all their Decrees into the Creed as some have done since to what a volume had the Creed by this time swell'd and all the house had run into foundation nothing left for super-structures But that they did not it appeares that since they thought all their Decrees true yet they did not think them all necessary at least not in that degree and that they published such Decrees they did it declarando not imperando as Doctors in their Chaires not masters of other mens faith and consciences And yet there is some more modesty or warinesse or necessity what shall I call it then this comes too for why are not all controversies determin'd but even when Generall Assemblies of Prelates have been some controversies that have been very vexatious have been pretermitted and others of lesse consequence have been determind Why did never any Generall Councell condemn in expresse sentence the Pelagian heresy that great pest that subtle infection of Cristendome and yet divers Generall Councells did assemble while the heresy was in the world Both these cases in severall degrees leave men in their liberty of believing and prophesying The latter proclaimes that all controversies cannot be determind to sufficient purposes and the first declares that those that are are not all of them matters of Faith and themselves are not so secure but they may bee deceived and therefore possibly it were better it were let alone for if the latter leaves them divided in their opinions yet their Communions and therefore probably their charities are not divided but the former divides their Communions and hinders their interest and yet for ought is certain the accused person is the better Catholike And yet after all this it is not safety enough to say let the Councell or Prelates determine Articles warily seldome with great caution and with much sweetnesse and modesty For though this be better then to doe it rashly frequently and furiously yet if we once transgresse the bounds set us by the Apostles in their Creed and not onely preach other truths but determine them pro tribunali as well as pro cathedra although there be no errour in the subject matter as in Nice there was none yet if the next Ages say they will determine another Article with as much care and caution and pretend as great a necessity there is no hindring them but by giving reasons against it and so like enough they might have done against the decreeing the Article at Nice yet that is not sufficient for since the Authority of the Nicene Councell hath grown to the heigth of a mountainous prejudice against him that should say it was ill done the same reason and the same necessity may be pretended by any Age and in any Councell and they think themselves warranted by the great precedent at Nice to proceed as peremptorily as they did but then if any other Assembly of learned men may possibly be deceiv'd were it not better they should spare the labour then that they should with so great pomp and solennities engage mens perswasions and determine an Article which after Ages must rescind for therefore most certainly in their own Age the point with safety of faith and salvation might have been disputed and disbelieved And that many mens faiths have been tyed up by Acts and Decrees of Councels for those Articles in which the next Age did see a liberty had better beene preserved because an errour was determined wee shall afterward receive a more certaine account And therefore the Councell of Nice did well and Constantinople did well so did Ephesus and Chalcedon but it is Numb 32. because the Articles were truly determin'd for that is part of my beliefe but who is sure it should be so before hand and whether the points there determin'd were necessary or no to be believ'd or to be determin'd if peace had been concern'd in it through the faction and division of the parties I suppose the judgement of Constantine the Emperour and the famous Hosius of Corduba is sufficient to instruct us whose authority I rather urge then reasons because it is a prejudice and not a reason I am to contend against So that such determinations and publishing of Confessions with Authority of Prince and Bishop are sometimes of very Numb 33. good use for the peace of the Church and they are good also to determine the judgement of indifferent persons whose reasons of either side are not too great to weigh down the probability of that Authority But for persons of confident and imperious understandings they on whose side the determination is are armed with a prejudice against the other and with a weapon to affront them but with no more to convince them and they against whom the decision is doe the more readily betake themselves to the defensive and are engaged upon contestation and publike enmities for such Articles which either might safely have been unknown or with much charity disputed Therefore the Nicene Councell although it have the advantage of an acquir'd and prescribing Authority yet it must not become a precedent to others least the inconveniences of multiplying more Articles upon as great pretence of reason as then make the act of the Nicene Fathers in straightning Prophesying and enlarging the Creed become accidentally an inconvenience The first restraint although if it had been complaind of might possibly have been better consider'd of yet the inconvenience is not visible till it comes by way of precedent to usher in more It is like an Arbitrary power which although by the same reason it take six pence from the subject it may take a hundred pound and then a thousand and then all yet so long as it is within the first bounds the inconvenience is not so great but when it comes to be a precedent or argument for more then the first may justly be complaind of as having in it that reason in the principle which brought the inconvenience in the sequell and we have seen very ill consequents from innocent beginnings And the inconveniences which might possibly arise from Numb 34. this precedent those wise Personages also did fore-see and therefore although they took liberty in Nice to adde some Articles or at least more explicitely to declare the first Creed yet they then would have all the world to rest upon that and goe no farther as believing that to be sufficient S. Athanasius declares their opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Epict. That Faith which those Fathers there confessed was sufficient for the refutation of all impiety and the establishment of all Faith in Christ and true Religion And therefore there was a famous Epistle written by Zeno the Emperour called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euagr. l. 3. c. 14. or the Epistle of reconciliation in which all disagreeing interests are entreated to agree in the Nicene Symbol and a promise made upon that condition to communicate with all other Sects adding withall that the Church should
with a menace of death to them that should disobey that all the world might know the meaning and extent of such precepts and that there is a limit beyond which they cannot command and we ought not to obey it came once to that pass that if the Priest had been obeyed in his Conciliary decrees the whole Nation had been bound to beleeve the condemnation of our blessed Saviour to have been just and at another time the Apostles must no more have preached in the name of JEsus But here was manifest error And the case is the same to every man that invincibly and therefore innocently beleeves it so Deo potius quà m hominibus is our rule in such cases For although every man is bound to follow his guide unless he beleeves his guide to mislead him yet when he sees reason against his guide it is best to follow his reason for though in this he may fall into error yet he will escape the sin he may doe violence to truth but never to his own conscience and an honest error is better then an hypocriticall profession of truth or a violent luxation of the understanding since if he retains his honesty and simplicity he cannot erre in a matter of faith or absolute necessity Gods goodness hath secur'd all honest and carefull persons from that for other things he must follow the best guides he can and he cannot be obliged to follow better then God hath given him And there is yet another way pretended of infallible Numb 3. Expositions of Scripture and that is by the Spirit But of this I shall say no more but that it is impertinent as to this question For put case the Spirit is given to some men enabling them to expound infallibly yet because this is but a private assistance and cannot be proved to others this infallible assistance may determine my own assent but shall not inable me to prescribe to others because it were unreasonable I should unless I could prove to him that I have the Spirit and so can secure him from being deceived if he relyes upon me In this case I may say as S. Paul in the case of praying with the Spirit He verily giveth thanks well but the other is not edified So that let this pretence be as true as it will it is sufficient that it cannot be of consideration in this question The result of all is this Since it is not reasonable to limit and prescribe to all mens understandings by any externall rule in the Numb 4. interpretation of difficult places of Scripture which is our rule Since no man nor company of men is secure from error or can secure us that they are free from malice interest and design and since all the wayes by which we usually are taught as Tradition Councels Decretals c. are very uncertain in the matter in their authority in their being legitimate and naturall and many of them certainly false and nothing certain but the divine authority of Scripture in which all that is necessary is plain and much of that that is not necessary is very obscure intricate and involv'd either we must set up our rest onely upon articles of faith and plain places and be incurious of other obscurer revelations which is a duty for persons of private understandings and of no publike function or if we will search further to which in some measure the guides of others are obliged it remains we inquire how men may determine themselves so as to doe their duty to God and not to diserve the Church that every such man may doe what he is bound to in his personall capacity and as he relates to the publike as a publike minister SECT X. Of the authority of Reason and that it proceeding upon best grounds is the best judge HEre then I consider that although no man may be trusted to judge for all others unless this person were infallible and Numb 1. authorized so to doe which no man nor no company of men is yet every man may be trusted to judge for himself I say every man that can judge at all as for others they are to be saved as it pleaseth God but others that can judge at all must either choose their guides who shall judge for them and then they oftentimes doe the wisest and alwayes save themselves a labour but then they choose too or if they be persons of greater understanding then they are to choose for themselves in particular what the others doe in generall and by choosing their guide and for this any man may be better trusted for himselfe then any man can be for another For in this case his own interest is most concerned and ability is not so necessary as honesty which certainly every man will best preserve in his owne case and to himselfe and if he does not it is he that must smart for 't and it is not required of us not to be in errour but that we endeavour to avoid it 2. He that followes his guide so far as his reason goes along with him or which is all one he that followes his owne reason Numb 2. not guided onely by naturall arguments but by divine revelation and all other good meanes hath great advantages over him that gives himselfe wholly to follow any humane guide whatsoever because he followes all their reasons and his own too he follows them till reason leaves them or till it seemes so to him which is all one to his particular for by the confession of all sides an erroneous Conscience binds him when a right guide does not bind him But he that gives himselfe up wholly to a guide is oftentimes I meane if he be a discerning person forc'd to doe violence to his own understanding and to lose all the benefit of his owne discretion that he may reconcile his reason to his guide And of this we see infinite inconveniences in the Church of Rome for we finde persons of great understanding oftentimes so amused with the authority of their Church that it is pity to see them sweat in answering some objections which they know not how to doe but yet beleeve they must because the Church hath said it So that if they reade study pray search records and use all the means of art and industry in the pursuite of truth it is not with a resolution to follow that which shall seem truth to them but to confirm what before they did beleeve and if any argument shall seeme unanswerable against any Article of their Church they are to take it for a temptation not for an illumination and they are to use it accordingly which makes them make the Devill to be the Author of that which Gods Spirit hath assisted them to find in the use of lawfull means and the search of truth And when the Devill of falshood is like to be cast out by Gods Spirit they say that it is through Beelzebub which was one of the worst things
