II. II. Concerning the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical whether it must be in every Believer an Infallibility that the matter of such Faith is a Divine truth or Gods word § 20. Concessions § 21. I. Concerning the object of Faith that this is only Gods word II. Concerning the Act of Faith and the certainty which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church Tradition § 22. That the Authority of Scriptures and Church is learnt from Universal Tradition § 23. Concessions concerning Tradition § 25. 1. That there is sufficient assurance in Tradition whether infallible or no to ground a firm Faith upon 2. That Tradition may have a sufficient certainty tho such Tradition be not absolutely Universal § 28. 3. That no one Age of the Church is mistaken in delivering any eminent Tradition § 29. 4. That the testimony of the present Age is sufficient to inform us therein § 30. 5. That Tradition of the Church is easier to be understood in some things expounded by her than the Scriptures § 31. 6. That the Church is a sufficiently-certain Guide to us in Doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary § 32. Digr 1. That all Traditions carry not equal certainty § 33. Digr 2. The difference between the Church's and Mahometan and Heathen Traditions III. Concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the inward operation of God's Spirit § 35. Concessions concerning the Spirit 1. That it is always required besides outward means 2. That all Faith wrought by the Spirit is infallible § 36. 3. That sometimes the Spirit produceth evidence beyond science § 37. IV. That from these Concessions it follows not that all who savingly believe have or must have an infallible or such sufficient certainty as may possibly be had of what they believe § 38. Neither from the evidence of Scriptures § 39. Nor of the Spirit § 40. Nor of Church-Tradition § 41. For these following reasons § 43. Necessary Inferences upon the former reasons § 51. CONCERNING FAITH necessary to SALVATION AND Of the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether This always in every Man ought to be Infallibility SIR YOU have importuned me to communicate to You my opinion on these four Queries as being you say the chief subjects which are debated by our modern Controvertists and in which if one side should gain the victory there would follow a speedy decision of most other Theological Controversy The First concerning FAITH What or how much is necessary for our Salvation The Second concerning Infallibity in this Faith Whether it be necessary in every Believer to render his Faith Divine and Salvifical The Third concerning the Infallibility of the Church Whether this is at all or how far to be allowed The Fourth concerning Obedience and submission of private Judgment Whether this be due to the Church supposed not in all her decisions infallible For the two latter I must remain for a while your Debter On the two former I have returned you as briefly as
all her traditions or doctrines from the testimony of the Scriptures our Saviour's promise c. delivered there and then to prove the Scriptures to be God's word or infallible because this is one of her traditions or doctrines is granted even by some of the Roman writers to be a circle See Dr. Holden 1. l. 9. c. Non audentes fidem divinam in certitudine evidentia naturali i. e. in universal tradition and he gives the reason because they cannot be perswaded quod illi nulla prorsus subsit aberrandi facultas fundare in circulum hunc inevitabiliter illabuntur in orbem turpissime saltant c. Indeed such argumentation would have no more strength in it than this of Mahomet If he should first write a law which tells the people that whatever he delivers to them is infallible truth and then prove to them that law to be or to say to them an infallible truth because he delivers it A circle I say it is to those who will not grant the Supposition that Scriptures are the word of God otherwise to men as to Protestants supposing the verity of Scriptures tho unproved by the Church t is no circle if any one suppose a Catholic from them being granted attempt to prove ad hominem the Church's authority or infallibility tho the same Romanist also doth affirm that the Scriptures are proved to be God's word from the Church'es testimony or from tradition Only where both these Scripture and Church-infallibility are denied neither can be proved by the other till one is either supposed as true or proved by some other medium which medium is received to be tradition and if so then I say there can be no more certainty that the Church is infallible than that certainty which lies in universal Tradition 2. And secondly the same may be said for Scriptures which being supposed to be infallible because God's word yet if they are proved only by the same tradition to be God's word all the certainty that I have of their infallibility is also from universal tradition For the Conclusion can have no more evidence than the Premises or Proof hath Again suppose I were without tradition infallibly certain that such Books are God's word yet can I not for all this quit the dependence upon Tradition in some points at least of my faith For my faith being grounded not on the bare words but sense of those books and the sense of the same words being divers especially since the sense of no one text must oppose the sense of any other and hence Scriptures most clear in their expression by reason of other Scriptures as seemingly clear that express the contrary notwithstanding this clearnes become very ambiguous and that in some necessary points of faith as appears in those many controversies concerning their sense some of which contests doubtless are in very necessary points and matters of faith to know therefore amongst these which is the true sense as suppose in the controversies about the sacred Trinity Grace and Free will Justification c. upon which first known I must ground my faith I am no way helped by knowing that the writing is God's word Here therefore tho the Scripture for the Words should not yet my Faith for their Sense would have a dependance upon and repair unto universal Tradition and where-ever the Sense is doubtful to me as the Scriptures may be doubtful to one where perspicuous to another the chief certainty I can have for that Sense which my Faith ought to embrace will be from the universal Church-tradition Now concerning this Universal Tradition therefore on which as the Final assurer of the Scriptures or of the Church'es Infallibility the act of Faith must rest let it be granted 1. First without disputing whether it be absolutely infallible because it is needles to the stating of our business That there is in it certainty or assurance sufficient to ground a firm faith upon For tho t is willingly assented to that Tradition being in its nature a relation of a thing gives not nor cannot give us such an assurance as that we know the contrary thereof to be absolutely impossible for t is not absolutely impossible for all men in the world from the beginning thereof till this time to have lied in every thing they have said but yet he were no ordinary mad-man that upon this nonimpossibility would believe no relation at all only because t is not absolutely impossible that they may err and himself hit the right yet 1. we must either allow a sufficient certainty therein or else that we have no sufficient certainty of the Scriptures that they are God's word Which granting that some few learned and studied men may sufficiently discern from the light of Scripture yet for this the most of men especially as to some of the books thereof depend on the certainty of Tradition And indeed it were impious to affirm that we have not a sufficiently sure ground of that knowledg of good and evil upon which our eternal happi nes is to be acquired or misery sustained or that God hath not left an undoubtable evidence of those truths whereby we are to direct our lives to that end for which he hath created us But this can be assigned no other at least to most men than Tradition Therefore it is the interest of all Christians as well those who submit themselves only to the Scripture as those who submit also to the Church unanimously to maintain a sufficient certainty therein lest whilst the grounds of our faith ascend not to a Mathematical or sensible demonstration they be made Scepticism and Quodlibets 2. But 2ly we must either hold certainty in Tradition or that we can have no assurance at all of any thing past or absent Yet transfer this discours to any other temporal matter and who can wish to be more sure of any thing than he is of many such which have to him only a general tradition for them As for example that there is such a City as Paris or was such a man as Henry the 8th But yet in divine things compared with other temporal matters that are of the same distance of time from us there seems to be much more certainty in that the providence of God hath appointed a selected company of men successively in all ages to be the Guardians Conservers Divulgers thereof to the world for ever 3. Lastly if this Tradition and the doctrines we acknowledge divine were to be delivered authoritatively from God to men not in all but some determinate time and place see Christ's Ben. p. 35. say how posterity can receive these from any other evidence unless perhaps we further require the voices from heaven Christ's preaching miracles death to be presented before us and that before every one of us excluding all relations from others because these may be fallible But such a ground of our faith destroys the nature of faith and it
in which we may easily be deceived Ergo That it is true This for the Spirit In the next place to come to consider Whether all to have true and saving faith must be rationally assured thereof from the to-them-known Church-tradition And here we will grant as t is said before 1. That there is in Tradition sufficient ground for such assurance as is necessary and that it is a medium for necessary points of faith free from error 2. That the saith of very many hath this rational assurance and that any or most by some reasonable diligence may attain it for necessary points from the traditionary doctrine and practice which they may see and hear dispersed thro the Church for doubtles our careful Saviour hath provided a rational means sufficient for producing a full perswasion of faith in all sorts of men there where his Gospel is preached and this means all men for the ascertaining of their faith as much as may be are bound to seek after all their life according to their condition c. 3. That the Church-decrees may be certainly known and are easily understood and more easily in many things than the Scriptures namely where these happen to be doubtful to us and doubtful they are or should be where ever Church-tradition expounds them otherwise than we and hence that this point being supposed that the Church is infallible those who believing her to be so do rely upon her judgment have for the most part a stronger perswasion and those knowing her to be so have a more rational assurance of the truth of their faith in all other points than only relying on the perspicuity of Scriptures because the former persons faith rests on a double ground the saying of Scripture and the sense of the Church interpreting it And thus one adhering to the tradition and doctrines of the Church hath more warrant for his Faith than a single Scripturist 4. That those who hold Church-tradition fallible can have no other way an infallible evidence whereby they can demonstrate the truth of their faith But all these granted yet such a degree and measure of certainty or assurance as that of Tradition or Church-infallibility is seems not to be necessary to make faith salvifical or defect of such a motive sufficient to void it and render it no true divine and acceptable faith but an humane opinion and perswasion as some contend But saving faith may be begotten where the proponent of the word of God or of divine revelation mediate or immediate is not or at least is not known to be which is all one with the former to the believer's certainty infallible and it sufficeth to it that what one believes is the word of God and that he believe it in some degree or other predominant to unbelief to be so And this I think may be shewn in many instances and by many reasons 1. For first some at least of those primitive converts of the Apostles questionles endued with true faith yet believed before any certainty of the infallibity of their teachers or before or without seeing their miracles tho these also seen afforded to some no certainty who thought that such might be done by the Devil's power see Matt. 12. 24. Deut. 13. 1. meerly by the powerful operation of God's Spirit So the Eunuch to be a true believer needed no more than the bare exposition and relation of S. Philip So Cornelius and his friends some words of St. Peter The Jaylor and Lydia of S. Paul strangers and formerly altogether unknown to them the Holy Ghost presently unlocking their hearts and finishing the work For so the three thousand converted by S. Peter in one day supposing he at that time wraught miracles yet t is not probable that all these were spectators of them or yet auditors of his doctrine from his own mouth but believed only the relations of others persons fallible who stood near him The Bereans why examined they the Apostles doctrines if they knew or esteemed him infallible The Believers at Antioch zealous of the law why contested they with St. Paul and those of Jerusalem with S. Peter Act. 11. 2. if acknowledging them infallible Or the weaker brethren tho of the number of true Believers why doubted they long time of some meats unclean contrary to the Apostle's instruction T is true that whoever believes that which another relates must ipso facto believe the relater in that thing not to be deceived but yet he who in any other one thing doth not believe him doth not believe him to be infallible And granting that all the primitive Christians assented to the infallibility of the Hierosolymitan Council yet many points of their faith were learned not from the Council but private Doctors whom I have shewed that some of them accounted not infallible nor yet was their faith nullified thereby 2. Believers no way heretical or schismatical but submitting unto the Church in all things and believing her and her traditions to be infallible c and consequently whose faith is allowed by the most rigid exactors of certainty to be most safe and secure yet if things be well examined all of them cannot be said to have an infallible means or motive or proponent of their faith I mean so many as are neither able to search the H. Scriptures nor the Tradition of former times nor universal present Tradition nor yet the Catechisms and common writings of the Church neither for other points nor yet for this That the Church or the Tradition they rely upon is infallible But being young as many undoubtedly are made faithful Christians when children or illiterate necessitated to handy-labour quiescent in one place or perhaps inhabiting deserts and solitudes c do receive the doctrine of their faith believing and yeilding obedience thereto only from their Parents or the Curate of the place or from their bare reading or hearing read some portion of Scripture recommended to them for but not proved at all to them to be the word of God. Believing indeed what is truth and obeying it but having no more external argument or assurance thereof than another suppose educated in an erroneous Church and taking the false Tradition thereof for Apostolical hath of his error Now private teachers even within the Church may first possibly by their negligence be themselves ignorant or rationally uncertain of what they teach and a Catholic Priest be able to give no better account for his religion than the Protestant both inheriting their tenents from their next Ancestors For Error once begun is propagated afterward by Tradition as well as Truth Or 2ly being rationally certain of the truth yet may he wilfully for filthy lucre for fear for lasciviousnes c see 1 Thes. 2. 3 5 6. 2 Pet. 2. 14. misguide his disciples Or 3. lastly teaching only the truth which he perfectly knows yet is this his certainty tho something to the truth of the others faith nothing to their
certitude thereof as long as they are not certain that he is not deceived Neither doth any ones believing the Church to be infallible ascertain him of the truth of his faith if he believe this her infallibility only upon the relation of his Pastor for so he hath no more certainty of the Church'es infallibility than he hath of the truth of such a relation which we have shewed is liable to error And then again it is much to be noted that one believing only and not being certain of the Church'es infallibility tho he immediately received all his doctrines from her self yet this could produce no certainty of the truth of what he receives it being no good consequence I believe such a one is infallible therefore I am certain what he saith is true But lastly let one be certain of this one point That the Church or her tradition is infallible which how many are there that cannot clearly prove and then from this known let him have infallible certainty at once of all other points whatsoever that are delivered by her or it yet supposing any to learn what are these her doctrines not from her self but from his private Curate which doubtles many true believers within the Church'es communion do his faith cannot plead any certainty this way For there is some distance between my knowing the Churche's tradition to be infallible and knowing in every point what is her tradition That which is said by Mr. Knot against Chill p. 64 and 358. in this point That a fallible motive applying divine revelation by God's supernatural concours may produce an infallible act of faith is granted But then this act of faith is infallible not from the proponent but God's Spirit in respect of which as is shewed before all saving is also infallible faith but not therefore known always to the believer to be infallible See before § 38. Again that which is said by Dr. Holden Resol fidei 1. l. 2. ◠That their faith who depend on their Pastors instructions is tutissima ipsique in rebus fidei securi modo sint membra illius Ecclesiae quae veritatem omnem revelatam amplectitur docet cujusque pastores rectores medii istius quo sibi divina haec doctrina applicatur veram rationalem habuerint certitudinem is also granted but it seems to affirm only sufficient safety in their faith without their certainty of the truth thereof Now as those of one side cannot plead their faith certain and infallible from their hearing and believing their private Pastor so neither may those of another side from their reading and believing and resolving their faith into the Holy Scriptures For since not so much the Letter of Scripture as the Sense is the infallible word and revelation of God and the letter many times is capable not only when in expression ambiguous of divers senses but also when most seemingly-plain of another sense than they import because of the consonancy they are to have with some other Scriptures lest God's word be made to contradict Hence is one man's Bible where thus ambiguous as fallible a proponent to him in respect of the possibility of his mis-intepreting it as another man's Pastor in respect of his possibility of erring And indeed the former interpreting Scripture to himself seems to be less infallible in his faith than the other learning of his Pastor expounding it because he is more likely to mistake the sense thereof than the other els why is he appointed for his teacher whose faith he is to follow Heb. 13. 7 tho I affirm a sufficient and saving faith may be and is attained by either means hearing ones Pastor or reading the Scripture 3. Since all saving faith in us is the effect of the Spirit why may not our faith be so without any precedent rational certainty thereof According as it seems before granted That God's supernatural concours may advance an act of faith relying on a fallible motive into a belief infallible why may not this Spirit shew its strength then in the weaknes of external proposal But if we suppose it a partial cause and add to it for the production of faith not only some external proponent which that there is ordinarily is granted but this infallible and known also to be so Then to say nothing of the instances given before of the contrary nor to urge here why such an infallible proponent sometimes at least namely where the matter of our belief is as in many things it is most conformable to reason should not be a sufficient cause to beget saving faith without the supernatural concours of God's Spirit and what needs that to be also spiritually which is rationally discerned I ask what do we mean by a stronger and a weaker faith so often mentioned in Scripture Do we mean several degrees thereof the least of which is certain No. For we find doubt nay some degree of unbelief and that of the same thing sometime mixed with true faith See Mar. 9. 24. Mat. 14. 31. Which unbelief or doubt that it never happens in respect of the truth of the relation but always only in the supernaturalnes of the object I think none can rationally affirm See Luk. 24. 11. Only if there be not so much of assent as to turn the scale of our judgment then will it not be faith but either pure doubt or further unbelief Faith therefore as it comes both from the outward hearing of God's word and the several proofs thereof and also by the inward operation of the Spirit so is it capable of many degrees both from the several evidence of those proofs and also from the several influence of the Spirit God giving more external evidence to one than to another as to those who see miracles or who read and compare Scriptures and Councils than to those who only hearken to their Pastor and upon the same evidence made to many God giving a stronger adherence to such a truth to one than to another either * from the energy of the Spirit thro which many can die for Christ that cannot well dispute for him or also * from a natural more passionate temper or * from hiding from them contrary verisimilities and * from ignorance of the weapons of error c. So the unlearned many times believe and adhere to a truth more strongly thro ignorance of any arguments to the contrary than the learned do to the same thro reason assaulted with many doubts and a small argument to a weak understanding begets a more firm credence than a stronger to the learned So a true believer may be less confident thro a rational perswasion in his faith than another thro the violence of a misguiding lust in his falshood nay he may have less reason or proofs tho there be more for the one than this man hath for the other and yet his faith vivifical and acceptable and oftimes there is the greatest glory and merit in it when
vel Provincias siunt pleniorum Conciliorum authoritati quae fiunt ex universo orbe Christiano sine ullis ambagibus cedere quis autem nesciat ipsaque plenaria saepe priora posterioribus emendari cum aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat cognoscitur quod latebat which he applies afterward to the point of Non-rebaptization when it was by the Church better considered See a like passage to this de Bapt. 2. l. 9. c. Si Concilium ejus i. e. Cypriani the Provincial Council called by him attenditur huic est universae Ecclesiae posterius Concilium praeponendum Nam Concilia posteriora prioribus apud posteros praeponuntur universum partibus semper jure optimo praeponitur Now that St. Austin as Mr. Cressy well observes Motives 33. c. understands this emendation of Councils in points not of fact c. but of Doctrine I mean of such doctrines as are not expresly delivered by former plenary Councils and those Councils accepted by the Church catholick tanquam de fide which determinations the Church is conceived only to make in points more evidently certain to her and so never after amendable appears from the context both precedent and consequent where he goes on Quapropter S. Cyprianus qui c. satis ostendit facillime se correcturum fuisse sententiam suam si quis ei demonstraret Baptismum Christi sic dari posse ab tis qui foras exierunt quemadmodum amitti non potuit cum foras exirent unde multa jam diximus nec nos ipsi tale aliquid auderemus asserere nisi universae Ecclesiae concordissima authoritate firmati cui ipse sine dubio cederet si jam illo tempore quaestionis hujus veritas eliquata declarata per plenarium Concilium solidaretur Which answers to what he said before aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat c. as elsewhere he intimates the former obscurity of this question de Bapt. 1. l. 7. c. Tho indeed it is well noted of some concerning this passage of St. Austin that by the Concilia plenaria he meaneth only such larger Councils as were composed of many Provinces inferior to the most General such as that of Nice because he saith Quis nesciat priora saepe posterioribus emendari When-as before his time there had bin only two of these most general Councils and of these the latter making no such emendations as to reverse or contradict any one doctrine of the former Now that Councils inferior to those collected ex toto orbe Christiano only if consisting of many Provinces were by St. Augustin and other Africans stiled Concilia plenaria or universalia see de Baptis 2. l. 7. c. 3. l. 2. c. Contra Parmenian Epist. â— l. 3. c. Contra Crescon 3. l. 53. c. Codex Canon Ecclesiae African passim num 19. 28. 65 25. Conc. Carthag A. D. 403. num 127. 138. of these inferior plenary Councils then St. Austin seems to speak when he mentions the latter correcting the former reading the words quae fiunt by way of Parenthesis Quis nesciat ipsa Concilia i. e. quae per singulas regiones vel Provincias fiunt Councils Provincial plenariorum Conciliorum authoritati those comprehending many Provinces and especially those quae fiunt ex toto orbe Christiano as that of Arls or Nice for one of these he meaneth here but rather that of Arls 1. see Canon 8. and St. Aust. Ep. 162. ad Eleusin sine ullis ambagibus cedere ipsaque saepe plenaria those Councils comprehending many Provinces for this saepe emendari cannot be applied to the universally-General that were before St. Austin's times neither can his arguments against the Donatists stand good upon such a supposition of such Councils errability priora c. Again Bellarmin himself since he grants that Councils may err in the reasons they give for some Conclusions which I conceive extends also to the mis-interpretation of some Scriptures whence they draw them and in the deductions to be made that they may be de side puts in evidenter aut quod evidenter inde deducitur and allows latter Councils may determin what former Councils doubt of which determination when-as both of them have the same assistance of the Spirit is only from some rational light that latter Councils from more weighing and discoursing such points do attain doth he not affirm a Council in some smaller and less evident or less argued points of doctrine liable to some error And lastly that the Church doth not pretend to infallibility in all doctrines pertaining to faith but only to some as being more evident me thinks sufficiently appears from this That in her General Councils she decides not all pre-extant controversies but hath left many sharp ones namely where there is neither clear revelation nor tradition nor consequence from them for either side undetermined and in that she hath defined some others as probable see Concil Viennense fore-quoted But if she were by divine assistance in all doctrinals pertaining to faith whereof some are granted not necessary Bell. de Ecclesia 3. l. 14. c. certain of truth she ought never to state any as probabilities Whence also it appears that of all controversies that arise tho some way pertaining to faith one side is not presently to be called necessary and to be decreed and the contradictory thereof necessary to be confuted and exterminated But if in all truths necessary or not necessary when she offers once to decide them the Church must needs be infallible notwithstanding any mis-arguing by the supervising of the H. Spirit lest any should be induced to believe something false Is there not the same reason that in matters of fact notwithstanding any mis-information she should be by the same holy Spirit preserved from erring lest any should be obliged and that sometimes under her Anathema's for these also she useth in matters of fact to submit to what is wrong Thus much concerning this tenet That only Traditional points and their undeniable plain Consequences are the matter of the Churc'es infallibility and de fide necessaria of Christians But note that the Church'es infallibility must not be enlarged to all points which may be called Traditional neither for surely of all things pretended to be traditional there is not Tradition equally evident but of some less than of others according to which the evidence of the Church must be of many several dogrees neither may we reasonably ascribe to her the infallibility in all of them which we do in some other tho her evidence in the least may be so much as that none ought to reluct against her sentiment or practice The next thing which will be enquired after is How to know amongst many decrees of Councils which of them according to the expression of the former opinions the Church proposeth tanquam de fide or tanquam necessario credenda or which she proposeth as clear and
errs therefore she cannot know or be sure but that she errs in every thing unles first it be shewed that she knows all things from an equal evidence But 3ly these two not hindring infallibility general in all things which the Church shall propose or decide unles it can be proved that all hitherto passed in the General Councils is only necessaries or that she can determin nothing unnecessary to salvation I see not that it is nor any need that it should be affirmed neither from our Saviour's promise which we have no reason to extend beyond necessaries neither from the force of those reasons which are well urged by some to prove General Councils infallible in necessaries but are faulty if any will apply them to an infallibility General The chief of which reasons I think are these The 1. A Generali Concilio appellari non potest which is granted unde apertissime sequitur non errare Nam alioquin iniquissimum esset cogere Christianos ut non appellent ab eo judicio quod erroneum esse potuit R. The argument is good for points de fide necessaria but no further for by this reason the same Councils could not err in judging particular causes and matters of fact for from a General Council in these also is no appeal unless in infinitum to the same court Again some points there are in Non-necessaries wherein General Councils are granted liable to error by those Authors who urge this argument for infallibility as is shewed before § 9. But yet there can no appeal be made from them and peremptory obedience is required to be yeilded to them in these Lastly supposing that no court were infallible yet unappealable some must be that contests and strifes may have an end As also it is no less in temporal courts for temporal causes tho these courts fallible Therefore from unappealablenes doth not follow infalliblenes 2. The Second Haeretici sunt excommunicandi omnes qui non acquiescunt Conciliis plenariis haec Concilia dicunt Anathema contradicentibus but Anathema's and Excommunications for contrary opinions proceed only from the Council's infallibility R. Not always from infallibility for such things are done by Councils less than General and therefore fallible and lawfully see Bell. 2. l. 10. c. done by plenary Councils in cases wherein fallible Anathema's always where lawfully used argue in some authority in others a duty of submission to it and are lawfully used for any thing I know by particular as well as general Councils and against the Schismatical for smaller matters or opinions disturbing the peace of the Church after dubious things determined as well as against the Heretical for necessary and certain points of faith denied As for applying the word Heretick to those who oppose things established in General Councils it is granted that such Council is infallible in all fundamental or absolutely necessary truths If therefore it be affirmed that it never defines any points but such it is granted to be infallible in whatever it defines and this proof thereof taken from the opposers thereof their being called Hereticks may be spared But if we suppose that a General Council may define or determin some points which are not such then the word Heretic must be a little better examined before any thing for infallibility of Councils can be proved from it For either he is said to be an Heretic who knowingly opposeth any definition whatever of a Council proposed under Anathema c. tho it be not in a fundamental or necessary point of faith but if thus then we cannot argue the Council infallible in every thing because he that opposeth her in any thing is accounted an Heretic Or he is an heretic only who opposeth such a Council not in any but such definitions as are made in matters of necessary faith But if thus then we must know Conciliary Definitions exactly which are such which are not before we can know whether the opposer thereof be an heretic neither can we prove the Council Universally infallible because he who opposeth it thus in some points is heretical 3. The 3d. If the Church be not infallible in all that she proposeth none could have any certainty of his faith which faith he must receive and learn from the Church R. Yes he that believeth the Church in all she saith will still have a certainty I mean for the certitudo objecti and will be free from error in all necessary faith which is sufficient if the Church be in the proposal of all necessary points of faith infallible which is affirmed But as for certitudo subjecti i. e. his being certain that in all such points he is free from error which concerns not this place I refer you to those fuller Notes about it Concerning the necessary ground of Saving Faith. 4. But fourthly tho Universal infallibility c may perhaps not be made good by these or any other reasons yet I think by what I have said it appears That none may from this not proved or his proving the contrary think himself discharged of his obedience which is due upon other grounds sufficient without this namely 1. * upon her Supremacy and unappealablenes whom Christ hath commanded him to hear and repair to as his guide and governor under pain of being treated as a Heathen and Publican was amongst the Jews and 2. * upon her Infallibility in all necessaries by which there is no danger to him for any error or mis-practice wherein she may mislead him neither will God for such error call him to account but let him certainly expect this if deserting his guide he doth mislead himself and 3. * besides these upon the dictate of common and natural prudence according to which none may justly withdraw his belief and submission of judgment to those of the greatest skill and integrity in the things wherein he wants instruction meerly upon this pretence that every man may possibly err or lie to him Suppose he thinks that he is infallibly certain in some thing that that which she teacheth him is false yet thus will his obedience be still obliged and kept entire for †most points as with which at least he may not dispence for any lesser scruples and doubtings but apparent counter-demonstrations but perhaps for †all points if he please to examin his own knowledg who goes upon no evidence which the Church also hath not and be not willing to mistake seeming for true certainty from which commonly the most ignorant are appearingly most certain Again suppose he discover General Councils to contradict in any point which yet if it be must needs be in a point not necessary yet may he not therefore totally withdraw his obedience save only to those things wherein they contradict nor perhaps in these neither for according to St. Austin's rule of Councils differing the last obligeth him by which the former may be amended amended therefore also contradicted But then
