Errare possum Hareticus esse nolo indeed Manichanisme Valentinianisme Macedonianisme Mahometisme are truly and properly Herises For wee know that the Authors of them received them not but invented them themselves and so knew what they taught to be a lye but can any man avouch that Arius and Nestorius and others that taught erroniously concerning the Trinity and the person of our SAVIOUR did maliciously invent what they taught and not rather fall upon it by error and mistake till that be done and upon good evidence we will thinke no worse of all parties than needs we must and take these Rents in the Church to be at the worst but Schismes upon matter of opinion in which case what we are to do is not a point of any great depth of understanding to discover if so be distemper and partiality do not intervene I do not see that opinionum varictas opinantium unitas are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or that men of different opinions in Christian Religion may not hold communion in Sacris and both go to one Church why may I not go If occasion require to an Arian Church so there be no Arianisme exprest in their Liturgy and were Liturgies and publique formes of Service so framed as that they admitted not of particular and private fancies but contained onely such things as in which all Christians do agree Schismes on opinion were utterly vanished for consider of all the Liturgies that are and ever have beene and remove from them whatsoever is scandalous to any party and leave nothing but what all agree on and the event shall be that the publique Service and Honour of God shall no wayes suffer Whereas to load our publique formes with the private fancies upon which we differ is the most soveraigne way to perpetuate Schisme unto the worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving Reading of Scriptures Administration of Sacriments in the plainest and the simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy though nothing either of private opinion or of Church Pomp of Garments or prescribed Gestures of Imagery of musike of matter concerning the Dead of many superfluities which creep into the Church under the name of Order and Decency did interpose it selfe To charge Churches and Liturgies with things unnecessary was first the beginning of all superstition and when scruple of Conscience began to be made or pretended there Schisme began to breake in if the speciall Guides and Fathers of the Church would be a little sparing of incumbring Churches with superfluities or not over-rigid either in reviving obsolete Customes or imposing new there would be farre lesse cause of Schisme or Superstition and all the inconveniance likely to ensue would be but this they should in so doing yeeld a little to the imbecillity of their Inferiors a thing which S. Paul would never haue refused to do meane while wheresoever false or suspected opinions are made a peice of Church Liturgy he that seperates is not the Schismatique for it is alike unlawfull to make profession of known or suspected falsehood as to put in practise unlawfull or suspected actions ANIMADVERSION Fiftly having trampled upon the Auncients you come now to the Church and levell that also with the ground It hath been say you the common disease of Christians from the beginning not to content themselves with that measure of faith which God and Scriptures have expressely afforded us but out of a vaine desire to know more then is revealed they have attempted to devise things of which we have no light from reason nor revelation Neither have they rested here but upon pretence of Church authority which is none or Tradition which for the most part is but fained c. I hath the Church no authority did not our Saviour giue power to the Church to punish excommunicate a notorious offendor when he saith goe tell the Church and if he heare not the Church let him be to thee a heathen or a Publican And did not his S. Paul give great power to the Church when he calleth it the Pillar and fortresse of truth It were easy here to enlarge my selfe and prove out of the Ancient Fathers did you not reject them that they attributed great powre authority to the Church But the Church of England whose sonne suppose you are and therefore cannot so well neglect her authority will tell you that the Church hath powre to decree rites or ceremonyes and authority in controversies of faith But here you would cry up the authority of the Scriptures that thereby you might decry the authority of the Church whereas these two are not opposite but subordinate one to another I meane the Church to the Scripture If therefore you will commend unto us the authority of Scripture you must also uphold the authority of the Church which is founded in Scripture but if you nullify the authority of the Church you must also neglect the authority of the Scripture which giveth the Church such power And let no man think the Roman Church will here break in upon mee for by Church I meane the truly auncient Catholick and Apostolicke Church from which the Roman Church is farre enough And as by Church so I meane by Tradition for where Tradition is fained none are to esteem of it but when it doth appeare unto us to be truly auncient Catholick and Apostolick it is not a little to be regarded Hereupon Vincentius would have us duplici modo munire fidem to fortify our faith two manner of waies primò divinae legis authoritate deinde Ecclesiae Catholicae traditione first by the