Mr. CLAVDE's ANSWER TO Monsieur de MEAVX's BOOK INTITULED A Conference with Mr. CLAUDE WITH HIS LETTER to a FRIEND WHEREIN He Answers a Discourse of M. de Condom now Bishop of Meaux concerning the Church IMPRIMATUR Junii 18. 1687. GVIL. NEEDHAM LONDON Printed for T. Dring at the Harrow in Fleetstreet at Chancery-Lane-end MDCLXXXVII THE Author's Preface AMONG all the Points in Controversy betwixt us and the Gentlemen of the Romish Communion it is plain there is not any one wherein they think better of their Cause than this which hath been started since our Reformation Concerning the Church and yet perhaps there is not any one wherein they have less reason to think so Were this groundless confidence observed to be predominant among the Vulgar only who seldom look beyond the prejudices of their Infancy or among the busy men of intrigue in the Age who are ever raising their worldly Advantages as a Bulwark against the Truth there would be no great reason to be surprised at it But the most amazing thing of all is that we continually meet with the same Opinion in persons that want neither Understanding nor sound Sense and Judgment and which otherwise seem men of Integrity and Sincerity so that there is scarce any question to be made but that they are verily perswaded of the thing as a certain undoubted Truth Now for the undeceiving these Persons it will in my opinion be convenient not only to set their own Conceptions before them but also to go back as far as the ground and original of those Conceptions that so they themselves may plese to make such Reflexions upon them as they shall judg fit and necessary The ground then of all this mistake is that upon pretence of the Churches being a Society they immediately suffer themselves to be possest at first with an Opinion That we are to judg of it almost in the same manner that we do of a Civil Society and so never give themselves the trouble of enquiring into the differences by which these two are distinguisht from one another Hence they have fancied that the Essence of the Church consists intirely in something External and that as a man need do no more to become a true Member of a Civil Society than only live in an outward observance of the Laws so to become a true Member of the Church no more was required than barely an outward Profession of the Faith and Religion and that there was no necessity at all of any inward Virtues such as Faith Hope and Charity This is the very thing that hath made the Definitions of most of their modern Divines who place it in a meer outward Profession be entertained with Approbation and Applause And when once these Definitions are received they are under a necessity of looking upon not any one part of these Professors to be the true Church of Jesus Christ but in general the whole Body of Professors whether they be good or bad men just or unjust hypocrites or sincere Believers From hence by another unavoidable consequence they are forced to conceive of the Church not only as an exterior and visible Body but as a Body distinctly and certainly visible to such a degree I mean that a man might point out without any danger of mistake the particular men of whom it is composed as plainly and distinctly as you can point the Persons that make up any other Society and declare without the least fear of mistaking your men such and such are members of it Such a visibility of the Church as this it is that Bellarmin hath explained thus The Church is a company of Men as visible and as palpable as the Citizens of Rome the Kingdom of France or the Republick of Venice So that his meaning is that as the French the Romans and Venetians may plainly and particularly be singled out so likewise may the Persons that make the Body of the Church be as particularly and with the same degree of certainty that they were Indeed if there be nothing besides a bare outward Profession required to make men truly Members of the Church This Profession is a thing discernable by the eye in every single person and thus the Church will be visible so as that particular men may be plainly distinguished to be of it By another necessary and unavoidable Consequence they were constrained to apply all the Promises made by God to his Church whether in the Old or New Testament to this visible and exteriour Body And being these Promises include the Churches perpetuity that they might keep as close to their first Notions as they could there was a necessity of explaining the Churches subsistence in this sense That the Church must always subsist after the manner of a sensible and palpable body so as to be the object of our sight and discernable by all the World even to a plain and positive distinction of particular persons Hence it is that they have drawn their so much boasted Succession and which all their disputes run so much upon Whereby they understand a continued train of Priests one after another in the same Episcopal Sees and a continued train of people making up the same Congregations so as that both People and Priests always make profession of the same Religion without any change or alteration except it be perhaps in matters of Discipline which are things that may very well admit of a change without making the Church to differ from what it was before Then carrying these Conceptions of theirs still further they fancied that as in order to the preservation of the Civil Society an absolute Supreme Authority to which all must bend is necessary because without such a one there would be no possible means of composing differences or preventing Domestick quarrels the same was likewise necessary in the Church That in this one Supreme and Absolute Tribunal must be acknowledged upon Earth that without this and an intire obedience paid to it even in matters of Conscience Dispute would never be ended nor Unity preserved but at last things would come to such a pass that there would start up as many Churches and different Religions as Families And this gave birth to their pretentions to Infallibility and a blind implicite obedience to the determinations of Councils without presuming to examine them at all Lastly It is by all these prejudicate opinions that the Gentlemen of the Romish Communion suppose themselves able to overthrow the Protestant-Cause and make that of their own Church impregnable The pretended Reformed Church say they cannot be this exterior body always visible and palpable which must have continued in this state of visibility and that without any alteration ever since Jesus Christ and the Apostles time down to ours because this is not above a hundred or sixscore years old Therefore it is not the Church of Christ This cannot shew a continued succession of Priests and People Assemblies and Episcopal Sees nor a profession of
to receive implicitely whatever is delivered to them by their Ministry But reject this principle and there is no reason why the Faithful may not separate the good from the bad and why they may not subsist under such a Ministry by the help of that distinction which the Grace of God enables them to make And here Sir allow me to wonder a little at the pleasant double which the Doctors of the Romish Communion make when they dispute Our first and main question is whether we ought to acquiesce in the Council of Trent's Determinations Yes say they you must yield an implicit obedience to the Decrees of the Prelates assembled in a Body But why an Implicit Obedience Because say they the Church cannot subsist without it But why cannot it subsist without it Cannot it subsist by resuming the Ministry out of such hands and putting it into better Cannot it without going so far subsist by separating between good and bad food No they tell you it cannot because it is obliged to receive implicitely whatever the Prelates in a Body shall deliver What way of disputing call you this if it be not quite to swerve from good sense and reason and to be lost in an impertinent maze For is not this a perfect round first to prove an Implicite Obedience because the Church cannot otherwise subsist and then to prove the Church cannot otherwise subsist without this Obedience because men ought to obey implicitely VI. But let us proceed in drawing our Consequences And being we hit upon the point of the Implicit Obedience they exact to the decisions of Bishops and that Sovereign and Absolute Authority wherewith they would invest them let us try if this can agree with the Principles we have establish'd I meddle not now with those other reasons that might be made use of you will find them in part in the Book I quoted just now All I shall say is that since no man can have a distinct knowledg of the True Believers and that the True Church consists of such alone no man consequently can be secure that this Body of Prelates whether considered single or whether as convened in a Council are the true Church Yes but says one they represent the true Church I agree with you so far as the True Believers are still under their Ministry But representing the True Church does not presently endue them with its Opinions and Affections The true Church in conferring her Ministry upon men does not confer upon them withal either true Faith or true Regeneration much less perfect Infallibility Hence whatever determinations they give are still subject to an examination If these prove confermable to God's Word it is our duty not only to embrace them but further to respect â—he Body of Ministers as the true Church Representative because they have exprest her sense and Charity will carry us still further and incline us to esteem them true Believers because they have acted as such But when their divisions are found to disagree with God's Word we are to look upon them as men that have abused their ministry If this happen in things not plainly interesting the Conscience their ministry must be born with and the liberty of separating the clean from the unclean natural to every Believer made use of If they do interest the Conscience we groan under their ministry we pray to God we implore succors from above still using the Liberty of Conscience to refuse the Evil and retain the Good But if this Body of Prelates-proceed to violent taking away this necessary and indispensable Liberty of Conscience and reduce the faithful to this hard streight either to be damned for false Doctrine in slavishly following their Ministers errors or damn'd for dissimulation in pretending to follow them Then the true Believers ought to look upon them as men that have stript themselves of the right of the Ministry to oppose them to take it from them and repose the trust in other hands It is evident then the supreme Authority we contend about cannot take place because it is continually in danger of being invested in worldly men to whom it cannot in any case belong And so we should be continually in danger of mistaking That for the Church Representative which neither is really nor can possibly be so VII The seventh Use to be made of what we have advanced is the right apprehending of some expressions used by us viz. That the Church is corrupted that the state of the Church hath been interrupted and the like so as to reconcile these with Jesus Christ's Promises which import not only the perpetual existence but also the perpetual holiness and incorruption of the Church Now for that corruption attributed by us to the Church I say that whereas the Promises of Christ concern the true Church that is True Believers only our expression on the contrary respects the Church according to that Idea of Charity we form of it including all external Professors which are ordinarily call'd the Visible Church 'T is of the Church taken in this last notion that we say she is corrupted for the whole Body being made up as we have seen of good and bad man it hath come to pass that the wicked are mightily increased and the spirit of the World which is a spirit of error and superstition shewed it self in an eminent manner But we do not understand true Believers to be corrupted only so far forth as they may possibly have contracted some tincture of infirmity by conversing with the others And for that interruption of the state of the Church mentioned in our Confession of Faith where we say That the state of the Church being interrupted it was necessary it should be raised up again out of its ruines and desolation The meaning of those expressions is not what M. de Condom pretends that the true Church ceases to exist or that its Ministry was quite extinct in those times which we call times of desolation and ruine for we make a distinction between the Church and the state of the Church The Church is the true Believers making profession of Truth and Christian Piety and a real Holiness under a Ministry which dispenses all nourishment necessary for spiritual life without keeping back any It s natural and proper state is to be freed as much as its militant condition can admit from the impure mixture of prophane worldly men not to be covered over and as it were swallowed up with this Chaff and Tares to have a pure Ministry not incumbred with errors with false worship superstitious customs a Ministry in the hands of good men who are in possession of it by honest methods and set a good example to others This State is what we think hath been interrupted having seen strange opinions brought into Religion Superstitious propagated the Ministry invaded by men neither deserving nor capable of it and that were advanced by scandalous and unlawful methods having seen vices openly predominant among