implicit faith is accepted whether in our defects or also errors in matters of faith implicit faith being then only serviceable to us where faith explicit considering due circumstances cannot be attained by us Now what is said hitherto concerning knowledge of the Scriptures may be applied to the knowledge of the Church our guide in the Scriptures and the obedience due to her For he who believes 1. Either that the Church is infallible in her proposals to him what is the word of God or 2. That tho fallible in some things yet she is appointed in those things to be his Judge and the final determiner of them 3. or at least that in the exposition of the sense of Scriptures her judgment is better than his own such a one is bound to believe any thing to be God's word if she affirm it to him to be so And he who doth not believe any of these things of the Church is not presently therefore unobliged to her proposals unless he hath unpartially examined this matter and so finds no just cause to believe any such thing of her wisdom or authority as is pressed upon him For when some argue thus There is no danger to me in so or so disobeying the Church where she ought to be obeyed if having used the uttermost examination I can both of the point and of my own dis-interest I can find no such obedience due to her t is well reasoned tho such obedience were indeed due to her if we grant the Supposition that he hath examined to the uttermost who yet after all remains mistaken for a mistaking examination where there is no further power to discover it is no more blameable than a true one and in this case invincible ignorance or incapacity excuseth And God doubtless imposeth nothing to be believed by us under the penalty of sinning but that he gives sufficient arguments to evidence it to all men endued with the use of reason and void of prejudice and passion But hence is our error that we take an imperfect trial and examination for a compleat and suddenly rest in the dictate of our conscience un or mis-informed which is virtually a going against it and to God must we answer both for such a blind conscience and all the acts of disobedience that flow from it Thus much concerning our obligation to seek after the knowledge of all divine truth and concerning sufficient proposal and that upon this whatever appears to be God's word is necessary to our salvation to be assented to and believed But this granted in the second place you are to observe that it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is God's word be known to us to be so or be known by us to be a Truth For of these parts of God's word which are proposed to us some there are which concern the business of our salvation and again some others which do not as some passages of history and perhaps some subtle consequences of some beneficial point of Faith c Hence therefore ariseth a twofold necessity of belief either only in respect of proposal because we know they are God's word or besides proposal in respect of our salvation because they are some way advantageous thereto Now concerning the first of these tho such things once evidently proposed are necessary to be assented to or rather not dissented from yet it is not necessary at all that they should be either proposed to us or known by us but we may be ignorant of or also err in them without any sin any danger Concerning the second Divine Truths necessary to be believed with relation to our salvation may be taken either in a more strict or in a more large sense Taken in the most strict sense they are such articles or points of faith as without which actually known and believed none at all can possibly enter into heaven and escape damnation and of which not only the denial or opposition but the pure nescience and ignorance is a defect of faith to all adulti absolutely irremissible And these must needs be very few since we must make them no more than the knowledge whereof may be attained by the most illiterate indocile and the lowest conditions of men And likely according to the several degrees of the proposal and revelation of the mysterys of salvation fewer of these are required in some times as those before the Gospel than in some others as those since it Yet that now also in the greatest illumination there are but few we may gather both * from the short abridgment of faith the Apostles proposed in their Sermons to the people commonly including the Articles of the Passion and Resurrection and Kingdom of Jesus the Son of God and of David and the remission of sins to the penitent thro his Name and * from the yet shorter Confessions of Faith which the Apostles accepted as sufficient for bestowing of Baptism i. e. for admitting men to salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven so that in that instant had they died as the good Thief also did doubtless upon such a small stock of faith they had entred into life eternal See Act. 8. 37. 16. 31 33. Act. 2. 38. 10. 43. Now these absolutely necessary points are either 1. of pure faith or also 2. of practice 1. Again those are either * such wherein we more expresly give honor and glory to God in acknowledging Him and his wisdom and his works such as they are and that is much better and more wonderful than any lye can make them or * such whereby we * nourish our hope concerning good things belonging to our selves obedient and * quicken our fear concerning evil things appertaining to the disobedient Yet are not those amongst them which are most speculative to be thought useless or unprofitable to us even in respect of our practice they all generally conducing to the advancing of our admiration love and affection to God and of our confidence and reliance upon him and so to the animating of our endeavours and obedience accordingly to his commands Nullum est dogma Christianum quod non sit quodammodo necessarium ad praxim So that an orthodox faith in Speculatives is a main ground of a right practice and a strong faith of a zealous practice 2ly Those points of faith which are also of practice are such wherein we learn our duty to God. To particularize something in both these 1. Pure faith absolutely necessary to all in general even to those under the law of nature perhaps * is that faith only Heb. 11. 6. made evident evident enough to all by the works of God. Again faith absolutely necessary to those within the Church before the times of the Gospel is perhaps besides the former faith * a general trust and hope in the Messias to come See Jo. 4. 25. 1. 21. Mat. 2. 5. Jo. 7. 42. Again absolutely necessary to those under the Gospel
most firmly the principle and ready to quit the point controverted when to them apparently repugnant to it charged by the contrary party of the Reformed to be fallen from Salvation but are easily admitted to one anothers communion So the Roman or rather all the visible Church of God before Luther whether Eastern or Western in adoration of the Eucharist is conceived by consequence of this not being the Body of our Saviour upon which ground they worship it to worship a meer Creature and so to commit idolatry and give God's honour to another yet this Church holding the contrary principle That no Creature may be worshipped with divine adoration is not said by this practice to err in a fundamental nor are those unconvinced of their error dying in the Roman communion and in this practice by the contrary reformed parties denied Salvation See Dr. Potter sect 3. p. 78. sect 4. p. 123. But note That if the Sentence of the Church be a sufficient ground in such dangerous points to regulate and guide our belief and that her Definition of them may be called a sufficient proposal now after such decree we stand guilty in any of these erroneous Tenents tho our reason perceives not the ill consequences thereof because here contrary to the Supposition made before we have a sufficient proposal of the truth or an authorized proposer what in such doubtful points we are to hold For if we know or being impartial might know that there is such an authority as it to which we are bound to submit our judgment we are convinced by this authority determining as well as by arguments proving Neither have the first Councils endeavoured to prove their Creeds to those to whom they did enjoyn them And thus much of Necessaries or Fundamentals in the second place the set number of which varying so much according to several persons and conditions yet all of these obliged to acquire as much knowledge as they can tending any way to their Salvation can much less be prescribed than of the former The next consideration will be concerning the Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether it ought to be absolute Infallibility or Whether we cannot savingly and with such a faith as God requires believe some divine truth unless we be infallibly certain that it is a divine truth 1. First then concerning the object of Saving Faith It is true and granted that the object thereof is only God's Word and that this Word is infallible and that since God cannot lye fidei non potest subesse falsum Which saying refers not to the act but the matter of faith i. e. the matter of faith Salvifical cannot be false because it is the Word of God which is apprehended by this Faith Thus therefore true faith is always grounded on or ultimately resolved into something which is infallible i. e. God's Word whether this be written or not written and in believing divine things we cannot savingly for the matter tho we may unfeignedly for the act believe any thing but what is certainly true Saving Faith then requires both 1. that that which is believed be God's word and 2. that it be believed by us to be so So the Schools Fides non assentit alicui nisi quia est a Deo revelatum And 3ly that this word be believed to be utterly infallible From whence this therefore follows 1. That Faith believing any thing which is false is no true faith 2ly That Faith believing any thing which is true yet not as divine revelation or God's word or this word not to be infallible is no divine or saving faith So that there is alway an infallible object for faith to rest upon But our Quaere goes further Whether it be requisite to Saving Faith that we not only believe what is God's infallible word but likewise that we be able to prove infallibly that it is God's word which we believe 2. Concerning the act of faith and the certainty and assurance which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church and Tradition 1. First it seems that whatever certainty our faith may receive from these these again both the authority of the Scriptures and of the Church do externally derive only or chiefly from that which is ordinarily called Universal Tradition By which I mean * a Tradition so universal as these things are rationally considering all circumstances capable of i. e. from all persons who could come to the knowledge of them and who have no apparent interest which may incline them to corrupt truth and * a Tradition so full and sincere as that the like in other matters leaves in men no doubt or dispute 1. For first supposing the Church infallible yet is she finally proved to be so only from Universal Tradition which universal Tradition hath its certainty and infallibility from the nature and plenitude thereof and not from the testimony of Scripture and so escapes a circular proof The series then of proof is this The Church is proved infallible at least in Necessaries from our Saviour's promise of assisting her c testified in Scripture These Scriptures are proved to be God's word and so infallible from universal Tradition and universal Tradition is allowed to be infallible from the evidence and nature of it self because it is morally i. e. considering their manners and reasonable nature impossible for so many men of so many ages so dis-interested to conspire to deliver a lye in such a matter Or as some others express it such Tradition tho it were not so plenary as is delivered to us by that congregation of men which is called the Church must be allowed to be infallible from its being invested and endued with such marks and signs amongst which are Miracles as it is contrary to the veracity of God supposing that he requires from his creatures a due service and worship to permit that they should be fallacious The series of the probation runs thus The Scriptures are proved to be God's word and so infallible from the testimony of the Church which testimony of the Church or of so many people so qualified is proved to be infallible not from our Saviour's promise testified by Scripture for thus the proof would run in a circle tho to any one acknowledging first the Scriptures this proof is most valid I mean the proof of the infallibility of the Church from the testimony of Scripture is most valid tho it be true also that the Scriptures are rightly proved to be God's word from the Church's testimony but as being so universal a Tradition or a Tradition so sufficiently testified and confirmed as it is morally impossible especially considering God's veracity and providence that it should deceive us But as I said to prove the Church the other way to be infallible i. e. by testimony of those Scriptures which Scriptures to be divine we learn only from the Church Or more plainly thus to prove the Church to be infallible in
will be no more belief but sight and science which are opposed to faith properly so called See 2 Cor. 5. 7. Jo. 20. 29. The knowledge and assurance then of things past for time or far distant for place must be conveyed either by relation only or extraordinary revelation 2ly Again let it be granted That Tradition may be certain enough tho contradicted by some for what is there also in nature or sense that hath not by some bin opposed and not absolutely universal Els the Scriptures themselves are not received by sufficient tradition for most of the sacred books have bin opposed by some and that for a long time and some books by many But if notwithstanding this they be thought sufficiently attested so also may many other things whereof hath hapned some contest 3ly Let it be granted likewise that the universal Church of no one age can be mistaken in the delivering of any eminent and more material tradition wherein her care is interested For who so denies this must either affirm that no Tradition can be certain to us or that it is so only by the records and histories of former and those the very first times for if the present age may fail in these so might any present age before it except the first whereby the traditions of the present must be confirmed But since these records and writings of former times were casual and since our Saviour established his doctrine only in a succession of his messengers and from them only without any writings for a time the Church learned her faith surely Christians according to this tenent if destitute of writings would have bin left uncertain in their religion notwithstanding the provision made by our Saviour of Teachers of his Gospel to the worlds end 4ly Let it be further granted 1. Not only that he who diligently searcheth after the truth of a Tradition cannot ordinarily err or mistake that for a Tradition that is not or that for no Tradition that is but 2. that the general testimony of the present age is enough to warrant a Tradition to him from which he may receive a sufficient certainty without examining a succession of the same doctrine from the first age or searching the conformity of the present with former times as well as he is sufficiently assured that there was such a man as William the Conquerour or is such a City as Rome only by the general undisputed accord of all of the present time namely amongst whom he converseth without reading the Chronicles up to the Conquerour or consulting the several interjacent Provinces between his abode and Rome Nay 3ly let this also be yeilded concerning the present age That tho quo universalior as well universalitate loci as temporis traditio eo certior yet one without searching the universality of the present age may have sufficient assurance of what he believes from the publick Liturgies Canons Articles Catechisms and other common writings such as come to hand where they all or most accord one with another of which books also that such Fathers and Synods c. are the Authors as are pretended let it be likewise granted that he may learn from the same surenes of Tradition as he doth that such an one was an Emperour c. for so he believes the same Tradition for Tully or Livy being the author of such books as for Caesar being Emperour of such a people and then the same assurance which he hath of Secular Authors he may have of Sacred or as he doth that such are his Princes Proclamations or Edicts which he submits to without any signed testimony or any scruple that they are such nor doth any venture to transgres them upon the not absolute impossibility that they are forged 5ly Let it be granted which we know by experience That the Tradition of the Church is easilier understood in those points which she undertakes to expound than the Scriptures themselves which are by her explained For supposing the contrary then were Creeds Catechisms and all the Church'es teaching needles since of two things equally obscure the one can never illustrate or explain the other Therefore men may be more assured in many things of the doctrine and meaning of the Church than of the Scriptures As for example t is easier especially when not some single text is considered apart but all those which both sides urge are confronted together to understand what we are to hold concerning the Trinity from the Nicene Creed and concerning Grace and Free-will from the decrees of the Milevitan Council than from the Scriptures So in Luther's time it was easie for those to know the Church'es tenent and practice concerning Adoration of the Eucharist Auricular Confession Invocation of Saints c. who were not able to examin the doctrine of the Scriptures in such points so that it must be yeilded that Tradition is a more evident Guide for many things than those Sacred writings are 6ly Lastly since this Tradition of divine things in which above we have pleaded sufficient certainty to be is contained in the Church and delivered as it were from hand to hand by the successive Guides thereof therefore let it be granted That the Church which pretends not to make any new Articles of Faith at all but to recommend to her children what is deliver'd to her is infallible or a certain Guide to us in doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary in the same manner as Tradition may be said to be infallible or certain For to say Tradition is certain is to say we have some way to know Tradition suppose that Tradition of the Scriptures being God's word without being deceived in it and this way is the testimony of the Church therefore is this also certain Having made these Concessions concerning the evidence of Church-tradition and the sufficient testimony it affords us to ground our faith on at least in all the principal points of our religion wherein such Tradition both as to delivering a sufficient Canon of Scripture and the true meaning of this Canon is most full and unquestionable Yet I must mind you before I proceed further to avoid your mistaking that I hold not all Traditions that we meet with to have an equal certainty or creditablenes one as anther because all circumstances considered they have not an equal evidence but very different and therefore ought carefully to be examined and compared For example The Tradition that such a person suppose Mahomet lived in such an age may have much more certainty than that Mahomet or such a person said or did such or such a thing in that age Neither is the argumentation good The one is believed from Tradition therefore the other ought to be so because caetera non sunt paria and there may not be the same plenitude of Tradition for both and more may bear witness both in that and latter times of the one than do of the other Of Traditions therefore
some there are and those as well within as without the Church much more doubtful obscure and questionable than others For 1. both truths committed to Tradition may fail in successive times vel per omnimodam cessationem vel ex eo quod oppositum introducatur viz. where Tradition is not come to a convenient and due pitch of universality as is granted by the strongest abettors of Tradition See Dr. Hold. Resol Fid. 1. lib. 8. cap. And 2. the unfailing Tradition of successive times may be defective in its first original's being false or els in its having many falsities in its current thro posterity superadded to and mingled with the truth as persons are interested or fanciful As Gentilism did superadd many things to the ground-work of religion received from the Jew and writings of the Old Testament For falsum poterit quodammodo caeteris paribus aeque certo ac verum per traditionem communicari els lies cannot be commonly believed But many such we know were credited amongst the Heathen concerning their Gods and are amongst the Mahometans concerning their Prophet and so it may happen that as undoubting an assent may be given to these as is to the truth for ignorance many times doubts less of a thing than knowledg doth But yet this we contend that it will never be so rational And indeed many disparities there are between the credibility of Heathenish or Mahometan and of Christian Tradition * Such as are in Heathenism these †1. that except some foundations of religion borrowed from the Jews and so free from error there is no constancy or agreeance in the tradition thereof but t is varying according to each city or country whereby any one of them much fails of universality and contradictory Tradition destroys it self And 2ly that †as we have said that falsities under the notion of falsities may be conveyed by Tradition so many of the absurd stories of Heathenism seem not to be believed even by the most or wisest of those who propagated them therefore are their Poets their Divines out of whom chiefly such tradition is learned And * Such as are in Mahometanism these †It s spreading 1. * by the force of the Sword contrary to the nature of Tradition and 2ly * by its plausibility and compliance with carnal lusts both great corrupters of the truth of Tradition whereas Christianity flowing down to all ages in opposition to both these by how much it was less pleasing or less protected seems to be strengthned in all times with so much greater evidence of truth and testimony irresistible †It s wanting that universality which Christianity possesseth never having had so large a circuit the Western part of the world having always bin a stranger to it and the growth of it now for many ages being stopped and it decreasing in the world and this great falshood by little and little giving place as is seen in the Eastern Countreys to its elder the Truth I say these and many other disparities there are but besides these the main thing whereby all such Traditions are convinced of falshood lies in this that they came into the world still later than that of the Truth and so are known to be false by their contradiction to it so that Truth against them may always plead prescription * So Heathenism was younger than the Tradition of God's word in the Old Testament and so indeed than the Gospel which also was contained in the Old Testament and taught from the beginning see Rom. 3. 21 23. So that I may say Heathenism was the Antichristianism of the former Ages springing up after the tradition of God's true worship Again * so Mahometanism was later than the tradition of the New Testament being the Antichristianism of the last times but lest the world I mean that part of it to whom it pleased God to divulge the truth by false traditions should be deceived God hath always provided true Tradition to pre-occupate Faith and to anticipate and antidate error Therefore tho we yeild to the truth also of Mahometan tradition in some things as that there was such a one as Mahomet a Law-giver a Conqueror c. yet we know that Tradition that he received his writings from the Angel Gabriel c. to be false because contrary to that divine Tradition which besides many other advantages ought from its antiquity to be preferred God having given to Truth the Eldership of Falshood And on the same grounds may we reject that Heathen-tradition in the Acts of the Image of Diana falling from God c. III. And thus much be granted concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the external motives or proponents the Scriptures Church and Tradition 3ly Concerning the illumination adherence certitude which this Faith that ordinarily first cometh by hearing receives from the inward operation of God's Spirit 1. First let it be granted that the interior working of the Holy Spirit opening the heart is always required besides the outward means for the conception of all saving Faith that we cannot exercise any act thereof without particular grace and motion of the Holy Ghost that it is the infused Gift of God as well as other graces of hope and charity see Jo. 6. 29 44 45 64 65. Matt. 11. 25 26. 16. 17. Act. 13. 48. 16. 14 15. Rom. 12. 3. 1 Cor. 12. 3 9. 2 Cor. 3. 3. Gal. 5. 22 23. Eph. 1. 17. c. 2. 8. 6. 23. See Ben. Spir. p. Whence Faith is said to be supernatural as in respect * of its object things above the comprehension of reason and * of it s ultimate ground it builds upon which is divine revelation so * of its act being caused by the Spirit All the acts of faith being in some kind supernatural for such a degree of adherence as they have both because the relater or proponent thereof is many times not at least known to be infallible and because the object thereof many times tho there be all certainty from the relater is capable of much doubt and vacillancy from its supernaturalness and seeming-repugnancy to reason Therefore we see our first Father or at least his wife see 1 Tim. 2. 14. failed in not believing the words spoken by God himself to him and the Disciples when rationally believing our Saviour to be the Son of God and all he said to be truth and seeing his miracles yet desired the increase of their faith and were in it many times not a little shaken thro the contrariety or transcendency which it had to sense or reason And it is reckoned to Abraham as strong faith that he believed the word of God himself in things contrary to nature See Rom. 4. 18 19 20. which Sarah his wife flagg'd in See Gen. 18. 12. 2 King. 7. 2. Thus Faith to make it vigorous and lively comes necessarily to be a work of the Spirit either in regard of the sublimity of its object or
also of the incertainty of the Proponent 2ly Again let it be granted as freely That that Faith which is the Gift of God and work of the Spirit must needs be infallible and exempt from all possibility of error because the supreme verity cannot inspire a falshood 3ly Let it be granted also That the Spirit produceth many times in the soul such a supernatural and undiscursive light and evidence to the understanding and following this such a strong inclination of the will and adherence of the affections to the matter believed as do far exceed all science sense experience demonstration Tho this intuitive rather than argumentative or probative of such truths either to other's or our own reason which this Spirit captivates and brings into obedience * moving us to the strongest faith upon very small evidence and the smaller the evidence the stronger the power of the Spirit against many temptations of infidelity and * opening the heart to such a degree of undoubtedness that we are willing to undergo any Martyrdom rather than quit and renounce our belief See for such certainty 2 Tim. 1. 12. Act. 2. 36. Jo. 6. 69. IV. All this therefore being granted namely That all true saving faith is grounded on God's word which is infallible That all true faith is wrought in us by the Spirit of God which Spirit is infallible That there is a certainty or assurance sufficient if not infallible to be had from universal Church-tradition of both the former namely both * that such writings on which our faith is grounded are God's word and such their meaning and consequently * that the belief of such things contained in them is the work of God's Spirit Yet our Query remains still uncleared Whether I say not some for I grant many have but every one that truly and savingly believes must have an infallible certainty of his faith or must have a known-to-him infallible teacher or motive external as Tradition or internal as the Spirit to ground his faith upon by which he is not fully perswaded but also rationally sure of the truth of that which he believes And this to me notwithstanding the former Concessions seems not at all necessary for the producing of a saving Faith. And first for the assurance we may have from the Scriptures by knowing either in general that they are the word of God or that in such places or points where their sense is doubtful this and no other is the certain meaning of them I have shewed § 23. and 35. That the knowing this must either be devolved upon Ecclestastical Tradition or upon the Spirit And first for the assurance of these Scriptures and so of our faith from the inward testimony of the Spirit to which many fly for succour and first taking this for granted that every believer must be infallibly certain of his faith and then that tradition tho the most full and much more any private instructer being some way liable to errour sufficeth not for to produce such an effect they labour to ground this certainty upon the assurance of God's Spirit None can plead this at all from our faith being caused by this Spirit for it follows not that if the Spirit begets faith infallible in our hearts or also the most unexpugnable adherence thereto therefore we know this faith to be begotten by the Spirit or if it move us that therefore we can certainly tell when it doth so so that we can say to this God's Spirit moveth me to assent to this not For we may have from the Spirit the greatest perswasion or internal evidence if you will of a truth that may be imagined and yet not have any rational or discursive evidence thereof from it neither by other proofs nor by this which is sufficient that we clearly discern the good Spirit to produce it since the like assurance or confidence to some degree is frequently begotten by an impetuous lust or by the evil Spirit for most pernicious errors so nearly imitating the Spirit of illumination as not to be discernable from it by this sign of strong perswasion since many have had it so strong as to dye for them The assurance therefore or full perswasion of a Divine truth by the Spirit is one thing the assurance that this assurance cometh from the Spirit is another And indeed tho in some general things as of the Bible being the Word of God and of some universally-believed points of faith all men are confident of their assurance in them that it is from God's Spirit because indeed all Christians are in these agreed yet in descending to particulars as whether such or such a Book of Scripture be God's Word or be written by an heavenly-inspired author whether such a particular point of faith be to be stated thus or so whether such be certainly the meaning of some particular place of Scripture here I say where there is contradiction and doubt between parties few there are who will offer to plead such assurance from the Spirit as that they cannot be mistaken but labour to inform themselves as well as others the best they can from other reasons And indeed did the Spirit thus always bear witness to it self had we any such internal assurance ordinarily for extraordinary assurances of it happening to some greater Saints of God in very many things I deny not I mean not of the belief of the thing but that such belief of the thing cometh from the Spirit there needed no more confirmation of any point either from Church or universal Tradition or collation of other Scriptures or any other way but this For thus tho some men might profess an error against conscience yet err in very deed in matter of Divine faith none could for knowing that the Spirits operation is necessary to all true faith and knowing again when it operates he may be sure that that which it operates not is no true faith But this sufficiently argues that there is no such ordinary effect thereof in that the pretenders of the Spirit so frequently by this Spirit contradict one another and indeed this arrogant perswasion and ultimate refuge of singularity hath bin the great Source of all Heresie and Schism by reason of mens departing from Tradition and from the Church upon confidence of this Therefore we conclude a man may believe by the efficiency of the Spirit and yet not certainly know its efficiency and may know that by it he believes all which he truly believes in divine matters and yet not know that by it he believes such or such a particular thing So that tho this be laid for a ground That all true Faith is the work of the Spirit yet we must by Scripture or in things doubtful by the Church'es traditionary exposition thereof first know our faith to be true and thence by consequence gather that it is the work of the Spirit not è contra argue that it is the work of the Spirit
having stronger adherence upon smaller evidence provided no evidence attainable be neglected 1 Pet 3. 15. See Jo. 20. 29. The reason of which is because faith is no way acceptable to God or saving so far as it is by true or by seeming demonstration forced upon the understanding with a reluctance mean-while of the will for then the faith of Devils would be so who doubtles have much more evidence of their faith than many Christians but only so far as it is embraced and accepted of by the will and affections and in some manner becomes our election and choice which election so contrary in many things to the flesh being never made without the power of the Spirit hence chiefly is faith such as is saving said to be its work See Ben. Spirit § 4. Again if men for the sufficiency of their faith depended on the infallibility of the Church or her traditions it follows none can have of any thing true faith which is not first determined by the Church or known from universal Tradition Therefore none can be said fide divina to believe or assent to any of those Theological verities which are ordinarily drawn by clear and necessary consequence from the Scriptures and tho not by the Church decided by the Schools which seems absurd 5. Lastly Let but a rational certainty from the infallibility of Tradition be necessarily required to faith for one point namely this That our Scriptures are God's word for which all sides are agreed in admitting it and I do not see how it can be denied that for many other points i. e. those wherein God's word is clear and which are by no side controverted one may be sufficiently certain from the Scriptures themselves independently on the Church or Tradition fave for the one point above-named For since God's word may be in some things I mean such as are uncontroverted as plain and consonant to it self as any Synod-Catechism if such a Catechism is thought a sufficient ground to one to assure his faith why may not the Scripture Now after all that I may not seem to you in this my judgment heterodox at least to other Catholic writers you may be pleased to view what Estius the famous Divinity-Professor at Doway and what Card. Lugo a Spanish Jesuit have delivered on this subject See Card. Lugo tom de virtute fidei dis 1. § 12. n. 247. c. where he brings reasons for this opinion not much differing from those above-mentioned As 1. Since the belief of Infallibility it self must be produced from some other motives if such motives be sufficient for the begetting the faith of this why may they not be sufficient for some point of faith besides it 2. New converts embrace and truly believe some other articles of faith before they are acquainted with that of Infallibility 3. Rusticks commonly resolve their faith into no further proof than their Parish-Priest and what he relates to them 4ly Under the law of nature before Moses most were believing only upon the authority of their Parents without any Church-proposal His words are these num 247. Probatur facile quia hoc ipsum Ecclesiam habere authoritatem infallibilem ex assistentia Spiritus Sancti creditur fide divina quae docet in Ecclesia esse hujusmodi authoritatem ergo ante ipsius fidei assensum non potest requiri cognitio hujus infallibilis authoritatis Et experientia docet non omnes pueros vel adultos qui de novo ad fidem accedunt concipere in Ecclesia hanc infallibilem authoritatem assistentiam Spiritus Sancti antequam ullum alium articulum credant Credunt enim articulos in ordine quo proponuntur Hunc autem articulum authoritatis Ecclesiae contingit credi postquam alios plures crediderunt Solum ergo potest ad summum praerequiri cognoscere res fidei proponi ab Ecclesia concipiendo in Ecclesia secundum se authoritatem maximam humanam quae reperitur in universa fidelium congregatione Again num 252. Probatur Conclusio 1. Quia in primis in lege naturae plures credebant ex sola doctrina parentum sine alia Ecclesiae propositione Deinde in lege scripta plures crediderunt Moysi aliis Prophetis antequam eorum Prophetiae ab Ecclesia reciperentur proponerentur quia soil vitae sanctitate rerum convenientia aliis de causis objectum reddebatur prudenter credibile praesertim cum viderent aliqua ex iis quae Prophetiae praedicebant quotidie impleri Denique in lege Evangelica Act 3. 4. c. Beatus Petrus miraculo facto testatus est se illud fecisse in nomine Christi nulla facta mentione authoritatis Ecclesiae vel suae convertit tria millia hominum qui sane prudenter moti sunt licet non conciperent Ecclesiae authoritatem And num 251. Non requiritur ex natura rei Ecclesiae propositio ad credendum In all which note that this Author speaks of sides divina salvifica as appeareth in the first instance naming fides divina in St. Peter's converts c. and all his discourse otherwise were besides the purpose See Estius to the same purpose in 3. sent 23. dist 13. sect where after many considerable arguments he goes on Fidei impertinens esse quo medio Deus utatur ad conferendum homini donum fidei quamvis enim nunc ordinarium medium sit Ecclesiae testificatio doctrina constat tamen aliis viis seu mediis fidem collatam fuisse aliquando adhuc conferri c. Nam antiqui multi ut Abraham Melchisedech Job ex speciali revelatione Apostoli ex Christi miraculis sermone rursus ex Apostolorum praedicatione miraculis alii fidem conceperunt alii denique aliis modis crediderunt cum nondum de infallibilitate Ecclesiae quicquam eis esset annunciatum Sic ergo sieri potest ut aliquis non inhaerens doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam regulae infallibili quaedam ad fidem pertinentia pro Dei verbo recipiat quia vel nunc vel olim miraculis confirmata sunt vel etiam quia veterem Ecclesiam sic docuisse manifeste videt vel alia quacunque ratione inductus licet alia quaedam credere recuset Again Haereticus potest quaedam tenere ea firmitate assensus promptitudine voluntatis qua ab aliis omnia quae fidei sunt tenentur Again Nihil vetat quo minus haeretici quamvis in multis errent in aliis tamen sic divinitus per fidem illustrati sint ut recte credant Where note that Estius also speaks of sides vera and fides donum Dei quo divinitus illustramur such as that was of Abraham Melchisedech and the Apostles converts And note again that tho this Fides vera divina is in no Heretick's integra as to all points of faith perfect because if one failed not in some point of faith he could be no Heretick yet many times it is
