of their Law or the Conveyers of their Traditions to them Must he set up his Skill and Reason above theirs Thus we see that if this Reasoning is true it being founded on Maxims that are equally true at all times then it was as true at that time as it is now It is of no force to say that the Miracles which our Saviour and his Apostles wrought gave them such Powers that the people were upon that account bound to believe them rather than their Teachers For one part of the Debate was both the truth of the Miracles and the Consequences that arose from them So the Appeal according to this way of Reasoning did still lie to their Sanhedrim In a word In such Matters every man must judge for himself and every man must answer to God for the Judgment that he has made he judges for no body else but for himself He and He only can be the Judge and if he uses a due degree of Industry and frees himself from every corrupt Biass from Pride Vain-glory and affectation of Singularity or the pursuing any ill ends under those appearances of searching for Truth and the adhering to it he is doing the best thing which according to that nature of which God has made him he can do and so he may reasenably believe that he shall succeed in it Nor is there any pride in this for a man to think according to his own Understanding no more than to see with his own Eyes His Humility ought to make him slow and cautious modest and fearful but no humility can oblige him to think otherwise than he feels he must needs think Among the Works of the flesh Heresies or Sects are reckon'd as one sort and species Now by Works of the flesh are to be understood the appetites of a vicious and depraved nature the meaning therefore of reckoning Heresies among these is this That when a man out of a bad disposition of mind and on ill designs chuses to to be of a party he then is a Heretick but he that in sincerity of Heart goes into persuasions from an overcoming sense of their Truth cannot be one because he does not chuse his persuasion out of a previous ill design but is of it not out of choice but necessity since his Understanding in which those matters may be variously represented offers them so to him that he must believe them to be true in the same manner in which he apprehends them If upon this Principle there happen to be many Sects and Divisions in the Church this is a part of that Wo that Christ left upon the World by reason of Offences and Scandals for he forsaw that they must needs come God has made this present Scene of Life to be neither regular nor secure The strange Follies and Corruptions of Mankind must have their Influence on Religion as well as they have on all other things God has reserv'd a fulness of Light and of unerring Knowledge to another State Here we are in the dark but have light enough if we have honest Minds to use and improve it aright to guide us thither and that is the utmost share that God seems to have design'd for us in this Life we must therefore be contented and make the most of it that we can I go next to shew That the same Difficulties if not greater ones he upon those who build on Infallibility for before they can arrive at the use of it they must have well examin'd and be fully assur'd of two things either of which has greater Difficulties in it than all those put together with which they press us First They must be convinced that there is an Infallibility in the Church and next they must know to which of those many Churches into which Christendom is divided this Infallibility is fastned Unless the design is to make all men take their Religion implicitely from their Forefathers these things must be well consider'd If men are oblig'd to adhere blindly to the Religion in which they were bred then Iews Heathans and Mahometans must continue still where they are If this had been the Maxim of all times Christianity had never got into the World If then men are allow'd to examine things they must have very good reason given them for it before they can believe that there is an Infallibility among men Their own Reason and Observation offers so much against it that without very clear grounds they ought not to receive it Now the reasons to persuade it must be drawn either from Scripture or from outward visible Characters that evidence it The Scriptures cannot be urg'd by these men because the Scriptures as they teach have their Authority from the Testimony of the Church Therefore the Authority of the Church must be first prov'd for the Church cannot give an Authority to a Book and then prove its own Authority by that Book This is plainly to prove the Church by her own Testimony which is manifestly absurd it being all one whether she affirms it immediately or if she affirms it by affirming a Book in which it is contain'd here a Circle is made to run for ever round in Why do you believe the Church because the Scriptures affirm it and why do you believe the Scriptures because the Church affirms them I do not deny but they may urge the Scriptures for this very pertinently against us who acknowledge their Authority but I am now considering upon what grounds a man is to be instructed in the stating the grounds of his own Faith and resolving it into Principles In this an Order must be fix'd and in the progress of it every step that is made must be prov'd without any relation to that which is afterwards to be proved out of that and therefore either the Church or the Scriptures must be first prov'd and then other things must be prov'd out of that which is once fix'd and made good But in the next place if we should suffer them to bring Proofs from Scripture how shall it he prov'd that the true sense of them is that which makes for infallibility Other senses may be given to them which may both agree to the Grammatical Construction of the words to the contexture of the Discourse and to the Phraseology of the Scriptures who shall then decide this Matter It were very unreasonable to prove what is their true Sense by the Exposition that any Church puts on those passages in her own favour that were to make her both Judge and Party in too gross a manner Therefore at least thâ—se passages and all that relates to them must fall under the private Judgment and in these Instances every man must be suffer'd to expound the Scriptures for himself for he cannot be bound to submit to any exposition of them but that which satisfies his own Reason and if this step is once admitted then it will appear as reasonable to leave a man all over to the use of his