words in Anastasius that the See was vacant six days But this is a very idle story There is not any Author mentions this voluntary resignation of Vigilius nor his being chosen in again by the Clergy of Rome as is pretended 't is all a pure fancy of Baronius without any manner of probability for it and the five or six days which the See continued vacant are to be understood to follow not Sylverius his death but the time of his being deposed by Belisarius illegally and by force who took away his Pallium and compelled him to resume a Monks habit He lived after that a year in exile in the Island of Palmenia there he excommunicated Vigilius and his faction to wit the Clergy of Rome that very Clergy which chose Vigilius to succeed him so that the Excommunication being just and valid as Baronius owns it was we cannot look upon Vigilius and his Clergy and all the Bishops in the World then any otherwise than as men degraded and cut off from the Church And then according to M. de Meaux's principles there was no way left but for Christ to come into the World once more to re-establish the call to the Ministry The truth of what I assert may be tryed a third way in that Principle of the supreme Authority and Infallibility of Councils and the blind implicit obedience they pretend is due to them For supposing this Principle to take place the Church of Rome hath ceased to be a true Church long ago I shall not here produce all those Councils heretofore that decreed in favour of Arrianism such as that of Antioch of Sardica or of Philippi that of Milan of Sirmium of Arimini of Seleucia or of Constantinople I will not instance in the second Council of Ephesus where the Bishop of Rome's Legates assisted which establisht the Eutychian Heresy nor that of Diospolis which acquitted Pelagius the Heretick Nor will I speak of those which have at several times determined things directly contradictory to one another in the matter of Images such as the Council of Constantinople under Constantine Copronymus the second Council of Nice under the Empress Irene the Council of Franckfort under Charlemagne and the Council of Paris under Lewis the Debonaire Nor will I insist upon the Councils held in the Tenth Age which contradicted one another upon this question whether Formosus could be lawfully preferred to the Papacy contrary to his Oath which a Pope had dispensed with and whether all the persons ordained by him ought not to be reordained Without troubling our selves with things so far off we need only desire these Gentlemen to tell us if they really and sincerely believe these few late Councils to be infallible That of Rome under Gregory the seventh where Baronius says it was determined That the Pope hath power to depose Emperors and Kings That what he hath once determined no man can afterwards bring to a rehearing but that he alone can rehear and alter the determinations of all other persons That he cannot be judged by any man whatever That he may absolve the Subjects of wicked Princes from their Oaths of Allegiance That of Lateran under Alexander the Third which relèases Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance which they have sworn to their Governors if those Governors hold any correspondence with Hereticks That of Lateran under Innocent the third which enjoyns That if Temporal Princes neglect to root out Hereticks there shall be notice given of it to the Pope that so the Pope may pronounce their Subjects absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance and dispose of their Countries to Catholicks who may discharge their duty better That of Lyons under Innocent the fourth which deposed the Emperor Frederick the Second released his Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and forbid them upon penalty of being Anathematized to acknowledg or obey him That of Constance which in the Bull of Martin the fifth containing the Clause de sacro approbante Concilio subjects not only Patriarchs Archbishops and Bishops but even Kings and other supreme Governors of what quality soever they be to the judgment of the Inquisitors even to a deprivation from their honours and all other worldly possessions That of Lateran under Leo the Tenth which sets the Pope's Authority above that of Councils directly contrary to what was defined by the Council of Constance with the approbation of Pope Martin the Fifth and to the Council of Basil with the approbation of Pope Eugenius the Fourth In a word the endeavouring to assert that Councils are infallible and giving them such an Authority as supercedes all examination is so bold an undertaking that many eminent persons in the Church of Rome it self thinking it could never be effected have not scrupled to declare for the other opinion Among these was the famous Abbot of Palerma principal of the Canonists whose words are so very considerable that I cannot omit repeating them I am of opinion says he that if the Pope have better reasons and better authorities than the Council he ought to stick to his own judgment For the Council may and sometimes actually has erred as particularly in the case of a Ravishers marrying with the woman on whom the Rape was committed Saint Jerom's opinion was preferred before the Decree of a Council because it was really better For in matters of Faith a single private mans judgment ought to be preferred before the Pope's if this private judgment be grounded upon better reasons taken out of the Old and New Testament It signifies nothing to alledg the Council cannot err because Jesus Christ hath prayed for his Church that it fail not In answer to this I say that although a General Council do indeed represent the Church universally yet it is plain the Vniversal Church is not there really but only by way of representation For the Vniversal Church is made up of the company of all the Faithful so that they are the Faithful throughout the whole world that constitute the Church Vniversally of which Christ is the Head and the Spouse The Pope is Christs Vicar but he is not truly the Head of the Church And this Church it is that cannot err Thus then it may so happen that the true Faith of Christ may continue entire in a single person and then the true Faith would not fail in the Church as the right of a Community may be preserved in a single member of it See now what the force of truth made one of the greatest Doctors of his Age say The Catholick Church in his opinion consists only of the Faithful it is of them only that Christ is the Head and the Spouse to them alone he hath promised that they shall abide for ever Councils may represent the Church but it does not follow from thence that they are the Church They may fall into Errors The true Church which refuses to fall with them may subsist in a very few and these
amount even to a Demonstration Which way can any one maintain that Definition of the Church which goes upon a bare outward profession and makes it consist of bad as well as good men and which Stapleton Bellarmin Cardinal du Perron and some other Controversial Divines look upon as a principal point after having observed what I have written on this subject in the second question of the Letter to my Friend and the Examination of M. de Meaux's ninth Reflection What pretence can men have for carrying on the Churches visibility so far as to a plain particular and constant designation of mens persons that help to make up that Body after having considered what is said to this purpose in my Third Question and in the Examination of M. de Meaux's Eleventh Reflection How can men fancy that Jesus Christ's Promises belong to this exterior Body composed of good and bad men promiscuously after what I have written to this purpose upon the fourth Question and the Examination of the Twelfth Reflection Which way can the External Succession be defended in the sense these Gentlemen understand it after having weighed my answer to the Second Part of M. de Condom 's Discourse and compared it with my Examination of the Eighth and Thirteenth Reflection What can be sâ—â—d in behalf of the Supreme Authority Church Assemblies pretend to and the ready Obedience to them without any trying their decisions which these Gentlemen would make us believe ought to be paid them after having compared the Relation of our Conference with what I have written on the Six first Reflections I must confess the strength of my Reasons may possibly receive some disadvantage from the manner of my delivering them and that it required a more skilful hand than mine which might have spoke with all the elegance and address of my renowned Adversary But yet I dare aver that even in my plain way and in the midst of all my bluntness there will be found enough to satisfy and convince my Readers That the Systeme treated of is upon many accounts quite destroyed both as to the whole and as to each of its parts I am sensible this Systeme is a thing contrived with abundance of cunning and skill that it was never the invention of one single Brain that they have made it look as specious as the thing could possibly bear But all the skill and cunning in the World can never give a thing so great a lustre as Truth and it is plain that That Systeme can never be true which is repugnant to the evidence both of Scripture and Reason I may add too that notwithstanding all the pains taken to contrive it as strong as might be they are forced to leave it with many weaknesses which it was impossible for them to conceal Nay such a Systeme particularly is This which contradicts experience and contradicts it so far too that were the Church of Rome it self for whose advantage it was first establish'd to be tryed by these Principles that compose it she could not make her party good Let us if you please venture an experiment upon that principle which asserts the perpetuity of the same Exterior Body Will you take the confidence to call that of the three first Ages the same Body with the modern Church of Rome where there is not the least tittle to be found of direct Invocation of Saints and Angels in the publick service of the Church where there is not the least addressing to Images and Pictures in their worship where there is no prohibition of the Cup to the Laity nor of the use of Scripture in the vulgar Tongue without leave granted by the Ordinary nor of Praying in a Language which the people do not understand where we find nothing to the contrary but that the Scripture is the only and the sufficient Rule of Faith in all things necessary to Salvation where we meet with no such number of Sacraments as seven no use made of Papal Indulgences no necessity of Auricular Confession no Elevation of the Host that the people may prostrate themselves in adoration to it no Transubstantiation nor Real presence made Doctrines no mention of the Church of Rome's being the Mother and Mistress of all other Churches nor of I know not how many things besides which are of very considerable importance Will you call the Church of Rome as it stands at this day as it looks upon the opinion of the Mâ—llenaries to be erroneous as it prohibits giving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to little Children as it believes the beatifick vision of God antecedent to the last Judgment as it forbids the Clergy to Marry will you call this I say the same Exterior Body with the Primitive Church which believed and practised directly the contrary To call this the same Body is like Theseus his Ship which was always called the same Ship tho there was scarce a Plank in it all that had not been changed A Second experiment may be made in that Principle which relates to the Succession in Episcopal Sees as these Gentlemen are pleased to understand it For how can they ever maintain this Succession in the See of Rome which they look upon as the very Original and Centre of Church-Unity while they agree as they do that many of those Popes were intruders against all Law and Custom and consequently false Popes such as Baronius calls Violent seizers of the Apostolick See unlawful Vsurpers of the Papal Name and Chair False Popes which only served to make the times they lived in notorious And now seeing this intrusion continued for almost one whole Age and the call to all Ecclesiastical Functions depends upon the See of Rome what must we think of those which proceeded from these false Popes and those that followed after them How can they make good this Succession in the person of Vigilius who by their own confession was an Usurper of the See over Sylverius and a Schismatick excommunicated he and all his party that adhered to him by Sylverius the rightful Pope Which adherents were not only all the Clergy of Rome but all the Archbishops and Bishops of the Empire excepting only four Bishops that were banisht with Sylverius and joyned with him in signing the sentence of Excommunication Sylverius dyed Vigilius kept the Papacy still and yet the Excommunication was not taken off It is acknowledged to be a just and valid sentence and yet from these excommunicated persons are all the Popes Patriarchs Primates Archbishops and Bishops descended ever since Baronius in the relation of this Accident endeavours all he can to deprive us of the Conclusions we draw from it He tells us therefore that he guesses Vigilius acted a part all that while and that being informed of Sylverius his death he of his own accord resigned the Popedom usurped by him before and at the same time got the Clergy of Rome to chuse him into it again This conjecture he grounds upon four
few by preserving the true Faith will also preserve all the Priviledges of Jesus Christs Church All this is exactly what we assert in this case The Abbot of Palermo's opinion was likewise common to many of the Schools Occam a famous Doctor among the Schoolmen of the fourteenth Age hath composed a Dialogue on this Subject where among other questions he discusses these six principal ones 1. Whether a Pope that is Canonically chosen can afterwards turn Heretick 2. Whether the Colledg of Cardinals may fall into Heresie 3. Whether it be possible for the Pope and Cardinals together to fall into it 4. Whether it be so for the Church of Rome and Apostolick See to fall into it 5. Whether a General Council may fall into it 6. Whether even the Body of Christians may fall into it He affirms that as many held the Negative in these Points so there were a great many too that held the affirmative and he gives you the reasons urged by both sides for their several opinions I know very well that he was engaged in that silly quarrel between John the 22 d and the Franciscan Friers which took up almost the whole life of that Pope to know whether the Friers had any proper right to the bread they eat or only the bare use of it and whether Jesus Christ and his Apostles had likewise any proper right to the things they used But this is no argument why such an Authors Testimony should not be unexceptionable when he asserts as matter of fact that the six forementioned questions were disputed pro and con among the Learned men of his time There is likewise a testimony of John Francis Picus Mirandula which flourished in the beginning of the Fifteenth Age which he gives us in his Theoremes concerning the Faith After having said something to their opinion who make either a Pope or a Council Infallible he adds these words Others there are that oppose this opinion by saying that Councils may err and actually bave erred as for instance the Council of Arimini the second Council of Ephesus that of Constantinople concerning Images and that of Aix la Chapelle about the marriage of Virgins that were forced And if these say they have erred others may err as well as they whereupon some hold that such General Councils as the Pope does not preside in by his Authority may err but those where he does cannot To which others return that the Council of Ephesus was lawfully convened that the Pope's Legates presided in it and yet the Faith was subverted there and the regulation of this very matter was it that moved Pope Leo to call the Council of Chalcedon They say further that their pretending