authority of divine law then by the tradition of the Catholick Church Then he putteth that objection which you here and many others are used to make seeing that the canon of Scripture is perfect enough and more then enough sufficient in it selfe to all things what need is there that wee should joyne unto it the authority of Ecclesiasticall exposition Unto which me thinks he giveth a very satisfying answere Because all doe not understand the holy Scriptures by reason of the height thereof in one and the same sense but one interprets it one way and another a severall way So that there be as many minds and meanings about it almost as there be men For Novatus expounds it one way Donatus another Arius another Pelagius another c. Therefore it is very needfull by reason of so great and diverse errors that the line of Propheticall and Apostolicall interpretation be directed according to the rule of Ecclesiasticall and Catholick meaning So that true and Catholick Tradition is like unto a strong wall about the garden of holy Scripture which keeps it from the incursion of Hereticks or if they chance to get in it is a soveraine antidote to preserve us from the poison they suck out of these sweet flowers So that take the Church and Tradition in a right sense there is much to be attributed to them
but I entend brevity Only I cannot omit how you would make us believe that this authority of the Church hath caused those seperations which Arius Nestorius and other Hereticks have raised when you say hence arose those auncient and many separations amongst Christians c. Whereas indeed it was the authority of the Church and Catholick Fathers which hath quelled confuted and silenced all those Heresies and Hereticks which it seems you have a mind to revive for you will not have them called Heresies but Schismes for indeed say you they are but names of Schisme howsoever in the common language of the Fathers they were called Heresies But you must pardon those who thinke it safer and sounder to follow the common language of the Fathers then your own private assertion But you have a reason for it For Heresie say you is an act of the will not of reason whereas indeed it is both For doth not the hereticke first fasten upon a false opinion which is an act of the understanding and corrupted reason and this is the materiall part of heresie And then doth wilfully and stubbornely being convinced of it maintaine the same which is an act of the will and formalizeth heresie And in this sense not in yours is that knowne speech of St. Austine true errare possum haereticus esse nolo that is I may erre and so fall into the materiall part of heresie by apprehending and iudging that to be a good doctrine which is false and erroneous but haereticus esse nolo I will not be an hereticke that is I will not persist in this opinion being lawfully convicted and condemned for it by the Church and governours thereof For then I should be formally and properly an hereticke For howsoever you slight and nullify the authority of the Church yet in the primitive times when the Church was at unity when there was not altare contra altare it was then esteemed to be of great power and authority which authority of that Church hath justly declared not only the Manichees Valentinians and Marcionites but also the Arians Nestorians and Pelagians to be hereticks Howsoever you are willing to distinguish them and make these latter scarce Schismaticks for you will take these rents in the Church to be at the worst but Schismes Then at the best it seemes they are not so much as Schismes Yet I cannot be perswaded so ill of the former as to thinke they knew what they taught was a lye and so went directly against their owne consciences nor yet so well of the latter to excuse them with you from heresie for I am yet to learne that heresie is nothing els but to know that a lye is taught such kinde of wickednesse I shall rather terme open blasphemy then heresie when men go against the light of their owne consciences Sixtly you chalke us out a way wherein we may safely walke not only with the Donatists But with the Arian and all other hereticks And that is to have Liturgies and publique formes of service so framed as that they admitted not of particular and private fancyes but contained onely such things as in which all Christians do agree and then Schismes on opinion were vtterly vanished and thus say you I may go to an Arian Church A pretty fancy indeede But first I thinke you could not prevaile with the Arian party to frame their Creede so as might not give offence to the orthodoxe side for in all Liturgies they use to have a confession of their faith And secondly if you could prevaile with them how could you perswade all our Churches to put that clause out of our Creede I believe in Christ the only begotten sonne of God begotten of his father before all worlds God of God light of light very God of very God begotten not made being of one substance with the father by whome all things were made which was a good illustration of our Creed joyned to it and made a part of it by the fathers of the Nicene Councell against the Arians then and will serve as a sufficient bulwarke against our Sosinians now which Creed hath had the generall applause of the Christian Churches since and hath the honour to be one of the Creeds of the Catholicke Church You must prevaile with them likewise to blot out of Athanasius Creed which though it were made but by one man yet by