applied among the Christians of the first Ages to those Holy Rites of our Religion that were Instituted by our Saviour and which they also called Sacraments because in those the Vows that tie us to God in this Religion were both made and renewed The Venerable Truths of this Faith and Secrets then made publick were also by S. Paul expressed by this Name which as it is now commonly understood signifies some Theory or point of Doctrine that we believe because we are persuaded that it is revealed to us in Scripture tho' we cannot distinctly apprehend how it can be and that in the common view which is offered concerning it it seems to contradict our common Notions In this sense it is opposed by many who say There can be no such thing in Religion that every thing of which we can form no distinct Idea is nothing to us and that we cannot believe it since we can only believe that of which we have some thought God having made us reasonable Creatures cannot intend that we should act contrary to our Natures and believing any thing contrary to our apprehensions seems to be a flat contradiction to our faculties and it is a question whether those who plead for Mysteries can believe themselves after all their Zeal for them since a Man can no more think that to be true of which he has no Idea than a Man can see in the dark for let him affirm ever so much that he sees all other persons who perceive it to be dark are sure that he sees nothing It seems to be the peculiar Character and Beauty of the Christian Religion that it is our reasonable service or the Rational way of Worshipping God and therefore those who would propose it as containing Mysteries under a pretence of magnifying it do rather lessen it and give advantages to the Enemies of it to expose it on that account For upon this supposition of there being some Mysteries in it those who corrupt it seem to have a ground given them for raising a much greater super structure and for silencing all objections against their unconceivable Doctrines with this word Mystery which being so apt to be abused and carried too far seems to give a just prejudice against it upon this ground they conclude that we are to believe nothing but that which we can distinctly apprehend and that if any word or expression in Scripture seeme to import any other thing we must soften these to a sense agreable to our faculties but that we ought never to yield to a sense that is unconceivable which as they argue is still nothing to us This is the Foundation of their Reasonings and upon this it is that they justify or excuse some expositions that seem forced and unnatural for they say they are sure they are not to be understood in the Mysterious sense because of this general Theory and therefore they must give them the best sense that they can find that is suited to their Principles Upon the right stating of this the whole matter turns and because this whole Speculation is urged to much worse purposes by Atheists and Deists it will be necessary to consider it carefully It is certain we can apprehend nothing but as our faculties represent it to us no more than we can see Sounds or hear Colours it is also certain that we can receive nothing that contradicts our faculties for let a Man strain for it as much as he will he cannot believe that any thing both is and is not at the same time or that two and three do not make five and neither more nor less The objects of sense do also determine us for when we see a thing clearly before us we cannot force our selves to think or so much as to doubt that we see it not But after all there are many things which we believe upon the report of others or upon the Consequences of our own Observation that seem to be so far out of our own reach that our faculties cannot easily receive them For instance let us make a discourse of light and of seeing to a Blind-man Let us tell him that a vast Globe called the Sun which as he feels creates a great heat in the Air at some Hours in some Seasons of the Year gives such pushes to infinite numbers of small parts of matter that they are upon that put in a vast motion and that as these strike upon every resisting body and recoil from it they carry in them some mould of its figure and bigness and of another thing too called Colour of which he can frame no sort of Notion and that these in this motion striking upon that which he can feel to which is his Eye do go through it and enter at a small passage that is in a second Coat of his Eye which an Anatomist may make him feel to and within it as they have passed through those humours that he can also feel those small movers do at last so strike against the most inward Coat that from thence a Man may know the figure matter bigness and distance of such objects as the blind Man can only feel to and that a great many Miles of and that with one glance of his Eye he can see many Millions of objects at once and be able to judge concerning them and concerning their distance from him and from one another a great way off and that he