to find out remedies for knowing when two Councils clash whether of the two a man ought to hold to is an evident sign that General Councils may err It is certain then that the Doctrine we now assert when we affirm that even the most numerous Assemblies are liable to error that they may consist of such men as shall not be of the true Church and consequently may fall off from their function is neither a new Doctrine nor any opinion we are driven to for the justfying our Reformation but an old Doctrine which the evidence of Truth hath always suggested to sincere and unbiassed men So that if M. de Meaux had but pleased to reflect a little upon this he would not have said as he did That it was a Monster the birth whereof was reserved for the time of the New Reformation It is convenient sometimes to be a little more advised and sparing in passing ones judgment It would questionless be very foul to conclude form what hath been just now said against the absolute Authority and Infallibility of Ecclesiastical Assemblies that we quite cast off all these humane Orders for the external guidance and government of the Church To six any such opinions as this upon us would be the unjustest thing in the world Our Confessions of Faith our Discipline and the Writings of our Authors as well as our constant practice in all places are a vindication of us in this particular beyond all scruple or exception First then we hold the Ministry to be of Divine Institution and consequently become necessary by the necessity of a Command and that tho the use of it is not absolutely necessary by the necessity of the means for the Existence of the Church it is however of such excellent use and advantage in order to the preserving and propagating of the Church that to go about to take it away would be a manifest impiety Secondly We are of opinion that in matters of Discipline relating to the publick such as the manner and form of Religious Assemblies of Administring the Sacraments and others of this kind these should be left to the determination of Ecclesiastical Assemblies and provided they bring in no Rite offensive to the Conscience or contrary to the nature of the Evangelical Worship an absolute obedience is due to them Further yet We allow these Ecclesiastical Assemblies a power of Censuring private persons and proceeding to the last and highest Censure that of Excommunication And although we make no question at all but this power may sometimes be abused by them and unjust sentences pronounced yet we think that out of veneration for the Order a man ought to suffer such to be executed upon him provided this do not engage us in any thing that may wound a good conscience As for matters of Faith Worship and general Rules for ordering mens Manners we are perswaded that these Assemblies continuing the subordination to one another may not only attain to the knowledg of them by the Word of God but that they must and ought to do so for preventing the encrease of error and the preserving Gods truth in its genuine purity It is part of their office and business to restrain the exorbitances of mens minds to help the weak and to the utmost of their power cherish and maintain publick peace in the midst of this Society But because on one hand the persons making these Assemblies are neither inspired nor infallible nor have any power over mens consciences and on the other hand because no body can be sure that they are good men and will discharge their duty faithfully there being so many several sorts of by-respects that influence men when the Spirit of God does not guide them we think it a very faulty indifference and a manifest slighting a man's own salvation to reveive their decisions blindfold and upon trust without any trial or examination of them at all But still though we think this examination highly just and indispensably necessary yet we think withal it is to be used with abundance of caution Besides that it must be undertaken in the fear of God and with a disposition full of modesty and Christian humility besides that we must beg for grace from above and not presume upon our own
abilities besides that we must bring along with us not only charitable but reverent and respectful thoughts of such Assemblies and judg favourably of them till we have manifest conviction of the contrary Besides all this I say the ignorant sort of people must not be too rash in offering to interpose their judgments about matters which either are not plainly exprest in Scripture or naturally and necessarily deduced from thence They must satisfie themselves with using these two ways The Scriptures being silent And the clear and plain instructions to be met with there From its being silent they must learn to reject what it does not teach for strange and novel Doctrines For whatever is not in Scripture is not of Divine Revelation and nothing that is not revealed by God can be the object of Faith By the clear and plain Instructions to be met with there they must learn to embrace the Doctrines necessary for Salvation and to reject all things contrary to the same as dangerous and destructive Errors And this is sufficient for the more ignorant sort of people As for other particulars for which no certain rule can be given neither from the Scriptures being silent nor from the plain and clear instructions contained in it nor by natural inferences deduced from thence before they either receive them or condemn them they must endeavour to get information by such means as God hath discovered and established in his Church and in the mean time entertain a good opinion of the Assemblies determinations Thus they will preserve their Faith incorrupt and sufficient for Salvation they will pay to Assemblies their due respects and keep themselves in the peace and unity of the Church If the Gentlemen of the Romish Communion are not content with this but still would have us believe whatever such Assemblies may determine blindfold we must beg of them to consider That to exclude thus all manner of amendment is to open a mighty inlet to Error and Superstition 't is an exposing believers to a manifest danger of having their Faith corrupted and themselves damned in a word 't is perfectly to ruine Christianity unless the goodness of God interpose with some remedy Will not these Gentlemen who are so ready at exclaiming against the inconveniencies that may possibly proceed from our principle at last open their eyes and take a view of what their own hath actually produced already Transubstantiation Purgatory Indulgences Merit of Good-works worshipping of Images and Relicks Service in an unknown Tongue and a thousand other devotions which have no great appearance of wisdom in them These are the products of their pretended Infallibility and all this they are forced to defend now because they would not lose the point of an implicit obedience And now if I were speaking any thing here concerning the occasion of this dispute between the Bishop of Meaux and me or the Circumstances that went before or followed after our Conference the world will easily perceive I do it because this Bishop hath already been at the trouble of giving the publick a sufficient account of them One word only I must say which respects one of our Auditors Mr. Cotton who no doubt would have received a better Character from M. de Meaux had he been so happy as to be known to him more particularly Mr. Cotton is a Gentleman of great honour and wants neither apprehension nor judgment he understands his Religion and though dispute be no part of his business is well versed in the main Controversies between us If his modesty or some other considerations prevailed upon him to say something that lookt like declining to engage in dispute with M. de Meaux I do not think he ought to have taken his words in their strict and literal sense As for the difference between our two Relations I leave it as M. de Meaux hath done to the Reader 's judgment He hath observed very wisely that let him say what he would of me it was in my power to say the same of him That all our Auditors were interested on one side or other and that the world hath nothing at all to do with our proceedings To all which let me add that I will not give any occasion for any private quarrel with a person I honour to that degree that I do M. de Meaux The only thing I need say more is concerning the method I have observed in this Book It is divided into Two Parts The first contains an Answer to the Instruction given Mademoiselle de Duras by this Bishop the day before our Conference together with an Examination of his Reflexions upon that Answer beginning at the ninth and going on to the thirteenth inclusively The second part contains a Relation of what past in our Conference with an Examination of M. de Meaux's Reflexions thereupon which are his eight first This method in my opinion is very natural And now as I have made it my business to be very exact and past nothing in his whole Book over without giving a direct Answer to it so I hope that when he shall think fit to set Pen to Paper against me next he will be as exact and apply himself as close to the pinch of the Question and not imagine as men commonly do that provided they can but pick up here and there some loose passages and from thence start a few difficulties and objections there need no more be done and this must go for a full Answer I beseech God to shed forth his Blessing upon an undertaking wherein the only Ends I proposed to my self were his Glory and the Illustration of the Truth Thus much I am encouraged to hope from his mercy and that as he hath hitherto preserved his little Ship the Church in the midst of the billows and storms of the world he will still continue to preserve her as he hath promised even to the end of the world AN ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE TRANSLATOR TO THE READER WHEN persons of M. de Meaux's and Mr. Claude's Character engage and in a Controversy so important too as that between the Church of Rome and those who have separated from her Men must naturally be desirous to know the management and issue of such a debate For besides what expectations the reputation of their Learning and Judgment might raise This is a Cause that scarce any body in our part of the World can be supposed perfectly indifferent in Every Reader must look on These not only as Disputants but Advocates and even they who design no more than the gratifying their curiosity by perusing such Conferences do yet insensibly find themselves affected with some degree of Concern The particular Argument insisted upon here is likewise of the highest consequence for it cannot but be a mighty help and direction to know exactly how far we are obliged to comply with the Churches Decisions in matters of Faith In what Cases we may venture to depend upon our own Collections from Reason and
the curiosity you have to see what I wrote upon the same subject the next day after our Interview M. de Condom having profest it was not his desire that what past between him and me should be publickly talked of I thought my self under an obligation to confine what I had written to my own Study And this hath been hitherto very punctually observed by me But now since he hath thought fit to give out Copies of his I have reason to believe that in this respect he leaves me perfectly to my liberty and is well satisfied I should do the same thing with mine I have too great an opinion of M. de Condom's Wisdom not to follow his Example in this particular and I promise my self from his Equity that he will not find fault with me for treading in his steps But because he hath been pleased to impart to us that Discourse also which he had with Mademoiselle de Duâ—as in private the day before our Conference you will think it convenient that before I transcribe my Relation I should first make some reflections upon That Were this a discourse of such a nature as common occasions or accidents are used to produce where a man speaks without preparation or design and delivers himself with all the freedom imaginable I confess it were unjust to examine it strictly and by rule But seeing this was composed by M. de Condom with a prospect of obliging Mademoiselle de Duras to change her Religion and which seems a studied piece a Discourse which he hath joyned to the account of our Conference as a considerable part of what past in this matter Lastly a Discourse committed to Writing upon supposal that it may be useful to others and for that purpose made in some measure publick I cannot forbear looking upon it as a work of premeditation and returning some answer to it accordingly Besides that you and I are concerned as to what Mademoiselle de Duras hath done to desire to know whether she had sufficient reasons to forsake your Communion and embrace the Romish and the examination of this Discourse will be a very proper means of clearing that point to us Now it may be reduced to two principal Parts In the first M. de Condom makes it his business to shew that the Catholick or Universal Church which we profess to believe in the Creed is a Church thus defined A Society making profession to believe the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and govern it self by his word Whence he infers That it is a visible Society He pretends also to make it appear that to this Church thus defin'd belong all the promises found in Scripture In the Second He labours to answer an Objection drawn from what happened to the Church of Israel heretofore in which we often see the true Worship of God to have been changed and corrupted and both the People and their Guides to have fallen into Idolatry These two Parts Sir we will prosecute in order and by applying our selves to what is most material in them will endeavour by the assistance of God's Grace to make the Truth so evident as shall remove all difficulties The first Part of M. de Condom's discourse examin'd Instead of granting the Ministers says M. de Condom to believe all the Fundamentals of the Faith we shew that there is one Article of the Creed they believe not which is that of the Universal Church 'T is true they say with the mouth I believe the Catholick or Universal Church as the Arrians Macedonians and Socinians say with the mouth I believe in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost But as there is reason to accuse them of not believing these Articles because they believe them not as they ought nor according to their true sense so if we shew the Pretended Reformed that they believe not as they ought the Article of the Catholick Church we may truly say that in effect they reject so important an Article of the Creed You must know then what is meant by this expression The Catholick or Universal Church and upon this I lay for my ground That in the Creed