generall approbation is now also become the Creed of all our Churches I say you must put out of it these clauses there is one person of the Father another of the sonne another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father of the sonne and of the Holy Ghost is all one the glory equall the majesty coeternall the Father eternall the sonne eternall and the Holy Ghost eternall the Father is God the sonne is God and the Holy Ghost is God All which do directly overthrow these heresies And do not call these clauses particular and private fancies for they are part of the universall and publique faith of the Church which all the East and West all Popish and Reformed Churches doe unanimously professe and believe It is not a time now to add much lesse to detract from our publique Confessions of faith TRACT The third thing I named for matter of Schisme was Ambition I meane Episcopall Ambition shewing it selfe especially in two heads one concerning Pluralities of Bishops in the same Sea Another concerning the superiority of Bishops in diverse Seas Aristotle tels us that necessity causeth but small faults but Avarice and Ambition were the mother of great Crimes Episcopall Ambition hath made this true for no occasion hath produced more frequent more continuous more sanguineous Schismes than this hath done the Seas of Alexandria of Constantinople of Antioch and above all of Rome doe abundantly shew thus much and all Ecclesiasticall stories witnesse no lesse of which the greatest part consists of factionating and tumultuating of great and potent Bishops Socrates Apologizing for himselfe that professing to write an Ecclesiasticall story he did oft-times interlace the actions of secular Princes and other Civill businesse tels us that he did this to refresh his reader who otherwise were in danger to be cloyd by reading so much of the Acts of unquiet and unruly Bishops {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in which as a man may say they made butter and cheese one of another for {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that I may shew you a cast of my old office and open you a mystery in Grammer properly signifies to make butter and cheese and because these are not made without much agitation of the milk hence {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} by a borrowed and translated signification signifies to do things with much agitation and tumult But that I may a little consider of the two heads I but now specified the first I mentioned was the plurality of Bishops in one Sea For the generall practise of the
true impediments why both that and other questions of the like danger are not truly answered if all this be and yet you know not how to frame your resolution and settle your selfe for that doubt I will say no more of you then was said of Papias S. Iohns own schollar your abilities are not so good as I presumed ANIMADVERSION THIS tract I must confesse is handsomly and acutely penned and many things in it well worthy our observation Yet because I greatly honour antiquity and highly reverence the holy Fathers of the Church I must crave pardon if I deale plainly and roundly with the Author thereof who in some passages as I conceive doth two much neglect antiquity and indeed all authority For first in that he saith the Fathers generally mistake in confounding these names of Heresies and Schisme they doe not mistake them but commonly distinguish them or it is no great matter if they doe they are so neerly linked together that they are seldome seperated you shall hardly find any one guilty of Schisme but he doth easily and very often fall into Heresie Schisme say you is an unnecessary seperation of Christians from that part of the visible Church of which they were once members But as you will put the question afterwards who shall be judge what is necessary and you are loath to assoile this question because the solution thereof carryeth fire in the taile of it for it bringeth with it a peice of doctrine seldome pleasing to superiors Is this doctrine let me aske you good or bad If good then it should then I hope it will be pleasing to superiours If bad then should it displease superiours and inferiours too But the truth is the doctrine is most pernicious to government and therefore to all sorts of people to wit in plaine termes it is this that every one must judge for himself with this proviso so he be animo defaecato And I pray who shall judge of this Even your selfe also So that if you be perswaded that you are animo defaecato and if you thinke you have cleared your selfe from the froath and grownes of feare sloath and ambition then it must needs be so whereas the heart of man being deceitfull above all things there is nothing more usuall then for a man to deceive himselfe and think he is thus and thus when he is nothing so And seeing the best of us all have faces enough in us why may not superiors have as few of these dreggs in them as inferiors and so as well able at the least to judge a right as they And you may talke what you will of being clear from the froath of ambition I know not what greater pride and ambition there can be then thus to pull downe all authority and jurisdiction and erect a tribunall in euery mans brest And yet he that goeth about it will think him selfe to be animo defaecato And you may well say it carrieth fire in the taile of it For thus to trample under foot all power and authority by making every one his own judge