that ever the Pharisees said or did And was it not a plain stifling of the just and reasonable demands made by the Emperour by the Kings of France and Spaine and by the ablest Divines among them which was used in the Councell of Trent when they demanded the restitution of Priests to their liberty of marriage the use of the Chalice the Service in the vulgar Tongue and these things not onely in pursuance of Truth but for other great and good ends even to take away an infinite scandall and a great schisme And yet when they themselves did profess it and all the world knew these reasonable demands were denyed meerly upon a politick consideration yet that these things should be fram'd into articles and decrees of faith and they for ever after bound not onely not to desire the same things but to think the contrary to be divine truths never was Reason made more a slave or more useless Must not all the world say either they must be great hypocrites or doe great violence to their understanding when they not onely cease from their claim but must also beleeve it to be unjust If the use of their reason had not been restrained by the tyrannie imperiousness of their guide what the Emperour and the Kings and their Theologues would have done they can best judge who consider the reasonableness of the demand and the unreasonableness of the denyall But we see many wise men who with their Optandum esset ut Ecclesia licentiam daret c. proclaime to all the world that in some things they consent and doe not consent and doe not heartily beleeve what they are bound publickly to profess and they themselves would cleerly see a difference if a contrary decree should be fram'd by the Church they would with an infinite greater confidence rest themselves in other propositions then what they must beleeve as the case now stands and they would find that the authority of a Church is a prejudice as often as a free and modest use of reason is a temptation 3. God will have no man pressed with anothers inconveniences in matters spirituall and intellectuall no mans salvation to depend Numb 3. upon another and every tooth that eats sowre grapes shall be set on edge for it selfe and for none else and this is remarkable in that saying of God by the Prophet If the Prophet ceases to Ezek. 33. tell my people of their sins and leads them into error the people shall die in their sins and the blood of them I will require at the hands of that Prophet Meaning that God hath so set the Prophets to guide us that we also are to follow them by a voluntary assent by an act of choice and election For although accidentally and occasionally the sheep may perish by the shepherds fault yet that which hath the chiefest influence upon their finall condition is their owne act and election and therefore God hath so appointed guides to us that if we perish it may be accounted upon both our scores upon our own and the guides too which sayes plainly that although we are intrusted to our guides yet we are intrusted to our selves too Our guides must direct us and yet if they faile God hath not so left us to them but he hath given us enough to our selves to discover their failings and our own duties in all things necessary And for other things we must doe as well as we can But it is best to follow our guides if we know nothing better but if we doe it is better to follow the pillar of fire than a pillar of cloud though both possibly may lead to Canaan But then also it is possible that it may be otherwise But I am sure if I doe my own best then if it be best to follow a Guide and if it be also necessary I shall be sure by Gods grace and my own endeavour to get to it But if I without the particular ingagement of my own understanding follow a guide possibly I may be guilty of extream negligence or I may extinguish Gods Spirit or doe violence to my own reason And whether intrusting my self wholly with another be not a laying up my talent in a napkin I am not so well assured I am certain the other is not And since another mans answering for me will not hinder but that I also shall answer for my self as it concerns him to see he does not wilfully misguide me so it concerns me to see that he shall not if I can help it if I cannot it will not be required at my hands whether it be his fault or his invincible error I shall be charg'd with neither 4. This is no other then what is enjoyned as a duty For since Numb 4. God will be justified with a free obedience and there is an obedience of understanding as well as of will and affection it is of great concernment as to be willing to beleeve what ever God sayes so also to enquire diligently whether the will of God be so as is pretended Even our acts of understanding are acts of choice Mat. 15. 10. Joh. 5. 40. 1 Joh. 4. 1. Ephes. 5. 17. Luk. 24. 25. Rom. 3. 11. 1. 28. Apoc. 2. 2. Act. 17. 11. and therefore it is commanded as a duty to search the Scriptures to try the spirits whether they be of God or no of our selves to be able to judge what is right to try all things and to retaine that which is best For he that resolves not to consider resolves not to be carefull whether he have truth or no and therefore hath an affection indifferent to truth or falshood which is all one as if he did choose amiss and since when things are truly propounded and made reasonable and intelligible we cannot but assent and then it is no thanks to us we have no way to give our wills to God in matters of beliefe but by our industry in searching it and examining the grounds upon which the propounders build their dictates And the not doing it is oftentimes a cause that God gives a man over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a reprobate and undiscerning mind and understanding 5. And this very thing though men will not understand it is Numb 5. the perpetuall practice of all men in the world that can give a reasonable account of their faith The very Catholike Church it selfe is rationabilis ubique diffusa saith Optatus reasonable as Lib. 3. well as diffused every where For take the Proselites of the Church of Rome even in their greatest submission of understanding they seem to themselves to follow their reason most of all For if you tell them Scripture and Tradition are their rules to follow they will beleeve you when they know a reason for it and if they take you upon your word they have a reason for that too either they beleeve you a learned man or a good man or that you can have
no ends upon them or something that is of an equall height to fit their understandings If you tell them they must beleeve the Church you must tell them why they are bound to it and if you quote Scripture to prove it you must give them leave to judge whether the words alledged speak your sense or no and therefore to dissent if they say no such thing And although all men are not wise and proceed discreetly yet all make their choice some way or other He that chooses to please his fancie takes his choice as much as he that chooses prudently And no man speaks more unreasonably then he that denyes to men the use of their Reason in choice of their Religion For that I may by the way remove the common prejudice Reason and Authority are not things incompetent or repugnant especially when the Authority is infallible and supreme for there is no greater reason in the world then to beleeve such an authority But then we must consider whether every authority that pretends to be such is so indeed And therefore Deus dixit ergo hoc verum est is the greatest demonstration in the world for things of this nature But it is not so in humane dictates and yet reason and humane authority are not enemies For it is a good argument for us to follow such an opinion because it is made sacred by the authority of Councells and Ecclesiasticall Tradition and sometimes it is the best reason we have in a question and then it is to be strictly followed but there may also be at other times a reason greater than it that speaks against it and then the authority must not carry it But then the difference is not between reason and authority but between this reason and that which is greater for authority is a very good reason and is to prevaile unless a stronger comes and disarms it but then it must give place So that in this question by Reason I doe not meane a distinct Topick but a transcendent that runs through all Topicks for Reason like Logick is instrument of all things else and when Revelation and Philosophie and publick Experience and all other grounds of probability or demonstration have supplyed us with matter then Reason does but make use of them that is in plain terms there being so many wayes of arguing so many sects such differing interests such variety of authority so many pretences and so many false beliefes it concernes every wise man to consider which is the best argument which proposition relies upon the truest grounds if this were not his only way why doe men dispute and urge arguments why do they cite Councels Fathers why do they alledge Scripture and Tradition and all this on all sides and to contrary purposes If we must judge then we must use our reason if we must not judge why doe they produce evidence Let them leave disputing and decree propositions magisterially but then we may choose whether we will believe them or no or if they say we must believe them they must prove it and tell us why And all these disputes concerning Tradition Councells Fathers c. are not arguments against or besides reason but contestations and pretences to the best arguments and the most certain satisfaction of our reason But then all these comming into question submit themselves to reason that is to be judged by humane understanding upon the best grounds and information it can receive So that Scripture Tradition Councells and Fathers are the evidence in a question but Reason is the Judge That is we being the persons that are to be perswaded we must see that we be perswaded reasonably and it is unreasonable to assent to a lesser evidence when a greater and cleerer is propounded but of that every man for himselfe is to take cognisance if he be able to judge if he be not he is not bound under the tye of necessity to know any thing of it that that is necessary shall be certainly conveyed to him God that best can will certainly take care for that for if he does not it becomes to be not necessary or if it should still remain necessary and he damned for not knowing it and yet to know it be not in his power then who can help it there can be no further care in this business In other things there being no absolute and prime necessity we are left to our liberty to judge that way that makes best demonstration of our piety and of our love to God and truth not that way that is alwayes the best argument of an excellent understanding for this may be a blessing but the other onely is a duty And now that we are pitch'd upon that way which is most naturall Numb 6. and reasonable in determination of our selves rather then of questions which are often indeterminable since right reason proceeding upon the best grounds it can viz. of divine revelation and humane authority and probability is our guide Stando in humanis and supposing the assistance of Gods Spirit which he never denies them that faile not of their duty in all such things in which he requires truth and certainty it remaines that we consider how it comes to pass that men are so much deceived in the use of their reason and choice of their Religion and that in this account we distinguish those accidents which make error innocent from those which make it become a heresie SECT XI Of some causes of Errour in the exercise of Reason which are inculpate in themselves 1. THen I consider that there are a great many inculpable causes of Errour which are arguments of humane imperfections Numb 1. not convictions of a sinne And 1. the variety of humane understandings is so great that what is plaine and apparent to one is difficult and obscure to another one will observe a consequent from a common principle and another from thence will conclude the quite contrary When S. Peter saw the vision of the sheet let downe with all sorts of beasts in it and a voice saying Surge Petre macta manduca if he had not by a particular assistance beene directed to the meaning of the holy Ghost possibly he might have had other apprehensions of the meaning of that vision for to my selfe it seemes naturally to speake nothing but the abolition of the Mosaicall rites and the restitution of us to that part of Christian liberty which consists in the promiscuous eating of meates and yet besides this there want not some understandings in the world to whom these words seeme to give Saint Peter a power to kill hereticall Princes Me thinkes it is a strange understanding that makes such extractions but Bozius and Baronius did so But men may understand what they please especially when they are to expound Oracles It was an argument of some wit but of singularity of understanding that hapned in the great contestation betweene the Missalls of Saint Ambrose and
