An Advertisement WHen the late Answer to the Bishop of Meaux came forth this was just finished but laid by as useless till upon an after View it was thought it might be serviceable because of a more particular Explication of the Church of England ' s Sentiments in it and likewise a more full Expression of the Romish Doctrines from the Publick Acts of that Church and its direct answering M. Condom ' s Reasons which the other Author does not propose to himself AN ANSWER TO THE Bishop of Condom Now of MEAVX His Exposition of the Catholick Faith c. Wherein the DOCTRINE of the Church of Rome Is DETECTED And that of the Church of England EXPRESSED FROM THE Publick Acts of both CHURCHES To which are added Reflections on his Pastoral Letter LONDON Printed by H. C. for R. Kettlewel and R. Wells at the Hand and Scepter against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street 1686. Imprimatur Guil. Needham R mo in Christo Patri ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archi-Ep Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 4. 1686. THE PREFACE HIM that shall think fit to answer this Treatise M. Condom desires pag. 51. to consider that to accomplish his intent 1st He must not undertake to refute the Doctrine contained in it it not being his design to prove but only to propose it in this Book But I hope if in persuing the design of his Book in some places I observe the falshood or danger of some of these Doctrins or the insufficience of his Reasons given to establish them it may be allowed especially if they are but such hints as are as necessary for the subverting the Design of the Treatise as his Reasons given to establish the Doctrine are for the explication of it 2ly That it would be a quitting the design of this Treatise to examine the different Methods which Catholick Divines have used to explicate the Doctrine of the Council of Trent and the different consequences which particular Doctors have drawn from it But with his leave if himself be no other than a Particular Doctor for we can allow him to be no more as yet till those Approbations collected in the Advertisement from several of the most principal Divines and others in the Church and at last from the Pope himself which are pleaded for his greater authority come to be considered it can be no quitting the design of his Book if any part of it be the Exposition of the Doctrine of that Council to take notice if there be occasion of any different Explication which others have given of it For though their Explication being different does not prove his not to be contained in it yet first it assures us that the words which are used by the Council to express its Doctrine are ambiguous since different explications pretend equally to be explications of the Council And thereby 2ly we are left uncertain in what sense the Church holds the Doctrine which we have no reason to take from him unless upon examination it shall hereafter appear that he has a greater authority to declare the sense held by the Church than the other had 3ly That to urge any thing solid against this Book and which may come home to the Point it must be proved That the Churches Faith is not here faithfully expounded and that by Acts which the Church has obliged her self to rceeive This last clause may either plead for my proving that he himself has not expounded it faithfully by such Acts or that my proof of the falsity of his Exposition must in all things be made out by such Acts. In the former case I shall hold my self obliged when I oppose him to do it from those Acts produced by himself or others as much owned by the Church In the latter presumptive proofs that conclude with greater probability for the falshood than his for the truth of his Exposition are the utmost that ought to be required there being no reason that he should oblige me to proofs of another nature than what he brings himself Or else 4ly That it must be shewn that this Explication leaves all the Objections in their full force and all the Disputes untouched Herein I shall be especially careful since he has expresly obliged me to it to consider what Objections are in force and what Disputes remain 5ly Or in fine It must be precisely shewn in what this Doctrine subverts the foundations of Faith Of this likewise I shall be careful but suppose in some cases it appear that in all probability though not precisely it subverts the Faith certainly a Church that ought to provide for the preservation cannot justifie her self in commanding things that in every mans judgment tend to the destruction of the Faith and if it appear that this Doctrine does and experience testifie it has greatly prejudiced the foundations of Faith shall the whole world be obliged to forbear providing for their common Christianity till all its Foundations be totally overthrown The Author though he seems to acquaint us with his design yet has not positively express'd the end he aims at but so far as I can dive into it it is this 1st To take off that false Idea which Protestants have framed to themselves of the Church of Rome for such he takes notice they have p. 1. upon which he thinks it beneficial to explicate to them what the Church has defined in the Trent Council upon the main Points in controversie And thereby 2ly to gain a good opinion in the Reformers of the Churches innocence 3ly By this explication of their Doctrine to shew that the main Disputes are not so material as they have been thought and that many of them are at an end 4ly That the Matters from which the first grounds of Separation were taken by this