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A36832 The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called independants to that of the ancient primitive Christians by Lewis Du Moulin. Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680. 1680 (1680) Wing D2533; ESTC R25012 54,163 74

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their Faith their Religion nor the guidance of their manners to an Authority which is subject to errour but only to the Word of God which is an infallible Authority Upon this ground the Bishop of Condom hath reason to condemn the Synod of Charenton for having taxed the Judgement of the Independants with Errour which consists as sayes the Synod in what they teach that every Church ought to be governed by its own laws without any dependance upon any in matters Ecclesiastical and without any obligation to acknowledge the authority of Synods for its governance and conduct THEN a little after this same Synod decides that this Sect is as prejudicial to the State as to the Church that it opens a door to all sorts of Irregularities and extravagancies that it takes away all the means of bringing any remedy to them and that if it had field-room enough it would form to it self as many Religions as Parishes or particular Assemblies THESE last words sayes the Bishop discover that it is principally in matters of Faith that the Synod would establish dependancy since the greatest inconvenience that he takes notice of into which the faithful people of God would fall by independancy is that they would frame as many Religions as Parishes then says he of necessity according to the Doctrine of that Synod each Church and by a stronger reason each particular must depend as to what respects faith upon a supreme Authority which resides in some Assembly or in some body to which Authority all the faithful people of God ought to submit their Judgement THIS Bishop could take notice of nothing more unreasonable and more extravagant in our Synods than to oblige a private person to submit himself in matters of Faith to the Judgment of an Assembly whose decisions are not the Word of God that is to say not infallible 'T IS true that pre-supposing all Supreme Authority in the Church whether in the Protestant or Romish is subject to errour the Government of the Adversaries of Rome of Independants or other Protestants is equally justifiable when they refuse to pay submission to the Authority of Rome since that it is incomparably more defective than that which the Protestants set up in their Churches BUT on the other side if it be true that upon this ground the Government of the Independants is more justifiable and more reasonable than that of other Protestants who blindly submit themselves to a Tribunal subject to errour and whose conduct and gonance is beyond all comparison further off from Reason than is that of the Papists for pre-supposing that the Authority of Rome is infallible the submission which the people pay to that supreme Authority is so much the more reasonable as that of the Protestants is the less when they submit to a supreme Authority which they themselves believe is subject to errour IN short the Bishop of Condom hath great reason to be sure that the Protestants are mightily beside the Cushion and to blame for condemning the Infallibility of Rome so long as the Incontestability and indisputableness which they invest their supreme Authority withal carries the same Obligation along with it to obedience and submission A great Divine of ours who relates the Judgement of the Protestants hereupon libr. 1. cap. 8. de Clavibus expresses himself in these words Hujus ligamenti quo Pastores Ecelesiae constringunt peccatores tanta est vis certitudo ut Christus pronunciet si quid ligaverint pastores in terris id fore lig●tum in coelo id est Deum Ratum habiturum hanc ligationem potest fieri aliquando ut ligatio sit injusta vult tamen Christus eam ratam esse non enim fas est homini qui injuste excommunicatus est invaaere sacram Coenam invitis Pastoribus irrumpere in communionem Ecclesiae IS not that to tell us that a man excommunicated unjustly is as much obliged to submit himself to the excommunication pronounced against him by an Authority which hath erred as when it is given by an Authority which hath not erred And is not that to tell us that in every way whither justly or unjustly a person delivered to Satan as is the general opinion of all Protestants excepting my Father that to deliver to Satan and to excommunicate are one and the same thing ought not to dispute o●● resist that Authority which hath delivered him up to that evil Spirit To conclude is not that to speak in the Language of the Canon Si papa distinct 40 which will by no means permit a person cast thus to the Devil although against all right and justice by the Authority of the Pope to resist that supreme Authority THE Bishop likewise hath no less good Reason to be sure that the conjunction of all the parts of Romish Church in one body would be unreasonable if they were not cimented by infallibility and to divest it of its Infallibility is to break it in pieces is to cast every of its least parts into Independancy and to give liberty to every of them to govern themselves according to their own mode and way and to do their business by themselves BUT here we should observe as we go along that of two depths of Satan the Ecclesiastical Power and Infallibility the first is a Lie an Imposture and a cheat but that presupposing that it is not a cheat but a thing that is good and true and the use of which is necessary in the Church Infallibility is naturally and reasonably a consequence of it And in truth our Reformers have placed Incontestability in the room of Infallibility But it is true also that if Infallibility be a pure cheat the other is a pure and absolute tyranny and it is less reasonable in not being a natural consequence of Ecclesiastical power incontestability is a thousand times worse than Infallibity except it be in one thing and that is that it hath not been of so long a Duration 'T IS here no doubt wherein the illuminations of humane Reason were not so great to our first Reformers as to the generation of men in this Age For as those soresaw in it that a submission of so many Princes and people who differed in Customes Laws and Languages to an Authority subject to errour was not only unreasonable but also impossible to prevent the revolt both of Kings and people they with a great deal of Justice invested it with Infallibility AND 't is here too that the Bishop of Condom triumphs over us and has great reason for it on his side when he reproaches us that we have been deficient in our Politicks in not erecting among us an infallible Tribunal and that we are much to blame for obliging the faithful people of God with so much rigour and severity to submit to a tribunal subject to errour but those of Rome are not so for they oblige their people to submit to one that is infallible BUT the Independants as they are led by