For others I shall be incurious because the number of them that honour you is the same with them that honour Learning and Piety and they are the best Theatre and the best judges amongst which the world must needs take notice of my ambition to be ascribed by my publike pretence to be what I am in all heartinesse of Devotion and for all the reason of the world My Honour'd Lord Your Lordships most faithfull and most affectionate servant J. TAYLOR The Contents of the Sections SECTION I. OF the Nature of Faith and that its duty is compleated in believing the Articles of the Apostles Creed Pag. 5. SECT II. Of Heresy and the nature of it and that it is to be accounted according to the strict capacity of Christian Faith and not in Opinions speculative nor ever to pious persons pag. 18. SECT III. Of the difficulty and uncertainty of Arguments from Scripture in Questions not simply necessary not literally determined pag. 59. SECT IV. Of the difficulty of Expounding Scripture pag. 73. SECT V. Of the insufficiency and uncertainty of Tradition to expound Scripture or determine Questions pag. 83. SECT VI. Of the uncertainty and insufficiency of Councels Ecclesiasticall to the same purpose pag. 101. SECT VII Of the fallibility of the Pope and the uncertainty of his Expounding Scripture and resolving Questions pag. 125. SECT VIII Of the disability of Fathers or Writers Ecclesiasticall to determine our Questions with certainty and Truth pag. 151. SECT IX Of the incompetency of the Church in its diffusive capacity to be Iudge of Controversies and the impertinency of that pretence of the Spirit pag. 161. SECT X. Of the authority of Reason and that it proceeding upon the best grounds is the best judge pag. 165. SECT XI Of some causes of Errour in the exercise of Reason which are inculpate in themselves pag. 171. SECT XII Of the innocency of Errour in opinion in a pious person pag. 184. SECT XIII Of the deportment to be used towards persons disagreeing and the reasons why they are not to be punished with death c. pag. 189. SECT XIIII Of the practice of Christian Churches towards persons disagreeing and when Persecution first came in pag. 203. SECT XV. How farre the Church or Governours may act to the restraining false or differing opinions pag. 210. SECT XVI Whether it be lawfull for a Prince to give toleration to severall Religions pag. 213. SECT XVII Of compliance with disagreeing persons or weak Consciences in generall pag. 217. SECT XVIII A particular consideration of the Opinions of the Anabaptists pag. 223 SECT XIX That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines inconsistent with piety or the publique good pag. 246. SECT XX. How farre the Religion of the Church of Rome is Tolerable pag. 249. SECT XXI Of the duty of particular Churches in allowing Communion pag. 262. SECT XXII That particular men may communicate with Churches of different perswasions and how farre they may doe it pag. 264. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OF THE LIBERTY OF PROPHESYING THe infinite variety of Opinions in matters of Religion as they have troubled Christendome with interests factions and partialities so have they caused great divisions of the heart and variety of thoughts and designes amongst pious and prudent men For they all seeing the inconveniences which the dis-union of perswasions and Opinions have produced directly or accidentally have thought themselves obliged to stop this inundation of mischiefes and have made attempts accordingly But it hath hapned to most of them as to a mistaken Physitian who gives excellent physick but mis-applies it and so misses of his cure so have these men their attempts have therefore been ineffectuall for they put their help to a wrong part or they have endeavoured to cure the symptomes and have let the disease alone till it seem'd incurable Some have endeavoured to re-unite these fractions by propounding such a Guide which they were all bound to follow hoping that the Unity of a Guide would have perswaded unity of mindes but who this Guide should be at last became such a Question that it was made part of the fire that was to be quenched so farre was it from extinguishing any part of the flame Others thought of a Rule and this must be the meanes of Union or nothing could doe it But supposing all the World had been agreed of this Rule yet the interpretation of it was so full of variety that this also became part of the disease for which the cure was pretended All men resolv'd upon this that though they yet had not hit upon the right yet some way must be thought upon to reconcile differences in Opinion thinking so long as this variety should last Christ's Kingdome was not advanced and the work of the Gospel went on but slowly Few men in the mean time considered that so long as men had such variety of principles such severall constitutions educations tempers and distempers hopes interests and weaknesses degrees of light and degrees of understanding it was impossible all should be of one minde And what is impossible to be done is not necessary it should be done And therefore although variety of Opinions was impossible to be cured and they who attempted it did like him who claps his shoulder to the ground to stop an earth-quake yet the inconveniences arising from it might possibly be cured not by uniting their beliefes that was to be dispaird of but by curing that which caus'd these mischiefes and accidentall inconveniences of their disagreeings For although these inconveniences which every man sees and feeles were consequent to this diversity of perswasions yet it was but accidentally and by chance in as much as wee see that in many things and they of great concernment men alow to themselves and to each other a liberty of disagreeing and no hurt neither And certainely if diversity of Opinions were of it selfe the cause of mischiefes it would be so ever that is regularly and universally but that we see it is not For there are disputes in Christendome concerning matters of greater concernment then most of those Opinions that distinguish Sects and make factions and yet because men are permitted to differ in those great matters such evills are not consequent to such differences as are to the uncharitable managing of smaller and more inconsiderable Questions It is of greater consequence to believe right in the Question of the validity or invalidity of a death-bed repentance then to believe aright in the Question of Purgatory and the consequences of the Doctrine of Predetermination are of deeper and more materiall consideration then the products of the beliefe of the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse of private Masses and yet these great concernments where a liberty of Prophecying in these Questions hath been permitted hath made no distinct Communion no sects of Christians and the others have and so have these too in those places where they have peremptorily been determind on either side Since then if men are
be obliged to believe much more yet this was the one and onely foundation of Faith upon which all persons were to build their hopes of heaven this was therefore necessary to be taught to all because of necessity to be believ'd by all So that although other persons might commit a delinquency in genere morum if they did not know or did not believe much more because they were oblig'd to further disquisitions in order to other ends yet none of these who held the Creed intire could perish for want of necessary faith though possibly he might for supine negligence or affected ignorance or some other fault which had influence upon his opinions and his understanding he having a new supervening obligation ex accidente to know and believe more Neither are we oblig'd to make these Articles more particular and minute then the Creed For since the Apostles and indeed Numb 11. our blessed Lord himselfe promised heaven to them who believd him to be the Christ that was to come into the world and that he who believes in him should be partaker of the resurrection and life eternall he will be as good as his word yet because this Article was very generall and a complexion rather then a single proposition the Apostles and others our Fathers in Christ did make it more explicite and though they have said no more then what lay entire and ready form'd in the bosome of the great Article yet they made their extracts to great purpose and absolute sufficiency and therefore there needs no more deductions or remoter consequences from the first great Article than the Creed of the Apostles For although whatsoever is certainly deduced from any of these Articles made already so explicite is as certainly true and as much to be believed as the Article it selfe because ex veris possunt nil nisi vera sequi yet because it is not certain that our deductions from them are certain and what one calls evident is so obscure to another that he believes it false it is the best and only safe course to rest in that explication the Apostles have made because if any of these Apostolicall deductions were not demonstrable evidently to follow from that great Article to which salvation is promised yet the authority of them who compil'd the Symboll the plaine description of the Articles from the words of Scriptures the evidence of reason demonstrating these to be the whole foundation are sufficient upon great grounds of reason to ascertaine us but if we goe farther besides the easinesse of being deceived we relying upon our own discourses which though they may be true and then binde us to follow them but yet no more then when they only seem truest yet they cannot make the thing certaine to another much lesse necessary in it selfe And since God would not binde us upon paine of sinne and punishment to make deductions our selves much lesse would he binde us to follow another man's Logick as an Article of our Faith I say much lesse another mans for our own integrity for we will certainly be true to our selves and doe our own businesse heartily is as fit and proper to be imployed as another mans ability He cannot secure me that his ability is absolute and the greatest but I can be more certaine that my own purposes and fidelity to my selfe is such And since it is necessary to rest somewhere lest we should run to an infinity it is best to rest there where the Apostles and the Churches Apostolicall rested when not only they who are able to judge but others who are not are equally ascertained of the certainty and of the sufficiency of that explication This I say not that I believe it unlawfull or unsafe for the Numb 12. Church or any of the Antistites religionis or any wise man to extend his own Creed to any thing may certainely follow from any one of the Articles but I say that no such deduction is fit to be prest on others as an Article of Faith and that every deduction which is so made unlesse it be such a thing as is at first evident to all is but sufficient to make a humane Faith nor can it amount to a divine much lesse can be obligatory to binde a person of a differing perswasion to subscribe under paine of loosing his Faith or being a Heretick For it is a demonstration that nothing can be necessary to be believed under paine of damnation but such propositions of which it is certaine that God hath spoken and taught them to us and of which it is certaine that this is their sense and purpose For if the sense be uncertain we can no more be obliged to believe it in a certain sense then we are to believe it at all if it were not certaine that God delivered it But if it be onely certaine that God spake it and not certaine to what sense our Faith of it is to be as indeterminate as its sense and it can be no other in the nature of the thing nor is it consonant to Gods justice to believe of him that he can or will require more And this is of the nature of those propositions which Aristotle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which without any further probation all wise men will give assent at its first publication And therfore deductions inevident from the evident and plain letter of Faith are as great recessions from the obligation as they are from the simplicity and certainty of the Article And this I also affirm although the Church of any one denomination or represented in a Councell shall make the deduction or declaration For unlesse Christ had promised his Spirit to protect every particular Church from all errors lesse materiall unlesse he had promised an absolute universall infallibility etiam in minutioribus unlesse super-structures be of the same necessity with the foundation and that Gods Spirit doth not only preserve his Church in the being of a Church but in a certainty of not saying any thing that is lesse certain and that whether they will or no too we may be bound to peace and obedience to silence and to charity but have not a new Article of Faith made and a new proposition though consequent as 't is said from an Article of Faith becomes not therefore a part of the Faith nor of absolute necessity Quid unquam aliud Ecclesia Conciliorum decretis Contra haeres cap 32. eâ—isa est nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur hoc idem postea diligentiùs crederetur said Vincentius Lirinensis whatsoever was of necessary beliefe before is so still and hath a new degree added by reason of a new light or a clear explication but no prositions can be adopted into the foundation The Church hath power to intend our Faith but not to extend it to make our beliefe more evident but not more large and comprehensive For Christ and his Apostles concealed nothing that was necessary to the