Explication being cleared and appearing not so ill as they have been judged they are no longer justifiable Causes of a Separation whereby we are concluded under a necessity of joining with the Church of Rome The first of these he intimates as his aim when he tells us he had observed many had a false Idea of their Church whereupon he took a resolution to explicate their Doctrine p. 1. The third and fourth are implied in the two effects proposed to himself from this Exposition p. 2. The conclusion that our distance is no longer justifiable is not positively inferred by M. Condom But the Advertisement as it sometimes calls for the Removal of our false Conceptions sometimes for a better opinion of the Church sometimes challenges that an end is put to the main Disputes does also in this clearly discover it self and tell us That we may hereupon be justly afraid Ado. p. 9. to persist in a Schism which is manifestly founded upon false Principles even in the most principal Points Now no man will oppose the first intent it being most just that every man be willing to lay aside his false or prejudicate Opinions Nor the second for the same
sufferings the other the effect of the Holy Ghost which is shed on us nor is it necessary that what the Apostle adds of our being justified by his grace should be understood of the grace of the Holy Ghost shed on us for the renewing of our minds but rather of that kindness and love of our Saviour to save us and of that mercy according to which he saves us without the works of our own righteousness We believe indeed our sins not only to be covered but also entirely washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ and the grace of Regeneration but we do not think fit to confound Justification which signifies the Remission of sins and Renovation which destroys sin within us one with another nor to think the latter which is effected but in part in this life to be meritorious of the former and should think we did too much lessen the merit of his blood if by allowing the effect of it to what it ought to be allowed the working Sanctification in us we should not consider it also to that other effect of wholly meriting for us the pardon of our sins Whereas he argues at last That the Righteousness which is in us is truly such and that even before God had not I reason to say as before that their making Justification to consist in the infusion of Righteousness gave too great appearance for men to think they claimed Remission of sins as due in some measure to their own Righteousness when M. Condom can thus plead for the truth and reality of it and for its being a righteousness and that before God But to give him an answer It is not by us denied to be a Righteousness in the sight of God any further than to this effect that it is not a righteousness that renders us void of sin nor that can in the least merit for us the remission of sins nor that can abide if he should try it with rigour or be extream to mark what is amiss therein When he comes at last to acknowledge it too true That the flesh rebels against the spirit and that in many things we offend all so that though our Justice be truly such yet it is not perfect Justice because of the Combate of Concupiscence so that we are obliged to confess with St. Augustin That our Justice in this life consists rather in the Remission of sin than in the Perfection of virtues Though I could wish he had express'd himself in all the words of St. Augustin in that place That our Righteousness though truly such in the end it aims at and is referred unto true goodness yet is such in this life that it consists rather in the Remission of sin than in the Perfection of virtues for hereby every work though good as aiming at a good end is acknowledged imperfect in that it attains not to it yet I am glad to find him profess so much of truth and could wish his Church had made the like declaration but it seems rather to speak the contrary when it condemns him that shall say the Just sins though only venially in every work Can. 25. which I see not how it could condemn if it held our Righteousness not to be Perfect Righteousness by reason of the Combate of Concupiscence for how can that which is not perfect Righteousness justifie its self in respect of God's Law and if not to say it is a venial offence against it because not arriving to that absolute perfection required by it is as little as can be said SECT VII Of the Merit of Good Works AS to the Merit of Good Works it 's true as he says their Church teaches That eternal life ought to be proposed both as a grace which is mercifully promised through Christ and as a recompence which is faithfully rendred to our good works and merits in vertue of this promise But whereas he adds That least humane pride should flatter it self in an opinion of presumptuous merit it also teaches that all the price and value of a Christians works proceed from sanctifying grace though it has express'd something of this nature yet he seeks greatly to impose upon us when he tells us it teaches it for the end he speaks of the prevention of presumptuous merit for the Council really adds this as a reason why eternal life ought to be proposed as a recompence of our merits Its words are these For whereas Christ infuses constantly the power of his grace Concil Trid. Sess 6. cap. 16. into the justified which power does always precede accompany and follow the works they do and without which they would upon no account be pleasing to or meritorious with God we are to believe nothing more wanting to the justified to the end they may be