can see the Sun and Stars tho' distant from us many Millions of Millions of Miles Now tho' it is to be confessed that a blind Man can form no true Idea of all this yet he may be bound to believe it not only from the testimony of all seeing Men but from his own observation for by setting a Man at a considerable distance from him and holding up towards him all such things as he knows by feeling he by the other Man's answers may perceive plainly that he knows them tho' he not only cannot apprehend how this is done but seems to raise whole Schemes of Impossibilities against it But to give another Instance of this that will be more universally sensible let a Man practis'd in Geometry shew a Clown a small Quadrant and tell him that by it he can measure the Compass of the whole Earth and the distance between the Earth and the Heavenly Orbs he will laugh at him as a boasting vain Man or one that intends to impose upon his credulity but if this Mathematician will to convince him take the heigt of any Building or Precipice that he can measure the Clown when he finds that the Observation agrees with the length of his Plumbline is somewhat convinced and is apt to think either that the two Stations and the Computations which he saw him make on Paper were Magical Spells or that he has a Method that leads him to this by degrees of which he himself is utterly ignorant so by all this it is plain that a Man may be bound from some
was infallible without specifying which of these was the infallible one There are some things that look so extravagant that really it is an absurd thing to suppose them of which this seems to be evidently one That God should have left an Infallibility to his Church and not have declar'd with whom this the greatest of all Trusts to which probably many would pretend was lodged So that this which is the general Doctrine of the whole Roman Communion has an absurdity in it that cannot be reconcil'd to common sense and reason Many among them put it in the whole diffusive body of all Christians to which purpose the words of Vincentius Lirinensis are perpetually repeated but after all this is only to abuse people for if the sense of the Church in all Places and Ages must be sought for here come endless enquiries and some of them cannot possibly be made the History of many Ages and Churches being lost If this is made the Standard as the labour becomes Infinite so after all it resolves into private Judgment since every man must judge as he sees cause and must collect the sense of Ages and Churches from Authors which as they are often both dark and defective so he must understand them as well as he can by his own Judgment and Observation unless some Infallible Expounder or Declarer of their Sense is set up and then the Infallibility is translated from hence to the Expounder And indeed it is so hard to trace a great many points of Controversy thro even the first and best Ages that the Church must fall under great Difficulties if this Hypothesis is assum'd for maintaining the Infallibility And when all is done we see by the performances of the Writers of Controversy that both sides think they can justify themselves by the Ancient Fathers as well as by the Scriptures So that all these Absurdities that are urg'd against apealing to the Scriptures or arguing from them as that to which all Hereticks do fly and in which they shelter themselves will return here with the more force because these Writings are much more Voluminous and are writ in a much more entangl'd and darker Style so that these two Objections lie against this way That it is both vast if not impossible as to the performance of it and next that after all the pains that can be taken in it it is of no use for private Judgment will still remain so that Controversies cannot be ended in this way Others are for the diffusive Church of the present Age and put Infallibility there for they reckon thus That every Age of the Church believes as the former Age believ'd till this is carried up to the Apostles themselves This is to resolve all matters into Oral Tradition and to suppose It infallible and indeed if we can believe that the generality of Christians have in all Ages been wise honest and cautious and that the generality of the Clergy have in all Ages been faithful and inquisitive we may rely upon this and so believe an Infallibility But at the same time and upon this Supposition we shall have no occasion for it since if Mankind could be brought to such a pitch of Reformation there would be no Controversies and so no need of a Judge to decide them Infallibly But if we will admit that which we see to be true and know to have been true in all Ages that men are apt to be both ignorant and careless of Religion that they go easily into such Opinions as are laid before them by men of Authority and Reputation and that they have a particular liking to superstitious Conceits to outward Pomp and to such Doctrines as make them easy in their ill practices then the supposition of every Age's believing nothing but that which it learn'd from the former falls quite to the ground If we can also imagine that the Clergy have been always careful to examine Matters and never apt to add explanations or enlargements even in their own favours or if on the contrary we see a gross Ignorance running through whole Ages if we find the Clergy to have been ambitious and quarrelsome full of Intrigues and Interests then all this general specious prejudice in favour of Oral Tradition vanishes to nothing All this will be easier to be conceiv'd if we state aright the difference between those times and our own Now Printing has made Learning cheap and easy the disposition of Posts the commerce of Letters the daily publication of Gazettes and Journals fill the