impiety It might possibly be that the Bishops did it in tendernesse of their reputation but yet hardly for to punish a person publikely and highly is a certain declaring the person punished guilty of a high crime and then to conceale the fault upon pretence to preserve his reputation leaves every man at liberty to conjecture what he pleaseth who possibly will believe it worse than it is in as much as they think his judges so charitable as therefore to conceale the fault least the publishing of it should be his greatest punishment and the scandall greater then his deprivation * Simplicitèr pateat vitium fortasse pusillum Quod-tegitur majus creditur esse malum Martial However this course if it were just in any was unsafe in all for it might undoe more then it could preserve and therefore is of more danger then it can be of charity It is therefore too probable that the matter was not very faire for in publike sentence the acts ought to be publike but that they rather pretend heresy to bring their ends about shewes how easie it is to impute that crime and how forward they were to doe it And that they might and did then as easily call Heretick as afterward when Vigilius was condemned of heresy for saying there were Antipodes or as the Fryars of late did who suspected Greek and Hebrew of heresy and cald their Professors Hereticks and had like to have put Terence and Demosthenes into the Index Expurgatorius sure enough they raild at them pro concione therefore because they understood them not and had reason to believe they would accidentally be enemies to their reputation among the people By this instance which was a while after the Nicene Councell where the acts of the Church were regular judiciall and orderly Numb 18. we may guesse at the sentences passed upon heresy at such times and in such cases when their processe was more private and their acts more tumultuary their information lesse certaine and therefore their mistakes more easie and frequent And it is remarkable in the case of the heresy of Montanus the scene of whose heresy lay within the first three hundred yeares though it was represented in the Caralogues afterwards and possibly the mistake concerning it is to be put upon the score of Epiphanius by whom Montanus and his Followers were put into the Catalogue of Hereticks for commanding abstinence from meats as if they were unclean and of themselves unlawfull Now the truth was Montanus said no such thing but commanded frequent abstinence enjoyned dry diet and an ascetick Table not for conscience sake but for Discipline and yet because he did this with too much rigour and strictnesse of mandate the Primitive Church mislik'd it in him as being too neere their errour who by a Judaicall superstition abstain'd from meats as from uncleannesse This by the way will much concern them who place too much sanctity in such Rites and Acts of Discipline for it is an eternall Rule and of never failing truth that such abstinences if they be obtruded as Acts of originall immediate duty and sanctity are unlawfull and superstious if they be for Discipline they may be good but of no very great profit it is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which S. Paul sayes profiteth but little and just in the same degree the Primitive Church esteem'd them for they therefore reprehended Montanus for urging such abstinences with too much earnestnesse though but in the way of Discipline for that it was no more Tertullian who was himselfe a Montanist and knew best the opinions of his own Sect testifies and yet Epiphanus reporting the errours of Montanus commends that which Montanus truly and really taught and which the Primitive Church condemn'd in him and therefore represents that heresy to another sense and affixes that to Montanus which Epiphanius beliv'd a heresy and yet which Montanus did not teach And this also among many other things lessens my opinion very much of the integrity or discretion of the old Catalogues of Hereticks and much abates my confidence towards them And now that I have mentioned them casually in passing by I shall give a short account of them for men are much Numb 19. mistaken some in their opinions concerning the truth of them as believing them to be all true some concerning their purpose as thinking them sufficient not only to condemn all those opinions there called hereticall but to be a precedent to all Ages of the Church to be free and forward in calling Heretick But he that considers the Catalogues themselves as they are collected by Epiphanius Philastrius and S. Austin shall finde that many are reckoned for Hereticks for opinions in matters disputable and undetermin'd and of no consequence and that in these Catalogues of Hereticks there are men numbred for Hereticks which by every side respectively are acquitted so that there is no company of men in the world that admit these Catalogues as good Records or sufficient sentences of condemnation For the Churches of the Reformation I am certain they acquit Aërius for denying prayer for the dead and the Eustathians for denying invocation of Saints And I am partly of opinion that the Church of Rome is not willing to call the Collyridians Hereticks for offering a Cake to the Virgin Mary unlesse she also will runne the hazard of the same sentence for offering Candles to her And that they will be glad with S. Austin l. 6. de haeres c. 86. to excuse the * D. Thom. l. contr gent. c. 21. Tertullianists for picturing God in a visible corporall representment And yet these Sects are put in the black book by Epiphanius and S. Austin and Isidore respectively I remember also that the Osseni are cald Hereticks because they refused to worship toward the East and yet in that dissent I finde not the malignity of a heresy nor any thing against an Article of Faith or good manners and it being only in circumstance it were hard if they were otherwise pious men and true believers to send them to Hell for such a trifle The Parermeneutae refused to follow other mens dictates like sheep but would expound Scripture according to the best evidence themselves could finde and yet were called Hereticks whether they expounded true or no. The * Euthym. part 1. tit 21. Epiphan haeres 64. Pauliciani for being offended at crosses the Proclians for saying in a regenerate man all his sinnes were not quite dead but only curbed and asswaged were called Hereticks and so condemned for ought I know for affirming that which all pious men feele in themselves to be too true And he that will consider how numerous the Catalogues are and to what a volumn they are come in their last collections to no lesse then five hundred and twenty for so many heresies and Hereticks are reckoned by Prateolus may think that if a re-trenchment were justly made of truths and all impertinencies and all opinions either
of any side shall finde as many instances of this vanity almost as he finds Arguments from Scripture this fault was of old noted by S. Austin for then they had got the trick and he is angry at it neque enim putare debemus De doctri Christian. lib. 3. esse praescriptum ut quod in aliquo loco res aliqua per similitudinem significaverit hoc etiam semper significare credamus 3. Oftentimes Scriptures are pretended to be expounded by Numb 3. a proportion and Analogy of reason And this is as the other if it be well it s well But unlesse there were some intellectus universalis furnished with infallible propositions by referring to which every man might argue infallibly this Logick may deceive as well as any of the rest For it is with reason as with mens tastes although there are some generall principles which are reasonable to all men yet every man is not able to draw out all its consequences nor to understand them when they are drawn forth nor to believe when he does understand them There is a precept of S. Paul directed to the Thessalonians before they were gather'd into a body of a Church 2 Thes. 3. 6. To withdraw from every brother that walketh disorderly But if this precept were now observed I would faine know whether we should not fall into that inconvenience which S. Paul sought to avoyd in giving the same commandement to the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 5. 9. I wrote to you that yee should not company with fornicators And yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world for then yee must goe out of the world And therefore he restrains it to a quitting the society of Christians living ill lives But now that all the world hath been Christians if we should sin in keeping company with vitious Christians must we not also goe out of this world Is not the precept made null because the reason is altered and things are come about and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called brethren as S. Pauls phrase is And yet either this never was considered or not yet believed for it is generally taken to be obligatory though I think seldome practised But when we come to expound Scriptures to a certaine sense by Arguments drawn from prudentiall motives then we are in a vast plain without any sufficient guide and we shall have so many senses as there are humane prudences But that which goes further then this is a parity of reason from a plain place of Scripture to an obscure from that which is plainly set down in a Text to another that is more remote from it And thus is that place in S. Matthew forced If thy brother refuse to be amended Dic ecclesiae Hence some of the Roman Doctors argue If Christ commands to tell the Church in case of adultery or private injury then much more in case of heresy Well suppose this to be a good Interpretation Why must I stay here Why may not I also adde by a parity of reason If the Church must be told of heresy much more of treason And why may not I reduce all sinnes to the cognizance of a Church tribunall as some men doe indirectly and Snecanus does heartily and plainly If a mans principles be good and his deductions certain he need not care whether they carry him But when an Authority is intrusted to a person and the extent of his power expressed in his commission it will not be safety to meddle beyond his commission upon confidence of a parity of reason To instance once more When Christ in pasce oves tu es Petrus gave power to the Pope to govern the Church for to that sense the Church of Rome expounds those Authorities by a certain consequence of reason say they he gave all things necessary for exercise of this jurisdiction and therefore in pasce oves he gave him an indirect power over temporalls for that is necessary that he may doe his duty Well having gone thus farre we will goe further upon the parity of reason therefore he hath given the Pope the gift of tongues and he hath given him power to give it for how else shall Xavier convert the Indians He hath given him also power to command the Seas and the winds that they should obey him for this also is very necessary in some cases And so pasce oves is accipe donum linguarum and Impera ventis dispone regum diademata laicorum praedia and influentias caeli too and whatsoever the parity of reason will judge equally necessary in order to pasce ovts when a man does speak reason it is but reason he should be heard but though he may have the good fortune or the great abilities to doe it yet he hath not a certainty no regular infallible assistance no inspiration of Arguments and deductions and if he had yet because it must be reason that must judge of reason unlesse other mens understandings were of the same ayre the same constitution and ability they cannot be prescrib'd unto by another mans reason especially because such reasonings as usually are in explication of particular places of Scripture depend upon minute circumstances and particularities in which it is so easy to be deceived and so hard to speak reason regularly and alwayes that it is the greater wonder if we be not deceived 4. Others pretend to expound Scripture by the analogy of Numb 4. Faith and that is the most sure and infallible way as it is thought But upon stricter survey it is but a Chimera a thing in nubibus which varies like the right hand and left hand of a Pillar and at the best is but like the Coast of a Country to a Traveller out of his way It may bring him to his journeyes end though twenty mile about it may keep him from running into the Sea and from mistaking a river for dry land but whether this little path or the other be the right way it tells not So is the analogy of Faith that is if I understand it right the rule of Faith that is the Creed Now were it not a fine device to goe to expound all the Scripture by the Creed there being in it so many thousand places which have no more relation to any Article in the Creed then they have to Tityre tu patula Indeed if a man resolves to keep the analogy of Faith that is to expound Scripture so as not to doe any violence to any fundamentall Article he shall be sure however he erres yet not to destroy Faith he shall not perish in his Exposition And that was the precept given by S. Paul that all Prophesyings should be estimated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 6. 12. and to this very purpose S. Austin in his Exposition of Genesis by way of Preface sets down the Articles of Faith with this design and protestation of it that if he