which was only a bare declaration of Faith this Term must be taken in its most proper and most natural signification and such as is most used among Christians Now all Christians by the name of the Church understand a Society making profession to believe the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and govern it self by his Word If this Society makes this Profession 't is consequently visible That this is the proper and genuine signification of the word Church such as is known by every one and used in common discourse I desire no other witnesses than the Pretended Reformed themselves The sequel will declare whether the scandal of dealing with that Article of the Universal Church as the Arrians Macedonians and Socinians do would not better agree with the Character of such as follow M. de Condom's Opinion than the Reformed Ministers This we shall presently be able to judge of and to that purpose four Questions must be examined The first is Whether the sense of that Article in our Creed ought to be restrained according to M. de Condom to the Church here on Earth or extended farther Secondly Whether this be a good and sufficient definition of the Church upon Earth A Society making profession to believe the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and govern it self by his word Thirdly Whether this Church upon Earth be visible or invisible or whether it be both considered in a different sense and different respects Fourthly To what Church the Promises of Jesus Christ do belong whether to that defined by M. de Condom or to that which we are about to define These four Questions will include not only all the plausible things M. de Condom hath said in this first part of his Discourse but likewise all the other sophistical Objections that are usually put to us upon this subject Quest 1. Whether the sense of that Article in our Creed ought to be restrained according to M. de Condom to the Church here on Earth or extended farther In order to resolving the first Question you will please Sir to give me leave to explain briefly that Article of our Creed concerning the Catholick or Universal Church and how we understand it that so you may be able to judge whether M. de Condom had reason to accuse us of not taking it in its true sense And this I shall immediately enter upon We think then this being such a profession of Faith as ought to embrace its object entire and in the utmost extent and not in any one part only that by the Vniversal Church must be understood not barely the visible body or company of the Faithful at present upon Earth but that body or company of all the Faithful which have been are or at any time shall be from the beginning to the end of the World Thus the Universal Church is That which is already
triumphant in Heaven that which is now militant on Earth and that which is not yet in the world but shall be in succeeding Ages All these three Churches do really make but one because united together in the eternal purpose of God appointed to know one and the same Word to partake of one and the same Spirit and to inherit one and the same Glory They are but one Family for they have the same Father the same Rights and Priviledges the same Hopes and are called to the same Duties They are but one body under the protection and Guidance of Jesus Christ their only Head who is as the Scripture says The same yesterday to day and for ever And this is our sense of the Church called in the Creed Catholick or Universal The Latitude we here take the Church in hath displeased M. de Condom he says we put a wrong sense upon the Article and to understand it thus is in effect to reject it He is of opinion it should be confined to this part upon Earth which he defines A Society making profession to believe c. But in the first place M. de Condom must allow us to tell him that Saint Augustine however hath taught us to explain the Church in our Creed after this manner That Father indeed went farther than we do for he hath not scrupled to include in this notion the Angels confirmed in Grace Here says he and 't is in his very Exposition of the Creed that he says it we must take the Church whole and entire not only for that part of it upon earth which praises the name of God from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof singing to God a new Song since their deliverance from their former Captivity but also for that other part which is in Heaven and never was separated from the Divine presence the Blessed and Holy Angels The Body of Christ says he in another place is the Church not this or that Church but which is diffused over the whole world not that which is made up of men now alive but consisting of those which have been before us and those which shall come after us even to the end of the world For the whole Church being composed of all the Faithful in as much as all the Faithful are the Members of Jesus Christ 〈◊〉 Jesus Christ for its Head and this Head though exalted high in the Heavens does notwithstanding still continue to govern his body M. de Condom must likewise allow us to tell him that the Catechism of the Council of Trent hath given this sense of the Church in our Creed The Church it says and 't is in the very Explication of this Article hath two parts one of which is called Triumphant the other Militant The Triumphant is that illustrious assembly of the Blessed and all those who have vanquished and triumph'd over the World the Flesh and the Devil and who being now delivered from the miseries of this life enjoy everlasting rest and felicity The Church Militant is the company of all the Faithful yet alive upon earth which is therefore called Militant because they are engaged in a perpetual war with these most deadly enemies Satan the World and the Flesh Yet must we not from hence imagine that they are two distinct Churches but as was said two parts of one and the same Church one of which is gone before and already possest of its Heavenly Country The other daily following after till at length being united with our Saviour it shall rest above in Eternal happiness Again We must desire M. de Condom's leave to say that the very Title of Catholick or Vniversal used in the Creed does lead us to this extended notion of the Church This to me seems evident for two reasons First that this Title is given the Church to distinguish it from all false Churches which do neither exist always nor every where but spring up and die away in some particular places and at some certain times as having no sound nor lasting principle Secondly that this Title was to distinguish it from particular Churches which are but members of this great Body collected by Christ and separated from the world that he might sanctifie it to himself Whence it follows that when we say the Vniversal or Catholick Church by this is plainly meant the Church intire and at large without exception or limitation either as to time or place Lastly M. de Condom must allow us to tell him that we are brought to this notion by what follows in the Creed The Communion of Saints which terms explain this of the Catholick Church For the Saints are not only persons now living upon Earth but those also that reign in Heaven and those which shall be to the worlds end and 't is with all these that we are in Communion If the Communion of Saints were to be understood of such only as make profession to believe in Jesus Christ and govern themselves by his word This could be no other than an external Communion by living under the same Ministry and partaking of the same Sacraments which good and bad men enjoy equally And certainly this would fall far short of so great so Majestick an expression and consequently could not deserve a room in our Creed But says M. de Condom in the Creed which was only a bare declaration of faith this term must be taken in its most proper and most natural signification and such as is most used among Christians I own it must be taken in its most proper and most natural sense but even this supplies us with a fresh argument against him it being certain that the most proper and most natural sense is to take the Vniversal Church for the company of all those that are truly the faithful separated from the world by the Word and Holy Spirit of God according to the purpose of his Election from the beginning to the end of all things I acknowledg the word Church when used in a Civil sense as for instance when spoken of the people of Israel does most properly signifie an external and visible company and so far I am of M. de Condom's mind both as to what he urges out of the Acts and from the Septuagint Translation But still I assert that this word when applied to a Christian Society does not properly denote a visible Congregation or an outward profession of the Faith and no more but chiefly an inward calling a spiritual communion and such as that outward is only a consequence of and does depend upon A man must be utterly ignorant of Christianity to deny this truth The Church then is a name for something within and not barely to signifie what passes without so that implying an inward communion when the Title of Vniversal is put to it it must needs mean the whole body of true and faithful Christians By the same reason I affirm this to be its most natural
shalt thou be established In the same sense Jeremiah speaks of it They shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them for I will forgive their inquity and I will remember their sin no more Ezekiel says as much I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean I will give you a new heart and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgements In like manner Joel Then says he shall Jerusalem be holy and there shall no strangers pass through it any more Likewise Zechariah In that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts What can all these great and wonderful promises mean This Circumcision of Heart This way of Holiness where the unclean shall not pass over This keeping out of Lions and ravenous beasts This being taught of God This universal knowledg joyned with a pardon of sins This pouring out of the spirit which shall take away the hearts of stone and change them for hearts of flesh This Holiness of Jerusalem so as to suffer no stranger nor Canaanite in the midst of her I say What signifies all this if the form and essence of a Church consist in a bare profession and if this Communion can be composed of unjust as well as just of Bad as well as Good men V. St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians endeavours to make us apprehend the Church aright by resembling it to a man's body As the body says he is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ For by one spirit are we all haptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have all been made to drink into one spirit I need not here observe that by Christ he means the Mystical body of Christ That is his Church this is manifest of it self and he explains himself so afterwards You says he are the body of Christ and members in particular All we have to do is to enquire what he makes to be the principle and â—and of this unity here attributed to the Church and with respect to which he likens it to the body of a Man And this is easily understood for in his opinion it is the spirit and consequently not a bare profession But still it may be doubtful what Spirit this is Is it a spirit of direction only that attends upon the Clergy and prevents their giving erroneous determinations and publickly professing any such how wicked sover the persons exercising this Authority be By no means It is the spirit which the faithful receive and whereof Baptism is a sign For says the Apostle we are all haptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have all been made to drink into one spirit Thus you see the band and principle of the Churches Unity The evident consequence whereof is that inward regeneration is essential to it and that as many as have not been washed by nor made to drink into this heavenly spirit cannot be parts of this body VI. But the Apostle carries on his Argument yet further for he takes notice that although God had put a difference between the members as there is likewise in those of the Church yet he had so qualified this difference That there should be says he no schism or division in the body but that the members should have the same care one of another so that whether one member suffers all the members suffer with it or one member be honoured all the members rejoyce with it From hence it is plain that according to St. Paul there is as real an agreement between the members of the body of the Church as there is between those of a humane body without any contrariety or discord and that this good correspondence is founded on that Unity which makes each part to have one and the same common interest Now what true agreement or common concern can there ever be between the members of Christ and members of the Devil Or in St. Paul's own phrase What fellowship between light and darkness What continual enmity on the contrary must there needs lurk under the Covert of such an untoward seeming Peace as a bare outward profession may make Every one aims at advancing his own Master's honour so that the sentiments designs and methods of the Servants must of necessity carry as great opposition as there is between the Masters they serve VII In his Epistle to the Galatians he gives us another description of the Church very like this As many says he as have been baptizeed into Christ have put on Christ There is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither bond nor free there is neither male nor female for ye are all one in Christ Jesus Thus far respects Communion with the same Christ which is the very thing that constitutes the Unity of the Church and is the essential form of it so that persons out of this Communion are not of the Church because they have no part in the Churches Unity If you would now Know what kind of Communion this is attend to what follows If ye be Christ's Ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise So that St. Paul does not treat of a Communnion consisting in a bare outward profession but such a one as makes men Mystical Children of Abraham and heirs of God VIII In his Epistle to the Romans he thought it not enough to say They that are in Christ Jesus walk not after the flesh but after the spirit which yet is intimation sufficient what nature that Communion is of that makes this Mystical Body of Christ the Church but he goes further and is express afterwards If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of his Words of such strength as will not allow us to acknowledg wicked men belong to the Church unless we should make a Church that is not Christ's If the Church formally and as such be Christ's this must be true of all that are of the Church and participate of that which constitutes it such Now according to M. de Condom's definition wicked men and reprobates may be of the Church therefore in his opinion they may be Christ's Notwithstanding St. Paul avers that they that are Christ's live not according to the flesh and that as many as have not Christ's spirit are none of his so that he is of a judgement different from M. de Condom's If an outward profession alone be the common