World with the knowledge of such things as are now in agitation But when all was to be learn'd from Manuscripts Knowledge was both dear and difficult and the methods of communicating with the rest of the World were both slow and often broken so that this thread of Oral Tradition will not prove a sure Guide There is an humour in men to add to most things as they pass through their hands if it were but an Illustration which seems not only innocent but sometimes necessary Those Enlargements would very naturally be soon consider'd as parts of the Doctrine and to these in a constant gradation new Additions might still be made and Inferences from Illustrations would in conclusion become parts of their Doctrine If I did not limit my self in this Discourse it were easy to apply this both to the Doctrines of Redeeming out of Purgatory to those of praying for the dead or invocating Saints and the worship of Images It is confest by the Assertors of this Hypothesis that the whole face of the Latin Church is chang'd both in her Worship and Discipline tho these are more sensible things than points of meer Speculation which in dark Ages could not be much minded whereas the other are more visible and make a more powerful Impression besides that all those changes arise out of some new Opinions to which they related and on which they are founded A change then that is confess'd to be made in the one does very naturally carry us to believe that a change was also made in the other We do all plainly see that some Traditions that come very near the Age of the Apostles and that seem to be Expositions of some parts of the New Testament were chang'd in other Ages The belief of Christ's reigning a Thousand years on earth is one of these for which tho it is now laid aside in that Church there is another face of a Venerable Tradition than for most of their Doctrines We see a practice that was very Ancient and that continu'd very long which arose out of the Exposition of those words Except ye eat my Flesh and drink my Blood ye have no life in you by which Infants were made partakers of the Eucharist was afterwards chang'd in that Church tho it is much less easy to think how that should be done than almost how any other should be brought about for those words being understood of an Indispensible necessity of the
Four Discourses Delivered to the CLERGY OF THE Diocess of Sarum CONCERNING I. The Truth of the Christian Religion II. The Divinity and Death of Christ. III. The Infallibility and Authority of the Church IV. The Obligations to continue in the Communion of the Church By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARVM LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCXCIV Imprimatur JO. CANT Ian. 22. 1693 4. TO THE CLERGY OF THE Diocess of Sarum My Reverend and dear Brethren THESE Discourses were at first prepared for you and were delivered to you among a great many more on other Subjects on several occasions they were so well received by you that many of you desired that you might have them copied out for a more lasting use This has set me on publishing these that follow they relating to Four different sort of men with whom you may be engaged The first is against Atheists and Libertines who grow to be so bold and insolent that it is of the last importance that you should be well furnish'd with Answers to those Objections with which they make the greatest noise This is the Pest of the Age we live in the most dangerous as well as the most contagious of all others It strikes at all and corrupts the whole Man as well as it dissolves all the bounds of Nature and Society This promises such an Indemnity and gives so entire a liberty that depraved Inclinations and Affections will be always of its side and it has some specious things to alledge the Novelty and Boldness of which makes them pass for Wit and Good Humour which will be always taking to those who want and desire supports and excuses for sins Upon all these accounts and chiefly upon the fatal progress which this Blasphemous Spirit of Infidelity has made among us it becomes us to consider these matters well that we may be throughly acquainted with all those depths of Satan and know what to answer to all those false shews of Wit or Reason as wall as to the more petulant demands by which that prophane Crew study to undermine and beat down all Religion One of their common Topicks is the decrying all Mysteries and in this they fall in to the same opposition with the Socinians tho upon very different designs For the Socinians run down all Mysteries and think they can make it appear That those passages of Scripture by which they are commonly proved have another meaning whereas Libertines do it being persuaded that they are indeed contained in the Scriptures and therefore they hope that they will gain their main end of decrying all Revealed Religion if strong prejudices are once formed against Mysteries and yet they are at the same time consider'd as parts of the Christian Religion and are believed to be contain'd in the Scriptures I must also do this right to the Socinians as to own that their Rules and Morality are exact and severe that they are generally men of Probity Iustice and Charity and seem to be very much in earnest in pressing the obligations to very high degrees of Virtue Yet their denying all secret Assistances must cut off the Exercises of many Devotions that give a softness and tenderness to the mind which if once extinguish'd it must of necessity draw after it a dry flatness over all a man's thoughts and powers their denying the certainty of God's foreseeing all future events that depend upon the freedom of a man's Will must very much weaken our Confidence in God our patience under all misfortunes and our expectations of