revelasse or se hanc fidem Deum revelasse habere ex auxilio Spiritus Sancti and this a motive morally infallible namely consensum Ecclesiae or Universal Tradition concerning which he thus goes on Verum in ordine ad nos revelatio divina credibilis acceptabilis fit per extrinseca motiva inter quae unum ex praecipuis merito censetur authoritas consensus Ecclesiae tot saeculis tanto numero hominum clarissimorum florentis But then this evident or morally-infallible motive is not held always necessary neither for the humane inducement to divine faith For he goes on quamvis id non unicum neque simpliciter necessarium motivum est quandoquidem non omnes eodem modo sed alii aliter ad fidem Christi amplectendam moventur His adde Non tantum variis motivis homines ad fidem amplectendam moveri sed etiam alios aliis facilius partim propter majorem internam Spiritus sancti illustrationem impulsionem sicuti not avit Valentia q. 1. p. 4. arg 18. partim propter animi sui simplicitatem quia de opposito errore persuasionem nullam conceperunt Qua ratione pueri apud Catholicos cum ad usum rationis pervenerunt acceptant sidei mysteria tanquam divinitus revelata quia natu majores prudentes quos ipsi norunt ita credere animadvertunt So then if all saving faith must be sides divina infallible that which can rightly be produced to advance sides humana into it is not the authority of Scriptures or of the Church for Qui credit propter authoritatem hominum vel simile motivum humanum is fide solum humana credit but only auxilium Spiritus Sancti succurrentis intellectui c in the stating of this learned Casuist Thus you see by what is quoted here out of Estius Lugo and Layman that the moderate Catholick writers concede divine and salvifical faith where no infallibility of any outward evidence or motive And perhaps it might conduce much more to the prayed-for union of Christ's Church if so many Controvertists on all sides perhaps out of an opinion of necessary zeal to maintain their own cause to the uttermost did not embrace the extreamest opinions by which they give too much cause to their adversaries to remain unsatisfied and to make easie and specious replies being helped also by the more moderate writers of the other side As if they chiefly endeavoured to fright their enemies from any yeilding or hearkning to a peace whilst they hold it still upon higher terms than those the Church Catholick proposeth which hath redounded to the multiplication of many needles controversies From what hath bin said I think we may infer 1. First That it is not necessary to true and saving faith that all the mediums by which we attain to it be infallible That neither an infallible Judg nor a known-infallible argument from the Scriptures or writings of Fathers c. is absolutely necessary to it but that it is sufficient to believe the things revealed by God as revealed by him see § 1. holding whatever is his word to be infallible which is a principle to all men and needs no proof by what weak means soever we attain the knowledge of such revelations whether it be by Scriptures Catechisms read or Parents Pastors instructing yea tho these instructers did not know whether there were any Scriptures as the Eunuch believed without those of the New Testament and how unevident soever their confirmation thereof to us be only if we receive from them whether from the credit we give to their authority or to their argument so much light as together with the inward operation of the Spirit opening the heart to receive and accept of it of which Spirit yet we are not so certainly sensible as to know the proper movings thereof for then this were a motive all-sufficient without Scripture or Teacher doth sway and perswade the understanding and so produceth obedience Which faith tho it is not such for its immediate ground as cui non potest subesse falsum by reason of any humane evidence it hath yet many times it is such as cui non subest dubium of which we doubt no more than we do of a Demonstration by reason of the strong adherence we have to it either from the power of God's Spirit or probability of arguments c. See § 35. c. But neither is this actual non-doubting necessary for there is many times doubting in a true but weak faith see § 46. but this is enough if any thing be so far made probable as that it turns the ballance of our judgment so far as to win our assent nay nothing can be without sin disbelieved which seems generally including here also the argument from authority more probable than another thing tho it have no demonstration Which demonstration or also an infallible proponent that the faith of most men wants see the plain confession as it seems to me of Mr. Knot in his Answer to Mr. Chillingworth 4. cap p. 358. A man may exercise saith he an infallible act of faith tho his immediate instructer or proposer be not infallible because he believes upon a ground which both is believed by him to be infallible and is such indeed to wit the word of God who therefore will not deny his supernatural concourse necessary to every true act of divine faith Otherwise in the ordinary course there would be no means left for the faith and salvation of unlearned persons from whom God exacts no more but that they proceed prudently according to the measure of their several capacities and use such diligence as men ought in a matter of highest moment All Christians of the primitive Church were not present when the Apostles spoke or wrote yea it is not certain that every one of those thousands whom St. Peter converted did hear every sentence he spoke but might believe some by relation of others who stood near And 1. c. p. 64. the same Author saith that a Preacher or Pastor whose testimonies are humane and fallible when they declare to their hearers or subjects that some truth is witnessed by God's word are occasion that those people may produce a true infallible Act of Faith depending immediately upon divine Revelation applied by the said means And if you object saith he That perhaps that humane authority is false and proposes to my understanding Divine revelation when God doth not reveal therefore I cannot upon humane testimony representing or applying Divine revelation exercise an infallible Act of Faith. I answer it is one thing whether by a reflex act I am absolutely certain that I exercise an infallible act of Faith and another whether indeed and in actu exercito I produce such an act Of the former I have said nothing neither makes it to our present purpose Of the latter I affirm that when indeed humane testimony is true tho not certainly known by me to be so and so
applies a divine revelation which really exists in such case I may believe by a true infallible assent of Christian faith The reason of this seems clear because altho a truth which I know only by probable assent is not certain to me yet in it self it is most immoveable and certain in regard that while a thing is it cannot but be for that time for which it is c. Thus he The sum of which is That the infallibility of many mens faith is not from any external Proponent but only from God's concourse See Dr. Hold. 1. l. 2. c. p. 36 37. de resol fid saying the like 2. Again in the 2d place it may be inferred * That receiving of the Articles of his Creed from the Church'es proposal is not necessary to true faith or * That one may truly believe some who doth not believe all the points of faith which the Church proposeth or any for or upon her proposal or lastly * That one may truly and savingly believe an article of faith who is not certain of the divine revelation thereof I willingly grant here 1. first That he who believes aright any divine truth must believe that it is revealed by God or that God hath said it and That he that denies any one thing which he believes is revealed by God can believe no other thing at all as he ought that is as from divine revelation he must believe all such or none at all aright 2. Since a rational certain knowledge of divine revelation as of the Scriptures or also of the Sense thereof where doubtful is only receivedd from the Church and her Tradition I accord that none can rationally or so infallibly believe any things to be revealed by God but such as he knows to be proposed to him by the Church or Tradition to be such either immediately in her exposition of obscure Scriptures or mediately in her delivering to him the Canon of Scripture and therefore that who denies this authority in some points suppose in those points where this authority is granted by him to be of equal force hath no rational ground or certainty of his faith in any other of those points according to the Schools Qui inhaeret doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili regulae i. e. in omnibus quae proponit omnibus assentit quae Ecclesia docet i. e. quae scit Ecclesiam docere alioqui si de his quae Ecclesia docet tenet quae vult quae non vult non tenet non inhaeret infallibili doctrinae Ecclesiae sed propriae voluntati But note that every one who doth not inhaerere doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili may not therefore be said inhaerere propriae voluntati because he may hold such tenents not quia vult but * for some other reason abstract from the Church'es authority as Protestants do * for the evidence of Tradition in this point That Scripture is God's word So those who rejected some parts or books of Scripture because containing something opposite to their opinions could not ground any certainty of their faith upon the rest because that Scripture they refused came recommended to them by as much and the same authority as that they accepted But these Concessions destroy not the former proposition because for the former concession it is one thing to believe such a truth to be divine revelation another to be rationally assured thereof the first we grant is the second I think we have proved not to be necessary to all true faith For the second tho he who certainly knows not Church-tradition cannot have a rational or discursive certainty in his faith abstracting here from what internal certainty one may have from the Spirit nor upon that principle can believe one thing unless he believe all the rest that have the like Tradition with it yet he may without such a certainty or such a ground truly believe as I think is before-proved And hence it follows that one may truly believe some other points of faith who doth not believe this point in particular That the Church or Universal Tradition is infallible Thus much * of the non-necessity of infallible certainty in every believer to render his faith true divine and salvifical * and of the erring in some one article it s not necessarily destroying the true faith of all the rest But to conclude this Discourse Three things mean-while are acknowledged and confessed 1. First that he that truly and divinely believes all the rest of the Articles of our Faith and erreth only in one Article that is absolutely necessary to salvation such error may be said to destroy his whole faith in some sense that is in rendring his faith in other points tho not false yet non-salvifical to him 2. Again he that disbelieveth and opposeth the propositions of the Church known to him to be so in some point not absolutely necessary I mean to be explicitely believed for attaining salvation as some points there are so necessary tho this error doth not null the body of his beleife yet this opposition in that error is by the common doctrine of the Church accounted so great a crime as that unrepented of it renders his true faith being destitute of due obedience and charity unprofitable for his salvation which I thought fit here to mind you of that none may presume salvation from the truth of his faith in all necessaries as long as he stands tho in some as he accounts smaller points after sufficient proposal in opposition and disobedience to the Church i. e. to his supreme Governour and Guide in all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual matters See before § 50. 3. And lastly if this Article of Faith That the Church'es authority is either absolutely infallible in all things she proposeth to be believed or at least so supreme that none may in any wise dissent from her determination can be proved one of the points of faith absolutely necessary to salvation to be by every Christian believed then since there can be no disobedience and non-conformity to the Church but that it is grounded on the dissbelief of this Article it must follow That every one that opposeth the Church is also from his disbelief of this Article excluded from salvation FINIS OF INFALLIBILITY CONTENTS PART 1. COncerning the Infallibility of the Church how far this is to be allowed § 1 2. 1. Infallibility of the Church in necessaries granted both by Roman and Protestant writers § 3. Where How far points necessary are to be extended § 4. That the Church not private men is to define what points be necessary § 6. If these points be necessary at all to be defined and exactly distinguished from all other her Proposals § 7. 2. Infallibility of the Church in matters of Universal Tradition tho they were not necessary conceded likewise by all § 8. 3. Infallibility Universal in whatever the Church proposeth and delivereth is not affirmed by the Roman writers §
9. But only †in those points which she proposeth tanquam de fide or creditu necessaria § 10. Where Concerning the several senses wherein Points are affirmed or denied to be de Fide. § 11. That as only so all divine Revelations or necessary deductions from them are de Fide i. e. the objects and matter of Faith. 12 13. And That the Church can make nothing to be de fide i. e. to be divine Revelation c which was not so always from the Apostolick times § 12. That all divine Revelation or necessary deductions therefrom are not de fide i. e. creditu necessaria § 15. That the Church lawfully may and hath a necessity to make de novo upon rising errors such Points de fide i. e. creditu necessaria which formerly were not so § 16 17. Or as some other of the Catholick writers usually express it only †in Points clearly traditional § 18. Whether and by what marks those Points which are proposed by the Church tanquam de fide or creditu necessaria or which are proposed as constantly traditional are clearly distinguished by her from her other Proposals § 27. Anathema no certain Index thereof § 29. PART 2. Concerning Obedience and submission of private Judgment whether due to the Church supposed not in all her decisions infallible § 30. 1. That no submission of our judgment is due to the Proposal of the Church where we are infallibly certain of the contrary § 33. 2. That no submission is due to an inferiour Person or Court in matters whereof I have doubt when I have a Superiour to repair to for resolution § 34. 3. That submission of judgment is due to the supreme Ecclesiastical Court in any doubting whatever that is short of infallible certainty § 35. Submission of judgment proved 1. From Scripture § 37. 2. From Reason § 38. Where Several Objections and Scruples are resolved § 39. 3. From the testimony of learned Protestants § 44. 4. From the testimony of learned Catholicks § 51. Conclusion § 54. OF INFALLIBILITY PART 1. IT remains that I give you an account touching the other two Queries proposed The First concerning the Infallibilty of the Church Whether this is at all or how far to be allowed The Second concerning Obedience and Submission of private Judgment Whether this be due to the Church supposed not in all her decisions infallible Two Points as they are stated on the one side or the other either leaving us in much anxiety and doubt or in the moveal of this swelled with much pride and self-conceit or leaving us in much tranquillity and peace accompanied with much humility and self-denial Points as they are stated one way seeming much to advance the tender care of the divine Providence over his Church and to plant obedience and unanimity among Christians or as stated another way seeming to proclaim great danger in discovering truth to call for humane wit prudence sagacity and caution and to bequeath Christianity to perpetual strife wars and dissentions And therefore it concerns you to be the more vigilant that affection carry you not on more than reason to the assenting to any Conclusions made in this Discours To take in hand the former of these Concerning the true measure of the extent of the infallibity of the Church by Church I mean the lawful General Representative thereof of which see Church-Government 2. Part § 4. and 24. in the beginning I must confess that I know nothing expresly determined by Councils except what is said Conc. Trident. 4. Sess. Praeterea ad câ—ercenda petulantia ingenia decernit ut nemo suae prudentiae innixus in rebus fidei morum ad aedisicationem doctrinae Christianae pertinentium sacram Scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens contra eum sensum quem tenuit tenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia cujus est judicare de vero sensu interpretatione Scripturarum S. aut etiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum ipsam Scripturam sacram interpretari audeat Neither is there any mention found of the word Infallibility in the Decrees of Trent or any other received Council or yet in the Fathers as F. Veron in his Rule of Faith 4. c. hath observed and therefore saith he let us leave this term to the Schoolmen who know how to use it soberly and content our selves with the terms of the Councils The best is as the exact limits of this Church-infallibility seem no where by the Church to be punctually fixed so they do not in respect of yeilding obedience to the Church seem necessary at all to be known except to such a one as will not submit his judgment to any authority less than infallible of which more anon 1. First it is granted as by all the Catholicks so by the most learned of the Protestants see them quoted in Church-Government 2. Part. § 29. That the Church or the lawful General Representative thereof is infallible in its directions concerning necessaries to Salvation whether in points of pure faith or of practice and manners tho I yeild Mr. Chillingworth denies this see the discussing of his opinion in Church-Government 2. Part. § 26 -3 Part. § 76. without which doing I think he could not have made a thorow Answer to Mr. Knot nor could he have denied those other points which seem to be consequents of this as namely That we must know from the Church also the distinction of Necessaries from others Or must assent to Her in all she proposeth as Necessary That the Defence of any Doctrine the contrary whereof is proposed as necessary against the determination of the Church or lawful General Council is Heresy as being always after such sufficient proposal obstinate That any separation from the external communion of all the visible Church is Schism as being always in her professing and practising all necessaries causless Which Propositions the defence of his cause seems to me to have forced him to disclaim and so also this ground of them That the Church is an infallible Guide in Fundamentals or Necessaries And this infallibility the Church is said to have either from the constant assistance of God's Spirit according to our Saviour's promise at least for such points or also from the Evidence of Tradition much pleaded by some later Catholick Writers But since here by Necessaries may be understood either Doctrines c absolutely necessary to be known explicitely for salvation and that to every one that shall attain salvation for to some perhaps more are required than to others according to their several capacity and means of revelation see Necessary Faith § 10. 11. 16. which may be perhaps only some part of the Creed or else by Necessaries may be understood all other doctrines and rules that are very profitable and conducing thereto The Church being granted by both sides an infallible Guide and Director in Necessaries 1. First it seems most
reasonable that the Church'es infallibility in Necessaries should be taken in the latter sense there being nothing in our Saviour's promise that appears to restrain his assistance or in the conveyance of Tradition that appears to restrain its certainty to the former sense See Church-Government 2. part § 31. In which former sense if it be only allowed the Church'es insallibility in guiding Christians will be confined only to two or three points and those scarce by any at all doubted-of or disputed In this latter sense therefore both because of our Saviour's promise and the evidence of Tradition it must be said that the Church cannot be mistaken in defect but only if at all in the excess not in substracting from Christians any part of such necessary faith or duty but perhaps in superadding thereto something as necessary which is not 2. And here also secondly concerning such excess I think you will grant me That it will be hard for a private man to judge that any particular point decided by the Church is not some way or other necessary to be stated known and believed by reason of some ill influence which the contradictory thereof may by some consequence at least have upon our other faith or manners necessarily required and formerly established Nay farther that it will be hard to say that any point decided c is not necessary either directly and immediately or by connexion with some other points that are so to the actual exercise of Christian Religion and the practice of a completely holy life to which the most contemplative points of faith are very much conducing tho they mistakenly seem to many in this respect useless and therefore that they ought not to be so rigidly vindicated 3. And thirdly yet further if the Church be granted infallible in Necessaries however we take them it seems also most reasonable that from her we should learn if this be at all requisite to be known which or how many amongst many other decrees of hers if she makes any besides those concerning Necessaries which I say or how many are necessary For to what other Judgment can we repair for this unless to our own But how unreasonable this That whilst she is appointed to guide us with her infallibility in some points we are to state to her in what points only she can infalliby guide us This Mr. Chillingworth well discerned when he said 2. c. § 139. We utterly deny the Church to be an infallible Guide in Fundamentals for to say so were to oblige our selves to find some certain society of men of whom we may be certain that they neither do nor can err in Fundamentals it follows nor in declaring what is fundamental what is not and consequently to make any Church we may say or Representative of the Church i. e. a General Council an infallible guide in Fundamentals would be to make her infallible in all things which she proposeth and requireth to be believed i. e. In as many things as she saith are fundamental and she may say all are fundamentals or necessary if she will. Thus he So 3. c. § 59 60. to that objection since we are undoubtedly obliged to believe Her in fundamentals and cannot precisely know what be those fundamentals we cannot without hazard of our souls leave her in any point He answers by granting the consequence and denying the supposition I mean the former part thereof That we are obliged to believe her in fundamentals in delivering of which he saith she may err As for that Objection ordinarily made against the Church'es defining what points they are that are necessary and wherein by consequence she is infallible viz. that then Ecclesia non errabit quando vult because she may as she pleaseth nominate the points fundamental c. We answer that it being supposed necessary that the Council or the people must know not only the fundamental points but an exact distinction of such from the rest of which presently the same divine hand that will not suffer the Council appointed for the peoples guide to erre in any fundamental neither will permit them to say or to define any point to be fundamental that is not because this latter thing is supposed as necessary as the former i. e. God will never permit them to say they do not or cannot err in any point wherein they may err 4. But fourthly after all this it seems to me not to follow necessarily that if our Saviour by his Spirit preserve the Church an infallible Guide in necessary points of Faith 1. Therefore she must be infallible in distinguishing them from all other points which perhaps are not the same if we speak of those whereof men are to have an explicit knowledge to all persons and from whence if it be true it will follow that the Church shall travel in vain to prescribe any set number of such points See Dr. Holden de Resol Fid. 1. l. 4. c. Solutio Quaestionis hujus i. e. of absolute necessaries inanis impossibilis Nor 2ly doth it follow that therefore the Church should certainly know in what particular points she is infallible and in what not Certainly know I mean not for some but for every point to the uttermost extremity of Infallibility For who can doubt that she is both certain and may profess her certainty and infallibility and the absolute necessity that lies on all to believe some of them for many of those points she delivers namely for those at least which are of clear revelation of universal Tradition and also for the immediate manifest and natural consequentials thereof Nay who denies that private men also from the abundant clearnes of Scripture only may attain sufficient certainty of many doctrines of Christianity But I say certainly know that she is inerrable for every point in which she is so For as to one ground of her infallibility the assistance of the Spirit leading her into all truth necessary since men may be and all regenerate men are guided by the Spirit of God and yet without extraordinary revelation cannot certainly discern and distinguish the particulars wherein they are guided by it nor sensibly perceive the motions thereof why may not the Church also be ignorant in what particular points she is so far assisted by God's Spirit as never to give an erroneous judgment in them And as to the other ground evidence of Tradition tho I grant sufficient assurance or infallibility in it if plenary yet 1. Tradition of some points being greater and of some other lesser and more obscure this Tradition seems not always in all points to be such as to amount to that certainty some of late pretend 2ly By this the Church can only know her infallibility in points traditionary But then some determinations of Councils and that under an Anathema will be found to be not of doctrines clearly traditional and such as have bin the common tenents of the former Church but of new emergent
in conclusione fidei semper est certissima infallibilis But then 4ly he saith that Ad Ecclesiae infallibilitatem in docendo satis est ut sit infallibilis in substantia fidei publico dogmate rebus ad salutem necessariis quia hic est finis datae infallibilitatis viz. ad consummationem Sanctorum ad aedificationem corporis Christi i. e. ad publicam salutem fidelium Deus autem Natura ut non deficit in necessariis it a nec superabundat in superfluis Nec ad quaevis particularia Dei providentia specialis deducenda est quae ut multos particulares defectus in gubernatione universali permittit ad decorem ipsius Universi ut not at Augustinus in Civ Dei 11. l. 18. c. sic multos privatos in Ecclesia errores multarum rerum non necessariarum ignorantiam etiam in doctissimis permittit And again to Calvin charging the Papists that they said Ecclesia nulli errori potest esse affinis he answers Infallibilitas docentis Ecclesiae ponitur tantum in rebus ad salutem necessariis atque adeo in ipsa conclusione Thus he But then he both assirmeth the teaching Church infallible in all her conclusions and then affirming her infallible only in necessariis ad salutem consequently he must hold all the conclusions which she peremptorily proposeth to be believed to be necessary ad salutem Hitherto Stapleton Lastly in matters of fact Bellarmin grants general Councils to have erred See 2. l. 8. c. Resp. to 14. and 15. Objection The Church therefore is not infallible in all her decrees but only those which are de side or which is all one in his sence which are proposed tanquam de fide Now things are said to be de Fide in many several senses and therefore you will excuse me here if I make a digression tho something hath bin said thereof in the discours of Necessary Faith § 1. to declare them that the different Notions wherein Authors use this term may be the better understood 1. First then you must observe as Bellarmin notes de verbo Dei 4. l. 9. c. that Nihil est de fide and therefore cannot be proposed tanquam de fide nisi quod Deus per Apostolos aut Prophetas revelavit aut quod evidenter inde deducitur Illa omnia quae Ecclesia fide tenet tradita sunt ab Apostolis aut Prophetis aut scripto aut verbo either by verbal or also written Tradition which is the Scriptures therefore he affirms ibid. Non novis revelationibus nunc regitur Ecclesia sed in iis permanet quae tradiderunt illi qui ministri fuerunt sermonis And Concilia Generalia non habent neque scribunt immediatas revelationes aut verba Dei sed tantum declarant quidnam sit verbum Dei scriptum vel traditum Quidnam sit i. e. from the Apostolical times before the meeting of the Council quomodo intelligi debeat praeterea ex eo per ratiocinationem deducunt Conclusiones It aque Concilia cum definiunt qui libri c. non faciunt sed declarant esse tales Bell. de Concil l. 2. c. 12. But note here therefore that no points become de fide in this sence i. e. that they are verbum Dei or revelata because the Church defines them much less are all things that she proposeth straight de fide but that she defines them to be so only because they are so before even from the Apostles times either explicitly or implicitly either express and traditional and well known from age to age or necessarily involved in and clearly deducible from those points that are traditional For as is said before the Church hath no new revelation of any thing of necessary knowledge not formerly delivered not that I deny that some new revelations from God's Spirit concerning things Theological and of the next world can be now made to any in the Church but only affirm that all necessary ones are received from the beginning of the Gospel and that the Church can build upon no such new ones because she hath no certain way to discern them neither can the Church make any new Article of faith which much differenceth the Church succeeding from the Church Apostolical that none may argue the like fallibility or infallibility in both as to making or composing Articles of Faith but only the Church can declare what hath bin always formerly and explicate the sence or also educe out of it the necessary consequents thereof 2ly You may observe that all necessary deductions or conclusions tho perhaps formerly unknown yet being the necessary consequents of some other Articles known and common are properly called Articles of Faith or else we must deny those added to the Apostles Creed in the Nicene and Athanasian to be such or granting these two propositions Est unus tantum Deus and Pater est Deus Filius est Deus Spiritus Sanctus est Deus Deus here being supposed to bear the same sence as in the Major Proposition to be Articles of Faith we must deny this drawn from them Pater Filius Spiritus Sanctus sunt unus tantum Deus to be so 3ly You may observe that such deductions are also necessary to be made and manifested by the Church from time to time in opposition to contrary errors destroying by consequence that known Article from which these deductions flow that as new Errors arise against the Faith so new Explanations of the Faith may counterpoise them and may preserve that former faith in its true sence and in its necessary consequences by which the explicit articles of our faith must needs increase to the end of the world if errors against the faith do so Which also we may call new Articles of Faith in respect of the arguing newly made and the proposition it self newly formed yet by no means are they new in respect of the principles out of which they are formed and do necessarily follow Now therefore they are for the form rather than the matter as if this proposition Omnis homo est corpus should be said to be newly formed when as these two propositions whereof t is made Omnis homo est animal omne animal est corpus were well known and received truths before Therefore in such sence to make new Articles there is no need of new revelation but for those more evident only the operation of common reason And thus many things become known to posterity even in things most supernatural which were not discovered to or discoursed of by their fore-fathers from a further examining upon some occasion given and discussing of ancient principles and comparing of former revelations as out of Mathematical principles new Demonstrations yet undeniable are daily minted In which respect knowledge of divine things as well as humane may be said to have a continual progress and increase to the end of the world Dan. 12. 4 But