Fountain that is the Church of Christ How shall we reconcile this Doctrine with M. de Condom 's who distinguishes between the Church of Christ and the predestinate as between a whole and it's part who counts the reprobates in too and blames us for restraining the Church to the number of God's Elect alone This being a point of consequence and able to determine all our Controversy concerning the Church I hope it may not be tedious to hear what St. Augustin says further upon it After having recited a passage taken out of â—t Cyprian's Epistle to Magnus he goes on thus The words of blessed Cyprian shew that he rightly understood the beauty of God's House in that he declares and proves both by the testimony of the Prophets and the signification of the Sacraments that this House is composed of men living in Peace and unity of Heart So that those envious uncharitable Wretches were not in this House notwithstanding they were baptised And by consequence Christ's Holy Sacrament may be both administred and received by men not in the Church of Christ because as appears by the Testimony of Cyprian none but the peaceable live in this Church It will not serve the turn to say they might baptize while they were hid they were not hidden from St. Paul when he said in his Epistle he rejoyced that Christ was preached even by such whether in pretence or in truth says he Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce Upon these considerations I do not think it reshness in me to affirm that some are in the House of God so as that they are themselves the very House that which is said to be built upon a Rock called his Dove his only One his beautiful Spouse without spot or wrinkle the inclosed Garden the sealed Fountain the Well of living Water the Orchard with Pomegranates and which HAth received the Keys the power of binding and loosing this House it is whose corrections if any man contemptuously behave himself against he is ordered to be to us as an Heathen and a Publicar Of this it is said Lord I have loved the Beauty of thy House and the place where thine Honour dwelleth He maketh men of one mind in an house I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the House of the Lord. Blessed are they that dwell in thy House they will be alway praising Thee and a world of such like passages This House is called the good seed bringing forth fruit with patience thirty sixty and a hundred fold This House consists of Vessels of gold and of silver of precious stones and incorruptible wood To this House 't is said Bear up one another in love endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace And the Holy Temple of God are ye For this consists of the true Believers and holy Servants of God dispersed throughout the Universe and all knit together in a spiritual Unity by the participation of the same Sacraments whether personally known to one another or not As for the rest they are said to be in the House but it is in such a manner that they belong not at all to the building nor have any part of that fellowship which brings forth the fruit of righteousness and peace They are here as the Chaff is among the Corn for we cannot deny that they be contained in the House because St. Paul says In a great house are vessels not only of gold and silver but also of wood and of earth and some to honour and some to dishonour I cannot imagine how St. Augustin'S sight came to differ so mightily from M. de Condam'S If we believe the latter by the Church must be understood a Society composed of good and bad men for he tells you to such a Society only are those passages of Scripture applicable Vpon this rock will I build my Church Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might make it a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle c. If he refuse to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen c. Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven c. But if St. Augustin be to be believed we must take the Church in a quite different sense for a Society made up of none but righteous persons and true Believers because to such a one and no other do these passages belong In his Opinion the just alone are the House built upon a Rock the Spouse without spot or wrinkle they only have the keys and power of binding and loosing 't is their censures only that men ought not to despise if they would not be looked upon as Heathens and Publicans M. de Condom deduces his Arguments from these passages St. Augustin deduces his from the very same and yet their Conclusions are opposite to one another All that we have left to do then is either to correct St. Augustin by M. de Condom or M. de Condom by St. Augustin and of the two methinks the latter is the more reasonable Upon this ground then I will once more introduce that Father speaking thus We must not suppose that wicked men belong to Christ's body i. e. the Church because they do partake of the Sacraments corporally The Sacraments themselves are holy in such persons but they do but increase their condemnation because they administer and receive them unworthily Now they are not of that Company of Christ's Church which consists of his Members compacted together by bands and joynts and increaseth with the increase of God For this Church is built on a Rock according to that of our Saviour Vpon this rock will I build my Church But those build on the Sand as the same Saviour said Whoso heareth my Words and doth them not I will comapre him to a foolish man that built his house upon the sand Now lest you should fancy that the Church built upon a Rock is in any one particular place or that it is not extended over the whole Earth observe her complaint in the Psalm From the ends of the Earth have I cryed unto thee when my heart was in heaviness Thou hast set me up upon a rock She cries from the ends of the Earth therefore she is not in Africa and no where else she is set up upon a Rock therefore those must not be esteemed of her who build upon the Sand. There is some probability St. Augustin knew what he said and yet you see a passage of Scripture Ephes 4. abused by M. de Condom in favour of his Church made up of a mixture of good and bad men which this Father explains of the Church of the Just only as well as that other of St. Matt. 16. Vpon this Rock will I build my Church He teaches the same Doctrine in his Book concerning the Unity
Believers that is not of the true Church On the other side when we see men undergo long sharp tryals without being removed either from the profession of the true Doctrine and Worship or from that of Righteousness and Holiness in this respect here is made a positive distinction and such as makes us acknowledg that these persons are of the true Church of Jesus Christ I confess these distinctions are not always either so certain as never to admit of mistakes nor so universal as not to confound one with another For a man may judg rashly of both sorts either for want of knowing mens particular circumstances and the motives they went upon or some other way and it is never seen that all Hypocrites discover themselves at once But however there is great use to be made of this distinction and such a visibility of the true Church results from it as is in some sort personal according to our Hypothesis Now Sir you see whether M. de Condom was in the right to take it for granted as if it were a certain truth that there was no visible Church but such a one as he defined that comprehends good and bad true Believers and Worldlings contrary to the Scriptures and St. Augustin's sense You see too whether he was in the right to maintain in this first part of his discourse that we deny the Churches visibility The Pretended Reform'd says he will not have the visible Church to be that which is called Jesus Christ's Body Which is then that Body where God hath established some Apostles c. Which is that Body where God hath placed several Members and different Graces the Grace of Ministry the Grace of Teaching the Grace of Exhortation and Consolation the Grace of Ruling Which I say is that Body if it be not the visible Church We never denied the visible Church upon Earth to be Christ's Body not the whole Body indeed for there is one part of it collected in Heaven and another not yet in being but still that part upon Earth is Jesus Christ's Body so the Scripture calls it and we are so far from thinking as he saies that quite contrary we prove Hypocrites and Worldlings to be really no part of the true visible Church by this very Argument that it is called in Scripture the Body of Jesus Christ For this reason the visible Church is thus defined in the 27th Article of our Confession of Faith The company of the Faithful agreeing to follow the Word of God and that pure Religion grounded thereon and who constantly make proficiency therein Now this Company of the Faithful thus described is and is called the Body of Jesus Christ If M. de Condom had been at the pains to read Calvin he would find him speaking of the visible Church in the 4th Book of his Institutions Chap. 1. thus It is no ordinary commendation the Scripture gives it when 't is said Ephes 5. 26 27. that Christ hath chosen it and separated it for his spouse to make her without spot and wrinkle his body and his fullness M. Mestrezzat speaking of the visible Church in the same sense says The instruments made use of by God to build his Church are the Pastors and Ministers of his Gospel Ephes 1. 23. according to that of St. Paul Ephes 4. He hath given some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the gathering together the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ And a little after The same Body of Christ which is invisible as to the Election of God and inward sanctification of the heart enjoys the visible Ministry of the Word and from it brings forth fruit unto salvation For we must not look for the Church of God out of this visible state of the Ministry of the Word The same thing I say with relation to that other passage of St. Paul where he says Ephes 5. 25 26 27. Jesus Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle They will not have it possible says M. de Condom Conference Page 5. for this place to be understood of the visible Church not yet of the Church on Earth He must pardon me if I say he is mistaken for tho we understand by this the Church already in Heaven yet do we besides understand the visible Church upon Earth and M. Mestrezzat speaking of this passage saies expresly That St. Paul there sets forth the Church as one and the same Body receiving Grace and Glory and makes Glory to be the perfection and accomplishment of Grace It is evident then that the visible Church is in our Opinion Jesus Christ's Body or which comes all to one that the Body of Christ which is the true Church upon Earth is visible I should now conclude my Third Enquiry did I not think my self under an obligation to remove some difficulties which may be started upon it For it may be said the Ministry is common to good and bad and consequently it makes a Church composed of good men and bad I answer that the Ministry and the use of it is common both to good and bad comes to pass only by accident and from the treachery of the Enemy Of right it belongs to true Believers only and its genuine design was for them Jesus Christ gave it for the assembling of the Saints and instituted it to increase and cultivate his good Corn. If the Tares use it or to speak more truly abuse it this is contrary to his intention For his hand never sowed these but the enemy's who rose by night for that purpose It is sure then that the Ministry of it self does not make up a Church composed of good and bad men because such only as it was intended to gather are to be reckoned of his visible Church Now the Ministry is designed to gather the true Believers and truly Righteous not the worldlings and hypocrites in the least If they thrust themselves into the Assemblies it is not the Ministry that calls them but the spirit of the world that sends them thither An invincible argument that there is no other visible Church but what consists of true Believers because they are the only persons call'd to Religious Assemblies and it is not Jesus Christ but Jesus Christ's enemy that thrusts others into them To give you yet further satisfaction as to this Point permit me Sir to interpose between M. de Condom and St. Augustin not to set them at difference but endeavour to reconcile them M. de Condom assures me that Jesus Christ in that passage Tell it the Church spoke of a visible Church a Church visible by the exercise of the Ministry St. Augustin on the other side assuâ—es me that he speaks of