must needs raise a great combustion and a strange confusion in the world Secondly you cannot endure that they should be truly Hereticks and Schismaticks which were anciently so esteemed For say you men are more affrighted then hurt by the Auncients and that many reverence antiquity more then need and after tell us in plain tearmes that when they came to pronounce of Schismes in particular whether it were because of their own interests or that they saw not the truth or for what other cause God only doth know their judgements many times to speak most gently are justly to be suspected Where I will not goe about to defend all the particular tenents of every Father for questionlesse being men they had their passions and perturbations as well as wee so that take them singly wee shall find in many of them such private conceits of their owne which cannot be so well excused Yet for all this when all or most of them agree together in any point we are not to question or doubt of the truth of it according to that ancient and hitherto well approved rule of Vincentius Lirinensis Whatsoever all of them or most of them in one and the same sense shall plainly frequently and constantly deliver and confirme let that be esteemed as a ratified certaine and undoubted truth So then though one or two of them may be mistaken yet that all or the greatest part should agree together in a falsehood I cannot easily believe And therefore I cannot think that the current of the Fathers should thus be mistaken and that they should generally account them for Hereticks and Schismaticks which were not so indeed I shall not so much suspect their judgements as his that thinks so But all this I perceive is that there might be some opinions favoured now which were commonly condemned by them as we shall see afterward TRACT But to goe on with what I intended and from that that diverted me that you may the better judge of the nature of Schismes by their occasions you shall find that all Schismes have crept into the Church by one of these three waies either upon matter of fact or upon matter of opinion or point of ambition for the first I call that matter of fact when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawfull so the first notable Schisme of which we read in the Church contained in it matter of fact for it being upon error taken for necessary that an Easter must be kept and upon worse then error if I may so speak for it was no lesse then a point of Iudaisme forced upon the Church upon worse then error I say thought further necessary that the ground of the time for keeping of that Feast must be the rule left by Moses to the Iewes there arose a stout Question whether we were to celebrate with the Iewes on the fourteenth Moon or the Sunday following This matter though most unnecessary most vaine yet caused as great a combustion as ever was in the Church the West separating and refusing Communion with the East for many years together In this fantasticall hurry I cannot see but all the world were Schismatiques neither can any thing excuse them from that imputation excepting only this that we charitably suppose that all parties did what they did out of Conseience a thing which befell them through the ignorance of their guides for I will not say through their malice and that through the just judgement of God because through sloath and blind obedience men examined not the things which they were taught but like beasts of burthen patiently couched downe and indifferently underwent whatsoever their Superiours laid upon them by the way by this we may plainly see the danger of our appeale to Antiquity for resolution in controverted points of Faith and how small reliefe we are to expect from thence
which you desire to be informed thus much in generall evidently appeares that all meetings upon an unnecessary seperation are to be so stiled so that in sense a Conventicle is nothing else but a Congregation of Schismatiques yet Time hath taken leave sometimes to fix this name upon good and honest meetings and that perchance not altogether without good reason for with publique religious meetings thus it fares First it hath been at all times confessed necessary that God requires not only inward and private devotion when men either in their hearts and Closets or within their privaet walls pray prayse confesse and acknowledg but he further requires all those things to be done in publique by troupes and shoales of men and from hence have proceeded publique Temples Altars formes of Service appoynted times and the like which are required for open Assemblies yet whilst men are truely pious all meetings of men for mutuall help of piety devotion wheresoever and by whomsoever celebrated were permitted without exception But when it was espyed that ill affected persons abused private meetings whether Religious or Civill to evill ends Religiousnesse to crosse Impiety as appeares in the Ethnick Elusinia and Bacchanalia and Christian meetings under the Pagan Princes when for feare they durst not come together in open view were charged with foule imputations as by the report of Christians themselves plainely appeares and Civill meetings many times under pretence of friendly and neighbourly visites sheltred treasonable attempts against Princes and Common-weales Hence both Church and State joyned and joyntly gave order for Formes Times Places of Publique meetings whether for Religious or Civill ends and all other meetings whatsoever besides