in things wherein he finds all or many of them unanimously agreeing or being established by some not contradicted or amended by any other succeeding but by the General practice of particular Churches conformed to these he may presume to be truths from their accord as the other falsities from their variance and therefore by no means may plead a release from the one by shewing the other FINIS CONCERNING The OBLIGATION of not professing or acting against our JUDGMENT or CONSCIENCE AND Whether the obedience of Non-contradiction only or also of Assent be due to the Decrees OF COUNCILS CONTENTS IN what sence it may be lawful to believe or do a thing against our own Judgment § 2. Concerning the Church'es lawful Authority to excommunicate dissenters in non-fundamentals § 4. As likewise to decide which Points are fundamental which not § 7. Several exceptions against obedience only of non-contradiction for Non-fundamentals And that at least all those not infallibly certain of the contrary are bound in Non-fundamentals to an obedience of Assent and therefore the most are so bound § 11. Replies to several Objections § 12. The 1. First concerning an inferior Councils decreeing some new dangerous error which no former Council superior hath condemned 2d Concerning faith salvisical that it must be infallible 3d. Concerning union of Charity sufficient § 14. 4th Concerning trying of doctrines necessary § 15. 5th Concerning what Church'es determinations when several contradict one another we are to adhere to § 16. A Post-script 2d Paper Concerning infallible Certainty § 19. 1. Infallible Certainty excusing all submission of judgment to others 2. Infallible Certainty to be had in some points Of the difficulty of knowing when one is infallibly certain 3. Infallible Certainty at least not pretendable against any General contrary judgment of the Church An instance in the Controversy about giving the Communion in one kind only § 27. 4. The greatest probability short of infallible Certainty not excusing our dissenting from the judgment of the Church An explication of Rom. 14. 23. Conference at Hampton-Court p. 72 73. Mr. Knewstub's 2d quest Lastly if the Church have that power also i. e. to ad significant Signs as the Cross in Baptism c. yet the greatest scruple to their conscience was How far such an ordinance of the Church was to bind them without impeaching their Christian liberty The King in his Answer hath these words I will have one doctrine and one discipline one Religion in substance and in ceremony and therefore I charge you never to speak more to that point How far you are bound to obey when the Church hath ordained it A LETTER concerning the obligation of not professing or acting against our Judgment or Conscience SIR YOU ask my Opinion 1. Whether we are bound to the obedience only of Non-contradiction or also of assent to the Decrees of acknowledged lawful General Councils in Non-fundamentals wherein such Councils are supposed by you errable supposing that such Councils require our assent therein And 2ly Whether one is or can be bound to assent when these their Decrees are contrary to his own private judgment and Whether one may go against his conscience in any thing Answ. I answer on which subject I desire you also to peruse what is said in the Discours of Infallibility § That if you take judgment here for infallible certainty which see more largely explained below § 19. c. I can soon resolve it negatively That you are not nor cannot be so bound Of which see more below § 20. But if you mean by your private judgment opinion short of infallibility i. e. some reasons that you have either drawn from the natures of things on from the sence you make of divine revelation to think that a thing is thus or so contrary to that general judgment 1. First this question seems * decided on the affirmative part viz. that you may go against your private judgment in mens ordinary practice In secular affairs do not we commonly upon receiving the advice of an experienced friend both believe him to be in the right and do a thing contrary to our own judgment i. e. contrary to those reasons which our selves have not to do it Is not Abraham said to believe a thing seeming contrary to his own reason Rom. 4. 17 18. And so the man in the Gospel Mar. 9. 24 Yet I know you will not say that they went in this against their conscience What is the meaning of that ordinary saying These and these reasons I have for my opinion but I submit to the Church Is it only I submit my judgment in regard of the publishing of it So Dr. Fern comments upon it 2. Treat 1. c. numb 1◠But thus the phrase seems very improper for this is a submission of our speech or silence but not of our judgment at all and is a submission which may well be professed also in things wherein our judgment is utterly unchangeable namely in things whereof we are infallibly certain 2. Again * decided by the concessions of several Protestants which seem to yeild the very same thing See Dr. Fern ib. n. 13. where he alloweth that in matters of opinion and credibility or of discipline and rites till we have sufficient evidence or demonstration of truth to the contrary our conformity i. e. of judgment which he expresseth afterward by submitting our belief and our practice remains secure Secure saith he till we have sufficient evidence c. But sufficient evidence we have not in opposition to the Church in things where possibly we may be mistaken and we may be mistaken in any thing whereof we are not certain ergo sufficient evidence in such cases is only certainty Likewise Dr. Hammond Reply to Cath. Gentl. 2. c. 3. s. 18. n. when the person is not competent to search grounds I add or not so competent as those to whose definition he is required to submit his assent alloweth a bare yeilding to the judgment of Superiors and a deeming it better to adhere to them than to attribute any thing to his own judgment a believing so far as not to disbelieve them Which he saith may rationally be yeilded to a Church or the governors of it without deeming them inerrable And in Schism 2. c. 10. s. he saith A meek Son of the Church of Christ will certainly be content to sacrifice a great deal for the making of this purchase i. e. of enjoying the communion of the Church and when the fundamentals of the faith and superstructures of Christian practice are not concerned in the concessions he will chearfully express his readiness to submit or deposit his own judgment in reverence and deference to his Superiors in the Church where his lot is fallen Where surely this submitting and depositing our own judgment implies something more than the concealment of it only since the concealment of our judgment being the least degree of obedience we can
I answer That from this judgment of such a Church so often as it is suspected by me I will not retreat to my private judgment but I will appeal to a more general judgment of the present Church which judgment I can either have conjunctim or divisim as it was ordinarily procured in ancient time and by the reformed opinion I shall be secure if I part not from the present Church for in fundamentals she shall in no age err but hold forth to me visibly the truth and if this error be in Non-fundamentals it amounts not as the reformed say to a heresy therefore will I still cleave to her i. e. the present Church and the supremest Authority I can find therein neither will I embrace any sence put upon Scriptures or Fathers against her because she cannot be at least in points of great consequence opposit to them And if that religion as it might have bin had bin conveyed to our days by unwritten Tradition and only so as the Apostle directed in 2 Tim. 2. 2 and that we had had neither New Testament-Scriptures nor writings of Fathers then I must have relied only on the guidance of the present Church neither needed she for this to have bin made more infallible than now she is and doubtles my faith should have bin nevertheles sufficiently grounded i. e. on the word of God still orally delivered by her neither could any have made an argument that my faith was not salvifical for this reason because fidei non potest subesse falsum for she must then in defect of all writings have bin confess'd the pillar and ground of truth and the dispenser or steward of the mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. the same then must she be still and Nations now as at the first before writings are still converted by her by her preaching before they come to peruse those Scriptures And so are we all also taught our faith first by her neither suffers she diminution in her authority from co-extant Scriptures and Fathers But yet besides that in these Scriptures is ascribed to her great authority any help that is from these writings enjoyed by any other is also by her that no body may boast over her in these advantages 2. It is objected That our faith to be salvifical must be grounded on something that is infallible and therefore only on God's word See this answered at large in the Treatise of Necessary faith § 43. c. Surely the Church groundeth her faith which she recommendeth to us on the Scriptures as well as private men think they do theirs when they leave hers to follow their own judgment And if the Church'es judgment is not neither is their own infallible for which they desert the Church'es But tho it is most true that true faith is always grounded on the word of God which word of God is infallible yet is it not necessary that every one who hath true faith do know that it is infallible or be infallibly certain of it For many have saving faith doubtles that learn this word of God only from a fallible man suppose from their Father or from their Pastor Neither is it necessary that this faith should be received from another person infallible besides God nor that it should be received from a writing at all There may be a strong adherence beyond evidence neither can it be unsufficient if it be so strong as to produce obedience to God's commands 3. T is said That one is for his salvation secure enough where ever these two are Unity of faith with the Church in fundamentals and then Charity toward the Church in the points not-fundamental wherein I disagree from her Charity i. e. not condemning her for them to be no Church c. I answer 1. First such a one must know well what are Fundamentals that perhaps he take not liberty to differ from the Church in any of them The Apostle reckons doctrines of Baptism and of laying on of hands among foundations Heb. 6. 2. if we will make unity in fundamentals so large as he doth I know not how many other points may be brought in And I am perswaded by reading the Catalogues of anciently-accounted Heresies that the Fathers and Primitive times would not have stuck to have pronounced some side highly heretical in those differences between the Reformed and the Catholic Church and even in those differences that are now in this Church of England about Baptism Bishops Ordination c. 2ly Without doubt there may be a larger unity of faith than only in fundamentals unles all points of faith be fundamental and if so then Churches that differ in any point of faith differ in fundamentals 3ly If there may be a larger unity then Spiritual Guides doubtles are set over us to build us up in the unity also of this faith and not only of fundamentals See Heb. 5. 11. c. 6. 1. And therefore why Eph. 4. 11. compared with 13. should be restrained only to fundamentals as it is by some it seems to me strange I cannot think that the Corinthians differed amongst themselves in fundamentals see 1 Cor. 1. 4. c and yet the Apostle is very angry with them for their divisions and exhorts them to be all of one judgment which union of judgment could not be by following the judgment each one of their private reason but of the Apostle and of their orthodox teachers appointed by him See 1 Cor. 1. 10. Rom. 12. 16 18. Rom. 15. 5 6. Phil. 1. 27. Phil. 2. 2 3. 1 Pet. 3. 8. where speaking the same thing and being joyned in the same judgment contending for the faith of the Gospel with one mind glorifying God with one mind and one mouth c. argue an unity required not only of charity but of opinion and judgment and that not only in fundamentals in which as I said all the factious Corinthians or most of them accorded but other beneficial truths which union how could so many judgments undependent of one another attain but by all of them retaining the same doctrine of their Pastor or Pastors 4ly If these points wherein the reformed recede from the authority of superior Councils be not very necessary tho not fundamental how can a separation for them be justified but if necessary why should we say that God requires not an unity of faith in them 5ly Again as faith and charity secure not our salvation if we be guilty of some other vice adultery c so they do not secure it if there be any denial of obedience where t is due especially to the Church disobedience towards whom is in a more special manner disobedience to Christ and to God himself and why may not this then endanger us if God hath provided teachers to keep us in the same judgment and we to the great hurt both of the Church and of our selves too by these divisions will every one follow his own judgment especially since
of his deductions and seldom examining the soundnes of some ground which he irrationally takes for granted becomes infallibly certain as he thinks of what is indeed an error and many times a gross one But it may be said again that where we can shew none of these differences in principles yet there have bin hereticks that have gone against tenets even in fundamentals of which tenets we must needs grant that any man may be infallibly certain as the Arrians Socinians Nestorians Eutychians c. To you I may speak my opinion In all these and many more which being chief foundations we usually also call most manifest truths yet the most of Christians E will not say all are very much beholden to the determinations of the Church from time to time by which they are kept fixed and not shaken in them And you see how the contrary tenets grow upon the sharpest men of reason where the authority of the Church is laid aside Certainly to name some of them the omnipresence of God not in his power but substance his certain foreknowledge of not only what may but also what shall be yet so as not to destroy mans free election Christ's non-inferiority as touching the God-head to the Father and all those particulars about the Trinity Person Natures and Wills of Christ can hardly be said to be so plain in Scripture to every one that grants it to be Scripture that all men without the Church'es guidance and education in such a faith c would have bin infallibly certain of them 2. But to let these pass and suppose in private men what infallible certainty you please of them or also of many other divine truths yet in the 3d. place I do not see how from the former instances we can proceed to make any use of this plea of infallible certainty against the judgment of the Church of many former ages for the controversies now on foot between the Reformed and the Catholic Church against whom this infallible certainty is chiefly made use of One of the most seemingly gross and unreasonable points on their side I suppose is Communion in one kind only which hath this prejudice also accompanying it that it was practised by the Church Catholick in the publick ordinary Church-communions only in some latter times before the Reformation Yet I think that none will offer to affirm that he is I say not much perswaded but infallibly certain of the unlawfulnes of such a practice when he hath seriously considered these things which I shall briefly name unto him * That many practices in Scripture are alterable by the Church and some precepts there only temporary not perpetual as Act. 15. 20. and Jam. 5. 14. as some will have it * That the Church hath altered many other things not only without our complaining thereof but with our imitating her Nay further * That some learned Protestants number the communicating the people in both kinds not amongst things strictly commanded in Scripture but amongst Apostolical Traditions only See Montag Origin Eccles. p. 396. Ubi jubentur in Scripturis Infantes baptizari aut in Coena Domini sub utraque specie communicantes participare And Bishop White on the Sabbath p. 97. Genuine Traditions derived from the Apostolical times are received and honoured by us Such as are these which follow The Historical Tradition concerning the number and dignity of Canonical Books of Scripture The Baptism of Infants Perpetual Virginity of the B. Virgin Observation of the Lord's Day The Service of the Church in a known tongue The delivering of the H. Communion to the people in both kinds When he hath considered * the practice of the primitive times even in the Eastern Churches also of giving it in one kind to sick men to Seamen to Travellers to the absents upon necessary occasions from church to those also who came to church to carry home with them that they might there reserve it in readines and communicate themselves therewith when they thought fit on those days when there was no publick communion or they hindred from it by distance danger as in times of persecution or necessary secular busines that which they carried home with them being only of one species viz. that of the bread And * these things tho so done to avoid some inconvenience I suppose the spilling and the not-keeping of the wine as also it is now yet so done without any absolute necessity for the sick can take wine sooner than bread and it might be conveyed from vessels without spilling and those vessels also be first consecrated and might also be possibly preserved in a close bottle for some long time When he hath considered * the ancient practice of giving the Communion sometimes to Infants newly born and baptized to whom this Sacrament was thought also necessary only in one kind namely that of the wine When one considers * the ancient custom likewise in time of Lent in the Greek Church for all days save Saterdays and Sundays because saith Balsamon Deo sacrificium offerre they accounted to be festum diem agere in the Latin Church for Good-Friday to communicate expraesanctisicatis i. e. on what was consecrated on another day and reserved till then which Symbol reserved was only that of the bread * The great cautiousnes of the former times against the too frequent casualties of spilling that precious blood which could not be gathered up again as the bread might in their receiving it in some places sucked up through a pipe in others by intinction and dipping only or sopping the bread in the wine a custom also used at this day in some of the Greek and Eastern Churches Again whereas one of our greatest complaints in this matter is an imperfect communion and robbing the people as it were of the chief part of their redemption yet when he hath considered * their never questioning the compleatnes of such Communions who thus received it in one kind which it most concerned people going out of the world and some of them perhaps then first communicated for their last viaticum to have most perfect Where note also †1. First * that the sufficiency of such a communion was so constantly believed that the use of the Cup also in publick communions was upon many abuses committed about it by little and litle in a manner generally laid aside in the ordinary practice some hundreds of years before any determination passed in any Council concerning it and * that that decree made first in the Conc. Constant. 13. sess was only to warrant and justify the Church'es former custom against those Petrus Dresdensis the Hussites and others who then began to inveigh against it saying hanc consuetudinem observare esse sacrilegum illicitum as likewise against that custom to communicate men fasting and hence began to change it and to communicate after Supper and in both kinds And 2ly †* That some of the Reformed also
or God's word §. 21. Concessions 1. Concerning the object of Faith that this is only God's Word §. 22. 2. Concerning the act of faith and the certainty which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church Tradition §. 23. That the authority of Scriptures and Church is learn'd from universal Tradition §. 24. §. 25. Concessions concerning Tradition 1. That there is sufficient assurance in Tradition whether â—â—fallible or no to ground a firm faith upon §. 26. §. 27. §. 28. 2. That Tradition may have a sufficient certainty tho notabsolutely un versal §. 29. 3. That no one age of the Ch. is mistaken in delivering any eminent Tradition §. 30. 4. Thaâ— the testimony of the present age is sufficient to inform us therein §. 31. 5. That Tradition of the Ch. is easier to be understood in some things expounded by her than the Scriptures §. 32. 6. That the Ch. is a sufficiently certain Guide to us in doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary §. 33. Digression That all traditions carry not equal certainty §. 34. Where concerning the Church'es and the Heathen and Mahometan Traditions §. 35. 3 Concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the inward operation of God's Spirit Concessions concerning the Spirit 1. That it is always required besides outward mean. §. 36. 1. That all Faith wrought by the Spâ—rit is infallible §. 37. 3. That sometimes the Spirit produceth evidence beyond science c. §. 38. 4. Thâ—t from these concessions it follows not that all who sâ—vingly believe have or must have aninfallible or such sufficient certainty as may possibly be had of what they believe §. 39. Nâ—iâ—ther from the evidences * of Scriptures §. 40. Nor * of the Spirit §. 41. Nor * of Church-Tradition §. 42. §. 43. For these following Reasons §. 44. §. 45. §. 46. §. 47. §. 48. §. 49. §. 50. §. 51. Necessary Inferences upon the former reasons §. 52. §. 53. §. 54. §. ◠§. 2. Concerning the Infallibility of the Church how far this is to be allowed §. 3. 1 Infallibility of the Church in Necessaries granted both by Catholic and Protestant writers §. 4. Where How for Points necessary are to be extended §. 5. §. 6. That the Church not private men is to define what Points be necessary §. 7. If these points be necessary at all to be defin'd and exactly distinguished from all other her proposals §. 8. 2. Infallibility of the Ch. in matters of universal tradition tho they were not necessary conceded likewise by all §. 9. 3. Infallibility universal in whatever the Ch. proposeth delivereth is not affirmed by Catholic writers §. 10. But only in those points which she proposeth tanquam de side or creditu necessaria §. 11. Where conc the several sences wherein points are affirmed or dâ—nied to be de fide §. 12. That as only so all divine revelations or necessary deductions from them are de Fide. i. e. the oâ—jects and matâ—ters of Faith. And that the Ch. can make nothing to be de Fide i. e. to be divine Revelation c. which was not so always from the Apostolick times §. 13. §. 15. That all divine revelation or necessary deductions therefrom are not de Fide i. e. creditu necessaria §. 16. And that the Church lawfully may and hath a necessity to make de novo upon rising errors such points de fide i. e. creditu necessaria which formerly were not so §. 17. §. 18. Or as some other of the Catholick writers usually express iâ— only in points clearly traditional §. 19. §. 20. §. 21. §. 22. §. 23. §. 24. §. 25. §. 26. §. 27. Whether and by what marks those points which are proposed by the Church tanquam de side or creditu necessaria or which are proposed as constantly traditional are clearly distinguished by her from her other proposal §. 28. §. 29. Anathema no certain Index thereof PART II. §. 30. Concerning obedience and submission of private judgment whether due to the Ch. supposed not in all her decisions infallible §. 31. §. 32. §. 33. â—â— That no submission of Our judgment is due to the proposal of the Church where we are infailibly certain of the contrary §. 34. 2. That no submission is due to an inferior person or court in matters whereof I have doubt when I have a Superior to repair to for resolution §. 35. 3. That submission of judgment is due to the supreme Ecclesiastical Court in any doubting whatever short of infallible certainty §. 36. §. 37. Submission of judgment proved 1. From Scripture §. 38. 2. From Reason §. 39. Several objections and scruples resolved §. 40. §. 41. §. 42. §. 43. §. 44. 3. From the testimony of learned Protestants § 45. §. 46. §. 47. §. 48. §. 49. §. 50. §. 51. 4. From the testimony of learned Catholicks §. 52. §. 53. §. 54. Conclusion §. 55. §. 56. §. 57. §. 58. §. 59. §. 60. §. 1. §. 2. n. 1. In what sence it may be lawful to believe or do a thing against our own judgment §. 2. n. 2. §. 2. n. 3. §. 4. 11. 2. §. 3. §. 4. Concerning the church'es lawful authority to excommunicate dissenters in non fundamentals §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. As likewise to decide which points are fundamental which not §. 8. 2 Tim. 4â— 1 Cor. 12. 7 8. §. 9. Several exceptions against obedience of non-contradiction only for non-fundamentals §. 10. §. 11. And that all at least not infallibly certain of the contrary are bound in non fundamentals to anobedience of assent Therefore the most are so bound §. 12. Replies to several Objections 1. Concerning an inferior Council's decreeing some new dangerous error which no former Council superior hath condemned §. 13. 2. Concerning faith salvifical that it is to be infallible §. 14. 3. Concerning union of Charity sufficient §. 15. 4. Concerning tryal of Doctrines necessary §. 16. 5. Concerning what Churches determinations when several contradict one another we are to adhere to §. 17 §. 18. Conclusion §. 19. Concerning infallible certainty §. 201 1. Infallible certainty excusing all submission of judgment to anyother §. 21. Infallible certainty to be had in some things §. 22. Of the difficulty of knowing when one is infallibly certain §. 23. §. 24. §. 25. §. 26. 3. The plea of infallible certainty at least not usable against any general contrary judgment of the Church §. 27. An instance in the controversy about giving the Communion in one kind only AEn Sylv bâ—st Bohem 35. c. §. 28. §. 29. 4. The greatest probability short of infallible cer tainty not excusing one dissenting from the judgment of the Church §. 30. §. 31. An explication of Rom. 14. 23. §. 1. Sufficient truth alway to be found in the Church Yet false Doctors must be 1 Cor. 11. 19. §.
I can my Conceptions no way swerving that I know of from any general Decree or Tenent of the Church Catholick And First concerning the former of these What or how much Faith is necessary to Christians for the attaining of salvation 1. Faith as it respects Religion or things Divine in general seems to be an assent to the Truth Goodness c of any thing that is God's Word or Divine Revelation And all truths whatsoever revealed by God even every part and parcel of God's word are the object and so many points or articles of our Faith i. e. are not to be denied but believed and assented to immediately when ever we know them or when ever they are sufficiently proposed to us that we might know them to be God's word Amongst these therefore all precepts of Manners are also matters of Faith in as much as they must first be assented to and believed by us to be God's commands lawful good holy just and most fit to be obeyed or else we cannot as we ought obey them And he that should practise them misbelieving them either to be things evil or things in themselves indifferent in the first way would sin in the second would perform a service utterly unacceptable by reason of an error in his faith See Rom. 14. 23. Surely every one of the fundamental rules of good life and action is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith. Again all necessary deductions and consequents of any part of God's word or of any point or article of faith are also so many points or articles of faith See Discourse of Infallibility § 12. So that the articles of faith taken absolutely are almost infinite for whatever is or necessarily follows that which is divine revelation may equally be believed and so is an object of faith and when it is believed is a point of faith Consequently also all controversies concerning the sense of any part of Scripture are concerning matter of faith taken in this general sense even those concerning Grace and Free-will as well as those about the Blessed Trinity 2. Next concerning the necessity of believing all such points of faith We must say in the first place That it is fundamental and necessary to our salvation That every part of God's word fundamental or not fundamental it matters not supposing that we exercise any operation of our understanding about it be not dissented from but be believed or assented to when we once know and are convinced that it is God's word Else we knowing that it is God's word and not believing or assenting-to it to be truth must plainly make or believe God in some thing to say false which if perhaps it be possible is the greatest heresy subverting the very first principle of faith that God is Truth and so necessarily excludeth from heaven And here also first concerning our knowing a thing to be God's word it must be said That we know or at least ought to know a thing so to be whensoever either so much proof of it is proposed to us by what means soever it comes as actually sways our understanding to give assent to it for which assent it is not necessary that there be demonstration or proof infallible but only generally such probability as turns the ballance of our judgment and out-weighs what may be said for the contrary for where so much evidence is either none can truly deny his assent or cannot without sin deny it or else when so much proof of it is proposed to us as consideration being had of several capacities according to which more things are necessary to be known to some stronger than to some others weaker would certainly sway our understanding if the mind were truly humble and docile and divested of all unmortified passions as addiction to some worldly interest covetousness ambition affectation of vain-glory self-conceit of our own wit and former judgment and of all faultily contracted prejudice and blindness by our education c. which unremovedfirst do obstruct and hinder it from being perswaded In which obstructions of our knowledge in things so necessary there are many several degrees of malignity which it will not be amiss to point at For 1. it is always a greater sin caeteris paribus i. e. the matter of the error being alike obstinately to maintain a known error and to profess a thing against conscience convinced than to have the conscience unconvinced by reason of some lust that hinders it because there is more ignorance of my fault in this latter and ignorance always aliquatenus excuseth another fault even when it cannot excuse it self 2ly In holding the same error not against conscience tho from some culpable cause some may be in very much some in very little fault according to many circumstances which none can exactly weigh to censure them of capacity condition obligation to such duties accidental information c. varying in several persons 3ly The sinfulness of the same man's erring in two things tho both equally unknown to him and neither held against conscience may be very different for the grosser and more pertinacious that their error is the more faulty in it is the erroneous Both 1. because the necessary truth opposed to such error hath more evidence either from Scriptures or from Ecclesiastical exposition thereof which exposition in the greatest matters we must grant either never or seldom errs and to whose direction all single persons are referred whence any ones ignorance in these is much more faulty and wilful And 2ly because such an error is the occasion of some miscarriage in manners so that tho formally he sinned no more in this than in his other errors yet consequentially he sins more in many other things by reason of it than he doth in truth mistaken in some smaller matter And hence 4ly it follows that an error doing great mischief to manners or to the purity of the Faith on which tho this foundation doth not always appear to support them good manners are built can hardly be held without a very guilty ignorance because such points are by God's providence and the Church'es care to all men sufficiently proposed Indeed it is so hard a thing for a man to divest and strip himself of all irregular passion and especially from prejudice contracted by education that an error in some things of less moment even out of some faulty cause is very often incident to men good and honest But when our passion shall grow so high and our interest so violent as to darken the light of truth in matters of moment especially if recommended to us by authority and as it were openly shining in our face in such case there is but little difference between our * denying a thing to be God's word when known to be so and by our own default * not knowing it to be so between knowingly gainsaying truth and wilfully being blind between shutting
believed by us to have bin heavenly inspired and the undoubted word of God and hence the settling of the Canon was no small sollicitude of the Primitive Church a point this of no small consequence for the attaining of Salvation to be believed yet not absolutely necessary since one may be saved without knowing the Scriptures and many were so before these writings * Nothing concerning Ecclesiastical Orders Ordinations Sacraments the Church'es absolving sinners inflicting censures prescribing publick Liturgies points fundamental and so called some of them at least Heb. 6. 2. in respect of the essence and government and unity of the Church tho not in respect of the Salvation of some member thereof Yet why not necessary to every person therein as having reference one way or other to their particular good * Nothing express concerning the obedience due to the Church and her Governours else why do so many deny it who confess the Creed and in it the Catholick Church and yet this a very necessary fundamental also in respect of Christian duties for ignorance whereof whilst especially they will not believe the Church in attesting her own authority how many deprive themselves of the help of her excellent rules not to name here the Evangelical Counsels of Celibacy and emptying our selves of our superfluous wealth recommended to us by her and her many injunctions sovereignly tending to the advancing of piety and bettering of manners which we will suppose here not to be contained in Scripture as frequent confession of sins to the Priest frequent Fasts hours of Prayer Communions which who knows not of how much moment they are for the abstaining from sin acquisition of Christian virtues and so consequently for our Salvation Now the obligation to know and believe these and such like Necessaries of this 2d sort varies according to several persons and conditions and according to the more or less evident proposal of them In this dispute as Dr. Potter acknowledgeth Char. mistak § 7. p. 242. of necessary and fundamental truths both truths and persons must be wisely distinguished The truth may be necessary in one sense that is not so in another and fundamental to some persons in certain respects which is not so to some others 1. * More points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as more are made manifest to one than another by the Scriptures by the decision of the Church or any other way Where note that before the Church's determination of some points of faith one may have an obligation to believe them when another hath not if before this they be evidenced to him when not to another what I mean by evidence see before § 3. by what means or author soever it be he receives this evidence And after such evidence he that opposeth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and heretical in God's sight even before that he happens to be declared so by the Church'es censure and is made yet more perversly erroneous after her definitions and such obstinate error again is more or less dangerous besides the sin of obstinacy as the matter of the error is of more influence toward our Salvation whilst mean-while others not having the like evidence of them are yet free to dissent or disbelieve them but then after the Church'es definition those also upon this stronger evidence shall I call it or authority will become obliged to assent to them Again * more points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as one hath more opportunity than another by studying the Scriptures the Church'es exposition thereof and her decrees to find out and discover such truths Art thou a Master in Israel saith our Saviour and knowest not these things See Heb. 5. 12. There are those who are not excused in acquiescing in the tenents of their particular education but who are bound to examine the general traditions and doctrines of the Church the ancient Fathers Ecclesiastical Histories c. Again others there are of another condition who are not so far obliged And in the former sort if they either depart from the foresaid doctrines themselves or continue a separation first made by others it will be a damnable Schism when perhaps the simplicity of the vulgar their followers will remain excused if the error be not in a point absolutely fundamental or will be much lightlier punished Luk. 12. 48. Which common people we must leave to God's secret mercies in the same manner as we do all those others who have not believed because they have not heard which Heathens also I charitably think shall not suffer for want of that Faith of which they had no Teacher as that Faith mentioned Jo. 3. 36. but for want of that the sound of which hath come to all the world in all times mentioned Heb. 11. 6. compared Rom. 1. 20 21. Thus many truths are necessary to be known by the Pastors and the Learned that are not so by the illiterate people And in respect of some vulgar I conceive that form Quisquis non confitetur or non credit Anathema sit concerning the Creeds drawn up against several hereticks by the four first General Councils is not to be understood to be of force against a pure nescience of some Articles thereof for there are many subtilties exceeding vulgar capacities and which they need not distinctly know but against an opposition of them or denial or non-confession of these points when they come to know the Church hath established them and condemned the contrary for thus to oppose the Church is not to be ignorant of them but heretical in them Tho t is not necessary to Salvation that either they should know the Church hath determined such a thing or that such a thing is a divine truth if such knowledg be beyond the compass of their moral endeavors sutable to their capacity and their vocation in the search of divine truth See this matter more largely discussed in the Disc. of Infallibility § 15. Nay if the Learned also should I say not be ignorant of but err in some point of such moment that by consequence such error destroys some chief principle of our faith yet this being supposed and granted possible that having used their just endeavor in the search of the truth they are by no sufficient proposal convinced of it and that mean-while they contend for the principle with the same or more pertinacity than for it with a resolution to desert it if once appearing to them any way repugnant to the other such an error will no way hazard Salvation Upon such Supposition Tho the Lutheran is conceived from his new fancied Ubiquity by consequence to destroy the verity of Christ's Humanity Again the Calvinist is conceived from God's eternal predetermination of all our actions c. by consequence to destroy God's Holiness and Justice in making him the Author of all sin points highly fundamental yet are not these holding