nor learned enough to give a right judgement about matters of Religion Carneades said that the State of Athens was unhappy in which wise men made fair Overtures and gave good Counsels but Fools judged of them and ordered all things according to their idle and extravagant fancies And indeed Wise men may consult but it is the greatest number or the longest and best sword that determines which is too often in the hands of those who have more strength of power than force of judgement so that by this establishment of a National Ecclesiastical Government thousands of Christians and faithful Souls are as much obliged to submit themselves to the Religion of a whole Empire according to the establishment which shall be made of it by an Idolatrous Rehoboam by an Arrian Constantius by an Apostate Julian by a Popish Mary Queen of England as to that which shall be set up by a David by a Constantine the the Great and by a Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed memory which Inconveniencies neither can nor ever will be able to happen in a place where the Congregational way shall be established It may be one Soveraign who shall be as Heretick as Constantius will issue forth his commands for the establishment of his heresie in all the places of his dominion as Theodosius the second made another for that of the Orthodox Faith when he commanded that all the Subjects of his Empire should receive the faith from Damaseus of Rome and from Peter of Alexandria But it may likewise fall out that that same Emperour to wit Theodosius the second might make two Ordinances which may mutually destroy one another for he convoked the first Synod of Ephesus which condemned the Opinion of Nestorius and some years after he convoked the second Synod of Ephesus which contradicted it and allowed the opinion of Nestorius 2. THIS same inconvenience is verified by the establishment of the best reformed Churches in the World I mean that of Luther and of Calvin For as the Reformation was that of a National Church of the same extent with that of the Territory of the Soveraign where it was established so likewise did it carry the Obligation into Germany Sweedland and Denmark that they should submit to Consubstantiation without any bodies having the liberty to form assemblies to themselves which may reject it which Churches might do if they were Independant The same inconvenience is happened and must happen from the National establishment of the Reformation which Calvin hath made in England Holland some parts of Germany and elsewhere and how pure soever the Reformation was as for the Doctrine of that holy man it is extremely defective as to the Discipline the power Ecclesiastick and that Tribunal which he Erected in Geneva distinct and Independant on the Magistrate by vertue of a pretended Divine right and power which hath been the cause of all those infinite disorders confusions and even Schisms in England Scotland Holland and Geneva even in the time of Calvin as we read in his Epistles 3. ONE great convenience which is found in the Establishment of a National Government is that it is always grounded upon humane principles cruel and barbarous as to constrain to persecute and even to burn those who in matter of Religion do not embrace that of the Ecclesiastical State or of the Magistrate that establishes it and do not conform to all the practices that he appoints and commands 4. THEY say that this National establishment of Ecclesiastical Government deprives Man of his Reason and his natural and Religious liberty in the choice he ought to make of his God and of the worship he ought to render him and to which he should not be constrained but perswaded neither to be brought to it by custome nor by birth nor likewise by the Law of the Magistrate unless he be convinced that his Ordinances and commands in matters of Religion are conformable to the word of God for they press mightily upon this consideration that this establishment divests Man of the same liberty in his religious life as he hath in the Civil where he is not restrained by any Law of the Magistrate to choose his house his Wife his Master his Servant his Lawyer his Physitian his Calling nor any one particular manner how to govern his Family provided it may be done without breaking the publick peace 5. THEY say that how unjust or how extravagant soever the Laws of the Magistrate might be for the regulating of Politie yet there is nothing unreasonable neither in the Magistrate generally to command the practice of them nor in all Subjects submitting to them without reserve or exception so long as the importance of those Laws do not extend beyond the present life but if it reaches further and Conscience and Eternal Salvation be concerned therein they believe that an uniformity of Faith and of Religion which should be imposed upon us how good so ever the thing might be in its self it would be wicked and unreasonable because it would do violence to the Conscience of which the Magistrate is not the Master nor the Arbiter as he is of the Bodies and estates of Men. CHAP. III. That upon the ground of this Hypothesis That every Supream Authority either in the Popish or the Presbyterian Church is subject to Error Monsieur de Condom hath reason to approve of the Congregational way and the Independency of particular Churches on any other Authority than that of Jesus Christ in his VVord BUT there is nothing which does more reasonably establish the Independancy of particular Churches nor which more powerfully destroyes this Authority in the Church by a divine right and the necessity there is that a person or a particular Church should depend upon its Ordinances unless that Supream Authority is infallible for if it be subject to Error it must of necessity do violence to the Christian liberty of the faithful and so degenerate into a Tyrannical Authority there is nothing I say which establishes more reasonably the Independency of particular Churches nor which more powerfully destroyes their dependency than the account which the Bishop of Condom gives of the judgements of the Independants and of the Sentence that the Synod of Charenton pronounced against them THEY believe sayes he that every faithful Member ought to follow the illuminations of his own Conscience without submitting his judgement to the Authority of any Body nor any Ecclesiastical Assembly and they do not refuse to submit to the word of God nor to embrace the decisions of Synods when after a due and through Examination of them they find them reasonable That which they refuse to do is to submit their judgement to that of any Assembly because it is a Society of Men that are subject to Errour THE Gospel it self is not more true than this perswasion of Independants and that Bishop could not approve of one more reasonable to wit that a particular person or Church ought not to submit