a deliverance in due time Their Notions of another state do also take off much of the terror under which Bad men ought to be kept and lessen the Ioys of Good men On all these accounts their Opinions seem to have a great Influence upon practice but with â—â—lation to the great Article of Christianity concerning the Person and sufferings of Iesus Christ their Doctrine gives so different a view of this Religion in its most important Head that either we have been guilty of a most Irreligious prophanation in esteeming one to be God and giving him all the Acknowledgments and Adorations that belong to the Great and Eternal God who yet is a meer Creature or they must be no less guilty who if he be the Great and the True God do look on him only as a Creature and yet offer him all divine Honour and Worship and if his Death was only a pattern or any thing else than a true propitiatory Sacrifice then we who look on it as our Propitiation and Redemption who claim and trust to it as our Ransom and Atonement do very impiously raise its value beyond the Truth and fix our Confidence with relation to our Peace with God upon a false foundation Whereas on the other hand If God has set forth his death as a Propitiation for the forgiveness of sin then they are guilty of black Ingratitude and of defeating the chief design of the Gospel who so far detract from its value as to reckon it only a patern of dying a confirmation of the Gospel and necessary preliminary to a Resurrection Upon all these accounts it is that I could never understand the Pacificatory Doctrines of those who think that these are questions in which a diversity of Opinions may well be endured without disturbing the Peace of the Church or breaking Communion about thâ—m They seem to be the Fundamentals of Christianity and therefore I thought it was very necessary for me to give you a ful and clear Instruction in this matter The 3d. Discourse relates to that upon which the whole Cause of Popery turns for if they are Infallibâ—e it is to no purpose to dispute about any thing else and if they are fallible their pretending to Infallibility is of it self a just prejudice against their whole Church and against all their other Doctrines when they claim to so high an authority without good grounds Since therefore this is the most Important part of all our Controversies with that Church and since it is that to which they always turn themselves by which they gain Prosclites and estâ—blish their own Votaries and set them out of the reach of all Convistion the understanding of this matter in its full extent seems to be a very necessary piece of study We are apt upon a little Interval of quiet to forget the practices of that Church and because we do not think of them we may be apt to fancy that they think as little of us but they do still pursue their point with an unwearied diligence They never give over but when one design fails they either study to retrieve it or to set another on foot with an Industry that ought to awaken us and keep us always on our guard The Numbers of their Emisâ—aries are great and their Zeal is ever warm and active therefore we must never lose sight of them and
the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all
Faculties since these passages and that which necessarily relates to them will lead a man into the understanding of the hardest parts of the whole New Testament If this method is let go they must prove the Infallibility of the Church by Arguments drawn from some other Visible Characters by which a man is to be convinc'd that God has made her Infallible If there were such eminent ones as the gift of Tongues Miracles or Prophecies that did visibly attest this here were a proof that were solid indeed It were the same with that by which we prove the Truth of the Christian Religion But then these Miracles must be as uncontestedly and evidently proved they must also belong to this point that is they must be Miracles publickly done to prove the truth of this Assertion But to this Appeal they will not stand what use soever they may make of it to amuse the weaker and the more credulous The Character of an uninterrupted Succession from the days of the Apostles is neither an easier nor a surer one since other Churches whom they condemn have it likewise nor can it be search'd into by a private man unless he would go into that Sea of examining the History the Records and Succession of Churches This is an Enquiry that has in it Difficulties vastly greater and more insuperable than all those that they can object to us If they will appeal to the vast Extent of a Church that so many Nations and Societies agree in the same Doctrine and are of one Communion this will prove to be a dangerous point for in the state in which we see Mankind Numbers make a very bad Argument It were to risque the Christian Religion too much to venture on a Poll with the Mahometans In some Ages the Semi-Arrians had the better at numbers and it is a question if at this day those that are within or without the Roman Communion make the greatest body Nor must a man be put to chuse his Religion by such a laborious and uncertain way of Calculation To plead a continuance in the same Doctrine that was at first deliver'd to the Church by the Apostles is to put the matter upon a more desperate issue For as no man can hope to see to the end of this so it lets a man in into all Controversies when he is to compare the present Doctrine with that which was deliver'd by the Apostles Let then any Character be assign'd that shall oblige a man to believe the Church Infallible and it will soon appear very evidently that the searching into that must put the world on more difficult Enquiries than any of those that we are pressed with and that in the issue of the