not his meer misbelief of that point for which he is accounted an heretick which excludes him from salvation Because perhaps many good Catholicks before the Church'es determination have mis-believed the same point as for example the point of rebaptization as well as he without any danger to their salvation But that which condemns him is that he hath fidem tho divinam yet not operantem per charitatem that he is obstinate and disobedient to the Church'es orders and decrees or if you will that he dis-believes this great Article of Faith which dis-belief is the fountain of his dis-obedience That the Church hath such an Authority committed to her by Christ as that he ought to conform to all her determinations and preserve in every thing the unity of her faith Of the Donatists hereticks thus S. Aug. Gesbacum Emerito Extra Ecclesiam Catholicam potest Emeritus Evangelium tenere potest in nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti fidem habere praedicare sed nusquam nisi in Ecclesia Catholica salutem poterit invenire giving the reason afterward quia charitatem non habet and Ep. 48. ad Vincentium Nobiscum estis in Baptismo in Symbolo in caeteris Dominicis Sacramentis in spiritu autem unitatis vinculo pacis in ipsa denique Catholica Ecclesia nobiscum non estis To Estius and Lugo add a third Layman a Casuist of great reputation Thus he therefore Theolog. moral 2. l. 1. Tract 5. c. Fieri saepe solet ut alii Articuli fidei nostrae puta quae sunt de Deo Uno Trino explicite credantur ante hunc qui est de infallibili Ecclesiae authoritate Quinimo haec Ecclesiae infallibilitas Spiritus Sancti promissione nititur ergo prius oportet credere Spiritum Sanctum adeoque Trinitatem in divinis esse Praeterea constat Beatissimam Virginem Apostolos primosque Christianos fide divina credidisse non ob authoritatem Ecclesiae quae vel fundata non erat v. g. cum S. Petrus credidit Christum esse Filium Dei vivi Mat. 16. vel nondum fidei dogmata definierat Again Formale assentiendi principium seu motivum non est Ecclesiae authoritas Si enim ex te quaeram Cur credas Deum esse incarnatum respondeasque Quia Ecclesia Catholica quae errare non potest ob S. Spiritus assistentiam ita testatur iterum ex te quaeram Unde id scias vel cur credas Ecclesiam non errare vel S. Spiritum ei assistere Quare recte dicit Canus l. 2. de loc Theol. 8. c. post med Si generaliter quaeratur Unde fideli constet ea quae fide tenet esse a Deo revelata non poterit infallibilem Ecclesiae authoritatem adducere quia unum ex revelatis est quod Ecclesia errare non possit Interim non negamus saith he quin resolutio fidei in authoritatem Ecclesiae quatenus Spiritu Sancto regitur fieri possit communiter soleat a sidelibus ipsis qui infallibilem Spiritus Sancti assistentiam ac directionem Ecclesiae promissam certa fide tenent his enim ejus testimonium ac definitio certa regula est ad alios articulos amplectendos Imo talis regula seu norma exurgentibus circa fidem dubiis omnino nobis necessaria est put a ad discernendum Scripturam Canonicam ab Apocrypha traditiones veras a falsis denique credenda a non credendis Sententia Scoti Gabrielis qui in resolutione recurrere videntur ad fidem acquisitam propter authoritatem Ecclesiae quatenus ea est illustris congregatio tot hominum excellentium Exempli causa Credo Deum esse incarnatum quia divinitus revelatum est revelatum autem hoc esse divinitus seu revelationem hanc a Deo profectam esse ideo accepto seu credo fide acquisita quia it a scriptum est in Evangelio S. Johannis cui omnis Ecclesia seu congregatio hominum vitae innocentia sapientia illustrium testimonium assensum praebet Haec sententia inquam si recte explicetur a vero aliena non est Non enim mens est Doctorum illorum quod fidei divinae assensus in fidem acquisitam propter authoritatem Ecclesiae resolvatur tanquam in principium sed tanquam in extrinsecum adjumentum conditionem sine qua non Etenim authoritas illa Ecclesiae non quatenus consideratur ut organum Spiritus Sancti sed ut illustris congregatio hominum prudentum c. est quidem formale principium credendi side humana sed non fide divina Quia fides divina est qua Deo dicenti credimus ob authoritatem veritatem ejus consequenter qui credit propter authoritatem hominum vel simile motivum humanum is fide solum humana credit Accedit quod sicuti ipsemet Scotus Gabriel argumentantur assensus cognoscitivus non possit excedere certitudinem principii quo nititur assen us autem fidei divinae certitudinem infallibilem habet ergo fieri non potest ut assensus fidei divinae tanquam principio nitatur authoritate hominum vel simili motivo humano quippe quod secundum se absolute fallibile est Major autem imo maxima certissima animi adhaesio quam sides divina continet non ex viribus naturae aut humanis persuasionibus provenit sed ab auxilio Spiritus Sancti succurrentis intellectui liberae voluntati nostrae By this it seems that ultima resolutio sidei divinae is in illam certitudinem quam habemus per auxilium Spiritus Sancti c. Hear then his last stating of the point Quod ad formalem de qua nunc agimus fidei resolutionem attinet expeditus ac verus dicendi modus est iste citing Cajetan for it 2. 2. q. 1. a. 1. Quod sides divina ex parte objecti ac motivi formalis resolvatur in auhoritatem Dei revelantis Credo Deum esse incarnatum Credo Ecclesiae item definientis authoritatem infallibilem esse quia prima summa veritas id nobis revelavit But if you ask whence or why he believeth Deum summam veritatem id revelasse he goeth on Deum autem veracem talia nobis revelasse ulterius resolvi vel per fidem i. e. divinam probari non potest nec debet quandoquidem principia resolutionis non probantur sed supponuntur I wonder why he adds not here that the believer hath fidem divinam infallibilem Deum veracem talia revelasse ex auxilio Spiritus S. succurrentis intellectui c. for he saith it before But then if asked again How he knows or believes that this his faith Deum revelasse c is ex auxilio Spiritus Sancti here at least he must have stay'd as at the first principle of Resolution of Faith divine But now that fides which he calls humana and fallible can go on further and give a ground or motive why it believes Deum veracem talia
4ly observe concerning these derivative articles that since the deductions which may be made from such as are express and tradititional are almost infinite tho we cannot deny that all of them even to the least are still de fide or matters pertaining to faith for how can the premises be so and not the conclusion yet all not necessary to be believed or matters pertaining to necessary and required Faith. For so neither is every thing that is plainly set down in the Scripture necessary to be believed tho it is all matter of faith being made known to us that it is there written as the Cardinal saith de verbo Dei 4. l. 12. c. Necessario creduntur quia scripta sunt yet not ideo scripta sunt quia necessario credenda erant such as are many things historical there A pure nescience or also a blamelesly-ignorant contradiction of such things hurts no man's faith so we deny them not to be truth when we happen to know they are Scripture but that we should also know them to be Scripture there lies no tye upon us So is it with these Deductions which if in themselves as some points are they were necessary to salvation to be believed they would have bin so always not only after the Church hath made them but before But so they are not for then former generations perhaps not knowing some of them at least would be deficient in requisite faith A pure nescience of them therefore in the simplicity of which they are neither affirmed nor denyed or also when denyed not knowing the contrary determination of Scripture or Church hurts none but only a peremptory denial of them or the asserting and maintaining of an error contrary unto them or destructive to that former express traditional Article of Faith from which they are drawn and this when we have a sufficient information from Scripture or the Church to know that it is so which we have always after t is known to us that a Council hath determined against it and many times may have so before And hence it is that also after the decision of the Church still to many not the pure nescience or contradiction of such a point but the opposing it and asserting the contrary when we know it to be proposed by her is pernicious In Dr. Holden's Phrase de Resolutione fid 1. l. 4. c. lectio 2. Cum quis sciens vidensque universam esse Ecclesiae sententiam illam tamen pertinaciter obstinate denegaverit aut etiam oppositum sustinuerit c. But concerning the unwittingly affirmers of the contrary to some decision of a Council thus Estius in 3. sent 23. dist 13. § Diligenter distinguendum est inter eos qui retenta generali promptitudine credendi quicquid Ecclesia Catholica credit per ignor antiam tamen in quibusdam fidei dogmatibus errant propterea quod nondum iis satis declaratum sit illa Ecclesiam credere eos qui post manifestatam sufficienter Ecclesiae doctrinam adhuc ab ea vel contrarium asserendo vel certe dubitando dissentire eligunt quod Hoereticorum est proprium Fidem illi in universali atque in habitu ut loquuntur totam atque integram retinent dum quicquid Ecclesia credendum tradit suscipere se ex animo profitentur De quorum numero fuit Cyprianus c. Where also we see that the Church doth not lay on all men an obligation of knowing whatever she defines in matters of faith but of not contradicting or doubting of them when made known to any 5ly Neither is it necessary for the Church to make or propose any such deductive Articles suppose such as those in the Nicene or Athanasian Creed nor perhaps ought she to charge the faith of Christians with them but only where some error ariseth contrary to and undermining some former received Article or practice whereby her Sons to the damage of their Christianity are in danger of infection But any such errors spreading the Church doth not her duty if she neglect to promulgate the truths opposite to them See before § 14. For tho the explicit knowledge of such truths is not necessary yet this is necessary to the believing such fundamental and prime Articles of faith as God requires that one together with them do not believe and affirm any thing contrary to and destructive of them after he may have sufficient assurance that it is so and this he may have so often as the Church states it so So I suppose the pure nescience of some deductive Article contained in the Athanasian Creed condemns none but the maintaining of the contradictory error thereto after such light given him by the Church which light she is bound continually to hold forth to her children so oft as any mists of false opinions begin to overcast the clearness of the former faith 6ly But in the last place note from what hath bin said that tho no points become de side because the Church defines them but are either so before or never can be so at all yet some of those points which were always de fide objects of faith or dogmata fidei so Scotus said Transubstantiation was no dogma fidei till the Lateran Council meaning by it dogmata credenda i. e. which men were then tied to assent to may become creditu necessaria for all points de fide or appertaining to faith are not necessaria creditu after the Church'es determining of them which were not so before Creditu necessaria not in themselves or affirmatively as if they ought to be explicitly known as some other points de side must with reference to attaining salvation but only so as not to be denied or opposed or the contradictory to them maintained whenever they are first known to us to be declared by the Church whom we are to presume never to divulge such truths but upon necessary occasions pressing Her to it and this out of the obedience and submission of judgment which we owe to her Decrees And of this submission due to Councils even when they determine points not of clear Tradition but some-way formerly dubious we have a pattern in the busines of Rebaptization which tho formerly not so evident before the decision of the Church Scripture seeming to favour one side and Ecclesiastical custom the other so that Provincial Councils varied in their judgment of it some pro some con nor they heretical that affirmed it yet decided once submission of judgment was unquestionably by St. Austin reckoned as due from all and they Hereticks who after this opposed See for this S. Austin de Baptism cont Don. 1. l. 7. c. Quaestionis hujus obscuritas he speaks concerning Rebaptization prioribus Ecclesiae temporibus ante schisma Donati magnos viros magna charitate praeditos Patres Episcopos ita inter se compulit salva pace disceptare atque fluctuare ut diu Conciliorum in suis quibusque regionibus
diversa statuta nutaverint donec plenario totius orbis Concilio quod saluberrime sentiebatur etiam remotis dubitationibus sirmaretur Again 2. l. 4. c. Nec nos ipsi tale aliquid he speaks of the same point auderemus asserere which argues some inevidence in the matter nisi universae Ecclesiae concordissima authoritate firmati cui ipse Cyprianus sine dubio crederet si jam illo tempore quaestionis hujus veritas eliquata declarata per plenarium Concilium solidaretur Yet were the after-opposers anathematized as heretical Again cont Ep. Parmeniani 2. l. 13. c. Haec quidem alia quaestio est Utrum Baptismus ab iis qui nunquam fuerunt Christiani potest dari nec aliquid temere inde affirmandum est sine authoritate tanti Concilii quantum tantae rei sufficit De iis vero qui ab Ecclesiae unitate separati sunt nulla jam quaestio est quin habeant verum Baptisma dare possint Hoc enim in ipsa totius orbis unitate i. e. in the Council of Nice discussum consideratum perfectum atque firmatum est So contr Crescon Gram. 1. l. 33. c. Quamvis hujus rei certe de Scripturis Canonicis non proferatur exemplum earundem tamen Scripturarum etiam in hac re a nobis tenetur veritas cum hoc facimus quod universae jam placuit Ecclesiae quam ipsarum Scripturarum commendat authoritas ut quoniam sacra Scriptura fallere non potest quisquis falli motuit obscuritate hujus quaestionis eandem Ecclesiam de illa consulat quam sine ulla ambiguitate sancta Scriptura demonstrat Obscuritate quaestionis for tho elsewhere de Baptismo cont Don. 5. l. 23. c. he supposeth it an Apostolical Tradition on one side Apostoli quidem nihil exinde praeceperunt sed consuetudo illa quae opponebatur Cypriano ab eorum traditione exordium sumpsisse credenda est sicut sunt multa quae tenet universa Ecclesia ob hoc ab Apostolis praecepta bene creduntur quanquam scripta non reperiantur and tho this custom was by the Bishop of Rome and his party much pressed against Cyprian and his adherents and Agrippinus St. Cyprian's Predecessor is said to be the first that introduced a contrary practice see Aust. de Bapt. 3. l. 12. c. non novam se rem statuisse Beatus Cyprianus ostendit quia sub Agrippino jam coeperat fieri yet it appears that St. Austin did not think all common customs and traditions tho pretended Apostolical before they were approved and warranted by the judgment of the Church in her Councils to be so simply obligatory as that they may not be disputed if seeming opposite to another surer Apostolical Tradition i. e. the Scriptures as St. Cyprian thought this custom was and so answered Steven see Cypr. Ep. ad Pomp. contra Steph. and in this answer is defended by St. Austin see de Bapt. 2. l. 8. c. quia tunc non extiterant c. Noluit vir gravissimus rationes suas etsi non veras quod eum latebat sed tamen non victas veraci quidem sed tamen nondum assertae consuetudini cedere Assertae i. e. by * any Council or cleared not to be * against the Scriptures urged but mistakenly by Cyprian And St. Austin also himself saith the same thing with Cyprian de Bapt. 3. l. 6. c. Quis dubitat veritati manifestatae debere consuetudinem cedere This I have set you down the more fully that you might see the power and authority of General Councils not only in declaring points traditional but in deciding questions some way obscure and doubtful and what submission was due to such points once determined in St. Austin's opinion who yet held former by latter Councils might be amended and consequently their in some things liability to error or doubting And so such points are to be believed in consequence only to another point of necessary faith namely That private men ought in all things at least not demonstrative on the contrary to submit their own to the Church'es judgment as many things written in God's word are necessary to be assented to when known to be there written which are not written there because they are necessarily to be known or believed in consequence to that necessary point of faith that whatever is written in God's word is true And hence also are there two sorts of Hereticks some are such before any Council condemning their Tenent if it happen to be against points de fide clear necessary and universally or eminently traditional so were there presently after the Apostles times many Hereticks before any Council assembling or condemning their opinions others only such after their error condemned by a Council if the points be of less evidence c. These latter rendred Hereticks not from the nature of their Tenent but their obstinacy and opposition to the obligation which the Church'es Authority lays upon them in her determinations Whose publick proposal of such doctrines as divine truths is sufficient for their belief and further embracing the same as such and therefore their further opposition of it is not error but heresy unles they can infallibly demonstrate the contrary In which case if ever any such can happen they are free from wilful opposition or heresie i. e. I mean in their denying their assent to the Church but in public contradicting even those infallibly certain c. may be still faulty else they stand guilty thereof and also of Schism if for such a decision they go on to forsake the Church'es communion So St. Cyprian's followers after a General Council were counted Hereticks tho the matter of this Heresy as also of many others so called from opposition to General Councils seem not to be in themselves of very great importance not so He before it In which opinion namely that the Baptism of Hereticks was ineffectual saith Dr. Potter sect 4. many good Catholick Bishops accorded with him and the Donatists as likewise with the Novatians in another viz. that the Church ought not to absolve some grievous sinners before the Nicene Council So tho since the Decision of the Florentine Council 1439 those who hold animas justorum non visuras Deum nisi post resurrectionem are by the Church of Rome counted Hereticks from opposition c yet those who before that time maintained it amongst whom was Pope John the 22d they acknowledge were free from it See Bell. de Rom. Pontif. 4. l. 14. c. Respondeo Johannem hunc revera sensisse animas non visuras Deum nisi post resurrectionem caeterum hoc sensisse quando adhuc sentire licebat sine periculo haeresis nulla enim adhuc praecesserat Ecclesioe definitio In such sence Scotus saith Transubstantiation was no dogma fidei before the Lateran Council Thus you see tho all divine Revelation and necessary deduction from it is de fide and the object and matter of faith
and tho the Church can make nothing de fide i. e. to be divine Revelation which was not so always from our Saviour's and the Apostles times yet all divine Revelation is not de fide in another sence i. e. proposed by the Church to Christians as necessary to be believed and thus a proposition may be de fide to day which yesterday was not And those who affirm the Church to be unerrable in all points de fide mean not in all points absolutely which may possibly be derived from some traditional principle of Faith but only in so many of them as she proposeth to Christians tanquam de fide or necessary to be believed whilst very many theological propositions probably deducible from the delivered principles and even mentioned affirmatively in Councils yet are no part of these necessarily injoyned credends To return now to our matter whence we digressed § 11. and to pass from Bellarmin to some other late writers of the Roman Church of the moderatest sort These seeing that some deductions and consequences from revealed and traditional doctrines are neither so immediate and clear nor yet so necessary to be known and the contradictory of them to be confuted as others do assert and derive the Churches inerrability chiefly or only from evidence of Tradition not certainty of reason or extraordinary illumination of the Spirit Whence these also holding the Church'es infallibility in all things which she determineth tanquam de fide do likewise maintain all things determined by her tanquam de fide to be only doctrines traditional or those so evidently deductive as that in substance they are coincident with that which is traditional See Dr. Holden de resol Fid. 1. l. 9. c. I will transcribe you some part Quaedam consecutiones adeo evidenter constant primo intuitu ut nemo sanoe mentis supposita praemissarum veritate possit ullatenus de rei veritate ambigere as there he names this Duas esse in Christo voluntates proved ex duplici natura Christi against the Monothelites Quoecunque autem sub hac ratione conditione declarantur denunciantur ab Ecclesia universa seu a Concilio Generali veram habent divinae fidei seu veritatum revelatarum Catholice traditarum certitudinem c. Aliae sunt consecutiones sequelae quae non adeo manifeste evidenter emicant effulgent quin studium aliquod scientia requiratur c. Hujusmodi autem veritates quarum aliquas vidimus in Conciliis Generalibus definitas supremam illam Catholicam certitudinem quam vi traditionis universae attribuimus articulis fidei habere nequeunt Nullos etenim agnovit Ecclesia divini luminis radios sibi de novo affulgentes quibus veritatibus recenter detectâ—s particularium hominum ratiocinatione quodammodo develatis possit certitudo ab omni prorsus periculo erroris immunis atque fidei revelatis catholice traditis articulis par aequalis succrescere Thus Dr. Holden to whom I may add Mr. Cressy in his Motives approved by several Sorbon-Doctors 33. c. Besides the certain Traditional doctrine of which he speaks before other points of doctrine there are sometimes decided in Councils rather by the judgment and learning of the Bishops considering texts of Scripture wherein such points seem to be included and weighing together the doctrines of ancient Fathers and modern Doctors now such doctrines or decisions many Catholicks conceive are not in so eminent a manner the necessary objects of Christian faith c. Then after If in such Decisions as these latter are there should happen to be any error which yet we may piously believe the assistance of God's H. Spirit promised to the Church will prevent but if this should happen c. And c. 41. And many Catholick writers there are who upon the same grounds with Mr. Chillingworth extend the promise of the holy Spirits assistance to the Church not to all inconsiderable circumstantial doctrines but to substantial and traditionary only Thus he See like things in F. Sancta Clara syst fid 12 13 14. c. -12 c. p. 110. Singula quae in Conciliis tractantur non sunt ejusdem considerationis Illa quae a Theologis hinc inde agitantur ante definitiones examinantur tandem non nisi magno labore rerum consequentiarum subtili trutinatione ex discursu longo perplexo ad Conclusiones statuendas devenitur hujusmodi omnia si tanquam non necessaria errabilia putantur nihil est contra Ecclesiae infallibilitatem And 13. c. p. 147. Cum hac tamen doctrina bene stat proloquium illud Scholasticorum Ecclesiam simpliciter non posse errare in fide licet bene circa fidem seu in appendicibus fidei hoc est ut alii loqui malunt in non-fundamentalibus seu non-necessariis And one such point which he instanceth in tho not as a determination of any Council yet see Concil Lateran 3. Can. which seems somewhat to favour this opinion yet as a common received tenent in some former times is this Papam ex Christi institutione plenissimam habere in universum orbem jurisdictionem temporalem eamque in Imperatores Reges transfudisse adeo ut habeat toti mundo dominari omnia regna disponere 12. c. p. 124. where he quotes many Authors Quod tamen saith he hoc saeculum in Scholis non fert ut satis colligitur ex Suaresio Bellarmino aliis See likewise the Authors quoted in Bellarmin de Roman Pont. 5. l. 5. c. § Argumentum postremum and § Sanctus quoque Bonavent where he names Hugo de S. Victore about 1130. who was one of the first qui temporalem potestatem summâ— Pontisici ex Christi institutione tribuit And is not Stapleton quoted before of the same opinion with these when he saith It is sufficient that the Church be infallible in the substance of faith in public doctrines and things necessary to Salvation as Bellarmin grants some points de fide are not being the end of infallibility given God and Nature as they are not defective in necessaries so neither being superabundant in superfluities c. And doth not St. Austin's Saying so much noted shew him too of the same opinion I will transcribe it somewhat more fully than usual as being very considerable Answering to St. Cyprian's Authority urged against him by the Donatists for rebaptization of such as had bin only baptized by Hereticks amongst other things he goes on de Baptism 2. l. 3. c. Quis autem nesciat sanctam Scripturam c posterioribus Episcoporum literis ita praeponi ut de illa omnino dubitari disceptari non possit utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit quicquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit Episcoporum autem literas quae post confirmatum Canonem scribuntur c. per Concilia licere reprehendi si quid c. ipsa Concilia quae per singulas regiones
plenary Tradition or undeniable deduction therefrom it being agreed that all her proposals or decrees are not such A Quaere very necessary to be resolved for those if any such there be who affix obedience of assent only to infallibility and this infallibility again only to such decrees but a Quaere for all others me-thinks not of so much concernment I find the marks of such distinction set down in Bell. de Conc. 2. l. 12. c. thus Quando autem decretum proponatur tanquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilii semper enim dicere solent 1. Se explicare fidem Catholicam 2. vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt Anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt What then what if it be only Anathema iis qui contrarium dicunt aut docent Quando autem nihil horum dicunt non est certum rem esse de side Thus Bellarmin But note here that Bellarmin tells us not plainly whether something in Councils is proposed tanquam de side without any Anathema set to it only he doubtingly saith non est certum and those others again who build the Church'es inerrability on Tradition and the evident Consequences thereof tel us not whether some of those Decisions that are enjoyned with Anathema's are not sometimes some of those secondary consequences more doubtful ad quas colligendas studium aliquod scientia requiritur or which are made by the judgment and learning of the Bishops considering texts of Scripture the doctrines of ancient Fathers and modern Doctors c. As indeed t is likely some of them are Anathema's being added so frequently even in smaller matters and in the newest controversies And perhaps it can hardly be shewn by these writers that every Proposition in a General Council that hath an Anathema affixed to it is traditional to such a degree of evidence since some Traditions are much more universal and evident than some others that it amounts to infallibility not from the assistance of the holy Spirit but from the clearnes of Tradition In this distinction therefore of points de fide or necessary credends wherein the Church is infallible exactly from others I think these Authors cannot speak out so clearly because tho some points are of much more certainty and also of much higher concernment than others yet Councils seem not so punctual in severing them by a diversity of expression unless in very few perhaps a thing not possible to be done by them see § 3. See Dr. Holden 1. l. 8. c. acknowledging some such thing In tradenda doctrina Christiana nunquam audivimus Ecclesiam articulorum revelatorum divinarum institutionum catalogum exhibuisse vel composuisse quo separatim cognosci possint hujusmodi sidei divinae dogmata ab omnibus aliis quae vel Ecclesiasticae sint institutionis vel quae centae revelationi divinae haud immediate innitantur atque ideo omnia simul confuse indistincte semper docuisse tradidisse Yet the same Councils may and do require subscription and obedience to all their definitions as they being the supreme and unappealable Judge * authorized by Christ for the peace and unity of the Church to give the law to all men * abundantly assisted by the Spirit of Truth for all Necessaries even the obscurest and most unacquainted doctrines if you can once prove them necessary and besides this if in some other matters of less concernment they be liable to error yet how much less they than private men And therefore their submission of judgment to these remains still most rational as well as obligatory The chief note which I find for the distinction of these points de fide wherein the Church is infallible from other determinations or proposals is the affixing of Anathema's which are the same with Excommunication But 1. first several of these Anathema's if we do rely on their form may require not internal assent as looking meerly at faith but non-contradiction as looking perhaps in some points more at peace many running only si quis dixerit c Anathema sit But if it be said that the Anathema's only that are set upon a Si quis sentiat or credat are the Index of such points de fide for necessary credends then will very few decrees of Councils pass for such for example not above four or five of all those made in the Council of Trent I mean as to this particular Index of Credends viz. Anathema and doubtles many more of the decisions of Councils are contended to be such credends than those that can shew this mark of Anathema fixed expresly to dissentients of which see more in Church-Government 4. Part. § 79. Again this injunction of Non-contradiction or of keeping silence tho it be * such as opposeth the saying that the contrary to the Church'es determination is a truth or that the Church erreth in any such decision much more an open departing for such unnecessary matter for the Church errs in no necessaries from her communion yet perhaps it is not * such as opposeth the making or humbly proposing of any doubt thereof at least in a second convening of the same Authority See I pray you in the denouncing of her Anathema's the great warines of the Council of Trent in 24. sess 7. c. Si quis dixerit Ecclesiam errare cum docuit propter adulterium c Anathema sit noted by Soave in his History of it p. 755. Engl. Ed. to be done because she would not censure * some of the Greek Church who held the contrary opinion as likewise * some of the Fathers as S. Ambrose And surely this Council's affixing Anathema's sometimes to so many Lutheran errors some doubtles of smaller moment as they were gather'd here and there by some persons appointed to that purpose out of Luther's writings because they were opposite to the common doctrines of the Church shews that her Anathema sometimes eyed more the petulancy and contradicting spirit of the Author than the importance of the Tenet and was sent forth more to secure her peace than her faith What should hinder I pray since some questions possibly may arise in the Church undecidable clearly by Tradition and since no doubt of all questions now agitated among the Schoolmen or other Catholicks one side is not traditional for then how could so many Catholicks oppose a thing of such evidence again since it is the Church'es duty to provide for peace and unity among her children as well as faith and truth and lastly since sharp and vehement contests may arise in such new controversies to the great disturbance thereof what should hinder I say that the Church in such cases may not impose silence on both parties or secondly using her best search and going upon such Scriptures and reasons as perhaps some side urgeth declare her judgment and that under some penalty on the opposers and gainsayers