those of which both time and Place are limited they censured for Routs and Riots and unlawfull Assemblies in the State and in the Church for Conventicles So that it is not lawfull no not for prayer â—earing for Conference for any other Religious office whatsoever for people to Assemble otherwise then by publique order is allowed neither may wee complaine of this in times of incorruption for why should men desire to do that suspitiously in private which warrantably may be performed in publique But in times of manifest Corruptions and persecutions wherein Religious Assembling is dangerous private meetings howsoever besides publique order are not only lawfull but they are of necessity and duty else how shall we excuse Meetings of Christians for publique Service in time of danger and persecutions and of our selues in Queene Maries dayes and how will those of the Romane Church amongst us put off the imputation of Conventicling who are knowne amongst us privately to assemble for Religious exercise against all established order both in State and Church For indeed all pious Assemblies in times of persecution and corruption howsoever practised are indeed or rather alone the lawfull Congregations and Publique Assemblies though according to forme of Law are indeed nothing else but Riots and Conventicles if they be stayned with corruption and superstition ANIMADVERSION Eightly and lastly you take away all superiority from Bishop's when you say they doe but abuse themselves and others that would perswade us that Bishops by Christs institution have any superiority over other men further then of reverence Where although you intended onely to speake against the superiority of one Bishop over another yet you seeme to take away not only all power of one Bishop over another but of a Bishop over a Presbyter yea of a Bishop over any other private man I cannot here intending brevity enter upoÌ„ the dispute about the power of one Bishop ouer another or of the power of a Bishop over a Presbyter The former of which is no doubt confirmed by a long continued Ecclesiasticall power the latter by an Apostolicall But that a Bishop should not have any superiority over an ordinary lay-man seemes strange to mee Certainely our Saviour intended some power and authority unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles when he gave them the keyes and wisht them to open and shut to binde and loose whose successors Bishops are and though some make question whether they succeede them as Bishops yet none doubt but they succeede them as Pastors of the Church and thus have they power over lay-men S. Paul wills Timothy to command and teach 1. Tim. 4. 11. and in another place willeth others to obey those who had the oversight of them Heb. 13. 17. Now where there is commanding on the one side and obeying on the other there must needs be superiority But I could not have imagined this had been your meaning but for your proofes which followe For we have believed him that hath told us that in Christ Iesus there is neither high nor low and that in giving honour every man should be ready to preferre another before himselfe which saying cuts of all claime certainly of superiority by title of Christianity except men thinke that these things were spoken only to poore and private men Where you consider not that you run into an Anabaptisticall humor and take away all superiority in the common-wealth as well as in the Church and entrench upon the Scepter of the King as well as upon the Miter of the Bishop But your proofes are easily satisfied For the first though we finde not those very words in Scripture yet I suppose you aime at that place wherein it is said Wee are all one in Christ Iesus Gal. 3. 28. where the true meaning of the place is that as wee are Christians we are all one that is wee have all equally and alike beene partakers of Christ by baptisme as he saith vers. 27. as many of you as have beene baptized into Christ have put on Christ So that as members of Christ we are all one all make but one body of Christ Yet as amongst the naturall members of our bodies so amongst the mysticall members of Christ though they be all one as members being compared with the head yet being compared one with another S. Paul tels us there are more honourable and lesse honourable members 1. Cor. 12. 23. Your other place that we should in giving honour preferre one another teacheth humility but taketh not away superiority But you go on and tell us that nature and religion agree in this that neither of them hath an hand in this heraldry of Secundum sub supra whereas in it they both joyne hand in hand Nature acknowledgeth this heraldry that shee may avoyd ataxie and confusion And religion also for did not our Lord and Master acknowledge a Caesar and commanded us to give unto him that which belonged unto him to wit obedience subjection And doth not his Apostle S. Paul command that every soule should be subject to the higher power Rom. 13. 1. where you see this heraldry of sub supra is put downe in expresse tearmes and pray let us observe the Apostles reason why wee should thus be subject to the higher powers for saith he there is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God How heare I then that all this comes from composition and agreement of men amongst themselves But I spare to prosecute this doctrine any further least I should discover in it a very transcendent crime FINIS Lib. ad Her cap. 39. Artic. 20. Cap. 1. 2.