whole the determination must be resolv'd into a private Judgment Another Difficulty follows close upon this which is In what Church this Infallibility is to be found Suppose a man was born in the Greek Church at any time since the IX Century how shall he know that he must seek the Infallibility in the Roman Communion and that he cannot find it in his own He plainly sees that the Christian Religion began in the Eastern parts and by every step that he makes into History he clearly discerns that it flourished for many Ages most eminently there but now that there is a breach between them and the Latins he cannot judge to which Communion he is to adhere without he examines the Doctrine for both have the outward Characters of a Succession of Martyrs and Bishops of Numbers and an appearance of continuing in the same Doctrine only with this difference that the Greeks have the advantage in every one of these they have more Apostolical Churches I mean founded by the Apostles than the Latins and they have stuck more firmly with fewer Additions and Innovations to their Ancient Rituals than the Latins have done How can he then decide this matter without examining the grounds of their difference and making a private Judgment upon a private Examination of the Scriptures or other Authorities If it be said that the present depress'd and ignorant state of those Churches makes it now very sensible that there can be no Infallibility among the Easterns To this it is to be answer'd that I have put the case all-along from the 9th Century downward In many of those Ages the Greeks were under as good Circumstances and had as fair an appearance as the Latins had if not better for the outward appearances of the Roman Communion in the next Centuries the 10th and 11th are not very favourable even by the Representation that their own Writers have made of them and if we must judge of the Infallibility of a Church by outward Characters it may be urg'd with great shews of Reason that a Church which under all its Poverty and Persecutions does still adhere to the Christian Religion has so peculiar a Character of bearing the Cross and of living in a constant state of Sufferings that if Infallibility be in the Church as a favour and priviledge from God and not as the effect of human Learning and other Advantages I should sooner believe the Greek Church Infallible than any other now in the World But when these difficulties are all got over there remain yet new and great ones Suppose one is satisfi'd that it is in the Roman Church he must know where to find it without this it is of no more use to him than if one should tell a hungry man that there is food enough for him without directing him where to seek for it he must starve after all that general Information if he has not a more particular direction And therefore it seems very absurd to affirm that the believing of Infallibility is an Article of Faith but that the proper Subject in whom it rests is not likewise an Article of Faith This is the general Tenet of the whole Roman Communion who that they may maintain their Union notwithstanding their difference in this do all agree in saying that the subject of this Infallibility is not a matter of Faith This destroys the whole pretension for all the Absurdities of no end of Controversies of private Judgment and every man's expounding the Scriptures do return here and the whole design of Infallibility is defeated For how can a man be bound to submit to this in any one Instance or to receive any proposition as coming from an Infailible Authority if he does not know who has it Thus according to that Maxim of Natural Logick that a Conclusion can have no certainty beyond that which was in both the Premises if it is not certain with whom the Infallibility dwells as well as that there is an Infallibility in the Church all the noise about it will be quite defeated and of no use If a man had many Medecines of which one was an Infallible Cure of such or such Diseases can it be suppos'd that he would communicate these to the World and tell that one of them
All the greater Bodies of those who divide from our Constitutions have some Rituals of their own so the Dispute in this must only be concerning the degrees and extent of this Power For if any Authority is allowed it will not be easy to fix any other Bounds to it but this that it must not invade the Divine Authority nor do any thing beyond the Rules and Limits set in the Scriptures for if there is the least degree of Authority in the Church the grounds upon which it is founded must carry it to every thing that cannot be proved to be unlawful Bare unfitness though it ought to be a Consideration of great weight when such things are deliberated about yet when they are once concluded can be no reason for disobeying them since the fitness of Order and the decency of Unity and Obedience is certainly of much more value than any special unfitness that can be supposed to be in any particular Instance So that one of these two must be admitted either that the Pastors of the Church have no sort of Authority even in the smallest Circumstances but are limited by the Rules of the Scripture and can only execute them strictly and not go beyond them in a title or this Authority must go to every thing that is lawful On that I will dwell no longer here the fuller discussion of this matter belonging to another Discourse It is a natural Consequence of the Authority given to the Pastors of the Church That they having declared and fixed their Doctrine and having setled Rules for their Rituals may excommunicate such as either do not live according to the Rules of their Religion which are a main part of their Doctrine or do not obey the Constitutions of their Society Excommunication in the Strictness