thereof or require submission of their judgment also to her not as she declares her judgment infallible but only as it is definitive and unappealable else her orders are no more than good counsel On the gainsayers c. not as subverters of some necessary faith but as troublers for an unnecessary if truth of the Church'es peace and rebels to her authority whom Christ hath commanded to hear not only how far they list or in their private judgment see cause And if she may impose some penalty then why not anathematize or excommunicate This Anathematizing even Protestants do not so far charge as a trespass of charity or a sign of rigor upon the Church of Rome or her Councils but that they allow that those who turbulently or pertinaciously speak against the Doctrines of the Church in smaller points may be anathematized for it See Dr. Fern in his Preface to Consider of present Concernment c. We acknowledge that he who shall pertinaciously turbulently speak and teach against the doctrines of the Church in points of less moment may deserve to be anathematized or put out of the Church for such a one tho he denies not the faith yet makes a breach of charity whereby he goes out of the Church against which he so sets himself Thus he of pertinacious and turbulent contradiction but then modest contradiction he allows Was Luther's and Calvin's modest Are not Anathema's used by her against Schismatical as well as Heretical spirits May not she excommunicate as well disturbers of her peace as subverters of her faith How come Schismaticks then thrown out of the Church Doth she not use Anathema's or Excommunications in matters of Fact wherein she is confest to be liable to error If in decisions not traditional c we are bound to yeild obedience as I shall shew anon what reason have we why the Church may not anathematize for these points those who contradict and disobey But if she may then Anathema for any thing we know is joyned to some point not traditional nor in which the Church is infallible 2. To put this matter more out of doubt why have Provincial Councils granted fallible used anathematizing than which nothing more frequent toward those under their Jurisdiction If any say they use Anathema's indeed but not to be in force I say not after they be contradicted which we grant but till they be confirmed by a General Council then why may they and have they bin put in practice before they were by any such Council confirmed Nay to what purpose such Council convened since it hath no power of excommunicating the resisters and since when a General Council sits that sufficiently obligeth before it sits the other obligeth not 3. Again many Heresies as the Pelagian c. by Provincial Councils have bin censured and supprest but who may judg heresies i. e. errors against points of faith may pronounce Anathema's Judicium non infallibile tamen sufficit ad excommunicandum debent privati homines acquiescere ejusmodijudicio donec non judicaverit aliter Apostolica Sedes vel Concilium Universale si secus egerint merito excommunicantur saith Bell. de Concil 2. l. 10. c. Judicio in points of Doctrine too for as for matter of fact he will allow the same liability to error may be in particular which in General Councils Thus much touching your first Quaere concerning the Infallibility of the Church Now I come to your second concerning Obedience due to the Church and submission of private judgment Where I think this will be made clear unto you That to what point soever the Church'es infallibility be enlarged yet this the Universal-Infallibility of this Supreme Judge of Controversies is not a necessary ground or the only rule of the duty of obedience thereto neither of the obedience of Non-contradiction nor yet that of Assent but that there may be and is just obligation of obedience I mean that of submission of judgment i. e. to believe what it delivereth to a fallible Authority i. e. one that may command us perhaps to believe sometimes what is an untruth And if this be a truth I conceive it may be of some good consequence For first so those also may be rationally induced to yeild obedience to the Church who now think themselves to be clearly freed from it unles it can first be shewed them that the Church is infallible in all her Propositions neither will they then suppose themselves so easily discharged by shewing the contradictions of General Councils in some few matters perhaps from their obedience in all other points wherein these agree or which some defining none other have reversed and the Church hath received in her general practice or also wherein they find even a later Council contradicting a former For if as St. Austin saith later Synods may amend and correct the former they ought also in what they amend them to be submitted-to non obstante the contradiction of the former Secondly so those who have not opportunity of consulting the highest Tribunal may not think their duty cancell'd excepting where they are certain to other their Superiors and Spiritual Guides because fallible or suborordinate nor will oppose so frequently to them not the Dictates of an higher Court but of their private judgment When-as certainly this submission of our judgment and reason to a Superior tho fallible authority is a duty most acceptable to God and which tho much unpractised by and I am afraid quite unknown to many Sectaries amongst Protestants yet hath bin always most religiously observed elsewhere in the Church of God by those who have bin most eminent in piety nothing conducing more to the preservation of truth unity of minds peace security and serenity of a man's conscience and lastly to true humility mortification and self-denial there being no mortification nor self-denial like this and therefore perhaps so many refuse it because there is nothing so much our self as our judgment And again the contrary thereof as it is the fruit of pride and self-conceit so having bin always the promoter of error and mother of distraction and confusion I cannot here but set down two or three words of Mr. Hooker 2. l. 7. sect This opinion saith he which T. Cartwright maintain'd against Councils c that an argument of authority of Man is in matters divine nothing worth being once inserted into the minds of the vulgar sort what it may grow into * God knoweth I may add * we have seen Now to shew this Truth 1. first I must grant to you That God hath obliged no man to believe a known-to-him error or to believe an error quatenus error for this I think is a contradiction in terminis to believe that to be a truth which he knows I do not say which he thinks or doubts is not a truth the same may be said of obligation to the doing or practice of any thing certainly known to one to be
§ 14. Church-Governm 2. part § 36. c. It remains then that I go on to shew That where we have not this infallible certainty God hath obliged men to submit their own opinion to and to acquiesce in the judgment tho fallible of those Superiors whom he hath appointed to guide them and so per accidens hath obliged them to believe a falsity so it be not certainly known to them to be false or as you say to obey another in any thing right or wrong so long as it is not certainly known to them to be wrong and so long they know not but that it is right and that under pain of sinning against their duty Obliged them I say not only for opinions but actions which depend on their opinions For note that if we owe no obedience of assent to any judgment fallible lest they teach us something untrue neither owe we to them any obedience of our actions lest they command us something unlawful or also lest we act something contrary to our conscience which we never may Again To their Superiors I say if so be that they have no other higher Superiors in respect of whom the authority of the inferior is always voided whom in their doubtings they can repair-to and consult as in respect of General Councils tho they should be fallible we have not a superior Director 1. First for such obedience due not only to the supreme Synods or Courts but also to inferior Spiritual Governors fallible see the express divine command in many Scriptures Heb. 13. 7 9 17. whose faith follow Eph. 4. 11. c. Pastors and Teachers sent that we might not be carried away with other doctrines than those which they deliver Matt. 18. 15. c. We appointed to hear the Church upon penalty of being treated like Heathens and of being bound as on Earth so in Heaven Acts. 20. 28 29. The clergy appointed Episcopi to feed the flock that must be amongst other things surely with their Doctrine which is the Spiritual nourishment of the Flock not to be refused Luk. 10. 16. He that hears them hears Christ and the despiser of them despiseth Christ. To which may be added all those texts which authorize Ghurch-Governors to judge controversies and inflict their censures upon false teachers and spreaders of errors 1 Tim. 4. 11 -6 3 5. Tit. 1. 11 -3 10 11. Acts 15. 2. c. 1 Tim. 1. 20. compared with 2 Tim. 2. 17 18 -4 14 15. Rev. 2. 2 14 15 20. 1 Cor. 14. 29 32. Again all those texts wherein Christians are exhorted to note and avoid those that cause divisions Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. 2 Jo. 10. Again those texts also wherein Christians are charged to be all of one judgment which cannot be but by adhering to the judgment of some one person or assembly to speak the same thing Not to be wise in their own conceit 1 Cor. 1. 10. Rom. 12. 16 -15 5 6. Phil. 1. 27 -3 16. Again those texts which require Christians to acquiesce in the doctrine of their Spiritual Superior who is not only the Apostle but the Apostles Successors to the world's end 1 Cor. 4. 16 17. 11. 1 2. Phil. 3. 17. Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. With which Successors is left the charge of continuing to the world the doctrine of their predecessors 1 Tim. 1. 3. 2 Tim. 1. 13 14. 2. 2. which texts see more largely explained and the extent of obedience that is required in them vindicated in Success of Clergy 2. Secondly after these Texts commanding obedience and submission of judgment to the authority but not to the Universal infallibility for who will maintain this of all those Spiritual Superiors who are thus to be obey'd let us consider also the common practice in our Secular converse Doth not there lie upon children an obligation of duty especially in their minority to yeild the obedience of assent for else they may not the obedience of their actions to the rules and injunctions of their parents That saying Col. 3. 20. doth it not either argue all parents infallible in what they teach or command or that God hath bound children not capable of repairing to an higher Director to submit their judgment and actions to those who may guide them amiss Again whether no obligation of Scholars to their Masters and those experienced in the Science they learn I say whether it is not a duty in these to yeild their assent to them not only for the charge they have of obedience but also for the great disproportion of their judgments tho the other are not infallible and may possibly teach them wrong for there is no infallible Judge at all in the Sciences The like instances may be made in the People to their Pastor the Penitent to his Confessor the Christians to any Synod less than General for these are all fallible What mean those rules Oportet discentem credere Unicuique credendum est in sua arte To which I may add That right reason binds any to yeild faith to another not only if infallible but if all circumstances considered less fallible than himself If these be dictates of right reason what difference between this and the law of Nature And again what difference between that and the law of God Many Scruples I know and demurs and difficulties usually arise in our minds endeavoring to defeat such obedience and resignation of our selves to anothers authority when any way fallible You will give me leave therefore before I go further to take notice of some of them and to see whether they may not be rationally silenced 1. First then to this you may say that where-ever we doubt once upon reasons no way satisfied of any thing which such Governors enjoyn whether it be true whether it be lawful here we are quit from our obedience to them R. True if you have any other higher Judgment appointed to repair to and accordingly deciding such doubt in which case theirs is voided But mark here that thus you decline not their judgment because fallible but because you have another Director or Guide appointed less liable to error than they But where-ever this cannot be had duty obligeth you not to follow your own but your former Directors judgment whose Faith follow Heb. 13. 7. Will you restrain such Scripture-rules of obedience only to General Councils But if not their judgment whom we have named in case you can attain to no higher Tribunal whose doth your duty oblige you to follow your own But thus also then is it not your duty to follow a fallible judgment which may guide you right or wrong Tell me hath not God obliged every one to follow his * own conscience right or wrong Conscientia erronea obligat From what law but God's Obligat because he doth not know that it is erroneous how much more an * erring Council whose mistakes he hath many times less means to find out
give to our Superiors will be due to them in some of those definitions made by them in fundamentals of faith and Christian practice which points he excepts here from submittance or deposition of our judgment See likewise which especially I recommend to your reading what Mr. Hooker as writing not against Catholicks but Puritans copiously saith in behalf of submission of judgment to the Church even when thwarting our private opinion in his Preface 6. § and in 2. l. 7. § near the end which you may find more fully set down and Mr. Chillingworth's Comment upon it in Answ. to Mr. Knot who pressed him with it discussed in the discours of Infallibility § 45 46. c. In the Preface speaking upon Deut. 17. 8. c he hath these words God was not ignorant that the Priests and Judges whose sentence in matters of controvesie he ordained should stand both might and oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment Howbeit better it was in the eye of his understanding that sometimes an erroneous sentence definitive should prevail till the same authority perceiving such oversight might afterwards correct and reverse it than that strifes should have respit to grow and not come speedily unto some end And there he answers that Objection That men must do nothing against conscience saying Neither wish we that men should do any thing which in their hearts they are perswaded they ought not to do but we say this perswasion ought to be fully settled in their hearts that in litigious and controverted causes of such quality the will of God is to have them to do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final Decision shall determin yea tho it seem in their private opinion to swerve utterly from that which is right as no doubt many times the sentence among the Jews did unto one or other part contending and yet in this case God did then allow them to do that which in their private judgment it seemed yea and perhaps truly seemed that the law did disallow Thus judicious Hooker And see what Dr. Jackson saith to the same purpose below § 29 30. Thus the reformed seem to allow in some things a submission of private judgment to the Church a submission not only of concealing it but of renouncing and deserting it in believing and hearkning to the Church rather than to it Now the Church doth never exact that you should profess or subscribe * that your own reason or private judgment caused from some evidence in the thing suggests or assures to you such a thing to be truth but * that you believe her in such a thing more than your own reasons to the contrary or * that you confess her judgment better than your own and so are content to be swayed by it in such a thing For if you heartily believe that the Church'es judgment is likely to be better than yours or that she is authorized by her judgment to guide yours it necessarily follows that in obeying her you do according to your judgment one way tho contrary to it in another way For your final judgment upon the points is this that tho you see reasons ex parte rei most or all contrary to what she defines yet that her judgment is better than yours or ought to guide yours and upon this you against your own judgment or reasons assent unto hers Note here that by the Church'es judgment I mean the ultimatest judgment and the highest court thereof that we can have So that when your Pastor teacheth any thing which is contrary to your private judgment you are not obliged to assent to him if another Ecclesiastical judgment superior be contrary to his For the decision of the Superior to whom in any doubting you may repair voids that of an inferior unto you and so voids also his Excommunications and Ecclesiastical censures and if the superior man or Council tell you one thing and the inferior another you are to hear the Church in the superior not in the inferior Neither can that of the Apostle Rom. 14. 23. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin which text see further explained below § 31. be applied to any for so doing because who so doth thus submit doth this out of faith namely this faith that the Church is wiser than he or that he is obliged to obey her expositions of Scripture directions counsels c when contrary to his own It is not only possible then but usual for one to believe a thing against his own reason or judgment or conscience if you will take these in such a sence i. e. against the reasons drawn a parte rei which he hath for disbelieving it but it is not possible for one to believe a thing against his reason or judgment or conscience in general or against some other reason taken ab authoritate which he hath still for believing it For certainly * when a fool believes a wise man against some conceit he had of his own or * when Roman-Catholicks consent to the Church in something doubtles wherein some of them may see reasons for the contrary and no reason perhaps for it save that ab authoritate viz. the Church'es determination and command or * when an Israelite submitted to holding or doing a thing which the Judges decided Deut. 17. 11 12. none of these may be said to do thus without or against reason because perhaps their private judgment is not convinced in the thing for they have that reason still for going against their other reason that the others whom they follow are wiser than they or also a 2d reason that the others are by God appointed to guide their judgment and opinion in such things and that they are commanded by God to consent to what ever those shall decide 3ly This thing seems decided by the allowed practice of the Church in excommunicating at least for such matters as she esteemeth necessary and fundamental those who dissent from her judgment For if in any thing at all if at least in fundamentals in which some say she cannot err the Church may excommunicate dissenters hence it follows both that it is possible and that a man ought in some things to consent to the Church even against his own judgment unless we will affirm that no man in such points as suppose in fundamentals can possibly have another judgment than hers But so there would never have bin any man erroneous or heretical in a point fundamental I say ought to consent For if God hath given power to the Church I mean the highest court thereof of punishing by excommunication all those who do not consent to some decision which she maketh then all ought to consent to such decision whether it be right or wrong to his seeming arguments or reasons whose consent is required for every one ought to do that for the not doing of which God appoints him to be punished besides that he who consents not to the Church'es judgment
refuseth it only to consent to another judgment much more fallible i. e. his own Now that God hath granted such a power to the Church of excommunicating dissenters to some of her decisions at least is acknowledged by the Reformed * who allow the Church'es practice of it in her first 4. General Councils concerning the additions in the Nicene and other Creeds * who allow the Church'es practice in commanding something to be done or forborn by her subjects under the penalty of Excommunication but wherever the Church enjoyns any thing to be done she inclusively enjoyns assent or belief that such a thing is lawful to be done Lastly * who practise such excommunication themselves not only toward men for contradicting or for declaring their dissent but for dissenting from their decrees 1. †As appears in the closes of the 3. 4. and 5. Canons c of the English reformed Synod held under K. James 1603. where Can. 5. Whosoever doth affirm any of the 39. Articles to be in any part erroneous stands excommunicated not till he recants his publick contradicting the Church'es doctrines but till he repents of and publickly revokes such his wicked errors and †as appears in all those Canons wherein that Synod enjoyns any Agends upon pain of Excommunication which injunctions of Practicals as I said before involve also an injunction of Assent first that such practicals are lawful See Can. 9. 12. 59. of that Synod 2ly As appears in the English Synod under K. Charles 1640. * where in the 3. 4. and 5. Canons any accused of Popery Socinianism Anabaptism are to be excommunicated till they abjure such errors and that is till they assent to the contradictory of those errors and that is till they assent to the doctrine of the Church of England where it is contradictory to those errors and * where Can. 6. There is required an approbation and sincere acknowledgment which is no less than assent to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England as containing all things necessary to salvation and this confession required upon oath See this matter discoursed more at large in Church-government 3. part § 29. And hence a sober man may discern how that without submission of judgment in some things none that are learned and much studied in Theological controversies can enjoy the external communion of any Church For since for example the English Church excommunicates all that shall say that any of her Articles or Canons is erroneous or repugnant to Scripture see for this her 4. and 5. Can. set down before 2d part of Church-government untill they shall publickly revoke not such their saying but such their error and since the Rom. Church is said to require belief of so many Decrees of the Tridentine and other former Councils if any one Canon or Article tho of never so little moment of the Church of England or Canon of those other Councils allowed by the Church of Rome whereto assent is required doth appear mistaken to such a one's private reason hence he can be of neither of these external communions and sic de caeteris yet one of which certainly is the communion of the true Catholick Church of which we say Credo unam sanctam c. I may add Neither could he heretofore be of the external communion of the former Church Catholick for many ages wherein by reason of new rising heresies the Church'es determinations and those requiring assent have bin multiplied from some one or other of which a learned man is likely to vary in his private judgment being perhaps not every way so well informed as that of the Church was who made them So suppose one holding all the rest with the Council of Trent should differ from it in this one tenet That the Baptism of S. John Baptist and of Christ were not of the same efficacy or one holding all the rest with the Church of England should only differ from it in this point of her 28 and 29th Article That the Real Body of Christ is received in the Eucharist only by those who have a lively faith for which see Mr. Thorndike Epilogue to the Church of England 3. l. 2. c. or before the Reformation and Council of Trent one should in some thing hold differently from the Decrees of the 2d Nicean or Lateran Council he is thereby excluded from the external communion both of the Church of Rome and the Church of England and of all the former Church following the 2d Council of Nice unles he be in something content to mortify his rationale and make a submission of his judgment-Therefore the Schoolmen so subtil in their disputes and so various in their resolves yet laid aside their private reasons and bended their judgments to the yoke thereof where any controversible point was formerly stated by the Church taking liberty to expatiate and exercise their science only in those disputables wherein she had no way bounded them Now to come to your other Query Whether if in non-fundamentals the Church require our assent to something contrary to our private judgment we ought to yeild to it To this I answer We ought Because the Church'es power of punishing by Excommunication all that do not consent to all her decisions and determinations wherein she requires consent seems to be absolute and unlimited For to some of her decisions the reformed grant that he who assents not is justly excommunicated by her I ask therefore to which 1. Is it only to those decisions which she maketh according to the Scriptures that if any assent not to them he may be justly excommunicated by her See the 20. and 21 Article of the Church of England But then before she may justly exercise such Excommunication some body must judge when her decisions are made according to the Scriptures when not This Judge must either be her self or private men If she must judg this then t is all one as if there were no such limitation for we may be assured she will never make any such decision as her self will judge not to be according to or to be contrary to the Scriptures If private men must judge this then this her authority is null toward so many private men as shall judge her decisions to be contrary to Scriptures and to the rest that judge them according with Scripture she hath no use of this authority because they already consent T is null I say to the former because as the power of excommunicating those who do not consent to her decisions when made according to the Scriptures is committed to her so the power of judging when they are so made when not is here supposed to be left by God to private men Therefore these being judged by them not to be so her authority which was thus limited is now toward all such men voided And how will this consist with God's giving Pastors c for the unity of the faith and that men may not be
acknowledge totum Christum to be contained in and exhibited to us by any one species and by the least particle thereof See Confessio Wirtenberg Chamier de Eucharist 9. t. 8. c. our Saviour's boby and blood and soul and Deity suffering now no separation See a further proof of the things said above in the discours on this subject And lastly if he hath considered a case not much unlike i. e. the communicating of Infants wherein if the Protestants had retained a contrary custom to the rest of the present Church perhaps they might have accused the Church for changing it not with less evidence than they do in this For first the Scripture saith plainly as of Baptism he that is not born again of water so of the Eucharist he that eateth not my flesh c shall not inherit eternal life 2ly And then the Primitive times according to these precepts practised it 3ly No more knowledge and preparation is required to the Lord's Supper than to Baptism for examining ones self and repenting is required to Baptism as well as to the Eucharist therefore if such things are not required of children for the one so neither are they for the other And I could press the like in Extream Unction which suppose that we had retained and the Roman Church left off as it is contrary how easily could we have charged them for abrogating a plain Apostolical precept Jam. 5. 14 And the same may be urged concerning the great act of humility washing one anothers feet before the Communion for which after that our Saviour himself had first begun the practice thereof there seems to be a plain precept Jo. 13. 14. And so the Church'es changing the celebration of the Lord's Supper into a morning exercise and that it should be received fasting was not done without some mens scrupling it See Januarius his consulting S. Austin about this Epist. 118. c. But if we can alledge in this matter the desuetude of former Church to be a sufficient rule and warrant to us for omitting of it then why may not the same plea of the Church'es desuetude be as well by some others enlarged to some other points wherein Scripture is urged against them I say therefore if such cases as these be well considered together with the understanding and the holines of these men who after our reasons given them are not convinced by such an evidence as we pretend methinks for one to say notwithstanding all this not that he is much perswaded but that he is absolutely infallibly certain of the unlawfulnes of such a practice would not consist with that Christian humility which we ought to have and to which only God gives true knowledge nor with that charge of the Apostle not to be wise in our own conceits Whereas it is noted that the more eminent in sanctity any one hath bin the more eminent obeyer and defender not opposer hath he bin of the Church'es authority A like instance might be made in that mainly opposed doctrine of Transubstantiation where as long as a possibility thereof is granted as it is by many of the Reformed and such a declaration is found in Scripture as this Hoc est Corpus meum the most literal and proper sence whereof that can be tho the most heightning this mystery is Transubstantiation of the Elements See Treat of Euchar. § 28. n. 2. and as long as this Scripture is not found contradicted by any other Scriptures but that with less force the literal expression of them may be brought to comply with it than the literal expression of it to comply with them we also adding to these the final determination of the Church long before Protestancy thought on after so long and subtle disputes for about 300 years from the 2d Nicene Council till the days of Berengarius and after so curious an examination on all sides of Primitive Tradition by Paschasius Bertram and others 800 years ago I do not see where a man can ground an absolute infallible certainty against it T is a dangerous case to disobey where we see others of great judgment and integrity yeilding obedience with alacrity saith Dr. Jackson And indeed I cannot but approve of that constitution of Ignatius and think him a too much self-conceited man who when he hath I say not to the Church but suppose only to three or four whom he knew wise and learned and uninterested men shewed his reasons and they have weighed them and concluded against his former opinion would not quietly acquiesce in their contrary judgments supposing no superior judgment to have prejudiced them and this especially in a point not fundamental Tho I know not how it is that when we plead our security in our dissent from the Church'es judgment we presently say that the point we differ from her in is not fundamental and that unity of faith in those fundamentals is sufficient but again when we plead the necessity of using our own judgment and not trusting or relying on any other mans we presently represent the same Not-fundamental truths as of great consequence and say the blind meaning the Church which may perhaps err in such things leading the blind both may fall into the ditch and that that ditch also is damnation I cannot conceive therefore how any man can assure himself in any thing that is not of fact or sence but that is only a deduction from Scripture and Tradition contrary to the judgment I say not of his private Pastor but of the supremest Court of the present Church that he is infallibly certain of any thing small or great Small I say as well as great for from the Church'es being liable in some things to error doth not follow any likelihood of his being infallibly certain in those things of the contrary truth but rather otherwise because t is a sign that such things are not clearly revealed and that they being dark to her will be so much more to him To confirm which add these two 1. That in Fundamentals this thing is granted That none can be certain of the contrary to what the Church defines and then that how many points are fundamental is to him uncertain 2. That amongst many tenets of the Church this is one That private men are bound in all things to yeild their consent to the Church'es decisions where they are required so to do This tenet is plain in the practice of General Councils which Councils as well for Non-fundamentals as Fundamentals and for things of practice as well as of belief have anathematized the not only contradicters but Dissenters and Non-conformists Now then unles any one be infallibly certain of the contrary to what the Church determins and that this is no fundamental point also his judgment against hers cannot be infallible in any point whatsoever where she requires submission of his judgment In prosecution of which submission of our judgment in Non-fundamentals also it is to be noted that if our submission
they should not be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the steight of men till they may all come in the unity of the doctrine of faith to the fulness of Christ Jesus Eph. 4. 11. Heb. 13. 7 9. Neither may we say that so also we quit only our own reason to accept another man's for as we are guided by their authority so are they guided not by their own reason only but by former authority till we ascend to the first founders of Christian religion See Ecclus. 8. 9. To the judgment therefore of such visible Doctors and Teachers of the Church we ought to repair to some or other of these nay to some or other external communion of them For the promises of perpetual assistance c are not made to the Church at random or in obscurity and unknown viz. that some man or other on earth either of the Clergy or if not of the Laity shall be an orthodox Christian so far as to be capable of salvation till the end of the world but * to those to whom our Saviour also committed the Keys to whom indeed t is most necessary they being the Shepherds and the rest the flock committed always to their guidance See Matt. 16. 18. compared with 19. 28. 20. compared with 19. 18. 20. compared with 18. * to such a Church †as people might know and repair and make their complaints to Matt. 18. 17. †as is a light of the world set on a Candlestick and shining before men a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid Matt. 5. 14 15 16. never was nor never shall be hid of the perpetual being of which we make confession of our faith in the Apostolical Creed the holy Catholick Church and yet plainer in the Nicene one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church which who so understands not of an external visible profession and communion as theirs then was may retain the words but not the sence and faith of that Council See this matter more largely discoursed in Succession of Clergy § 2. c. and in Church-government 2. part § 25 26. First therefore in this humble repair to their Judgment where we find all these Doctors of Christianity disagreeing from what we take to be Scripture which holds also in the determinations of any Christian Church whatever so long as we can come to know no other or no better see § 36. we ought in such a case to relinquish our judgment and submit to theirs who also have the same light of Scripture as we and in humility we ought to think more ability to judge of it and who likewise have the promise of indefectibility in truths necessary to salvation Therefore here also the more high and weighty the point is the more firmly ought we to adhere to them trusting to the protection of our Saviour the Head of the Church that in these points especially they shall not all so conjoyned be mistaken And again in smaller points since there is less danger in our erring in them and the more guilt still the smaller they are in our making a schism from or division in the Church for them more humility exercised in obeying no truth of consequence vindicated by contention wisdom perhaps would think it fit to subscribe to the same Guides For as the Apostle said in another case If they are sit to judge the greatest are they not so to judge the smallest matters 1 Cor. 6. 2. And if any thing herein may be indulged to singularity of opinion t is only so far as to make known the reasons that move us to it to the Church or some few therein whom we count men of learning and integrity and void of passion and after this to submit to whatever they who now together with us apprehend all the reasons which sway us shall determin The contrary to which can be only the fruit of self-conceit or obstinacy This if they unanimously deliver any thing to us which we think against Scripture and much more yet ought we to submit to any order of their's tho we do not find it in Scripture if we find nothing in Scripture against it without calling such their sanctions Will-worship and Superstition making sure to use the same charity to the Church which we are obliged-in to private men in whom nihil est damnandum quod ulla ratione bonum esse queat Neither is this assenting to them against our own reason or judgment as we call it going against conscience which conscience is nothing but our judgment and that we call judgment many times nothing but our own and that a slight opinion In not following of which opinion or judgment we are faulty only then where we have no wiser person caeteris paribus nor no established law to guide and direct it Nor is it going against our reason when as nothing is more reasonable than to go against some of our own particular reasonings when we have another stronger reason to the contrary that is the submitting of it to such an authority nothing being more ordinary than for arguments from a Reason to give place to those from an Authority upon which Authority also and not upon Reason is grounded our Faith. See Submiss of Judgment § 2. c. But let me add this for our further contentment that he who not only demands of the Church but takes pains also as all ought to be informed by the Church concerning the proof and evidence of what she requires him to believe shall seldom or never be put to believe that what she saith is truth only from her authority because she saith it but also from his own judgment because she manifests it Obj. But doth not an erring conscience then bind us to follow it tho it be so or may I sometime do a thing which I think unlawful upon another's judgment without sinning Answ. He that is perswaded in conscience that tho he thinks such a thing unlawful yet he ought rather to follow a wiser man's judgment than his own whose judgment saith t is not unlawful cannot absolutely say he is perswaded that it is unlawful And he who thinking such a thing is more likely in reason yet thinketh likewise that he ought rather to obey the Church's judgment than his own reason if he here follows his conscience that is in respect of his own reason he goeth against his conscience as I call it in respect of the submission he thinks he ows to anothers judgment For whilst his judgment prefers another man's judgment before his own this man in following the others must needs also be said to follow his own judgment and consequently his conscience Now he that is not thus perswaded of the duty of submission of his judgment c to wiser men or men authorized to guide his judgment t is true that he sins in doing against his own opinion or conscience so long as he is not so perswaded but then he ought