of Jesus Christ ceases to be visible but he would not be well-pleased for that reason to be taxed with saying he ceases to be there at all But however let M. de Condom put what sense he please upon our words it is certain we acknowledg the Church to be perpetually visible in the meaning I explain'd just now And M. de Condom could never have spent his time to less purpose than in taking such pains to confute an opinion which we never held against him Quest 4. What Church the Promises of Jesus Christ belong to whether that defined by M. de Condom a Society making profession to believe c. or that which we define A Society which making profession to govern it self by Christ's Word does really govern it self by it M. de Condom speaking of us in one place of his Discourse says They have not the Consolation which the Catholicks have to see Jesus Christ's promise visibly accomplisht and maintain'd during so many Ages They cannot shew a Church which has ever been since Jesus Christ came to build it on the Rock and to save his word they are obliged to have recourse to a Church of the Predestinate which neither themselves nor any else can shew After having cleared the perpetual visibility of the Church as you lately saw judg you Sir what ground there is for his sayings we have not the consolation of seeing Jesus Christ's Promise visibly accomplish'd and maintain'd during so many Ages and whether we have not more than it is possible to have according to the Church of Romes principle M. de Condom according to his Principle sees the duration of a Church whose whole essence consists in an outward profession What is there in this more than human We see the duration of a Church whose essence consists in true Faith and Regeneration What is there in this that is not all Divine M. de Condom sees the duration of a Church supported by politick methods by paying a blind obedience to the injunctions of great men and those perhaps Hypocrites too What is there in this more than human We see the duration of a Church preserved in spight of confusion and all the froward malice of men What is there in this less than Divine They cannot says he shew a Church which hath ever been since Jesus Christ came to build it on the Rock Yes we shew this Church built on the Rock for when we shew the Body in which God nourishes and breeds up his true Believers we shew at the same time those true Believers which are his Church built on the Rock tho mixt with such as build on the Sand. When we shew the held where Jesus Christ sowed his good Seed we shew the Wheat tho there be Tares among it But let M. de Condom tell us if he think fit how he can shew us a Church built on the Rock making as he does the essence of the Church to consist entirely in an outward profession If he call this a Church upon the Rock Jesus Christ himself will reply for that such only are built upon a Rock who hear this word and do it whereas all besides are built upon the Sand. To save Christ's Word continues he they are obliged to have recourse to a Church of the Predestinate Does M. de Condom blame us for seeking the accomplishment of Jesus Christ's Promises in the body of his Elect and true Believers Pray where should we look for it else In a croud of Hypocrites and Reprobates that have no Faith no Holiness no Piety but in outward appearance only Such as God never call'd and Jesus Christ shall one day tell he never knew them Is not this of Cardinal Bellarmin's Perron's and M. de Condoms a curious Church to the constituting whereof no inward virtue is necessarily required but merely an outward profession of Faith and communicating in the Sacraments A Church whose Unity the formal essence of it is that of an external Vocation not that of Predestination nor internal Faith nor a Vnion of Souls by the works of Love In a word a Church defined not by believing and governing it self by God's word but by making profession to believe and govern it self by God's VVord Is not this putting a mighty value upon Jesus Christ's Promises to apply them not only to profane and worldly men as well as the Saints and regenerate but to such a Church as would remain entire tho there were no true believers nor righteous men in it and not cease to be the true Church of Christ tho it were composed of Hypocrites and none else Thus far Sir there is no great perspicacity required to discern that the question in hand resolves it self there being little probability that Jesus Christ was so lavish of his Promises But however let us examine the matter a little more closely The first passage M. de Condom presents us with is that of St. Paul Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might cleanse it with the washing of Water by the Word that he might make it a glorious Church having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing but that it might be holy and without blemish And a little after No man hateth his own flesh but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church For we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones We see in these words the obligation Jesus Christ put himself under to sanctify his Church to make it a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemish to nourish and cherish it as his own flesh and bones Our business is to know whether this obligation can upon any pretence whatever respect Hypocrites and wicked men And who will be perswaded it does This Church M. do Condom says is glorious because she glorifies God because she declares to all the Earth the Glory of Jesus Christ's Gospel and Cross Now as to the wicked of whom we are here treating there need but this one word be added That they glorify God and the Gospel in hypocrisy and dissimulation but in their hearts deny it Then see what God himself hath spoken as to this matter Vnto the ungodly said God why dost thou preach my laws and takest my Covenant in thy mouth This Church M. de Condom tells us is holy because she always constantly and without varying teaches the Holy Doctrine Add here But as for the wicked if they teach the holy Doctrine this is but with their lips and in shew only then see what St. Paul says They have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof from such turn away This Church according to M. de Condom hath neither spot nor wrinkle because she hath neither any evil Error nor any evil Maxim and because she instructs and contains in her bosom the Elect of God Add But as for sinners They follow Truth and Right only in pretence Then see what
Jesus Christ says of such Many will say unto me in that day Lord have not we prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out Devils and in thy name have done many wonderful works Then will I say unto them I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquity And can any man after all this allow them a propriety in the Promises of Christ The second passage M. de Condom makes use of is that of Jesus Christ which I will here set down at length Tell the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a Publican verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven For where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them Jesus Christ M. de Condom says used the word Church to signify this visible Society I agree with him that the Church there signifies a visible Church I say further that it signifies a Church represented by the Pastors by whom it binds and looses by whom it asks the Father I am still of opinion that those excellent Promises of Jesus Christ that God will ratify what they have bound and loosed that he will grant what they ask and that the Lord himself will be in the midst of them are all made to the Church taken in this sense But then I say withal that this visible Church is that of the true Believers only and that Hypocrites have no share at all in it It is to the true Believers alone that this Ministry belongs they are the persons represented by the Pastors they the only people that ask and obtain that are gathered together in Christ's name and in the midst of whem he is And yet it often happens that the Ministers of this Church tho they be in this function and do the business of it are not yet true Members of it themselves It often falls out says St. Augustin by reason of this mixture here upon Earth that people really belonging to Babylon administer the things belonging to Jerusalem All they of whom it is said whatsoever they bid you observe obesereveand do Matt. 23. 3. but do not ye after their works are Citizens of Babylon that rule the Commonwealth of Jerusalem For if they had no charge belonging to Jerusalem why should it be said They sit in Moses seat therefore what they bid you observe that observe and do Again if they were true Citizens of Jerusalem who should reign with Christ for ever What occasion was there for adding But do not ye after their works It is not then to the Ministers that the Promises belong but to the Body they represent and whose Offices they discharge Now this body is the New Jerusalem which shall reign with Christ for ever That is the true Believers M. de Cendom's third passage is this Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it Jesus Christ says he would shew something illustrious and clear when he said that his Church maugre the opposition of Hell should be always invincible he would I say shew something clear and resplendent which might serve in all Ages for a sensible and palpable assurance of the immutable certainty of his Promises He adds The Church of which Christ speaks is then a confessing Church a Church that publishes the Faith and consequently an exteriour and visible Church He says further That it is a Church to which an exteriour Ministry is given for 't is added I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven I answer The Church spoken of in this passage is really a Confessing Church a Church that publishes the Faith a Church to whom Christ hath given an exteriour Ministry a Church that uses the Ministry of the Keys that binds and looses and by Consequence an exteriour and visible Church The Question is whether wicked men let them dissemble never so well and carry never so fair an outside do truly belong to this Church or whether it consist of sincere Believers only 'T is a Church exteriour and visible I acknowledg it but it is also a Church interiour and real otherwise it would differ nothing from a Phantome a cheating apparition 'T is a Confessing Church and publishes the Faith but it is likewise a Church believing in what it confesses and publishes 'T is a Church to which not only St. Peter's Confession must be attributed but also the principle and ground of that Confession Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona for flesh and blood hath net revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And therefore whose Confession proceeds not from Flesh and Blood but from Grace and Divine Illumination 'T is a Church built upon a Rock and not upon the Sand therefore not a Church that Hypocrites are of 'T is a Church built by Jesus Christ a Church therefore of true Believers only because such only are built by Christ 'T is a Church to which this Promise of the Gates of Hell never prevailing against it belongs And can we with any pretence to modesty say that the Gates of Hell do not prevail against the wicked ingulfed in vâ—ce Can we say those admirable words carry no stronger importance than the preservation of a mere exteriour profession But this is a Chruch which hath and exerciseth such a Ministry Who questions it But does this Ministry belong to the wicked and hypocrites No. It belongs only to true Behevers the rest have no part in it only as they sometimes exercise the external Offices without any true right to them or receive them unworthily under the covering of hypocrisy and being intermixt with good Christians But M. de Condom says further Jesus Christ promised something illustrious and clear which might serve in all Ages for a sensible and palpable assurance of the immutable certainty of his Promises These words want a little unfolding If they understand hereby a temporal prosperity a perpetual visibility promised to the Church in pomp and lustre I deny that Christ promised any such thing If they understand an Earthly Dominion a worldly Greatness under the title of Hierarchy I deny still that Christ ever promised any such thing If they understand a constant unblemisht purity in the Ministry in the Matters of Doctrine and Worship of moral Rules and orderly Government This again I deny that Christ ever promised If they understand Believers perseverance in Faith and Holiness so far forth as
Churchmen the Pulpits more zealous for Tales and Legends than the Word of God The Schools busying themselves with ridiculous Questions and Curiosities the Sacraments burdened with strange Ceremonies the instruction and edification of mens Souls wretchedly neglected and in a word the Gospel liberty changed into a temporal slavery This is what we mean by the state of the Church being interrupted this the ruine and desolation we bewail The Church hath not ceased to exist nor did she perfectly lose her visibility or her Ministry God forbid But both she and her Ministry have seen the natural state they ought to continue in changed and interrupted VIII Apply these principles now to our Reformation and then Sir you will discern that granting this supposition to be true that the Body of the Prelates invested in the ministry of the Church in our Fathers days and assembled in the Trent Council supposing I say that they delivered such determinations in points of Faith as are incompatible with Salvation Granting it to be true that they took away Christian Liberty by Anathematizing all who should refuse to believe and submit to those determinations as they did and by adding to all this violence and compulsion our Fathers had reason to look upon them as Ministers that had justly deprived themselves of all right to exercise their Ministry over them by such ill conduct and to give that power of the Ministry to others They had reason to look upon the party that adhered to these Prelates with such obstinate stiffness as a Body or Society of which a man could not positively say That is the particular Body wherein God nourishes and cherishes his Faithful and Elect. IX Hence likewise it follows that our Fathers are wrongfully charged with making a Schism and separating from the Church For it being sure that the Church consists of the Faithful only and besides that we are of opinion the Trent Bishops themselves broke the band of external Communion with sound Believers and brought things to such a pass that our Ancestors could not possibly joyn with them in the same Assemblies it is evident They were the Beginners of the Schism the Authors and makers of this lamentable division X. It signifies nothing to alledg that they were possest of the Ministry by an exterior and ordinary succession for the Ministry is not such a thing as men when once possest of can never forfeit their right to tho they abuse it never so much They enjoyed it by an external succession 't is confest but this succession with respect to mens persons continues no longer than we can say The faithful are under their Ministry When we cannot be sure of that any more from thenceforth the Prelates have lost their right and such a succession afterwards would be but as the succession of death to a disease or of night to twilight I do not say the Ministry it self is extinct God forbid but I say in such a case it devolves of right to that other part of the Society where the Faithful are The reason of which Truth is this That the Ministers are naturally the Church Representative And all their Authority is derived from the Body of the Faithful When therefore it happens that they break the band of external communion which joyns them to those Faithful it is plain they represent them no longer and the holding their Authority over them afterwards is a force and usurpation XI Lastly From the Principles we have established it appears how vain and ungrounded a scandal it is which the Controvertists of the Romish Communion are continually upbraiding us with of setting up a new Church For being the Church according to Scripture sound sense and the opinions of the Fathers is nothing else but the Society of true Believers To have set up a new Church we must have brought in a new Faith different from what Jesus Christ delivered to