looked on as having fully by their works which are wrought in God satisfied the Divine Law with respect to the present life and to have truly merited that eternal life which they shall receive in it's time if they depart the present in a state of grace It goes on So that hereby neither our own Righteousness is set up as properly our own nor is the Righteousness of God passed by or rejected but the same is said to be our Righteousness because it is in us and we are justified by it and the same is also Gods because infused by him for the merit of Christ. When therefore the Council proceeds thus to shew wherein the price and value of good works consists it does it not intending to take men from a confidence in the merit of their works but with an intent to shew the grounds whereon it supposes this considence may be built and what it adds to shew that they set not up their own righteousness refusing God's does clearly evidence they place our Justification in the Righteousness that is within us though they acknowledge its infusion to be of God from whence it follows by a plain connexion that they profess a real merit and intrinsick value in a Christian's works although they confess wrought by grace that they are meritorious on that account alone It 's true the Council adds what M. Condom after and desires to be read with care Although Holy Writ esteems good works so much that Christ himself promises a glass of cold water shall not lose its reward yet God forbid a Christian should glory in himself and not in our Lord whose bounty is so great to all men that he will have those gifts which he bestows upon them to be their merits But still it does not deny them to be merits though it owns them first as the gifts of God nor does it any where resolve us what it means by this forbidding a Christian to glory in himself and not in our Lord if understood according to the rest it can only signifie that a Christian should not glory in any thing as done by his own power but should acknowledge it wrought by the help of grace and if no more
Institution of our Lord who blessed Bread and Wine for this only purpose that we might take eat and drink and thereby partake of his Body and Blood in that it not only lays aside the End of his Institution but sets up a new Action of a greater value as is pretended in that also whilst it pretends to apply the Benefits of Christ's Death by this new means it takes off the necessity of using that of our Saviour's own appointment and occasions men to be wholly careless of it when hereby they are warranted to partake of all his Benefits and incur not the danger they would if they should come to partake of the Sacrament with impenitent hearts in that likewise it pretends this Sacrifice propitiatory for men after Death thereby in a great measure voiding the necessity of a Christian Life especially considering that Doctrine which is commonly taught in that Church that this Sacrifice avails ex opere operato that all the Benefits of Christ are derived upon the People by the very external Work done the people not being concerned in or assisting to the Sacrifice either in their Prayers or participation and withal their practice of sacrificing for any whatever dying within their Communion to free them from the pains of Purgatory SECT XI Of his Reflections BY the Grounds then upon which I have proceeded I am little concerned with the Explication he gives of the Epistle to the Hebrews to shew that their Doctrine of the Sacrifice ascribing all the virtue wholly to the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross does not impeach or prejudice its efficacy which the Apostle there pleads Which if it were granted as that it cannot well be for that they have set up a Sacrifice which shall make God more propitious to us than the Sacrament which does possess us of all the Benefits of Christ's Death yet this could no way justifie them in setting up a Sacrifice representative of Christ's Death to Effects which he had not appointed pretending thereby to make application of his Sacrifice on the Cross which he has not warranted them to apply by such means and to such persons also as they cannot from Scripture warrant it beneficial to However notwithstanding M. Condom seems to remove all Equivocation in the Word Offer he either still uses it equivocally or expresses not the Sense of those of his Communion for Bellarmine places not the Sacrifice only in presenting to God Christ crucified but in destroying the Elements that were there before and making Christ present under their Species as dead on the Cross And the Catechism favours this Sense when it says The Priests that sacrifice act not in their own persons but in the person of Christ when they make to be present his Body and Blood So that if we consider this especially if joyned with the Doctrine of Eckius that those Representations which the Church makes of Christ as dead by making his Body as such to appear before God and his Blood as separate from it by these Ceremonies that are used in this Action are the things that constitute the Sacrifice Against whom Chemnitius disputes so largely from this Epistle to the Hebrews If this be considered it will be evident that in this Epistle was not made use of to such impertinent purpose against them as this Gentleman pretends In his Reflections there is little material for me to consider the Grounds of all their Doctrine being overthrown But because he presses it so earnestly I must take notice of the main thing in it Here then he would first perswade us that the main difference between us