knew not now quite contrary we cannot safely believe them to be Apostolicall unlesse we doe know their beginning to have been from the Apostles For this consisting of probabilities and particulars which put together make up a morall demonstration the Argument which I now urge hath been growing these fifteen hundred years and if anciently there was so much as to evacuate the Authority of Tradition much more is there now absolutely to destroy it when all the particulars which time and infinite variety of humane accidents have been amassing together are now concentred and are united by way of constipation Because every Age and every great change and every heresy and every interest hath increased the difficulty of finding out true Traditions 3. There are very many Traditions which are lost and yet they are concerning matters of as great consequence as most of Numb 5. those Questions for the determination whereof Traditions are pretended It is more then probable that as in Baptism and the Eucharist the very formes of ministration are transmitted to us so also in confirmation and ordination and that there were speciall directions for visitation of the sick and explicite interpretations of those difficult places of S. Paul which S. Peter affirmed to be so difficult that the ignorant doe wrest them to their own damnation and yet no Church hath conserved these or those many more which S. Basil affirms to be so many that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the day would faile him in the very simple enumeration of all Cap. 29. despir Sancto Traditions Ecclesiasticall And if the Church hath fail'd in keeping the great variety of Traditions it will hardly be thought a fault in a private person to neglect Tradition which either the whole Church hath very much neglected inculpably or else the whose Church is very much too blame And who can ascertain us that she hath not entertained some which are no Traditions as well as lost thousands that are That she did entertain some false Traditions I have already prov'd but it is also as probable that some of those which these Ages did propound for Traditions are not so as it is certain that some which the first Ages cald Traditions were nothing lesse 4. There are some opinions which when they began to be publikely received began to be accounted prime Traditions Numb 6. and so became such not by a native title but by adoption and nothing is more usuall then for the Fathers to colour their popular opinion with so great an appellative S. Austin cald the communicating of Infants an Apostolicall Tradition and yet we doe not practise it because we disbelieve the Allegation And that every custome which at first introduction was but a private fancy or singular practise grew afterwards into a publike rite and went for a Tradition after a while continuance appears by Tertullian who seems to justifie it Non enim existimas tu Contra Marcon licitum esse cuicunque fideli constituere quod Deo placere illi visum De coron milit c. 3. 4. fuerit ad disciplinam salutem And againe A quocunque traditore censetur nec authorem respicias sed authoritatem And S. Hierome most plainly Praecepra majorum Apostolicas Tradiones Apud Euseb. l. 5. c. 20. quisque existimat And when Irenaeus had observed that great variety in the keeping of Lent which yet to be a fourty dayes Fast is pretended to descend from Tradition Apostolicall some fasting but one day before Easter some two some fourty and this even long before Irenaeus time he gives this reason Varietas illa jejunii coepit apud Majores nostros qui non accuratè consuetudinem eorum qui vel simplicitate quâdam vel privatâ authoritate in posterum aliquid statuissent observarant ex translatione Christophorsoni And there are yet some points of good concernment which if any man should Question in a high manner they would prove indeterminable by Scripture or sufficient reason and yet I doubt not their confident Defenders would say they are opinions of the Church and quickly pretend a Tradition from the very Apostles and believe themselves so secure that they could not be discovered because the Question never having been disputed gives them occasion to say that which had no beginning known was certainly from the Apostles For why should not Divines doe in the Question of reconfirmation as in that of rebaptization Are not the grounds equall from an indelible character in one as in the other and if it happen such a Question as this after contestation should be determin'd not by any positive decree but by the cession of one part and the authority and reputation of the other does not the next Age stand faire to be abused with a pretence of Tradition in the matter of reconfirmation which never yet came to a serious Question For so it was in the Question of rebaptization for which there was then no more evident Tradition then there is now in the Question of reconfirmation as I proved formerly but yet it was carried upon that Title 5. There is great variety in the probation of Tradition so that whatever is proved to be Tradition is not equally and Numb 7. alike credible for nothing but universall Tradition is of it selfe credible other Traditions in their just proportion as they partake of the degrees of universality Now that a Tradition be universall or which is all one that it be a credible Testimony S. Irenaeus requires that Tradition should derive from all the Lib. 3. c. 4. Churches Apostolicall And therefore according to this rule there was no sufficient medium to determine the Question about Easter because the Eastern and Western Churches had severall Traditions respectively and both pretended from the Apostles Clemens Alexandrinus sayes it was a secret Tradition Li. 1. Stromat from the Apostles that Christ preached but one year But L. 2. c. 39. Irenaeus sayes it did derive from Hereticks and sayes that he Omnes Seniores testantur qui in Asiâ apud Iohannem Discipulum Domini convenerunt id ipsum tradidisse eis Iohannem c. qui alios Apostolos viderunt haec eadem ab ipsis audierunt testantur de ejusmodi relatione by Tradition first from S. John and then from his Disciples received another Tradition that Christ was almost fifty years old when he dyed and so by consequence preached almost twenty years both of them were deceived and so had all that had believed the report of either pretending Tradition Apostolicall Thus the custome in the Latine Church of fasting on Saturday was against that Tradition which the Greeks had from the Apostles and therefore by this division and want of consent which was the true Tradition was so absolutely indeterminable that both must needs lose much of their reputation But how then when not only particular Churches but single persons are all the proofe we have for a Tradition And
and promises and authority of Generall Councels For if any one man can hope to be guided by Gods Spirit in the search the pious and impartiall and unprejudicate search of truth then much more may a Generall Councell If no private man can hope for it then truth is not necessary to be found nor we are not oblig'd to search for it or else we are sav'd by chance But if private men can by vertue of a promise upon certain conditions be assured of finding out sufficient truth much more shall a Generall Councell So that I consider thus There are many promises pretended to belong to Generall Assemblies in the Church But I know not any ground nor any pretence that they shall be absolutely assisted without any condition on their own parts and whether they will or no Faith is a vertue as well as charity and therefore consists in liberty and choyce and hath nothing in it of necessity There is no Question but that they are obliged to proceed according to some rule for they expect no assistance by way of Enthusiasme if they should I know no warrant for that neither did any Generall Councell ever offer a Decree which they did not think sufficiently prov'd by Scripture Reason or Tradition as appears in the Acts of the Councels now then if they be tyed to conditions it is their duty to observe them but whether it be certaine that they will observe them that they will doe all their duty that they will not sin even in this particular in the neglect of their duty that 's the consideration So that if any man questions the Title and Authority of Generall Councels and whether or no great promises appertain to them I suppose him to be much mistaken but he also that thinks all of them have proceeded according to rule and reason and that none of them were deceived because possibly they might have been truly directed is a stranger to the History of the Church and to the perpetuall instances and experiments of the faults and failings of humanity It is a famous saying of S. Gregory that he had the foure first Councels in esteem and veneration next to the foure Evangelists I suppose it was because he did believe them to have proceeded according to Rule and to have judged righteous judgement but why had not he the same opinion of other Councels too which were celebrated before his death for he lived after the fifth Generall not because they had not the same Authority for that which is warrant for one is warrant for all but because he was not so confident that they did their duty nor proceeded so without interest as the first foure had done and the following Councels did never get that reputation which all the Catholike Church acknowledged due to the first foure And in the next Order were the three following generalls for the Greeks and Latines did never joyntly acknowledge but seven generalls to have been authentick in any sense because they were in no sense agreed that any more then seven had proceeded regularly and done their duty So that now the Question is not whether Generall Councels have a promise that the holy Ghost will assist them For every private man hath that promise that if he does his duty he shall be assisted sufficiently in order to that end to which he needs assistance and therefore much more shall Generall Councels in order to that end for which they convene and to which they need assistance that is in order to the conservation of the Faith for the doctrinall rules of good life and all that concerns the essentiall duty of a Christian but not in deciding Questions to satisfie contentious or curious or presumptuous spirits But now can the Bishops so conven'd be factious can they be abused with prejudice or transported with interests can they resist the holy Ghost can they extinguish the Spirit can they stop their eares and serve themselves upon the holy Spirit and the pretence of his assistances and cease to serve him upon themselves by captivating their understandings to his dictates and their wills to his precepts Is it necessary they should perform any condition is there any one duty for them to perform in these Assemblies a duty which they have power to doe or not doe If so then they may faile of it and not doe their duty And if the assistance of the holy Spirit be conditionall then we have no more assurance that they are assisted then that they doe their duty and doe not sinne Now let us suppose what this duty is Certainly if the Gospel Numb 2. be hid it is hid to them that are lost and all that come to the knowledge of the truth must come to it by such meanes which are spirituall and holy dispositions in order to a holy and spirituall end They must be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace that is they must have peaceable and docible dispositions nothing with them that is violent and resolute to encounter those gentle and sweet assistances and the Rule they are to follow is the Rule which the holy Spirit hath consign'd to the Catholike Church that is the holy Scripture either * Vid. Optat. Milev l. 5. adv Parm. Baldvin in eundem S. August in Psa. 21. Expos. 2. intirely or at least for the greater part of the Rule So that now if the Bishops bee factious and prepossest with perswasions depending upon interest it is certain they may judge amisse and if they recede from the Rule it is certain they doe judge amisse And this I say upon their grounds who most advance the authority of Generall Councels For if a Generall Councell may erre if a Pope confirm it not then most certainly if in any thing it recede from Scripture it does also erre because that they are to expect the Popes confirmation they offer to prove from Scripture now if the Popes confirmation be required by authority of Scripture and that therefore the defaillance of it does evacuate the Authority of the Councell then also are the Councels Decrees invalid if they recede from any other part of Scripture So that Scripture is the Rule they are to follow and a man would have thought it had been needlesse to have proved it but that we are fallen into Ages in which no truth is certaine no reason concluding nor is there any thing that can convince some men For Stapleton with extreme boldnesse against the piety of Christendome against the publike sense of the ancient Relect. centrov 4. q. 1. a. 3 Church and the practise of all pious Assemblies of Bishops affirmes the Decrees of a Councell to be binding etiamsi non confirmetur ne probabili testimonio Scripturarum nay though it be quite extra Scripturam but all wise and good men have ever said that sense which S. Hilary expressed in these words Quae extra Evangelium sunt non defendam This was it which the good Emperour