better to inform his conscience not only or chiefly in the confutation of the reasons he hath for his opinion which confutation cannot always be had or when had perhaps is by him not well understood but in the reasonablenes and many times duty of the submission of his private and singular judgment and opinion to those more wise more religious than himself or to those authorized to direct him 2ly Where the Doctors of the Church are not all of a mind but divided in their opinions it seems better to follow any party of them rather than our own judgment opposit to both because they having the same light of Scripture as we a calling to teach and interpret it being those to whom Christ hath promised more assistance using perhaps more means to understand it having more understandings agreeing in such a sence of it tho they may possibly err yet we are the more likely to mistake And experience daily shews that they who renounce fallible authority and stand to their own judgment to avoid one error incur twenty and those by God's desertions sometimes in the most plain points of practice * far grosser than ever any Church-authority or Synod hath lapsed into Neither are the diversities of opinion between Churches any thing in comparison of those millions of private mens singularities and as in sight we say many eyes see more than one so in blindnes or dimnes of sight many eyes are never so blind as one Let us avoid self-conceit and put on humility and then we * shall be glad rather to use the judgment for our way of another eye which if it hath motes in it we have reason to think that ours hath a beam and * will be ready to say if the Church be not infallible how much less I rather than the whole Church is not infallible therefore let me trust to my single judgment an illation not more unreasonable than usual 3. In following one party of the divided Clergy we are to avoid those rather who acknowledge the former practice of the Church against them and appeal to Scripture as long as the practice also pretends the same Scripture either for it or not at all against it For tho Scripture is a more sure foundation than the Church's practice yet since the practice also pretends as well as those who oppose it to be guided by the Scriptures so that Scripture and Practice is pretended on one side and Scripture only on the other side and since there is so great odds in number of those judgments concerning the Scripture that have ever so practised and also a succession of truth promised to be continued in the Church t is more probable I say that the practice is not mistaken in the sence of Scripture and of two we are to chuse the more probable 4. But if besides Scripture there be practice or tradition of some times of the Church the more ancient pretended against the practice of other later times here search is to be made by us and if such an opposition of the present and former Church seems to be discovered which indeed can never be by reason of our Saviour's promise in any matter of necessary faith the contrary course to heady Rehoboam is to be held the old mens counsel is to be taken and the former times are to be preferred except it be in matters not prescribed by God's word wherein the Church of all times hath power to constitute what she thinks fit Where therefore the Scriptures tho pretended by both sides plain yet are not so plain that both sides agree there let all the trial rest not * upon reading arguments pro and con in controversie-writers where wit and continual agitations of the question make any side tenable as men are biassed by interest and education but * upon this search of the Fathers and history of the Church and I am perswaded most controversies will quickly end For who tries them 1. First he will find in those voluminous writings many things more express and full and positive than they are in Scripture especially most of the practices of the Church put out of all dispute so that tho several men read those writings with a several interest as they do the Scriptures yet they shall find too much clearnes there to be corrupted by such interest For example those who dispute Episcopacy to be against the Scriptures yet are clearly convinced in the Fathers writings that it was practised in the primitive Churches and thought consonant to the Scriptures 2. Again he will find a most unanimous consent among them in most things and in many of those of present debate contrary to the opinion of many who seeing them quoted constantly by both sides almost in all controversies and that not only one Father against another but the same against himself seeing likewise books written of their many disagreeings which books are silent of the many more things wherein they accord do in this prejudice condemn them of the same ambiguity as the Scriptures and of much opposition besides and lastly of impertinency to modern controversie and so forbear to consult them and laugh at Vinc. Lirinensis his Rule Quod omnibus c as tho most true yet utterly useles But here some cautions must be given to the searcher which it were most unreasonable that he should not observe 1. * That in a search of the antiquity of opinions and not of the reputation of authors he would not reject writings which are evidently very ancient and likewise then approved since they are quoted by latter Fathers and Councils suppose those of the 3d 4th and 5th age after Christ. Because tho granted by all very ancient for the time they are uncertain for the author and bear a false title Such are for example the Apostolical Canons Clement's Apostolical Constitutions Dionys. Areop works of which it being disputed so early as A. D. 420. whether these were the genuine works of St. Dionysius shews that they were very ancient Again * that from discovering some corruption in some of the Fathers writings he would not argue there not to remain so much purity and incorruption in the rest as that in any thing controverted their true opinion can be known neither argue from his discovering their erring perhaps every one in something and that many times in a thing very inconsiderable that therefore in nothing they can be fit witnesses of truth and lastly from his finding them obscure or ambiguous in some places that they cannot be clear upon such subject in any other place or also in that place cleared by the context Yet such we find are most of the arguments that are urged for weakening their authority 2. That for the primitive times of the Church he would not only take those wherein she lived in persecution and left few records of her doctrines or customs as the first and second age but extend them to the end
of the 6th or 5th or at least of the 4th age so as to involve S. Austin c. these being the times wherein she flourished under the protection of Christian Governors more ample in her power publick in her doctrines and discipline frequent and copious in her writings active against all sorts of hereticks as also more exercised with them which the present times as enjoying still the same happines must needs and ought more to resemble than the other and to which taken in this extent ordinarily differing Churches appeal 3. That he would not think that those practices which he observes to be used in the latter of these times and omitted in the former therefore are justly to be rejected unles they be also in that sence as they are afterwards used disallowed and opposed by the former and that by the more general vote thereof For what is said of Scripture § 6. may here be said of the Church that it follows not negatively that such practices are either unlawful or unexpedient because a former age did not recommend or did not use them Therefore that he would compare the practices and tenets of the present Church not with those of every but of any age of those primitive times so not contradicted by the rest In which age if any doctrine held we may lawfully say such is no new but an ancient doctrine or a doctrine of the Fathers 4. That he would not with such a conceit repair to them as if he should find in writers of so many ages and of so many several countries no differences at all for there he will find several both †of the former of those times or at least of a many in them from the latter * As the more common opinion and practice of the more ancient times of the Church are by some quoted somewhat to differ from the succeeding in the Millenary doctrine communicating of Infants vision of God before the day of Judgment in the rarer use of Images less observance of the Reliques in Invocation of Saints in the punctuality of Auricular Confession for some sorts of sins c. Quoted I say not that the difference in these is granted so great altogether as it is by some made concerning which as to some of these particulars see what is said in Church-government § 55. but that in the more and less practice of some of them and in the commoness of the belief of other of them there may be some difference in several times So the Millenary doctrine and non-vision of God in some places and times perhaps was the opinion more common So a common practice in some times was used of communicating Infants Images in some times also were less used tho then not the use of them I mean as practised by latter ages opposed and so of the rest that follow Concerning such things see what the 3d. caution saith But observe touching such things wherein difference is named That it is either difference of practice secundum magis minus not opposition of doctrine or opposition of doctrine only in some matters of small moment or the opposition of such times not universal but only of some places or Churches others practising or teaching the contrary And †in the same times he will find many differences of those of one Church from another As of the Eastern and Western Church about Easter the Roman and African Church about Rebaptization and afterward about Superiority of the See of Rome for Appeals and so many things practised in the Eastern Churches not at all or latter used in the Western And †in the same Church he will find one party against another as Epiphanius and Chrysostom c And the same party when of a more mature judgment differing from himself as S. Austin in the busines of Free-will and Grace c. But it is sufficient if in some other differences he finds them all or by much the most agreeing in most or in many points of those which are now controverted especially points of practice which are of greater moment to render up his judgment to them in those uncontrolable and plain things wherein they consent and more is not desired of him amongst which are the contradictories to most of those hurtful opinions related below § 41. c. and not to make that fallacious induction with which many satisfie themselves * They are not sufficient Guides in this or that point wherein they differ ergo they are in none at all or not in the many other wherein they accord and in this main point especially that universal obedience is due to Church-decrees and that it is lawful in no case to desert her external communion which settles all the rest * Or they clash in this and this point which truly for the most part are things of less moment see Church-gov 2 part § 55. c. tho by the then contenders much aggravated ergo they clash in all or in almost all when-as such arguments have force only against their infallibility or absolute unanimity in all things not against their accord in those things which are more necessary and for which we have occasion to search them So whereas we find the Millenary tenet and the place of faithful souls out of heaven till the day of Judgment and Infant-Communion anciently common tenets by latter times as is thought justly rejected to be urged as a proof of no safe adherence to all common opinions and practices of former Church because in some things errable we are to consider that these besides that they never were Church-decrees in any Council nor granted to be universal are not points of such consequence as to prejudice the ancient Church her authority judgment or guidance in all other necessary matters Hear what Dr. Ferne Preface to Consider touching Reform very judiciously saith of two of them after he had made much use of those instances Having spoken saith he the intent of this Treatise I must before I leave him intreat the Reader to remember one thing in the former the error of the Millenary belief and Infant-communion often instanced-in there and to take notice that nothing was intended or can be concluded by those instances to the prejudice of the whole Church as if thereby might be proved that the whole Church universally and in all the members of it may err and be infected with error in points of concernment or prejudicial to the faith For that of the Millenary as it was not universal so not of such moment and that of the In-fant-communion tho more universal and of longer continuance was but a tolerable mistake So that all errors of the whole Church by his concession are ever either not universal or not of concernment 5. That he would not with such a conceit repair to them as if he should always find in them an unanswerable reason or justification of such and such practices or tenets for this we promise not
c see Jo. 5. 36. Matt. 16. 3. that Jesus was the Messias and the Prophet whom he had promised to raise unto them like unto Moses to whom they were now to obey in all things and to hearken to none contradicting his doctrines The many expressions therefore in the Old Testament that seem to speak of a total falling away of the Priest and a failing of the Church many of which were urged by the Donatists and answered to by St. Austin and other Fathers which see more fully discoursed in Success of Clerg § either speak not of the Priests ignorance at all but vitiousnes and neglect of duty or not of their teaching false doctrines as Priests but of their making false predictions as pretended Prophets or are texts Prophetical of their falling away after the coming of the Messias or speak not of their falling into Heresy but of their open Apostatizing unto Idolatry For Heresies and Sects retaining a distinct communion in the worship of the same God and acknowledgment of the divine law in those times of the Jewish Church we find none but both the Priests and people divided between true worshippers of God and flat idolaters Here therefore the Trier had always those to whom he might safely adhere and might always clearly discern who they were 2ly Nor those that try and after it make choice of falshood are thereby excused because since there is evidence enough one way or other given of the truth they who in searching find it not are some way or other defective in their trial Perhaps because they will not try * by all those ways which God hath left to witness his truth as both by Scriptures and also by the authorized Expositors thereof but only by one way which themselves most fancy Whenas doubtles the Jew or the Berean after their search of Scriptures had not bin excused in dissenting from the Apostles or from our Saviour's doctrine so long as this doctrine was also confirmed to them by other sufficiently evident and convincing arguments besides the testimony of former Scriptures viz * by the mighty signs and wonders which our Saviour and the Apostles did thro the power of the H. Spirit given them from God * by the Resurrection of Jesus and their mission by his authority c. After which confirmation the Apostle's advice to believers is to hold to Tradition to the doctrine formerly delivered Rom. 16. 17. Heb. 13. 7 9. and to prove and try the new spirits 1 Thess. 5. 20. 1 Jo. 4. 1. that perhaps might speak under pretence of that frequent gift of prophecying which the Devil also then imitated something dissenting from doctrines formerly received as appears by 1 Thess. 5. 20. and the clause of 1 Jo. 4. 1. the one bidding that they should not altogether despise these Spirits the other that they should not altogether credit them But of the Apostles doctrines coming with such a testimony of the Spirit Gal. 3. 5. they would not have them at all to doubt pronouncing Anathema to any that should contradict these Gal. 1. 7 9. Col. 2. 6 7 8. 1 Jo. 4. 6. Which 6th verse sheweth that the first verse is meant of the Church's or others trying the spirits of private men 1 Cor. 14. 29 32. not of particular men trying the Spirit of the Apostles or of the Church And should any now not out of affection to learn and to strengthen his faith nor to know what was the reason of them but whether there be any reasons for them try the doctrines of the ancient Councils as some have lately and by the just judgment of God upon curiosity have dissented from them such trial would argue much infidelity against our Saviour's promise and his vigilancy over his Church would much offend against the obedience we owe to the decrees of the Church and against the humble conceit we ought to have of our selves Whereas on the contrary the more indisputing obedience is which is the daughter of true humility the more christian the spirit especially where one is not in a communion of a Church of a later original nor that hath professedly departed out of another Church elder than it self And if any think that such an humble submission and assent to Church-decrees forfeits the use of reason and patronizeth ignorance 1. First the same thing may be said of our assent being tied to the larger Nicene and Athanasian Creeds 2ly Again the Church's decrees are but very few if we take only the decrees of Councils and not all the Theological controversies and determinations of private Divines of any side for such in comparison of the large field of divine knowledge wherein great intellects may still freely expatiate as appears in that great liberty which we find in the Roman writers I mean the Schoolmen freely dissenting from one another in many points Which differings when-as we also urge against them they defend themselves that such are points undefined in Councils But 3ly in things defined also we must acknowledge that learning and searching all arguments for truth well consists with obedience to Church-definitions as it did with our Saviours and the Apostles inasmuch as we find those who most profess this submittance as skilful and copious in giving reasons of their faith as any others and no way laying aside the use of reason or pursuit of knowledge Even as they who from the testimony of Scripture believe there is a God yet seek arguments from the Creation and Nature to strengthen or if I may so say multiply their faith Faith both to what the Scripture and to what the Church saith being alway capeable of a further growth And as oportet discentem credere so credentem discere See more concerning this in Infallibility § and Ch. gov 3. part § 39. But next since one may be born and bred in a Church Schismatical and here also by his condition and profession not capable of making this trial by comparing his present teachers with other modern and ancient Doctors yet upon the reasons above § 20. he is in far less danger in obeying his Spiritual Guides than in steering himself and in obeying them so long as heknows none better tho they be Schismatical he is free from Schism whereas following himself he becomes guilty of a 2d Schism and being free from Schism he may attain in such Church life everlasting nor can there any doubt be made but that a pious man living in the state of Schism and free from the crime is in a far better condition than an orthodox christian living in the habit and state of sin For tho Heresy Gal. 5. 20. i. e. either an error opposit to some truth necessary to be explicitly known to enter into heaven such as that Mar. 16. 16. Act. 4. 12. or an obstinate professing in other things against the known definitions of the Church and tho Schism i. e. a factious breaking the unity and peace of the Church
to the utmost corners of the world newly embracing whole nations into her bosom If lastly in all other opposit Churches there be found inward dissensions and contrariety change of opinions uncertainty of resolutions with robbing of Churches rebelling against governors much more experienced since this Author's death in the late Presbyterian wars confusion of Orders invading of Episcopacy c. whereas contrariwise in this Ch. the unity undivided the resolutions unalterable the most heavenly order reaching from the height of all power to the very lowest of all subjection all with admirable harmony beauty and undefective correspondence bending the same way to the effecting of the same work do promise no other than continuance increase and victory let no man doubt to submit himself to this glorious Spouse of God c. This then being accorded to be the true Church of God it followeth that she be reverently obeyed in all things without further disquisition she having the warrant that he that heareth her heareth Christ and whosoever heareth her not hath no better place with God than a publican or pagan And what folly were it to receive the Scriptures upon credit of her authority the authority of that Church that was before Luther's times and not to receive the interpretation of them upon her authority also and credit And if God should not alway protect his Church from error i. e. dangerous to or destructive of salvation and yet peremptorily command men always to obey her then had he made but very slender provision for the salvation of mankind which conceit concerning God whose care of us even in all things touching this transitory life is so plain and eminent were ungrateful and impious And hard were the case and mean had his regard bin of the vulgar people whose wants and difficulties in this life will not permit whose capacity will not suffice to sound the deep and hidden mysteries of Divinity and to search out the truths of intricate controversies if there were not others whose authority they might safely rely on Blessed therefore are they who believe and have not seen the merit of whose religious humility and obedience doth exceed perhaps in honour and acceptance before God the subtil and profound knowledge of many others This is the main course of their perswading at this day c. FINIS Concerning SALVATION possible to be had in a SCHISMATICAL COMMUNION AND Concerning the danger of living in and the necessity of departing from a KNOWN-SCHISMATICAL COMMUNION CONTENTS Tho it be conceded 1. FIrst That the Catholick Church contains in it not many opposit but only one external Communion § 2. 2ly That there is no salvation out of the communion i. e. internal of the Church Catholick 3. Yet Salvation must be allowed to some that are out of the external communion of the Ch. Catholick 4ly That of those who live out of the Catholick and in a schismatical external Communion there are several sorts 1. Those who make such separation who are not salvable without repentance 2. Those who follow such leaders and continue the division upon the same motives and passions not salvable without repentance 3. Those who follow such leaders in simplicity of heart and out of their condition considered invincible ignorance Such seem to be in a salvable condition tho incurring great disadvantages for their salvation § 7. 4. Those who convinced of Schism in such a Church yet rejoyn not themselves to the external communion of the Ch. Catholick tho consenting in all things with her Hindered 1. Either by some respects meerly temporal Such faulty but how highly is hard to determin 2. Or by some considerations and designs meerly spiritual Such less faulty than the other yet seem not wholly justifiable 1. †Whether they continue still in a communion schismatical § 9. n. 1. Which communion seems forbidden both 1. By the Scriptures 2. And by the Injunctions of the Church Catholick § 10. To which all owe obedience § 11. 2. Or †whether they communicate with no Church at all who seem of the two the less unjustifiable § 13. yet not wholly excusable § 14. 5. Those who 1. much doubting the Church they live in to be schismatical yet are not fully convinced thereof Or 2. convinced defer their intended reconcilement till an expected opportunity § 17. That several circumstances considered both these may or may not be culpable A Query What is to be done if the Ch. Catholick require some conformity to doctrines or practices against his conscience or particular judgment who seeks her Communion § 19. Several propositions tending to the solution of this Query § 20. Bishop of Chalcedon in Protest plain Confess 2. c. If Protestants allow not saving Faith Church and Salvation to such as sinfully err in Not-fundamentals sufficiently proposed they shew no more charity to erring Christians than Catholicks do For we allow all to have saving faith to be in the Church in the way of salvation for so much as belongs to faith who hold the fundamental points and invincibly err in not-fundamentals because neither are these sufficiently proposed to them nor they in fault that they are not so proposed 13. c. If they grant not Salvation to such Papists as they count vincibly ignorant of Roman errors but only to such as are invincibly ignorant of them then they have no more charity than we For we grant Church saving Faith and Salvation to such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errors Id. in Survey of L. Derry 8. c. 3. §. in answer to Bishop Bramhal's objecting the Pope's excommunicating of such Churches Neither doth the Roman Church excommunicate all the Christians of Affrick Asia Greece and Russia but only such as vincibly or sinfully err such as are formal or obstinate hereticks or schismaticks For Excommunication is only against obstinacy Si Ecclesiam non audierit sit tibi sicut Ethnicus Publicanus In these Churches there are innumerable who are but credentes haereticis schismaticis because the Catholick faith was never sufficiently preached to them and these the Pope doth not excommunicate Nor doth he exclude formal Hereticks or Schismaticks but Juridically declareth them to be excluded For by their Heresies or Schisms they had already excluded themselves or juridically confirmeth their exclusion begun by themselves S. Aug. Confess 8. l. 2. c. Legebat Victorinus Doctor tot Nobilium Senatorum c sanctam Scripturam omnesque Christianas scripturas investigabat studiosissime perscrutabatur dicebat Simpliciano non palam sed secretius familiarius Noveris me jam esse Christianum Et respondebat ille Non credam nec deputabo inter Christianos nisi in Ecclesia Christi te videro Ille autem irridebat eum dicens Ergo parietes faciunt Christianos Et hoc saepe dicebat Jam se esse Christianum Et Simplicianus illud saepe respondebat saepe ab illo parictum irrisio repetebatur Amicos enim suos
verebatur offendere superbos daemonicolas quorum graviter ruituras in se inimicitias arbitrabatur Sed posteaquam legendo inhiando hausit firmitatem timuitque negari a Christo coram Angelis sanctis si eum timeret coram hominibus confiteri reusque sibi magni criminis apparuit erubescendo de Sacramentis humilitatis Verbi Tui non erubescendo de sacris sacrilegis superborum daemoniorum depuduit vanitati erubuit veritati subitoque inopinatus ait Simpliciano Eamus in Ecclesiam Christianus volo fieri c. mirante Roma gaudente Ecclesia Superbi videbant irascebantur dentibus suis stridebant tabescebant Servo autem tuo Domine Deus erat spes ejus non respiciebat in vanitates insanias mendaces S. Aug. de ordine 2. l. 9. c. Cum docilis factus fuerit tum demum discit quanta ratione praedita sint ea ipsa quae secutus est ante rationem quid sit ipsa ratio quae post authoritatis cunabula firmus idoneus jam sequitur Grot. Votum pro pace Preface Facile vidi id voluisse Christum ut omnes qui ab ipso nominari per ipsum beatitudinis compotes fieri vellent unum essent inter se sicut ipse cum Patre unum est Jo. 17. 11. 21 22 23. Neque vero unum animo tantum sed ea communione quae conspici potest maxime conspicitur in regiminis vinculo in sacramentorum participatione Est enim Ecclesia aut esse debet corpus quoddam Rom. 12. 5 12 c. 27. Eph. 1. 23. 2. 16. 4. 4. 5. 30. Coloss. 1. 18. 2. 17 19. Quod corpus Christus caput ei a Deo datus per varias junctur as praefecturarum compaginari voluit Eph. 4. 11 12 16. in hoc singulos baptizari ut unum corpus fierent 1 Cor. 12 13. de uno consecrato pane vesci ut sic magis magisque coalescerent unum se corpus esse testarentur 1 Cor. 10. 17. Note that in this Discours by Schismatical I mean in that sort of Schism which is a separating from lawful Ecclesiastical Superiors And that Churches not only private persons may be thus schismatical see Dr. Hammond Of Schism 3. c. § 10 21. and what is said in Ecclesiastical Government 2. and 3 parts Of the danger of SCHISM SIR COncerning the hainousnes and danger of Schism I have read over those quotations you directed me to in Mr. Cressy's Motives c. 46. but cannot consent to what he there sect 5. compared with the former quotations deduceth from them i. e. that no man if living in a Communion or Church schismatical tho he hath no influence upon the beginnings of the separation tho he judge charitably of the Church which others have separated from and approacheth as near to it in his belief as that which is truth in his opinion will permit him can be saved Unless 1. first this be true also which he indeed seems to affirm 47. c. 2. § that the true Church cannot be hidden from the eyes of any man who doth not willingly shut them That any ones opinion that such a thing as he or his church holds is truth I add or that that Church wherein they are baptized and educated is the true Church of what condition age calling capacity soever he be must needs proceed in him from some corrupt passion as S. Austin instanceth in two such passions which chiefly make ones error an heresy qui alicujus temporalis commodi or qui gloriae principatusque sui gratia falsas novas opiniones vel gignit vel sequitur and from ignorance not invincible but obstinate and affected Now I hardly think any one will affirm this of every man whatsoever that is born and educated in a Communion schismatical Tho indeed I believe that this may be truly said of very many especially the learned who notwithstanding think themselves very free from it For the necessity which is ordinarily pleaded of following or not-doing contrary to our conscience freeth not us from being guilty of Schism in doing after it no more than it could free a Donatist c if there be any defect from negligence interest passion c in the information of it See Notes of Necessary Faith § 6. And see Archbishop Lawd Conf. 37. sect 6. n. where he saith That an error and that in points Not-fundamental may be damnable to some men tho they hold it not against their conscience If they neither seek the means to know the truth nor accept truth when it is known especially being men able to judge Now I conceive in most learned that abide in a Schismatical communion such a fault there is Namely either †much negligence and this either in not reading the controversies of religion at all or in their reading the tenets of their adversaries only in their own writers or in their taking and arguing against the extremities of some private mens opinions for the Catholick doctrines of that Church from which their Ancestors have departed Or if they deficient in none of these 2ly †much interest and passion and addiction to worldly conveniences or honors therefore S. Paul and S. Jude observe much carnality in Schism 1 Cor. 3. 3 4. Jude 19 which passion unknown to them restrains the free liberty of their judgments Hence the ignorant people in a Schismatical Church may well be saved whilst the learned thereof in their uncharitablenes to and opposition of the true Church perish Or 2ly unless this be true that where invincible ignorance is and no actual breach of charity at all yet the pure want and privation of external unity or communion with the Church without any their default damns such men tho mean-while they do receive all the benefit of the Sacraments well know and believe all the necessary Articles belonging to faith and manners and conform in their lives thereunto even in strict obedience to their Ecclesiastical Superiors of that Church which they live in and which they only know Now this I think as unreasonable an assertion as the former See § 6 7 8. Now to consider the quotations in Mr. Cressy and what may be said in this point you must give me leave not to shuffle all together but to distribute the matter into many Propositions that we may see which of them are disputable which not 1. Let it be granted for the present that the Church cannot have in it many opposit external communions but only one so that he that enjoys not that one external communion is rightly said to be out of the communion of the Church i. e. out of the external communion thereof Only here note that one may elsewhere out of this external communion of this only true Catholick Church be partaker of the Sacraments and those the true Sacraments for none deny that the administration of true Sacraments may be in a Church Schismatical