is that of the Real Presence This we indeed allow That their Error in this Point is the Foundation of the Doctrines they build upon it but this makes it not necessary that their consequent Doctrines and Practices shall not be judged more prejudicial to Christianity than their first Error There scarce ever was a Heresie but pretended to deduce all its Errors from some Doctrine that had appearance of Truth and that did not in itself expresly contradict or prejudice the Faith though by the progression they drew from it the whole Faith has been subverted But then he farther argues That the Real Presence is owned by the Lutherans though they consider not the consequences of it That the Calvinists themselves have declared the Lutheran Doctrine to have no poyson in it and that it does not subvert the Foundations of Faith That further some Calvinists have said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans whence he concludes It is an established Truth that the Roman Doctrine in this point contains nothing but the Doctrine of the Real Presence rightly understood An Inference that has not the least coherence with the Premises Can any man of Sense allow this a rational Argument The Lutherans hold a Real Presence the Calvinists say There is no Poyson in their Doctrine The Lutherans admit not such Consequences as we do the Calvinists say we reason better than the Lutherans therefore it is an established Truth that our Doctrine contains nothing but the Real Presence rightly understood But to answer it so far as it may seem any way to give him an advantage The Lutherans do indeed hold a Real Presence in a Sense different from that I have explained but then they do no obtrude their Sense upon others as a necessary condition of Communion so that we may communicate with them without professing their error nor do they hold such a Local Presence as the Church of Rome nor does their Opinion lead them to the Worship of any Creature nor do they acknowledge any Presence of Christ therein but only in the act and to the end of his Institution of this Sacrament and if this has led some to a Declaration that the Lutheran Opinion does not subvert the foundation of Faith upon this account that it proceeds not to any further Effects destructive of it shall this be taken for an acknowledgment that the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which obliges to such practices upon it as are inconsistent with the Faith is not such as ought to break communion with her And suppose it to have been said that the Catholicks reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans if it has been said by any of those that allowed Communion with the Lutherans it 's manifest that when they said so they did not think but that the Roman Doctrine was much more inconsistent with Christianity And that the World may see it is so I shall transcribe the difference which a Lutheran gives us between the Adoration they tender Christ in the Eucharist and that which is given by the Church of Rome He places the difference chiefly in two Particulars First that the Church of Rome requires that the Sacrament Gerhard Loc. Com De sacra Caena de Vener it self or all that which according our Lord's Institution we receive should be adored with the honour due
them as there is if Tradition should lead us as it did the Jews to void the Commandments of God Nor does that Church run so great a hazard which owns the limits that God has set her and acts according to them as the Church that having acted against our common Christianity or at least being accused so to have done claims an absolute and infallible authority to justifie what she cannot defend by God's Word There are but two things wherein they possibly can object to us any hazard or danger that we incur One is That if the Church be not acknowledged Infallible and all obliged to an Absolute submission a way is open for men under this pretence to cast off her Authority and set up Religions according to their own fancies This I have shewn we labour to prevent so far as the Divine Providence has appointed means for its prevention and we think it not safe to set up others of our own invention which may be liable to equal or greater mischiefs another way Nor that it is as certainly probable on the other side That by advancing an absolute and unlimited Authority of the Church our common Christianity may be destroyed by Decrees that may be made which may subvert the foundations of Faith cannot be doubted but must needs be evident to all that know it possible for men to be led by their own Interests or Opinions and have also actually seen by what interests late Councils have been managed and swayed in their Determinations whereby men of good intentions have not been able to bring to pass what they intended and endeavoured for the good of Christianity being overruled by a greater number of men prejudiced and less considerate which has been confess'd even by sincere men of the Roman Communion If they tell us That according to our Principles the Churches Authority is insignificant it being in every man's power to reject it so that it is a very unsufficient means for Peace such as became not the Divine Wisdom to constitute because not certain to take effect Not to repeat what is said before Section 19. but only to shew them how unreasonable it is that they should require us to shew the Reasons of the Divine Providence in its Constitutions that are evident to us when the Reasons of them are not Let them resolve us if the Scriptures be not our Rule of Faith and Manners or if we cannot understand