of things is only the Churches refusing to receive a person into her Communion now as every Private man is the Master of his own Actions it is clear that every Body of Men must also be the Masters of theirs And thus though Excommunication in some respects is declaratory it being a solemn denunciation of the Judgments of God according to the tenor of the Gospel against persons who live in an open violation of some one or more of its Laws so it is also an authoritative Act by which a Church refuses to communicate with such a Person In this it is true Churches ought to make the terms of Communion with them as large and extensive as may consist with the Rules of Religion and of Order but after all they having a Power over themselves and their own Actions must be supposed to be likewise cloathed with a Power to communicate with other Persons or not to do it as they shall see cause in which great difference is to be made between this Power in it self and the use and management of it for any Abuses whether true or only pretended though they may well be urged to procure a proper Reformation of them yet cannot be alledged against the Power it self which is both just and necessary It is not so very clear to state the Subordination in which the Church is to be put under the Civil Power and how far all Acts of Church Power are subject to the Laws and Policies of those States to which the several Churches do belong It is certain that the Magistrate's being a Christian or not does not at all alter the Case that has only a relation to his own salvation for his Authority is the same whatever his Belief may be in matters of Religion His design to protect or to destroy Religion alters the Case more sensibly for the regards to that Protection and to the Peace and Order that follow upon it together with the Breaches and Disorders that might follow upon an ill understanding between Church and State are matters of Such Consequence that it is not only meer Prudence which may give perhaps too strong a Bias to carnal Fears and Policies but the Rules of Religion which oblige the Church to study to preserve that Order and Protection which is one of the chief Blessings of the Society and a main Instrument of doing much good Great difference is to be made between an Authority that acts with a visible design to destroy Religion and another that intends to protect it but that errs in its conduct and does often restrain the Rules of Order and impose hard and uneasy things Certainly in the latter much is to be born with that may be otherwise uneasy because the main is stil safe and private slips when endured and submitted to can never be compared to those publick disorders that a rigid maintaining of that which is perhaps in it self good must occasion But when the design is plain and that the Conduct of the Civil Powers goes against the Truth of Religion either in whole or in any main Article of it then the Body of the Christians of that State ought to fortify themselves by maintaining their Order and their other Rules in so far as they are necessary to their preservation Upon the whole matter it does not appear that the Church has any Authority to act in opposition to the State but meerly in those things in which the Religion that she professes is plain and positive so that the Question comes to be really this Whether is it better to obey God than Man There the Rule is clear and the Decision is soon made So when the Church acts meerly in obedience to Rules and Laws laid down in Scripture such as in declaring the Doctrine in administring the Sacraments and maintaining the setled Officers of the Church she is upon a sure Bottom and must cast her self upon the Providence of God whatever may happen and still obey God but in all things that have arisen out of ancient Customs and Canons in every thing where she has not a Law of God to support her I do not see any Power she has to act in opposition to Law and to the Supreme Civil Authority In this the constant practice of the Iews is no small Argument whos 's Sanhedrin that was a Civil Court and the Head of their State did give Rules and Orders which their Priests were bound to obey when not contrary to the Law of God We are sure this was the Rule in our Saviour's time and it was never censured nor reproved by him nor by the Apostles The Argument is also strong that is drawn from the constant practice of the Church from the time that she first had the protection of the Civil Authority till the times of the Papal Domination in which we find the Emperours all along making Laws concerning all the Administrations of the Church we find them receiving Appeals in all Church matters which they appointed such Bishops as hapned to be about their Courts to examine This was like our Court of Delegates for the Bishops who judged those matters did not act according to Canon or by the Ecclesiastical
Infants and the coldness of these Climates since such a manner might endanger their lives and we know that God loves mercy better than sacrifice this form of baptizing is as little used by those who separate from us as by our selves If we consider only the words of the Scripture without regarding the subsequent practice of the Church we see reason enough to imagine that the washing of feet should be kept up in the Church We have our Saviour's practice for it and words that seem to import an obligation on us to wash one anothers feet together with the moral use and signification of it that it ought to teach us Humility From all these things this Inference seems just That according to the practices of those who divide from us the Church must be suppos'd to have an Authority to adjust the Forms of our Religion in those parts of them that are meerly Ritual to the Taste to the