fidem etiam dictum unius privati esset dicto Pape aut totius Concilii praeferendum si ille moveretur melioribus Argumentis I end this Discourse with representing the words of Gregory Nazianzen in his Epistle to Procopius Ego si vera scribere Numb 11. oportet ita animo affectus sum ut omnia Episcoporum Concilia Athanas. lib. de Synod Frusta igitur circumcursitantes praetexunt ob fidem se Synodos postulare cum sit Divina Scriptura omnibus potentior fugiam quoniam nullius Concilii finem laetum faustumque vidi nec quod depulsionem malorum potius quam accessionem incrementum habuerit But I will not be so severe and dogmaticall against them For I believe many Councels to have been cald with sufficient Authority to have been managed with singular piety and prudence and to have been finished with admirable successe and truth And where we find such Councels he that will not with all veneration believe their Decrees and receive their sanctions understands not that great duty he owes to them who have the care of our soules whose faith we are bound to follow saith S. Paul that is so long as they follow Christ and certainly many Councels have done so But Heb. 13. 7. this was then when the publike interest of Christendome was better conserv'd in determining a true Article then in finding a discreet temper or a wise expedient to satisfie disagreeing persons As the Fathers at Trent did and the Lutherans and Calvinists did at Sendomir in Polonia and the Sublapsarians and Supralapsarians did at Dort It was in Ages when the summe of Religion did not consist in maintaining the Grandezza of the Papacy where there was no order of men with a fourth Vow upon them to advance S. Peters Chaire when there was no man nor any company of men that esteem'd themselves infallible and therefore they searched for truth as if they meant to find it and would believe it if they could see it prov'd not resolv'd to prove it because they had upon chance or interest believ'd it then they had rather have spoken a truth then upheld their reputation but only in order to truth This was done sometimes and when it was done God's Spirit never fail'd them but gave them such assistances as were sufficient to that good end for which they were Assembled and did implore his aid And therefore it is that the foure generall Councels so called by way of eminency have gained so great a reputation above all others not because they had a better promise or more speciall assistances but because they proceeded better according to the Rule with lesse faction without ambition and temporall ends And yet those very Assemblies of Bishops had no Authority by their Decrees to make a Divine Faith or to constitute Numb 12. new objects of necessary Credence they made nothing true that was not so before and therefore they are to be apprehended in the nature of excellent Guides and whose Decrees are most certainly to determine all those who have no Argument to the contrary of greater force and efficacy then the Authority or reasons of the Councell And there is a duty owing to every Parish Priest and to every Dioecesan Bishop these are appointed over us and to answer for our soules and are therefore morally to guide us as reasonable Creatures are to be guided that is by reason and discourse For in things of judgement and understanding they are but in forme next above Beasts that are to be ruled by the imperiousnesse and absolutenesse of Authority unlesse the Authority be Divine that is infallible Now then in a juster height but still in its true proportion Assemblies of Bishops are to guide us with a higher Authority because in reason it is supposed they will doe it better with more Argument and certainty and with Decrees which have the advantage by being the results of many discourses of very wise and good men But that the Authority of generall Councels was never esteem'd absolute infallible and unlimited appears in this that before they were obliging it was necessary that each particular Church respectively should accept them Concurrente universali totius Ecclesiae consensu c. Vid. S. August 1. l. c. 18. de bapt contr Donat. in declaratione veritatum quae credendae sunt c. That 's the way of making the Deerees of Councels become authentik and be turn'd into a Law as Gerson observes and till they did their Decrees were but a dead letter and therefore it is that these later Popes have so labour'd that the Councell of Trent should be received in France and Carolus Molineus a great Lawyer and of the Roman Communion disputed * So did the third Estate of France in the Convention of the three Estates under Lewis the 13th earnestly contend against it against the reception and this is a known condition in the Canon Law but it proves plainly that the Decrees of Councels have their Authority from the voluntary submission of the particular Churches not from the prime sanction and constitution of the Councell And there is great reason it should for as the representative body of the Church derives all power from the diffusive body which is represented so it resolves into it and though it may have all the legall power yet it hath not all the naturall for more able men may be unsent then sent and they who are sent may be wrought upon by stratagem which cannot happen to the whole diffusive Church it is therefore most fit that since the legall power that is the externall was passed over to the body representative yet the efficacy of it and the internall should so still remaine in the diffusive as to have power to consider whether their representatives did their duty yea or no and so to proceed accordingly For unlesse it be in matters of justice in which the interest of a third person is concern'd no man will or can be supposed to passe away all power from himselfe of doing himselfe right in matters personall proper and of so high concernment It is most unnaturall and unreasonable But besides that they are excellent instruments of peace the best humane Judicatories in the world rare Sermons for the determining a point in Controversy and the greatest probability from humane Authority besides these advantages I say I know nothing greater that generall Councels can pretend to with reason and Argument sufficient to satisfie any wise man And as there was never any Councell so generall but it might have been more generall for in respect of the whole Church even Nice it selfe was but a small Assembly so there is no Decree so well constituted but it may be prov'd by an Argument higher then the Authority of the Councell And therefore generall Councels and Nationall and Provinciall and Dioecesan in their severall degrees are excellent Guides for the Prophets and directions and instructions for their Prophesyings but
not of weight and Authority to restraine their Liberty so wholy but that they may dissent when they see a reason strong enough so to perswade them as to be willing upon the confidence of that reason and their own sincerity to answer to God for such their modesty and peaceable but as they believe their necessary disagreeing SECT VII Of the fallibility of the Pope and the uncertainty of his Expounding Scripture and resolving Questions BUt since the Question between the Councell and the Pope Numb 1. grew high there have not wanted abettors so confident on the Popes behalfe as to believe Generall Councels to be nothing but Pompes and Solennities of the Catholike Church and that all the Authority of determining Controversies is formally and effectually in the Pope And therefore to appeale from the Pope to a future Councell is a heresy yea and Treason too said Pope Pius II and therefore it concerns us now Epist. ad Norimberg to be wise and wary But before I proceed I must needs remember that Pope Pius II while he was the wise and learned Patrum avorum nostrorum tempore pauci audebant dicere Papam esse supra Concilium l. 1. de gestis Concil Basil. Aeneas Sylvius was very confident for the preheminence of a Councell and gave a merry reason why more Clerks were for the Popes then the Councell though the truth was on the other side even because the Pope gives Bishopricks and Abbeys but Councels give none and yet as soone as he was made Pope as if he had been inspired his eyes were open to see the great priviledges of S. Peters Chaire which before he could not see being amused with the truth or else with the reputation of a Generall Councell But however there are many that hope to make it good that the Pope is the Universall and the infallible Doctor that he breathes Decrees as Oracles that to dissent from any of his Cathedrall determinations is absolute heresy the Rule of Faith being nothing else but consormity to the Chaire of Peter So that here we have met a restraint of Prophecy indeed but yet to make amends I hope we shall have an infallible Guide and when a man is in Heaven he will never complaine that his choyce is taken from him and that he is confin'd to love and to admire since his love and his admiration is fixt upon that which makes him happy even upon God himselfe And in the Church of Rome there is in a lower degree but in a true proportion as little cause to be troubled that we are confin'd to believe just so and no choice left us for our understandings to discover or our wills to chuse because though we be limited yet we are pointed out where we ought to rest we are confin'd to our Center and there where our understandings will be satisfied and therefore will be quiet and where after all our strivings studies and endeavours we desire to come that is to truth for there we are secur'd to find it because we have a Guide that is infallible If this prove true we are well enough But if it be false or uncertain it were better we had still kept our liberty then be cozened out of it with gay pretences This then we must consider And here we shall be oppressed with a cloud of Witnesses For what more plaine then the Commission given to Peter Numb 2. Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church And to thee will I give the Keyes And again for thee have I prayed that thy faith faile not but thou when thou art converted confirm thy brethren And again If thou lovest me feed my sheep Now nothing of this being spoken to any of the other Apostles by one of these places S. Peter must needs be appointed Foundation or Head of the Church and by consequence he is to rule and govern all By some other of these places he is made the supreme Pastor and he is to teach and determine all and inabled with an infallible power so to doe And in a right understanding of these Authorities the Fathers speak great things of the Chaire of Peter for we are as much bound to believe that all this was spoken to Peters Successors as to his Person that must by all meanes be supposed and so did the old Doctors who had as much certainty of it as we have and no more but yet let 's hear what they have said a Irenae contra haeres l. 3. c. 3. To this Church by reason of its more powerfull principality it is necessary all Churches round about should Convene ..... In this Tradition Apostolicall alwayes was observed and therefore to communicate with this Bishop with this * Ambr. de obitu Salyri l. 1. Ep. 4. ad Imp. Cypr. Ep. 52. Church was to be in Communion with the Church Catholike .... b Cypr. Ep. 55. ad Cornel. To this Church errour or perfidiousnesse cannot have accesse .... c S. Austin in Psal. contra partem Donat. Against this Sea the gates of Hell cannot prevaile .... d Hieron Ep. 57. ad Damasum For we know this Church to be built upon a Rock .... And whoever eats the Lamb not within this House is prophane he that is not in the Ark of Noah perishes in the inundation of waters He that gathers not with this Bishop he scatters and he that belongeth not to Christ must needs belong to Antichrist And that 's his finall sentence But if you would have all this prov'd by an infallible Argument e L. 2. contra Parmenian Optatus of Milevis in Africa supplies it to us from the very name of Peter For therefore Christ gave him the cognomination of Cephas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew that S. Peter was the visible Head of the Catholike Church Dignum patellà operculum This long harangue must needs be full of tragedy to all them that take liberty to themselves to follow Scripture and their best Guides if it happens in that liberty that they depart from the perswasions or the Communion of Rome But indeed if with the peace of the Bishops of Rome I may say it this Scene is the most unhandsomely laid and the worst carried of any of those pretences that have lately abused Christendome 1. Against the Allegations of Scripture I shall lay no greater Numb 3. prejudice then this that if a person dis-interested should see them and consider what the products of them might possibly be the last thing that he would think of would be how that any of these places should serve the ends or pretences of the Church of Rome For to instance in one of the particulars that man had need have a strong fancy who imagines that because Christ pray'd for S. Peter that being he had design'd him to be one of those upon whose preaching and Doctrine he did meane to constitute a Church that his faith