the sense of them without the Churches Authority why they were written or if the Churches Authority be absolute and unlimited why it had not been plainly and expresly told us by God that we must submit our selves in all things to this Authority or why we are bidden to search the Scriptures why God should have suffered the Scriptures to be written when he could not but foresee that the pretence of the Churches Authority clashing with that of the Scriptures is that which has and will disturb our Peace If they tell us of the many Heresies Schisms and Divisions that are seen to have faln out by mens expounding the Scripture for themselves They will give us leave I hope to tell them of the Idolatries Superstitions and other Irreligious Customs and Practices which we see to have fallen out through their exalting the Churches Decrees to the prejudice of Christianity And further that as to those Heresies and Divisions which we see and lament among our selves we are beholden to the Church of Rome and her Emissaries in great part for them who have endeavoured to ruin our common Christianity by another extream only because we would not yield to those things which they have first done to the prejudice of it Besides I am apt to think that even such will have a great Plea at the day of Judgment from the rigorousness of the Church of Rome extending the Churches Authority beyond all bounds that our common Christianity will allow and necessitating well-disposed Christians to refuse submission to it whereby it becoming visible that Christianity is not in all things maintained by the Church necessarily and it not being evidently visible to common sense what bounds being kept her Authority does by God's Law claim submission they have presumed upon their own understandings for the sense of the Scriptures and framed their Religion according to them This I only urge that they may look about them lest they become guilty of the many souls that may miscarry in both extreams whilst they have rendred the means of salvation difficult among themselves and have by pretending to justifie that occasioned others to oversee the due means they should betake themselves to and run as dangerous a way in the other extream So then we are altogether as safe yea much more secure than the Church of Rome for we take that way to confute Heresies and to preserve the purity of Faith which the Divine Providence has appointed appealing to the Scriptures and using the best means for the understanding them and declaring the Authority of the Church acting within the limits set her by God's Word and for the maintenance of that Christianity she is established to preserve They on the contrary pretending to maintain their Church in what she has decreed to the prejudice of Christianity seek to establish a Power that has already prejudiced even in the foundations of Faith and may in probability utterly subvert our Christianity and have thereby given occasion to others to place their Reformation of the Church in the utter renouncing her Authority Nor are they ever the nearer putting an end to Heresies hereby for all their pretences to Infallibility will never end the differences of those that disown it and yet it 's apparent that in the mean time they prejudice our common Christianity by those Laws which make the means of salvation very difficult if not altogether ineffectual by denying hitherto those helps to salvation which those Laws intercept The other danger which they pretend we run is that of Schism a great crime questionless and that which all Christians ought not only to lament but seek to remedy and if it be possible and as much as in them lies to follow after Peace which by so many obligations the Christian Church is bound to preserve But we know that both Parties are liable to be charged with the breach till it appear which is guilty and the guilt of it will certainly fall on those who have made the separation necessary so that if a Church requires such conditions of Communion which are inconsistent with Christianity and subvert the Faith it ought to preserve they certainly are to be charged with the Crime who will not suffer us to hold our Christianity together with the Churches Communion Besides there is nothing of this Charge can lye against the Church of England 'till they prove her either to have rejected any Authority to which she was legally subject or to have departed from the Faith by her Reformation But the Church of Rome if she
pleases to reform herself need not fear this Crime she may remove those Laws that prejudice the salvation of the Members of her Communion establish those for herself that tend to the exceeding benefit of Christianity as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and thereby provide for the Purity of Faith and Unity of the Church withal And I see no reason why the Church of England being a part of the Church Catholick but no way subject to the Church of Rome may not adventure to desire them to consider the things that belong to their own Salvation as well as the Peace of Christ's Church and how much they are concerned and obliged by all the commands and bonds of Unity that are obligatory upon Christians as to lay aside their claim to an Authority over all the Churches of Christ which is not given them of God and which they chiefly challenge to maintain what they cannot otherwise defend so especially to reform all those Customs Laws and Practices that have been experienced prejudicial to the Faith and establish such as may advance and promote it since by doing this which is otherwise their