Exigencies and Conveniencies of the several Ages and Climates I say in things that are meerly Ritual for I do not think that these Instances can justify a Church that should alter any main part of a Foederal Rite instituted by Christ such as the giving the Chalice in the Sacrament since this Institution is deliver'd with so particular a Solemnity and in express words is appointed to be continu'd till Christ's second coming and the Cup is given as a Seal of the New Covenant in his blood for the remission of sins which therefore all are requir'd to drink We are to consider that in matters that are meerly Ritual unless we suppose that Charms are ti'd to particular Rites there could be no other design in them but to secure some good purpose or to keep off some bad practice by those outworks If then the state of Mankind does so alter that what is good in one Age is liable to abuse mistake or superstition in another there must be suppos'd to be a power in the Pastors of the Church to alter or add as they see real occasions or good warrants for it Outward appearances work much on Mankind things that look light must dissipate men's Thoughts as much as graver methods do recollect them Dancing in the praises of God would look very wild now but in other Ages it had a better effect Since therefore the Christian Religion was to last to the end of the World and to be spread to very different Climates and since there is no special Rubrick of Forms digested in it since there is also no Limitation put upon the Church in this point but rules are given that sound very much to the contrary of doing all things that tend to Order Edification and Peace this great prejudice seems to be fully taken off and answer'd Nor do such Institutions lead to Superstition but rather to the contrary Superstition in its strict Notion is a baseness of mind that makes us fear without cause and over-value things too much imagining that there is more in them than really there is If things that are ritual were unalterable there might be from thence more occasion given to Superstition according to the conceit of the Iews who thinking that their Rites were unalterable came to fancy from thence that there was a real value in them which upon their own account render'd men the more acceptable to God Superstition is more effectually beat down by the opinion of the alterableness of all external forms according to the different Exigencies of times and places since this shews that Rites are only matters of Order and Decency which have no real value in them because they are alterable If any grow superstitious in the observance of them this is an abuse to which all things even the most Sacred the Sacraments themselves are liable It can as little be said That these Rules in Ritual Matters are Impositions on our Christian Liberty they are rather the exercise of a main part of it which is our not being tied up so strictly by a Law of Commandments as the Iews were The Notion of Liberty as it is stated by St. Paul is the Exemption under which Christians were brought from the Precepts of the Mosaical Law for those who asserted the standing Obligations of that Law were bringing Christians under a heavy Yoke in opposition to which the Apostles asserted their Liberty But it is likewise a true piece of Liberty and a very necessary one for the Societies of Christians to have among them a power of of using or forbearing to use such external things as do either advance or obstruct the main ends of Religion That some Churches may abuse and that others have abused this Authority by carrying it too far and imposing too great a load of external performances is not to be denied The number of them may become a vast burden and a distraction rather than a help towards the main Design of Religion Ludicrous Rites begetâ— prophaneness and Pompous ones and undue gaity But the apprehension of an abuse in the extent of an Authority cannot justify the quarrelling at a few Rites when it is visible there is no disposition to swell or encrease them If every year were producing some new Rite or other there might be good ground to fear that there would be no end of such Impositions but this cannot be appli'd to our Circumstances It is also a question whether in case that there were indeed too many Rites enjoin'd every one of which were innocent in it self so that no special Objection lay against any one but against them all as too many whether I say in such a case private persons were not oblig'd rather to bear their burden than by shaking it off to rend the Body and disturb the Peace and Order of the Church It seems they ought rather to bear it The Rulers of a Church have indeed much to answer for who press her too hard with burdens that are both useless and heavy to be born but the obligations to Peace seem to conter-ballance this inexpediency For tho private persons must judge for themselves whether things requir'd of them are lawful or unlawful and must act accordingly yet Expediency or Inexpediency is only to take place in cases in which they are entirely at their own disposal and where the rules of Prudence or Charity can only determine them But where the quiet and order of the Body is concern'd Publick orders and determinations being interpos'd they are not to depart from those upon their conceiving them inexpedient for it is certainly more inexpedient and mischievous to break Publick Order than it can possibly be to practice any Rite which perhaps if left free to us might seem not expedient and were better let alone The expediency of Forms and Rites is a very proper Subject of publick Consultations and those who are concern'd in them will have much to answer for to God if they do not weigh this together with all that counterbalances it very critically but