the World If they can convict us of being guilty in this point we are heartily content they should not only say we have formed a new Church but that we have formed a false perverse naughty Society and draw all the consequences against us that can be naturally drawn from that Concession But if we on the contrary have only rejected new Doctrines a worship that Christian Religion never was acquainted with and Errors brought into the Church since it was first established if we have only refined the Ministry and restored the Gospel to its natural lustre they ought to be just in acknowledgment that God hath made use of us for the preservation of his true Ancient Primitive Church and the rescuing it from oppression If it be true that the Trent Council have made Articles of Faith of such Doctrines and Practices as were never revealed to us by Christ may we not say that That hath set up a new Religion and consequently a new Church Let us judge of one another by this Rule of right reason and conscientiously examine the truth of what hath been done on both sides for upon such an examination the justice or injustice of taxing us with Novelty will depend THE SECOND PART OF Monsieur de CONDOM's Discourse EXAMINED THUS much I thought fit to say in Answer to the First part of M. de Condom's Discourse The Second will not detain us very long They made me says he some Objections concerning the frequent revolts of the people of Israel who had so often forsaken God the Kings and all the people as the Holy Scripture speaks during which the publick worship was so extinct that Elijah thought himself the only servant of God till he learnt from God himself that he had reserved to himself seven thousand men which had not bowed the knee unto Baal To this I answer'd proceeds he that for what regarded Elijah there was no difficulty since 't was apparent from the very words that it concern'd only Israel where Elijah prophesied and that the Divine Worship was so far from being at that time extinct in Judah that 't was there under the reign of Josaphat in the greatest lustre it had been since Solomon's time I shall not say here that the Divine Worship under the reign of Josaphat was not in such great lustre neither but that the Scripture informs us The high places were not taken away for the people offered still and burnt incense in the high places which was a worship forbidden by God But not to insist upon this I say in the first place This instance is a very good proof that the greatest part of this exteriour Society professing themselves to be the people of God that is ten tribes out of twelve were corrupted to that degree that Elijah complain'd he only was left Which shews that we must not always conclude Truth and Purity to be of that side where the number is most nor suppose it impossible for what we call the Visible Church to be corrupted at least as to the greatest part of Professors Secondly I
could heartily have wisht that M. de Condom would have reflected a little upon the use St. Paul made of this instance of Israel in Elijah's time because it is exactly the same with what the Protestant Ministers make of it now It was objected to the Apostle that from his Principles it would follow that God had cast away his people in as much as the whole Body of that people had crucified Jesus Christ and walked contrary to his new Religion if therefore he would undertake to maintain his new Religion was the Right he must at the same time own that God had forsaken his Church No says he God hath not cast away his people for there is a remnant through the election of Grace and hereupon he alledges what happened to Israel heretofore in Elijah's time when God reserved to himself Seven thousand men in secret that had not bowed the knee to Baal What can be more exactly parallel than the use he makes of this passage and that the Protestants make 'T is objected to us that from our Principles it follows God hath cast away his Church because the whole Body of that Church condemns our Reformation and walks contrary to our new Religion They teach that this visible exterior Church may cease to be upon Earth says M. de Condom No such matter say we God hath not deserted his Church there is a remnant according to the Election of Grace and in proof of this we urge the instance of Israel heretofore in Elijah's time If to charge the Protestants with unsincerity for alledging this were at the same time to charge St. Paul If the exception of Judah where the worship in Elias his time was in great lustre were good and to be admitted against us the same was also good and to be admitted against the Apostle For what do we more than he did or what do we say but what we have learnt from Him ought to be said in this Case Let St. Paul then acquit himself and he shall in doing so acquit us Now this is done without any difficulty for he need only Answer that the exception does not make at all against him The business is to know which is the true people of God his true Church which he never forsakes Now it is plain by God's answer to Elijah that this is not the Croud the vast Number not the party of greatest strength or which makes most noise in the World but some persons reserved a remnant according to the election of Grace these are his true people and his true Church Tho Judah had still maintain'd the Divine Worship in its greatest lustre yet does not this detract from the truth of God's declaration made to Elias viz. that his true people his true Church consists of this Remnant or these Persons reserved This is all St. Paul desires this is likewise all the Protestants desire to make of it Lord says Elijah they have broken down thine Altars and slain thy Prophets with the sword and I only am left Had God made his Church to consist in an exterior Body of men who should preserve his worship in a constant uninterrupted purity what could have been more natural than to return this answer Wherefore dost thou complain have I not still my Church in Judah The Cardinal du Perron would have replied exactly thus and from him it is that M. de Condom hath borrowed this shift Yet God answers in a very different manner he fixes his true Church not in the exterior Body but in the Persons he had reserved The Apostle takes the advantage of an Argument against what the Jews in his time objected and we in like manner take the same advantage against what is objected to us now Afterward M. de Condom frames to himself an Objection drawn from the Disorders and horrible Corruptions predominant in Judah during the Reign of Ahaz who shut up the Temple of God and caused Vrijah the Priest to sacrifice unto Idols and afterward under Manasseh whose Impieties transcended those of Ahaz To which he answers first That Isaiah who lived during all the Reign of Ahaz for all these abominations of the King of the Priest Urijah and almost all the People never separated from the Communion of Judah which shews that there is always a People of God from whose Communion 't is never lawful to separate Laying aside for one minute the business of Separation we must in the mean time of necessity grant that this exterior Society called the People of God were prodigiously corrupted in matters of Faith and Worship that their Corruption was publick and general diffused not among some private Persons only but through the whole Body of the ordinary Ministry So that the true Church that to which the Promises of God belong that which must not be interrupted nor totally fail must be acknowledged to consist not in the whole Body of this exterior Society but merely in the Body of true Believers who it is possible may sometimes be reduced to a very inconsiderable number of this Society and scarce make any Figure at all in it We must likewise acknowledge it possible for such an universal Corruption to happen in this Society that there shall be no longer any thing perfectly sound and entire in it that is nothing in the publick Worship without some tincture of impurity For at the same time that Ahaz Reigned in Judah and the Corruption was general there Pekah was King in Isreal who says the Scripture did evil in the sight of the Lord and departed not from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin So that the publick Worship was then corrupted every where as well in Israel as Judah What then became of M. de Condom's exterior Church which he says can never err in her Determinations Where was then that Church which does not only maintain some truth but teaches and maintains all truth Well but still M. de Condom tells us Isaiah never separated from the Communion of this People no more than did the rest of the Prophets Now this very thing strengthens our Argument and renders it impregnable because from hence it necessarily follows that there was not in any place of the World besides any publick Worship nor any Exterior Body at all little or great that served God in perfect Purity So that we must inevitably allow one of these two things Either that the Church was at that time utterly extinct or that it was preserved in this Remnant which we see God spoke of to Elijah The first of these destroys the Promises of God the second establishes our Opinion and quite overthrows that of the Romanists Let us now examine how Isaiah and the other Prophets not separating from the Body of the People is to be understood Can we suppose them to have been partakers of the Wickednesses that then prevailed in the publick Worship By no means These Prophets M. de Condom says
reprehended and detested the impieties of the People but separated not from the Communion The meaning of which is that they separated negatively tho not positively they refused to partake of the Impieties in the publick Worship but they did not set up another sort of publick Worship distinct by themselves I grant it But then we must also grant that when the Worship is corrupted the Church may subsist by means of such a Negative Separation and that this is sufficient for its preservation Now this is exactly what we are of Opinion was done during the Corruptions of the Latin Ministry all along before the Reformation But still it may be said These Prophets never proceeded so far as a positive Separation and you have I answer The Reason they never separated positively was peculiar to themselves as M. de Condom himself acknowledges to wit that over and above the real and spiritual Covenant God had entred into with such as were true Believers among that People there was besides another Exterior and Temporal one in which the whole Nation were concern'd founded upon their being the Blood and Progeny of Abraham and all bearing about them the Mark of this Covenant to wit Circumcision in their Flesh so that the true Believers were obliged upon this account to continue in Communion with the People and could not separate from them positively by reason of that common Covenant which they might not break But the case is otherwise with the Christian Church which hath but one Covenant with God and that a real and spiritual one of true Faith and sincere Regeneration when therefore we can no longer maintain this Covenant by living amongst a People and under a Ministry which is become contrary thereto there lies a necessity upon us of separating by a positive Separation And yet M. de Condom pretends to make some advantage of this very thing He says The Succession of that Ancient People was kept up by carnal Generation and so tho the Priests and almost all the People should have prevaricated the State of Gods People subsisted always in an exterior Form whether they would or no. But 't is not so with the new People whose exterior Form consists in nothing but the Profession of Jesus Christ's Doctrine So that if the Confession of the true Faith should be extinct for one only moment the Church which has no Succession but by the Continuance of this Profession would be wholly extinct without any possibility of ever rising again either in its People or Pastors but by a new Mission I confess That carnal Generation was in that Ancient People enough to keep up their Succession in Quality of Gods People with Relation to that temporal Covenant common to them all Tho it be true too that this Quality was but very imperfectly discerned in times of general Prevarications because if they were then Gods temporal People they were a vicious and prevaricating People But I say that carnal Generation was not enough to maintain among them a Succession with respect to the spiritual Covenant because the Succession here could be preserved no other way but by a Participation of the same Faith and the same Charity Now the Covenant in which the new People live is not any longer a carnal one but purely and solely Spiritual and consequently the Succession in it can only consist in this perpetual Participation of one and the same Faith and one and the same Charity In this particular the Condition of both old and new People are alike As therefore in that Ancient People there did still continue a Succession of Faith and Charity tho the publick Worship and ordinary Ministry were full of strange Corruptions in like manner hath such a Succession always continued in the new even in the midst of all Corruptions God had then his methods of teaching the reserved and keeping them from partaking in the publick Prevarications the same he hath still and useth to the same purpose altho the Ministry and publick Worship have not preserved their Purity I confess should a full and perfect desertion of Christianity ever have happened throughout all the Christian World and not one true Believer be left upon the face of the Earth a man might say the Church had been utterly extinct But blessed be God it never came to that We acknowledg that God hath all along preserved his Remnant according to the Election of Grace We acknowledg too that the publick Ministry was never so totally corrupted but still all that was necessary for the Instruction of Believers was so far kept up that the spiritual Succession was always preserved intire by receiving from the Ministers hands nourishment sufficient unto spiritual Life on the one hand and casting away all the evil and impure Mixtures of the Ministry on the other hand and this is that negative Separation we spoke of before The exterior Form of Jesus Christs true Church does not so absolutely consist in the Ministries making profession of Faith pure and void of Error that it cannot otherwise subsist any longer I confess when this is done the Church is in a happy Condition and if I may so say a Condition of Health But when this is not done the exterior Form does not presently perish upon that account because this consists in our being able to say That is the Body where God nourishes and cherishes his true Believers as I have already shewn when treating of my second question Could we no longer say thus the Church would have lost its external Form and its Succession have ceased to be visible But this might at all times be said even when the Ministry and publick Worship was most corrupted and so the Churches visible Succession was never quite lost It hath indeed been mightily lessened and obscured in Proportion to the Errors that prevailed in the Ministry and this was the Churches Condition of Misery it 's sick and languishing Condition which nevertheless went not so far as to hinder this Succession M. de Condom goes on I will not say the true Faith and true Worship of God could be wholly abolisht in the People of Israel so as that God had no more any true Servants on Earth But I find on the contrary 't is clear that maugre the Corruption God still reserved to himself a sufficient number of Servants who participated not in the Idolarty Herein we agree for neither do we say That the true Faith and true Worship could ever have been wholly abolisht among Christians but on the contrary that maugre the Corruption God hath always reserved to himself a sufficient number of Servants who have not participated in the Prevarications of the rest So far the case is the same 'T is not to be imagined proceeds he that Gods Servants and the true Faith were preserved only in secret but that in all the Succession of the Ancient People the true Doctrine always shone forth For there was a continual Succession of Prophets