in his Chaire and made the dictate the result of his pen and inke would certainly have taught him and all the Church but that the good Pope was ignorant that either pasce oves was his own Charter and Prerogative or that any other words of Scripture had made him to be infallible or if he was not ignorant of it he did very ill to complement himselfe out of it So did all those Bishops of Rome that in that troublesome and unprofitable Question of Easter being unsatisfied in the supputation of the Egyptians and the definitions of the Mathematicall Bishops of Alexandria did yet require and intreat S. Ambrose to tell them his opinion as he himselfe witnesses If pasce oves belongs only to the Pope by primary title in these L. 10. Epist. 83. cases the sheep came to feed the Shepherd which though it was well enough in the thing is very ill for the pretensions of the Roman Bishops and if we consider how little many of the Popes have done toward feeding the sheep of Christ we shall hardly determine which is the greater prevarication that the Pope should claime the whole Commission to be granted to him or that the execution of the Commission should be wholly passed over to others and it may be there is a mystery in it that since S. Peter sent a Bishop with his staffe to raise up a Disciple of his from the dead who was afterward Bishop of Triers the Popes of Rome never weare a Pastorall staffe except it be in that Diocesse sayes Aquinas for great reason that he who does not doe the office should not beare the M. 4. Sent. dist 24. Symbol but a man would think that the Popes Master of the Ceremonies was ill advised not to assigne a Pastorall staffe to him who pretends the Commission of pasce oves to belong to him by prime right and origination But this is not a businesse to be merry in But the great support is expected from Tu es Petrus super Numb 6. hanc Petram adificabo Ecclesiam c. Now there being so great difference in the exposition of these words by persons dis-interressed who if any might be allowed to judge in this Question it is certain that neither one sense nor other can be obtruded for an Article of faith much lesse as a Catholicon instead of all by constituting an Authority which should guide us in all Faith and determine us in all Questions For if the Church was not built upon the person of Peter then his Successors can challenge nothing from this instance now that it was the confession of Peter upon which the Church was to rely for ever we have witnesses very credible a Ad Philadelph S. Ignatius S. b Seleuc. orat 25. Basil c L. 6. de Trinit S. Hilary d De Trinitate advers Iudaeos S. Gregory Nyssen e L. 3. Ep. 33. S. Gregory the Great f In 1. Eph. Ioann tr 10. S. Austin g De Trinit l. 4. S. Cyrill of Alexandria h L. 1. Ep. 235. Isidore Pelusiot and very many more And although all these witnesses concurring cannot make a proposition to be true yet they are sufficient witnesses that it was not the Universall beliefe of Christendome that the Church was built upon S. Peters person Cardinall Perron hath a fine fancy to elude this variety of Exposition and the consequents of it For saith he these Expositions are not contrary or exclusive of each other but inclusive and consequent to each other For the Church is founded causally upon the confession of S. Peter formally upon the ministry of his person and this was a reward or a consequent of the former So that these Expositions are both true but they are conjoyn'd as mediate and immediate direct and collaterall literall and morall originall and perpetuall accessory and temporall the one consign'd at the beginning the other introduc'd upon occasion For before the spring of the Arrian heresy the Fathers expounded these words of the person of Peter but after the Arrians troubled them the Fathers finding great Authority and Energy in this confession of Peter for the establishment of the naturall siliation of the Son of God to advance the reputation of these words and the force of the Argument gave themselves lience to expound these words to the present advantage and to make the confession of Peter to be the foundation of the Church that if the Arrians should encounter this Authority they might with more prejudice to their persons declaime against their cause by saying they overthrew the foundation of the Church Besides that this answer does much dishonour the reputation of the Fathers integrity and makes their interpretations lesse credible as being made not of knowledge or reason but of necessity and to serve a present turn it is also false For * Epist. ad Philadelph In c. 16. Mat. tract 1. Ignatius expounds it in a spirituall sense which also the Liturgy attibuted to S. James cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Origen expounds it mystically to a third purpose but exclusively to this And all these were before the Arrian Controversy But if it be lawfull to make such unproved observations it would have been to better purpose and more reason to have observed it thus The Fathers so long as the Bishop of Rome kept himselfe to the limits prescrib'd him by Christ and indulged to him by the Constitution or concession of the Church were unwary and apt to expound this place of the person of Peter but when the Church began to enlarge her phylacteries by the favour of Princes and the Sun-shine of a prosperous fortune and the Pope by the advantage of the Imperiall Seat and other accidents began to invade upon the other Bishops and Patriarchs then that he might have no colour from Scripture for such new pretensions they did most generally turn the stream of their expositions from the person to the confession of Peter and declar'd that to be the foundation of the Church And thus I have required fancy with fancy but for the maine point that these two Expositions are inclusiue of each other I find no warrant for though they may consist together well enough if Christ had so intended them yet unlesse it could be shown by some circumstance of the Text or some other extrinsecall Argument that they must be so and that both senses were actually intended it is but gratis dictum and a begging of the Question to say that they are so and the fancy so new that when S. Austin had expounded this place of the person of Peter he reviewes it againe and in his Retractations leaves every man to his liberty which to take as having nothing certaine in this Article which had been altogether needlesse if he had believed them to be inclusively in each other neither of them had need to have beene retracted both were alike true both of them might
where clearly the High Priest was supreme in many senses yet in no sense infallible will it inferre more to us then it did amongst the Apostles amongst whom if for orders sake S. Peter was the first yet he had no compulsory power over the Apostles there was no such thing spoke of nor any such thing put in practise And that the other Apostles were by a personall priviledge as infallible as himselfe is no reason to hinder the exercise of jurisdiction or any compulsory power over them for though in Faith they were infallible yet in manners and matter of fact as likely to erre as S. Peter himselfe was and certainly there might have something hapned in the whole Colledge that might have been a Record of his Authority by transmitting an example of the exercise of some Judiciall power over some one of them If he had but withstood any of them to their faces as S. Paul did him it had been more then yet is said in his behalfe Will the Ministeriall Headship inferre any more then when the Church in a Community or a publike capacity should doe any Act of Ministery Ecelesiasticall he shall be first in Order Suppose this to be a dignity to preside in Councels which yet was not alwayes granted him Suppose it to be a power of taking cognisance of the Major Causes of Bishops when Councels cannot be called Suppose it a double voyce or the last decisive or the negative in the causes exteriour Suppose it to be what you will of dignity or externall regiment which when all Churches were united in Communion and neither the interest of States nor the engagement of opinions had made disunion might better have been acted then now it can yet this will fall infinitely short of a power to determine Controversies infallibly and to prescribe to all mens faith and consciences A Ministeriall Headship or the prime Minister cannot in any capacity become the foundation of the Church to any such purpose And therefore men are causlessely amused with such premises and are afraid of such Conclusions which will never follow from the admission of any sense of these words that can with any probability be pretended 8. I consider that these Arguments from Scripture are too weak to support such an Authority which pretends to give Numb 10. Oracles and to answer infallibly in Questions of Faith because there is greater reason to believe the Popes of Rome have erred and greater certainty of demonstration then these places can be that they are infallible as will appear by the instances and perpetuall experiment of their being deceived of which there is no Question but of the sense of these places there is And indeed if I had as clear Scripture for their infallibility as I have against their halfe Communion against their Service in an unknown tongue worshipping of Images and divers other Articles I would make no scruple of believing but limit and conform my understanding to all their Dictates and believe it reasonable all Prophecying should be restrain'd But till then I have leave to discourse and to use my reason And to my reason it seemes not likely that neither Christ nor any of his Apostles S. Peter himselfe not S. Paul writing to the Church of Rome should speak the least word or tittle of the infallibility of their Bishops for it was certainly as convenient to tell us of a remedy as to foretell that certainly there must needs be heresies and need of a remedy And it had been a certain determination of the Question if when so rare an opportunity was ministred in the Question about Circumcision that they should have sent to Peter who for his infallibility in ordinary and his power of Headship would not only with reason enough as being infallibly assisted but also for his Authority have best determin'd the Question if at least the first Christians had known so profitable and so excellent a secret and although we have but little Record that the first Councell at Jerusalem did much observe the solennities of Law and the forms of Conciliary proceedings and the Ceremonials yet so much of it as is recorded is against them S. James and not S. Peter gave the finall sentence and although S. Peter determin'd the Question pro libertate yet S. James made the Decree and the Assumentum too and gave sentence they should abstaine from some things there mentioned which by way of temper he judg'd most expedient And so it passed And S. Peter shewed no sign of a Superiour Authority nothing of S. Chrysost. hom 3. in act Apost Superiour jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that if this Question be to be determin'd by Scripture it Numb 11. must either be ended by plaine places or by obscure plaine places there are none and these that are with greatest fancy pretended are expounded by Antiquity to contrary purposes But if obscure places be all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by what meanes shall we infallibly find the sense of them The Popes interpretation though in all other cases it might be pretended in this cannot for it is the thing in Question and therefore cannot determine for it selfe either therefore we have also another infallible guide besides the Pope and so we have two Foundations and two Heads for this as well as the other upon the same reason or else which is indeed the truth there is no infallible way to be infallibly assured that the Pope is infallible Now it being against the common condition of men above the pretences of all other Governours Ecclesiasticall against the Analogy of Scripture and the deportment of the other Apostles against the Oeconomy of the Church and S. Peters own entertainment the presumption lies against him and these places are to be left to their prime intentions and not put upon the rack to force them to confesse what they never thought But now for Antiquity if that be deposed in this Question there are so many circumstances to be considered to reconcile Numb 12. their words and their actions that the processe is more troublesome then the Argument can be concluding or the matter considerable But I shall a little consider it so farre at least as to shew either Antiquity said no such thing as is pretended or if they did it is but little considerable because they did not believe themselves their practise was the greatest evidence in the world against the pretence of their words But I am much cased of a long disquisition in this particular for I love not to prove a Question by Arguments whose Authority is in it selfe as fallible and by circumstances made as uncertain as the Question by the saying of Aeneas Sylvius that before the Nicene Councell every men liv'd to himselfe and small respect was had to the Church of Rome which practise could not well consist with the Doctrine of their Bishops infallibility and by consequence supreme judgement and last resolution in matters of