duty they may procure that which themselves pretend so earnestly to seek and which we acknowledg and pray for as the greatest blessing next to Purity of Faith the Peace and Union of the Church of Christ Reflections upon his Pastoral Letter THere can be but two aims as I apprehend in dispersing this Letter among us one to persuade us that there is no such Persecution of Protestants in France as is pretended the other that the Reasons upon which such multitudes are Proselyted to the Church of Rome or those at least which M. Meaux gives in this Letter are so convincing as to oblige the rest of the World to follow their example What he affirms in relation to the first that not one among them had suffered violence either in Person or Goods is so notorious a falshood that I may leave all those to believe him that can For none certainly can admit the belief of it but such as can force themselves to believe against all the evidence of their senses and reason Waving this therefore I shall content my self to examine the main thing that concerns us Whether there be any thing of solidity in the motives he gives to confirm his Proselytes Though herein I shall not concern myself with what particularly relates to the French Protestants or with any advantages that he may seem to have over them but only with such as may be supposed of equal force against the Reformed Church of England my business being only to oppose the design that seems aimed at in their dispersing this Letter among us The first thing considerable is what he says pag. 4. That himself and his other Colleagues have this glory which they will not suffer to be taken from them that they have never condemned their Predecessors and Preached no other Doctrine than what they received from them Whereas the Bishops of England c. at their going off from the Church of Rome manifestly renounced the Doctrin of their Predecessors Now no man will envy them this glory that they have obstinately retained those Errors and Corruptions which their Predecessors had admitted The glory of the Bishops of England is this that having purged themselves from those corruptions which time and superstition and base intrests had brought into the Church of God they now retain the Doctrine of the Apostles and Primitive Christians from which the Romanists pretending to follow their Predecessors are greatly deviated For though M. Meaux has the face to say That we cannot produce any one instance of a change in Doctrine and that those changes we pretend are rightly called Insensible because we cannot make them out Yet the pitiful defence he has made for his Church in those particulars wherein we charge them with Innovations does sufficiently shew them to be such and the inconsistency of those Doctrines with Christianity does likewise evidence that though they may have been called insensible changes because insensibly introduced yet now they are visibly and palpably destructive of the Faith It 's true indeed as he says The succession of Pastors and Doctrine ought not to be separated and blessed be God our Church of England as it now holds the Christian truth in the Purity of it has also enjoyed as uninterrupted a succession of Pastors as any Church whatever But the Romanists pretences to a succession of Pastors is vain so long as the Christian Doctrine is not preserved entire which an uninterrupted succession of Pastors proves not to be so preserved whilst there is a possibility for those Pastors to admit Innovations agreeable to their own Opinions or Interests The next considerable thing that he urges is the Authority of St. Cyprian from whom he cites several passages pretended to conclude us under a necessity of holding Communion with the Church of Rome and to render all that separate from it guilty of Schism Wherein since he blames others for not taking his Doctrine entire he ought to have been sincere himself and not have caught up fragments of him here and there to adorn his deceitful discourse In the first place cited St. Cyprian does indeed say That to manifest the unity of his Church our Saviour said to Peter single Thou art Peter c. but he says likewise That he gave to all his Apostles equal power but this M. Meaux thought best to leave out His words are The Lord said unto Peter Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church c. and I give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum Ego tibi dico quia tu es Petrus super istam Petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam portae inferorum non vincent eam Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum c. Et iterum eidem post Resurrectionem dicit Pasce oves â—â—as Super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Et quamvis Apostolis omnibus parem potestaâ—… triona dicat sicut misit me Pater Ego mitto vos c. tamen ut unitatem manifestaret unitatis ejuâ—…m originem ab aâ—o incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit Hoc erat utique ceteri Apostoli quod fuit Petrus pari consortio pra diti honoris potestatis sed Exordium ab unitate proficiscitur ut Ecclesia una monstretur Cyp. Lib. de unitate Ecclesie also after his Resurrection feed my sheep He builds his Church upon Vnity And though he gave to all his Apostles equal power saying As my Father sent me so send I you c. yet that he might manifest the Vnity he dispenses his Authority to one as the original of Vnity That therefore which Peter was the same were the rest of the Apostles joyned in the same fellowship of Honour and Authority but the beginning of it proceeds from Vnity that it might evidence the Church