who instead of adhering to the Peoples Errors or dissembling them rose up against them with force and this Succession was so constant that the Holy Ghost fears not to say That God rose up Night and Morning and daily admonisht the People by the Mouth of his Prophets M. de Condom must give us leave to make some Observations upon this Passage The first of which is that in the Corruptions of Israel heretofore when the publick Worship and ordinary Ministry suffered such Depravation there was not any where in the World another publick Worship or another Ministry that was preserved in Purity and Perfection So that if men must needs have lookt for the Church in the Body of the Peoples living under their ordinary Pastors and in the publick worship as he is of opinion we now must under the Gospel there could not have been any longer a Church upon Earth because his own Principle maintains that if this visible and exteriour Church composed of Pastors and People do not keep and teach all truth that is if She teach any thing that is false She is not the Church I observe secondly That in the very same place where God is said to rise up Night and Morning and daily admonish the People by the Mouth of his Prophets it is also said That all the chief of the Priests and the People trespassed wonderfully according to all the Abominations of the Heathen and polluted the House of the Lord which he had sanctified in Jerusalem It is said further too That they mocked the Messengers of God and despised his Words and misused his Prophets Which shews that both People and Priests were generally corrupted and the Church reduced to a Remnant I confess some certain Persons of this Remnant did not keep silence but instead of adhering to or dissembling the Peoples Errors opposed them strongly But besides that a great many more no question sighed in secret for these things it is manifest that this Remnant did not make a separate Body by themselves nor exercise any publick Worship different from the rest And consequently the Churches visibility tho not wholly extinct yet was mightily darkned and diminished and that is all we would infer from hence My third Observation is That there was indeed in that Ancient People a continued Succession of Prophets and as M. de Condom says a Prophetical Ministry ordinary with the People where the Prophets made an Order always subsisting whence God continually drew Divine Men by whose Mouth he spake loudly and publickly to all his People But then we must say withal that the Body of this Order of Prophets were every whit as corrupt as the Priests and People This cannot be denied for the Scripture affirms it expresly The Priests said not where is the Lord and they that should Minister the Law knew me not the Pastors also offended against me and the Prophets prophesied in Baal The Prophets prohesie lies and the Priests bear rule by their means and my People love to have it so I have heard what the Prophets said that Prophesie lies in my Name saying I have dreamed How long shall this be in the hearts of the Prophets that Prophesie lies Yea they are Prophets of the deceit of their own heart Which think to cause my People to forget my Name by their Dreams which they tell every Man to his Neighbour as their Fathers have forgotten my Name for Baal And a vast number of Passages to the like purpose So that we cannot say there was at that time any visible Body that opposed the Corruptions or maintained the Worship of God in its genuine Purity The Prophets by whom God spoke so loudly and publickly were only lookt upon as private Persons of an Opinion different from the generality of the Society And therefore how loudly and publickly soever they spoke if in order to the constituting a Visible Church it be necessary to find a Body or Society of Men making Profession of pure Doctrine M. de Condom must acknowledg that there was not then any Visible Church in the World And now Sir give me leave I beseech you to ask with what pretence to Reason men can still cavil at this instance of the Corruptions in Israel heretofore and not own it for a sensible Proof that confirms most of the Truths established in the former part of this Letter In it you see the several Bodies that made up the ordinary Ministry all of them ensnared in Idolatry and false Worship In it you see the whole Body of the People blindly following the exorbitancies of their Guides In it you see the true Church of God subsisting not in an exterior Society enjoying its Ministers Assemblies and publick Worship peculiar to its self but in some reserved Persons that still maintained their Integrity in the midst of all these Confusions In it you see God himself and after him St. Paul making his true People to consist in these Persons so reserved All this proves and proclaims to the World That the true Church consists of true Believers only That this Church is not otherwise visible but as mixt with wicked Men and Reprobates That this mixture does sometimes so obscure it that it is very difficult to come to a knowledg of it That it does nevertheless still subsist even in that state of obscurity And that in these true Believers and Persons whom God has reserved he does fulfil the Promises of Perpetuity made to the Church I close this Letter with sincere Protestations That it is much to my dissatisfaction that I find my self obliged to put Pen to paper in a Dispute against M. de Condom I have all along had and ever shall have not only all the Respect for him which is due to his Quality and Station but more especially I esteem his Virtue so universally acknowedged and admire his Perfections and the excellent Gifts God hath imparted to him as they really deserve In our Conference I observed in him a Wit lively and piercing a clear Apprehension a proper and easy way of Expression and especially an extraordinary Candour and Civility of Behaviour He maintain'd his Principles with all the strength and advantage imaginable made them look as fair and specious as it was possible for any man and managed them with abundance of Skill and Address In a word I was strangely taken with the Accomplishments of his Person and did often feel such kind Inclinations and Wishes as Men should do upon such Occasions My Sentiments of Honour and Respect for him are sincere but the more they are so the more frequent I must complain of one thing inserted by him in his Discourse with Mademoiselle de Duras and that is That in our Religion we believe there is a point of time when a Christian is obliged to doubt whether the Scripture was inspired by God whether the Gospel is a Truth or a Fable whether Jesus Christ was a Deceiver or a
grounds for upbraiding them with it as they did That the Protestants principles were not liable to the same objection who though they disown a blind obedience and entire submission do yet retain such external means as are most proper and expedient for preserving the unity of the Faith And whereas M. de Condom pretended that without entire obedience it was possible that as many several Religions might start up as there are Parishes 't is confest this may come to pass if we speak with respect to men only notwithstanding the Order and Ecclesiastical Assemblies be kept up because the mind of man is of its self subject to infinite Errors But in respect of God this cannot fall out so for he by his blessing on this external Order and the Communication of one and the same spirit to his true Believers and Elect does by this sure and infallible means preserve them in the unity of the same Faith and consequently of the same Church That Faith being not an humane but a Divine thing none but God alone can either produce or preserve it in mens hearts And this he infallibly does in the hearts of his Elect by his Spirit and such external means of the Ministry as himself hath appointed For Paul planteth and Apollo watereth but God giveth the increase Next he came to speak of the Deputies nominated by the Synod of Sainte-foy to confer with the Lutherans and said That he was extreamly pleased with what M. de Condom had confest even now That they never intended to give them a power of turning all things topsy turvey as he had ingeniously exprest it but that recourse must be had to the persons commissioning and their ratification obtained That he very humbly thankt him for this sincere acknowledgment which as to this particular resolved the whole Question so that this Act could not now be alledged any more for the blind obedience pretended to be infer'd from it That besides this his accusation against the Synod for consenting to change their Confession of Faith if taken in M. de Condom's sense vanished into nothing For there ought a distinction to be made between what is essential in it and what is not The essential part of the Confession consists in the things themselves called Articles or points of Faith and that which is not essential consists in the terms and modes of expression That the Synod had Authority to consent that the expressions in the Confession should be altered that other things might be inserted which might illustrate and explain it if this appeared to be useful for the reducing men that had deviated from it But the Synod never took upon them to alter any essential part of the Confession for it continues in this respect unalterable so far forth as it is agreable to the Word of God Mr. Claude concluding his discourse M. de Condom replied in the first place that notwithstanding what Mr. Claude said a little before concerning the Order observed by the Discipline it did however enjoyn that such as refused to acquiesce in the decisions of a National Synod should be cut off from the Church and that the Synod of Dort had actually cut off the Arminians he desired therefore to know of Mr Claude whether they were justly and lawfully cut off Mr. Claude answered that in his opinion the Synod of Dorts proceedings were very just M. de Condom told him This was all the Church of Rome desired that she also acknowledged her self under an Obligation to judg according to the word of God but this was not the matter in dispute The main business was about the Sense and Explanation of that word and that it was the Churches Province to give this Explanation and private men's to rest satified with it and if they did not the Church dealt justly in excommunicating them That it was thus the Protestants had been excommunicated in the Council of Trent As concerning the Letter of Mission to the National Synods is it not said he a plain trick to swear Submission to them upon supposal or condition that their Determinations shall be agreeable to Gods word This is all mere trifling What say you to it Sir Mr. Claude said there was no trick at all and he could discover nothing that was irregular in it If I have a right notion of your Doctrine replied M. de Condom you hold that a private Persons may doubt of the Judgment of the Church even when given in its last and highest Court of Jurisdiction We do hold said Mr. Claude that no man can have an absolute certainty of Faith that an Ecclesiastical Assembly shall give right Determinations and upon this account that men may be allow'd to doubt But withal that men should notwithstanding presume in favour of such an Assembly and in this respect we cannot properly call it doubting as hoping and believing that it will judg a right For Jesus Christ hath promised all that seek shall find and we ought to take it for granted that they will discharge their duty in seeking aright till Experience shews the contrary There is therefore an assurance of Charity and Equity that in some Sense excludes doubt But when we see Assemblies governed by Factions Cabals and temporal Interests then sure we have a great deal of reason to doubt as seeing men that have forsaken their Duty and consequently are such as cannot hope for any advantage from the blessing of God upon them Let me beg of you Sir said M. de Condom then That we may let alone what is good for nothing but to cast dust in our Eyes What you said just now of Cabals and Factions and private Interests is of no use in the World and only serves to perplex the matter I would know of you put the case there appeared nothing at all of Factions Cabals nor Interest in an Assembly but that all their proceedings were orderly and regular whether its Decisions ought to be received without examining them No Sir said Mr. Claude Why then Sir said he I was in the right to tell you that all your talk of Factions and Cabals signifies nothing That does not follow neither repli'd Mr. Claude for notwithstanding there appear not any thing to weaken a mans Presumptions that the Assembly will discharge their duty faithfully and that for ought we can discover to the contrary all things are carried regularly yet still this is no more than a humane Presumption not able to give any certainty of belief and consequently not precluding our Examination But when we see Disorder and Corruption manifestly prevail in an Assembly we can no longer presume in favour of such a one and instead of hoping the best we must fear the worst that can come from it So that it is not without ground that I spoke of Cabals and Factions Here M. de Condom resuming the former method of his Discourse said It was false that the Independents did absolutely throw off all Ecclesiastical Assemblies for