that saying of S. Austin touch such a one Schismatici sunt qui discissionibus iniquis a fraterna charitate discedunt quapropter Schismaticus non pertinet ad Ecclesiam quia Ecclesia diligit proximum See before 2. § c. But if any say That in Schism not any actual breach of charity but the bare want of unity excludes him from heaven as pure want of some knowledge is supposed to do in Infidelity or in some kinds of fundamental Heresy what unity I would know doth he mean Internal But that I hope is conferred in Baptism rightly celebrated to all that do not ponere obicem as t is supposed some here in Schismatical communions do not External therefore But why not Votum for this serve the turn for these as it doth for some others 4. § Which votum in general of being every way united to his fellow-members in the Church which is the body of Christ every good man hath tho every one discerneth not in particular this true Church from all other Sectarists of which without his own fault some may be ignorant And the Father 's so great aggravation of the crime of Schism That such men divide and rend the body of Christ c shews that they speak not of all haply livers in but the makers of Schisms or the continuers thereof upon the same grounds and motives and with the like passions as did the Authors Therefore see S. Austin making much difference amongst the followers of the Donatist-Schism in Affrick and not denying that some of God's wheat might remain amongst those tares De unit Eccl. 20. c. Itaque illis relictis i. e. when discovering them enemies to the Church mox ad Catholicam pacem multi Episcopi Clerici populi redierunt quod antequam facerent in tritico deputabantur Tunc enim non faciebant cum adversus homines i. e. Caecilianus who was falsly accused non adversus Ecclesiam Dei illa eorum contradictio tenebatur Nonnulli etiam bonae voluntatis per carnalem caliginem etiam post confirmatum malignorum i. e. the Donatists furorem in illa dissensione diutius erraverunt tanquam si adhuc mollia conculcarentur frumenta radice viva herbae vigor attereretur etiam ipsa tamen frumenta sua noverat Deus quamvis ut reviviscerent arguenda increpanda Non enim eo modo dictum est Petro Redi post me Satana quomodo dictum est de Juda Unus ex vobis Diabolus est Quidam quoque apertissimae veritati malo studio contradixerunt Illi vero eradicati vel praecisi erant Tunc enim quisque cum pro ipsis operibus etiam veritati apertissime qua redarguitur resistere coeperit praeciditur And Multi tales sunt in Sacramentorum communione cum Ecclesia tamen jam non sunt in Ecclesia c. So in answer to the Donatists Query Utrum generet filios baptismus in parte Donati that if he granted this they might collect that they had a true Church the Father answers de baptism 1. l. 10. c. Una est Ecclesia quae sola Catholica nominatur quicquid suum habet in communionibus diversorum a sua unitate separatis ipsa utique generat non illae Therefore it may have aliquid suum in such communions And Ep. 162. directed to some followers of the heresies of the Donatists he saith thus to them in the beginning thereof Dixit quidem Apostolus Paulus haereticum hominem post unam correptionem devita c. sed qui sententiam suam quamvis falsam atque perversam nulla pertinaci animositate defendant praesertim qui non audacia praesumptionis suae pepererunt sed a seductis atque in errorem lapsis parentibus acceperunt quaerunt autem cauta solicitudine veritatem corrigi parati cum invenerint nequaquam sunt inter haereticos deputandi Tales ergo vos nisi esse crederem c. Nor may any extend those texts Matt. 15. 14. Rom. 14. 15 20. 1 Cor. 8. 11 12. to all any way misled by others For in the first the follower falls into the ditch together with his leader because blind in the same manner as his leader i. e. wilfully not inevitably which is here supposed for which compare Matt. 15. 14. with Matt. 23 15 16. where such blind followers as our Saviour there speaks of become many times also worse than their leaders tho they become so first by occasion of the example of such guides and so fall much deeper also into the ditch than they In the second Rom 14. c. t is to be noted that this brother weak in knowledge who upon occasion of another's act who by reason of his right-informed judgment sinneth not doth amiss perisheth not for that wherein he is weak or for the error of his judgment but for doing a thing contrary to his judgment or conscience tho erroneous drawn on thereunto by seeing another do the like But no such thing happens in this case Tho I here deny not that in such a communion the truly innocent of the guilt of Schism may be in great hazard of their salvation upon other reasons namely by such looser discipline as may be exercised in it or by such erroneous doctrines taught in it as are prejudicial or such omitted to be taught as are some way beneficial to a holy life See Trial of Doctr. § 42. c. 4. A 4th sort are those who educated in a Church Schismatical and afterward fully convinced that it is so yet neglect or think not necessary at all their return to the external communion of the church Catholick mean-while agreeing with her in faith preserving perfect charity and internal communion with her c. And these are either such as only forbear the external communion of the church Catholick yet absent themselves also from all other or such as continue in their former external communion Again both these are either such as are 1. hindred from professing the Church Catholicks external communion and deserting another's for some considerations meerly temporal and these doubtles are blameable in the same kind as those Jo. 12. 42 43. Jo. 7. 13. 5. 44. Matt. 10. 27 28 33 37 c. Jo. 12. 25 26. Gal. 6. 12 14. For as it is our duty to confess Christ so to confess him to the uttermost as in himself so in every truth of his as in himself so in his members and in all things that belong unto him especially in his Body and Spouse the Church And as he that is ashamed of him before men may be peccant in such a degree of shame as that he shall not be acknowledged by him before his Father as a member of his body so he that is ashamed of his Church may be peccant in such a degree of shame as that he shall not at that day be acknowledged by it as a fellow-member of the same body But yet I cannot say that all
and not to transgress it Now if the Church hath in a lawful Council excommunicated and anathematized such congregations surely this is a sufficient prohibition to all those who will retain any relation to her to have no fellowship at least as to the publick prayers and sacraments with them For Excommunication being an expelling of such from being members any longer of the Church's communion a fortiori is a prohibiting any who pretends to be a son of the Church from becomming a member of their communion If we may not give the holy Sacrament to them where they submit to us much less may we receive it from them where we submit to them If she will not suffer us to be mingled with them in her society much less in theirs If when they happen to come single to us we must avoid them much more may we not where they are gathered in a body repair to them If we may not joyn with them where there is also other good and orthodox society much less where we have none but theirs Now not to examin here what later Excommunications of any particular hereticks or schismaticks have bin of which every one that professeth himself a son of the Church is carefully to inform himself I wil set down some ancient Canons c for any thing I know still in force expresly prohibiting such society Concil Laodicenum held by the orthodox in the times of the reigning of Arrianism before the 2d General Council approved by the 6th Constantinopolitan Council Conc. in Trullo where as it is decreed Non oportet cum Paganis festa celebrare 39. Can. and Non oportet a Judaeis azyma accipere 38. Can. so Non oportet cum haereticis vel schismaticis orare Can. 33. and Non oportet haereticorum benedictiones accipere Can. 32. Conc. Carthag 4tum Anno D. 436. a little after S. Austin's death Can. 72. Cum haereticis nec orandum nec psallendum Can. 73. Qui communicaverit vel oraverit cum excommunicato sive Clericus sive Laicus excommunicetur Here may be considered also * the cautious and scrupulous practice of the primitive times in their letters commendatory called Epistolae formatae which because of the Church's careful avoiding of all mixture with sectaries were procured by those who had occasion to travel from one Church to another without which testimony they could not be admitted to their prayers c. And also * the strict separation of the Catholicks that was made from that potent division of the Arrian sect who tho in many of their Councils they required subscription of no positive heresy but only omission in the Creed of some truth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see what is said hereof in Church-government 2d part § 40. c. yet were the orthodox tho much persecuted by the secular powers and tho by the banishment of their Pastors in some places destitute of the Sacraments strictly prohibited to come at the Arrian assemblies tho these having the same Sacraments with them and possession of the Cathedrals and other Churches and chose rather to relinquish their Temples to pray at home to live without the Sacraments nay to be without these in their sicknes and at their death than to receive them from the Arrians See Athanas. Epist. Synodica in Alexand. Concil Ep. ad ubique orthoxos Hilarii lib. contra Arrian Basil. Ep. 293. to some Egyptian Bishops Thus much of the Church's injunctions Now such a one as intends to have any relation and interest in her must know that besides our agreement in the faith and our being in full charity with the Church Catholick as being a body consisting of our fellow-members and brethren in Christ there is also a duty of obedience to be yeilded to all the injunctions and commands of the governors thereof as of our Spiritual Fathers in Christ which none that hopes to enjoy the priviledges of a son unless so far as he is by these dispensed with may without sin and great danger to himself on his own head disown and omit For what is this but as if a son should come and say to his temporal Father from whom he hath formerly run away that he embraceth him with all inward affection is sorry for any fault formerly committed will love and honour and do all the good he can for him but that he must excuse him if that for some reasons he doth not submit to or practise his commands except only that this our disobedience to spiritual Superiors is so much the more inexcusable for that all their commands are directed to the benefit of their children so that by omitting them out of this pretence of benefiting others such a one forgoes very much profit to himself None then can be a Son to the Church unless he render himself subject to her laws as well as affectionate to her practices Now of her laws the yoke of which if he reverence and bend to in some things he must not shake off in others non-communicating with Sectarists seems to be one and very considerable In which if some dispensations for good ends may be given by her yet none can be given by her for so far as the Scriptures have restrained us yet till such grant obtained from her he stands obliged to her commands Which grant from her if there were no other motive this is enough to obstruct that it is liable to be made use of instead of zeal to convert souls to many unworthy ends of serving our temporal interests and protecting a spiritual cowardise an avoiding of the cross and a not confessing of our Saviour before men contrary to Matt. 10. 27 32 37 38 39. See before § 8. n. 1. But laying aside this command of separating himself from schismaticks if he will be counted a Son he is to live conformably to all her other injunctions Now some and not a few of these are such as involve an outward communion with the Church And also many other of her injunctions see below § 14. which do not involve it if strictly observed by him wil quickly render him uncapable of any disguise to what party he belongs and bring the same jealousies and temporal inconveniences upon him which follow a publick reconciliation and which to avoid he yet stays out of the Church only with this difference that he shall incur likewise the odious aspersion of hypycrisie and dissimulation with which an open professor cannot be reproached And indeed setting aside any Church-command of such separation yet-a dissimulation or compliance tho it proceed not to the practising any thing in the matter of God's worship against our conscience yet that ventures so far as to use that sacred ceremony which is taken to be the greatest tessera and symbol of communion and by which all the world publish and distinguish their religions with those from whom he so much dissenteth and disalloweth I say a dissimulation that proceedeth so far seems to be
matters deserving her anathema's as well as the dissenters from her faith in greater whilst she determins some matters for settling peace as well as others for necessary faith See Notes of Infallibil § 29. I think none will deny this lawful enough and what communion is there which doth not require it 8ly But if she requires to them also a Subscription not only of non-contradiction but of assent and of submission of our private reason or judgment to hers yet I see not considering that she in such a collective body is much wiser and more seen both in the holy Scriptures and writings of the Ancients than we and the duty we owe to her as being our appointed Guide in such things our Guide I dare say as much as those under the Law were Deut. 17. 8. c. to the 14th I see not I say but that in things where we are not infallibly certain but only have some private reasons or opinion that is short of assurance that such things are untrue or unlawful we may thus subscribe her decrees or practise her commands See what Dr. Hammond saith Schism 2. c. 10. § A meek son of the Church of Christ will certainly be content to sacrifice a great deal for the making of this purchase i. e. of enjoying the Church's communion and when the fundamentals of the faith and superstructures of Christian practice I suppose he means such as are immediately built upon the fundamentals are not concerned in the concessions one would think in these points especially that a person to be safe should rather trust to the Church's judgment than his own he will chearfully express his readines to submit or deposit his own judgment in reference and deference to his Superirors in the Church where his lot is fallen Methinks he might better have said where his obedience is due for the Church where his lot is fallen may by heresy or schism stand divided from the Church Catholick See this point discoursed at large in Obligation of our judgment or conscience § 2. and in Infallibility § 35. Now a subscribing professing or acting in this manner I conceive will never be construed a going against our conscience or judgment considered in general tho it should be against some private reasons of ours because this preferring of hers before our own judgment is also an act of our judgment For there being such a weighty authority on the one side and such reasons of my own but short of certainty on the other my judgment here sits upon and examins both and at length gives sentence that here it is more safe for me to submit to the first than to rely on the second Here therefore I shall only go against my conscience if I go against this my judgment in adhering to the 2d and forsaking the first But indeed if the Church should require me to subscribe not that I believe her authority more than my private reasons but that I have no private reasons nor scruples in my mind for the contrary of her tenet when indeed I have so the subscribing thus would be going against my conscience and must at no hand be done But I am confident no Church will exact such a confession nor would ever reject I say not from bearing any office in her wherein perhaps she may be more strict but from her communion such a submission as this Wherein one first acknowledgeth her infallibility or actual unfailance in all doctrines necessary to salvation and 2ly promiseth in no other point publickly to gainsay her Conciliary doctrines and 3ly in these points to endeavour as far as is in his power to submit his private reason and judgment to hers tho perhaps the repugnances of some verisimilities of the contrary may hinder his yeilding so plenary an act of belief to the truth of some of them as some others do Or again if any one is perswaded in his judgment or conscience that when the judgment of the Church is contrary to this his private reason or judgment so often he ought to adhere to his own not to hers such an outward submitting or subscribing to her judgment when this is against his own private reason in that matter would be going against his conscience and he ought at no hand to do it But yet in the not doing it he may be guilty of great crimes heresy schism c. But 9ly such subscription of a firm belief of all her doctrines or of exact conformity to all her publick rites I think is by no Church required from all that either are born in or are afterward converted to her communion but only from those whom she prefers to be the Spiritual guides of others and admits into Ecclesiastical revenues For those of the Roman communion of the strictnes of whose profession of faith I find our men much complain the Council of Trent requires a profession of their faith to be made or her decrees of which Pius 4tus hath compacted a form particularly expressing the chief of them to be subscribed or sworn to only by Bishops and by others who undertake curam animarum See 24. Sess. 1. c. and 12. c. de Reformat Neither doth Pius the 4ths Bull so much accused require it of more unless it be of Regulars In which Bull observe that the Oath or Subscription of such persons having curam animarum c is required not only to some Articles or Canons of the Council namely to those expressed in the Bull for the naming of which being about some twelve Heads the Council of Trent is said to have added twelve new Articles to the Apostles Creed to be believed under peril of losing salvation but to all the rest of the decrees of that Council whatever as well as those and likewise to all things tradita definita declarata by any other Council which by the Roman Church is reckoned Oecumenical as well as those delivered by that of Trent See the words Caetera item omnia a sacris Canonibus that is yet something more too Oecumenicis Conciliis ac praecipuera sacrosancta Tridentina Synodo tradita definita ac declarata indubitanter recipio atque profiteor c. After which it follows Hanc veram Catholicam fidem extra quam nemo salvus esse potest sponte profiteor veraciter teneo From which words if we will say the Roman Church hath added new Articles of Faith to the Apostles Creed to be explicitly professed and believed under pain of damnation we must argue not only those 12. points to be added by her but also all the rest not only whatever the Tridentine but any other of those she calls General Councils hath delivered or declared But indeed from this large reception of and subscription to not only some but all points determined by such Councils we may gather 1. That it is only a subscription and profession in such a manner to and of them as the Councils have proposed to be received and
Teachers of the Church present and past by whom we may learn what is the constant tradition of the Church which Church hath always preserved and perused the Scriptures and against which the gates of hell shall never prevail 2. To conform our minds the better to the expositions of which Doctors of the Church we are advised not to rely much on our own reason and judgment See Rom. 12. 16. Prov. 3. 5. 28. 26. Is. 5. 21. Prov. 12. 15. 11. 14. And to be the more perfectly convinced by experience also how easily our reason is misguided by Reason I mean reasoning upon not its own but Scripture-principles after having recollected how many times our selves have changed our opinion in Theological matters the same holy writings guiding us at all times being as confident in our former then as now in our present tenet 1. Consider that whilst in every Nation doubtles there are many of excellent judgments turning the same Gospel reading the same books of controversie which they both mutually answer yet in a manner all those of one Kingdom or Government do so espouse one opinion and all of another a contrary that they will both lay down their lives in defence thereof and so their posterity after them And this happens partly because there is no tenet but that there is some verisimility in it and some reason for it that seems to many hard to be answered which reason according to our party we lay for a foundation and then fit all other contrary arguments by distinctions how absurd soever unto it being certain that no truths contradict one another and hence do both sides especially in answoring objections accuse the other of going against their conscience But this happens more from not equality of arguments for every side but opposite interests of the controvertists which interests commonly prevent the access to or just force of those arguments upon the understanding where the truth if it should prove contrary to those interests will undo them Therefore they make either none or a very negligent search into their adversaries tenets and reasons as delivered in their own writings or into the doctrines of Antiquity when quoted against them Notwithstanding which interest being rather hereditary than by themselves contracted they mistake themselves to be indifferent and any way unbiassed 2. Consider how those who have the Scriptures most common yet when free from the yoke of Ecclesiastical authority do run into most diversity of opinions and those not slight or void of danger to their salvation In particular the Socinian abstracting from all Church-authority and committing himself only to Scripture and his reason yet who more than he opposeth things which seem most clear in Scripture For what more plain there than that this world was created by the Word the Son of God Jo. 1. 1. Heb. 1. And therefore also the Reformed more than the Romanist tho in both there are many differences is censured for diversity of opinions Nisi adsit spiritus prudentiae nihil proderit verbum Dei saith Calvin witness those of Munster And worthy here of serious consideration is the reason why Timothy and Titus are advised to avoid i. e. not to interest much or practise themselves in or meddle with vain curiosities and questions of science falsly so called because they will increase still unto more ungodliness and eat further as doth a Canker or gangrene and strife gender strife and questions minister more questions See 2 Tim. 2. 16 17 23. 1 Tim. 1. 4. 2 Tim. 3. 7. Tit. 3. 9. compared with 10. which argues he was forbid much disputing with such perverse men And t is likely Hymeneus c at their first differing from doctrines delivered attempted not the denial of the Resurrection Which continually greater intanglings of Reason left to it self do extremely prove the weaknes of it and the unreasonablenes of trusting to it 3. Consider that as the Pharisee that was so blind Matt. 23. 16. thought he only saw Jo. 9. 41. and that others were blind Jo. 7. 49. so whilst we think others misled with passion we are no less misled therewith than they and so they also think of us only we do less discern it And in thus standing upon and preferring our own judgment before others that search the Scriptures as well as we we presume either that we have better naturals than they or else more integrity and honesty than they and what root can this proceed from but pride and uncharitablenes no good pre-dispositions for the discovery of truth see 1 Tim. 6. 4. 1 Cor. 8. 2. 4. Consider that for ordinary readers over the New Testament is spread a veil as was over the Law for the Jews 2 Cor. 3. 14. and the knowledge thereof is attained not thro the strength of Reason but illumination of the Spirit and the like entertainment as the word preached then found with several persons the same now doth the word written Now self-conceitednes of their own wisdom was then the greatest impediment that could be to the understanding of the mystery of the Gospel for that which was truth was some way or other to them foolishnes And no where were there so few converted as at self-conceited Athens See 1 Cor. 1. 17. c. 1 Cor. 2. 6. c. 3. 18. c. Rom. 1. 22. Lu. 10. 21. Why so because knowledge or a great stock of falsly so called reason maketh proud 1 Cor. 8. 1. and pride hinders the Spirit by which Spirit only is had true knowledge the way to which is humility mortification and abnegation of that which of all things is most our self the rational part of man and extremely addicting our selves unto holines that so we may discern truth see Psal. 25. 12 14. Ps. 111. 10. Jo. 7. 17. 14. 21. 8. 12. see below § 39. And he that is so disposed is more inclined to obedience of others than reliance on himself and then Qui didicit obedire nescit judicare And if we prove this way also betrayed to error yet is this error more excusable before God accompanied with these qualities than truth can be acceptable to him possessed with pride There is great reason then that we should not depend only on our own judgment or on the Scriptures as we interpret them but diligently search also the former practice and tenets of the Churches of God and consult the present judgment of those * who have the promise of not erring at least in knowledge necessary to salvation nor in other things so far as that any may therefore lawfully reject their external communion for which see Church-gov 2. part § 31. 3d. part § 62. * who are the Successors of the Apostles 2 Tim. 2. 2. the Apostles of the Churches and the glory of Christ 2 Cor. 8. 23 * who are appointed by Christ for the building up of the Church and perfecting of the Saints and especially that
but that such things they practised such things they held and then perhaps this may be a sufficient reason to him to admit them that so the Church of God hath always done or taught before him 6. That he would not repair to them as if he should find every thing now controverted there considered or stated but that for what he shall find there stated at least for the substance of the practice of it as most points of government and practice are tho not for the quatenus or in what respects it is performed that to it he would conform 7. That he would not entertain such a conceit †as if in this search he should find any Church of present being so perfectly to resemble Antiquity as in no point to differ from the general customs thereof for in some all differ none giving the Eucharist to Infants Nor †as if he should not find several Churches in some one thing or other more to resemble the primitive than a Church of a better constitution doth As the Reformed is said to resemble the Primitive times in celebrating the Communion in both kinds and the first or 2d century thereof in not using Images not invocating Saints c. The Roman in the obligation of and obedience to the decrees of the Church and her Councils in prayer for the Dead merit of works penances Church-ceremonies the Christian Sacrifice of the Altar Real presence Reservation for communicating absents domestick Communion in one kind frequent celebration of the Eucharist frequent hours of Prayer and set times of Fasting Confession recommendation of Evangelical counsels vows of Poverty and Celibacy single life of the Clergy But that he would conform to that Church rather which he finds to tread the footsteps of Antiquity in the most points as all do in some or in those of the most moment and consequence especially in those of government and practice which as they are not so easily changed as those of simple belief so do they more concern this search when-as the absolutely necessary points of faith are perhaps sufficiently acknowledged by all those of differing communions Thus much of the Cautions to be used in searching Antiquity Now to go on 3ly He will find one present external visible communion and body of Christians much more than all the rest tho perhaps none in all things agreeing with the doctrines and discipline of Antiquity especially if considered after the settlement of it under Christian Emperors Which things if they be found which discovery presupposeth first his search this I desire may presently be granted that any one hath little reason to bear himself up upon the arms of his own or others newer interpretations of the Sacred text and not-unhandsomly stated theses and subtlely-urged objections against so constant so strong a stream And here also note that if any side rip up the faults and errors of the Fathers and whilst they seem to appeal to them yet as much as they can weaken their authority if they defend their own differing from them much more by shewing that the other side differs from them in something but yet much less than they if the more candid of them at least confess a recession from the Fathers in many points for informing your self in this turn over Calvin's Institutions and see in how many places he ingenuously confesseth the opinion of Antiquity opposit to his decisions 2. lib. 2. c. 4 9. sect compared with 3. l. 11. c. 15. sect 2. l. 14. c. 3. sect 3. l. 3. c. 10. sect 3. l. 4. c. 38. sect 3. l. 5. c. 10. sect 3. l. 22. c. 1. sect 2. l. 3. c. 7. 10. sect where multis saeculis is as high as Chrysostom 4. lib. 4. c. 10. sect 9. cap. 8 9 10. 11 c weakning the authority of Councils 12. c. 8. sect 12. c. 19 20 24 27. sect 18. c. 11. sect 3. l. 3. c. 16. sect 4. l. 17. c. 39. sect 4. l. 13. c. 16 17. sect many of which places I have transcribed in Church-gov 4. part § 100. and if some others of the same side who yet maintain the same opinions with those other of them that appeal to the Fathers do refuse a tryal by the Fathers at all to say nothing that this relisheth of much pride and self-conceit and pride is an ill Reformer this shews that such a side tho not willing to confess it yet is convinced of loosing their cause in this trial by the practice of former Church and that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this appeal and then the resolution set down before in § 22. is in all reason to take place Again if the contrary party seems on the other side to attribute too much to the Fathers in quoting them in their disputations and conferences as well as the Holy Scriptures and as it were superstitiously treading in their steps in the external forms of Government and in the most inconsiderable ceremonies adhering still to the same expressions which the Fathers used in those points which are now controverted as Merit Satisfaction Supererogation Sacrifice Altar c which the other more willingly change compiling their Body of Divinity out of the Fathers common doctrines as the first beginning of School-Divinity see Peter Lombard was only a design of putting the Fathers tenets in an orderly method This argues that these rather are the true Successors of the doctrines of the Primitive Church and that they are unjustly charged to recede from the Fathers in those points which are controverted and then according to the resolution above § 22. we are to adhere to them For what likelihood is there That he who thinks their testimony makes much for him and much against his adversary will all he can strive to weaken the authority of these Witnesses in shewing their errors in general their contradictions of one against another of the same against himself c. See Daille's Uray usage des Peres and that the other who is conscious that they are more against himself than his adversary should by all means establish their testimony even by holding them in all their joynt-verdicts infallible What probability that they should most declame against the certainty of Church-tradition whose doctrines it most confirmeth For we are to believe this or we for as much as I can apprehend nullify our Saviour's promise and his mission of other teachers and all appeals to the Church c * that there shall be a Church of God in all ages like it self in the former and * that as the Jews might Jo. 5. 39. and the Bereans did Act. 17. 11. find the Old Testament to confirm the doctrine of the Apostles of the New and the Gospel to establish the Law Rom. 3. 31. so the Church's practice shall establish the Gospel and the latter practice thereof the former to the end of the world * that Christ's sheep shall always know his voice and shall not follow
strangers And tho there shall be Antichrists and falling away from the faith as there was even in the Apostle's times yet that falling away from the faith shall be also from the Church but the Church it self i. e. that whole external communion which was in times before the Church of Christ for I speak not of any one particular place from any of which I conceive one time or other Christianity may be banished or if you will the visible body of the Clergy openly cohering in that external communion shall never go into Apostacy Nor shall the Apostates fall away in but out of the external communion of the former Church and so always be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in respect of their opinion but decession not in respect of the truth of but their dissent from the Church in what they maintain and shall for ever be known * either by their going out of the former and setting up new communions Jud. 19. Heb. 10. 25. 1 Jo. 2. 19. 2 Tim. 3. 8. Jude 11. opposing those in authority and so Tertullian Praejudicatum est adversus omnes haereses id esse verum quodcunque primum id esse adulteratum quodcunque posterius * or by the former Church thrusting them out which shall never joyn with them But t is to be noted that most of those divisions of the Church if not all which have separated from a former communion are such as have not bin first expelled by the Church and then set up a new communion upon necessity but such as have left it always pretending that there be some tenets or practices in the former Church for which tho she permitting to them all their own opinions they could not communicate with her Now that communion which they tho indulged their own tenets will not return to t is plain that at first they did reject whatever they pretend to the contrary and tho the other Ch. also ejected them for both these well consist And such Apostates also may be known always at their first going out tho not so well afterwards by the smallnes of their number As Arrianism which was the greatest division that ever happened in the Church for 1500 years never prevailed upon all parts of the Church's communion the Western continuing for a major part untainted with it touching which see Ch. Gov. 2. part 40. § c. and in both the Eastern and Western it ever had an external communion of the Catholicks opposit to it and in its first rise was easily discerned by the paucity of that Sect as the beginnings of all heresies are easily known neither are they tho some of them of very speedy growth yet of long continuance See 2 Tim. 3. 1 8 9. Jude 11. Act. 5. 38. Neither had the contrary conceit to wit of the external visible body of the Church her falling away from Christ by which the sheep are to seek for a right shepherd ever got so much strength amongst Christians but from a supposing of Anti-Christ to be in profession a Christian and one of that Church in which it is said he shall sit notwithstanding that others of whom the same thing was said viz. that they shall sit in the Holy place see Matt. 24. 15. Dan. 11. 41. were not in their outward profession members of the Church But this is an opinion as is elsewhere shewed groundless and the going out of Babylon Rev. 18. 4. which is there spoken of place not of former communion as suppose it were said to the Christian Churches that are now in Turky to remove from thence interpreted in this sence is a dangerous principle to breed Schisms and ruin souls in causing mens forsaking of the external communion of the Catholick Church of Christ that is in present being Which Church many think shall be always so conspicuous and set on an hill that it shall in all times out-number any separating Sect both for the multitude of people and extent of Nations And we have found it so till Luther's time the fore-mentioned Arrianism never ruling in the most of Christians who adhered still to the Nicene Creed but in some of the chiefest of the Clergy the Bishops such as were intruded by the Emperor the orthodox Bishops being thrust out and carried away with his inclinations and these chiefly in the Eastern Churches As for the objection of Antichrist's times those who think the Supposition that he shall be a professor of Christianity false will easily grant that the Church then shall be a smaller number in respect of Infidels but not in respect of Hereticks And for that objection Matt. 24. 11 12 13 Luk. 18. 8. we have seen our Saviour's words fulfilled in Mahomet and those seduced by him and in many heretical Sects also and in a more general corruption of manners even amongst the orthodox without any infringement of what is here affirmed See more of this in Success of Clergy § 1. First therefore those within the bounds of the Church that follow blind leaders without all trial are void of excuse Not because they do not quit all leaders absolutely and guide themselves by the Scriptures but because the Church of God i. e. the Pastors and Teachers thereof having our Saviour's promise never so to be blind but that salvation and escaping the pit should be always had in her as it in all times hath bin both in the Jewish and since in the Christian Church there are at all times other leaders who are illuminated with God's Spirit and whose light not put under a bushel but set on a candlestick shines before them whom they may securely follow So that the people are never left nakedly to the Scriptures or to the Law without orthodox Teachers and Guides therein or without an external communion lawful and safe to be adhered to nor such Teachers left without manifest testimony to all that will look after it that they are sent from God and that their communion is the true Church either by their shewing miracles and other signs of their mission or by their succession to and consent with the former Church which shewed miracles and by all other Sects tho perhaps at length out-numbring them yet discerned always to be few at first and to go out from them So under the Law the whole Order of God's Priests never fell so away at any time neither before nor in nor after the Babylonish captivity till the coming of Christ according to the promise Gen. 49. 10. and our Saviour's testimony Lu. 16. 16. Jo. 4. 22. Matt. 23. 2. but that there was always a remnant of them by the former marks to be easily discerned from the Apostatizers serving the Lord with a true worship and having a flock amongst the people obedient to them And at Christ's coming when Satan was let loose to deceive the Sanedrim and infatuate all the former chief Ecclesiastical Governors God gave all the people sufficient testimony by miracles