digressions against the custome of that excellent man by some passages contradictory to others of S. Basil by citing Meletius as dead before him who yet lived three * Vid. Baron in Annal. years after him and by the very frame and manner of the discourse and yet it was so handsomly carried and so well serv'd the purposes of men that it was quoted under the title of S. Basil by many but without naming the number of chapters and by S. John Damascen in these words Basilius in opere triginta capitum de Spiritu S. ad Amphilochium and to the same purpose and in the number Lâ— de imagin orat 1. of 27 29. chapters he is is cited by * Nomocan tit 1. cap. 3. Photius by Euthymius by Burchard by Zonaras Balsamon and Nicephorus but for this see more in Erasmu's his Preface upon this book of S. Basil. There is an Epistle goes still under the name of S. Hierom ad Demetriadem viâ—ginem and is of great use in the Question of Predestination with its appendices and yet a very †V. Beda de gratiâ Christi adv Iulianum learned man 800 yeares agone did believe it to be written by a Pelagian and undertakes to confute divers parts of it as being high and confident Pelagianisme and written by Julianus Episc. Eclanensis but Gregorius Ariminensis from S. Austin affirmes it to have been written by Pelagius himselfe I might instance in too many Greg. Arim. in 2. sent dist 26. q. 1. a. 3. There is not any one of the Fathers who is esteemed Author of any considerable number of books that hath escaped untouched But the abuse in this kinde hath been so evident that now if any interessed person of any side be pressed with an Authority very pregnant against him he thinks to escape by accusing the Edition or the Author or the hands it passed through or at last he therefore suspects it because it makes against him both sides being resolv'd that they are in the right the Authorities that they admit they will believe not to be against them and they which are too plainly against them shall be no Authorities And indeed the whole world hath been so much abused that every man thinks he hath reason to suspect whatsoever is against him that is what he please which prooceeding only produces this truth that there neither is nor can be any certainty nor very much probability in such Allegations But there is a worse mischiefe then this besides those very many which are not yet discovered which like the pestilence Numb 6. destroyes in the dark and growes into inconvenience more insensibly and more irremediably and that is corruption of particular places by inserting words and altering them to contrary senses A thing which the Fathers of the sixth Generall Synod complain'd of concerning the constitutions of S. Clement quibus jam olim ab iis qui à sidè aliena sent iunt adulterina quaedam etiam pietate aliena introducta sunt quae divinorum nobis Decretorum Can. 2. elegantem venustam speciem obscurarunt And so also have his Recognitions so have his Epistles been used if at least they were his at all particularly the fifth Decretall Epistle that goes under the name of S. Clement in which community of Wives is taught upon the Authority of S. Luke saying the first Christians had all things common if all things then Wives also sayes the Epistle a forgery like to have been done by some Nicolaitan or other impure person There is an Epistle of Cyrill extant to Successus Bishop of Diocaesarea in which he relates that hee was ask'd by Budus Bishop of Emessa whether he did approve of the Epistle of Athanasius to Epictetus Bishop of Corinth and that his answer was Si haec apud vos scripta non sint adultera Nam plura ex his ab hostibus Ecclesiae Euseb. l. 4. c. 23. deprehenduntur esse depravata And this was done even while the Authors themselves were alive for so Dionysius of Corinth complan'd that his writings were corrupted by Hereticks and Pope Leo that his Epistle to Flavianus was perverted by the Greeks And in the Synod of Constantinople before quoted the Act. 8. vid. etiam Synod 7. act 4. sixth Synod Macarius and his Disciples were convicted quod Sanctorum testimonia aut truncârint aut depravârint Thus the third Chapter of S. Cyprians book de unitate Ecclesiae in the Edition of Pamelius suffered great alteration These words Primatus Petro datur wholly inserted and these super Cathedram Petri fundata est Ecclesia and whereas it was before super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Christus that not being enough they have made it super illum unum Now these Additions are against the faith of all old Copies before Minutius and Pamelius and against Gratian even after himselfe had been chastiz'd by the Roman Correctors the Commissaries of Gregory XIII as is to be seen where these words are alledged Decret c. 24. Q. 1. can loquitur Dominus ad Petrum So that we may say of Cyprians works as Pamelius himself said concerning his writings and the writings of other of the Fathers unde colligimus saith he Cypriani scripta ut aliorum Veterum à librariis variè fuisse Annot. Cyprian super Concil Carthage n. 1. interpolata But Gratian himselfe could doe as fine a feat when he listed or else some body did it for him and it was in this very Question their beloved Article of the Popes Supremacy for de paenit dist 1. c. potest fieri he quotes these words out of S. Ambrose Non habent Petri haereditatem qui non habent Petri sedem sidem not sedem it is in S. Ambrose but this errour was made authentick by being inserted into the Code of the Law of the Catholick Church and considering how little notice the Clergy had of Antiquity but what was transmitted to them by Gratian it will be no great wonder that all this part of the world swallowed such a bole and the opinion that was wrapped in it But I need not instance in Gratian any further but referre any one that desires to be satisfied concerning this Collection of his to Augustinus Archbishop of Tarracon in emendatione Gratiani where he shall find fopperies and corruptions good store noted by that learned man But that the Indices Expurgatorii Vid. Ind. Expurg Belg. in Bertram Flandr Hispan Portugal Neopolitan Romanum lunium in praefat ad Ind. Expurg Belg. Hasen muslerum pag. 275. Withrington Apolog. num 449. commanded by Authority and practised with publike license professe to alter and correct the sayings of the Fathers and to reconcile them to the Catholike sense by putting in and leaving out is so great an Imposture so unchristian a proceeding that it hath made the faith of all books and all Authors justly to be suspected For considering their infinite diligence and great opportunity as
the Inquisition and restraining Prophesying who yet when they had shaked off the Spanish yoke began to persecute their Brethren It was unjust in them in all men unreasonable and uncharitable and often increases the error but never lessens the danger But yet although the Church I mean in her distinct Clericall capacity was against destroying or punishing difference in opinion Numb 12. till the Popes of Rome did super-seminate and perswade the contrary yet the Bishops did perswade the Emperours to make Lawes against Heretiques and to punish disobedient persons with fines with imprisonment with death and banishment respectively This indeed calls us to a new account For the Church-men might not proceed to bloud nor corporall inflictions but might they not deliver over to the Secular arme and perswade Temporall Princes to doe it For this I am to say that since it is notorious that the doctrine of the Clergie was against punishing Heretiques the Lawes which were made by the Emperours against them might be for restraint of differing Religion in order to the preservation of the publique peace which is too frequently violated by the division of opinions But I am not certaine whether that was alwayes the reason or whether or no some Bishops of the Court did not also serve their owne ends in giving their Princes such untoward counsell but we find the Lawes made severally to severall purposes in divers cases and with different severity Constantine the Emperour made a Sanction Ut parem cum fidelibus Apud Euseb. de vita Constant ii qui errant pacis quietis fruitionem gaudentes accipiant The Emperour Gratian decreed Ut quam quisque vellet religionem sequeretur conventus Ecclesiasticos semoto metu omnes agerent But he excepted the Manichees the Photinians and Eunomians Theodosius the elder made a law of death against the Anabaptists of his time and banish'd Eunomius and against other erring persons vide Socrat. l 7. c. 12. appointed a pecuniary mulct but he did no executions so severe as his sanctions to shew they were made in terrorem onely Vid. Cod. de heretic L. manichees leg Arriani l. Quicunque So were the Lawes of Valentinian and Martian decreeing contra omnes qui prava docere tenent that they should be put to death so did * Apud Paulum Diac. l. 16. l. 24. Michael the Emperour but Iustinian onely decreed banishment But what ever whispers some Politiques might make to their Princes as the wisest holiest did not think it lawful for Church-men alone to doe executions so neither did they transmit such Numb 11. persons to the Secular Judicature And therefore when the Edict of Macedonius the President was so ambiguous that it seemed to threaten death to Heretiques unlesse they recanted S. Austin admonished him carefully to provide that no Heretique should be put to death alledging it also not onely to be unchristian but illegall also and not warranted by imperiall constitutions for before his time no Lawes were made for their being put to death but however he prevailed that Macedonius published another Edict more explicite and lesse seemingly severe But in his Epistle to Donatus the African Proconsul he is more confident and determinate Necessitate nobis impactâ indictâ ut potiùs occidi ab eis eligamus quam eos occidendos vestris judiciis ingeramus But afterwards many got a trick of giving them over to the Secular power which at the best is no better then hypocrisie removing Numb 12. envie from themselves and laying it upon others a refusing to doe that in externall act which they doe in councell and approbation which is a transmitting the act to another and retaining a proportion of guilt unto themselves even their own and the others too I end this with the saying of Chrysostome Dogmuta Serw. de Anathemate impia quae ab haereticis profecta sunt arguere anathematizare oportet hominibus autem parcendum pro salute eorum candum SECT XV. How farre the Church or Governours may act to the restraining false or differing opinions BUt although Hereticall persons are not to be destroyed yet heresy being a work of the flesh and all hereticks criminall persons whose acts and doctrine have influence upon Communities of men whether Ecclesiasticall or civill the governours of the Republique or Church respectively are to do their duties in restraining those mischiefes which may happen to their severall charges for whose indemnity they are answerable And therefore according to the effect or malice of the doctrine or the person so the cognisance of them belongs to severall judicatures If it be false doctrine in any capacity and doth mischiefe in any sense or teaches ill life in any instance or incourages evill in any particular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these men must be silenced they must be convinced by sound doctrine and put to silence by spirituall evidence and restrained by authority Ecclesiasticall that is by spirituall censures according as it seemes necessary to him who is most concern'd in the regiment of the Church For all this we have precept and precedent Apostolicall and much reason For by thus doing the governour of the Church uses all that authority that is competent and all the meanes that is reasonable and that proceeding which is regular that he may discharge his cure and secure his flock And that he possibly may be deceived in judging a doctrine to be hereticall and by consequence the person excommunicate suffers injury is no argument against the reasonablenesse of the proceeding For all the injury that is is visible and in appearance and so is his crime Iudges must judge according to their best reason guided by law of God as their rule and by evidence and appearance as their best instrument and they can judge no better If the Judges be good and prudent the error of proceeding will not be great nor ordinary and there can be no better establishment of humane judicature then is a fallible proceeding upon an infallible ground And if the judgement of heresie be made by estimate and proportion of the opinion to a good or a bad life respectively supposing an error in the deduction there will be no malice in the conclusion and that he endeavours to secure piety according to the best of his understanding and yet did mistake in his proceeding is onely an argument that he did his duty after the manner of men possibly with the piety of a Saint though not with the understanding of an Angel And the little inconvenience that happens to the person injuriously judged is abundantly made up in the excellency of the Discipline the goodnesse of the example the care of the publike and all those great influences into the manners of men which derive from such an act so publiquely consign'd But such publique judgement in matters of opinion must be seldome and curious and never but to secure piety and a holy
eldest Writers of the Latine Church that in their times it was ab antiquo the custome of the Church to pray for the Soules of the Faithfull departed in the dreadfull mysteries And it was an Institution Apostolicall sayes one of them and so transmitted to the following Ages of the Church and when once it began upon slight and discontent to be contested against by Aërius the man was presently condemn'd for a Heretick as appeares in Epiphanius But I am not to consider the Arguments for the Doctrine Numb 13. it selfe although the probability and faire pretence of them may help to excuse such persons who upon these or the like grounds doe heartily believe it But I am to consider that whether it be true or false there is no manner of malice in it and at the worst it is but a wrong errour upon the right side of charity and concluded against by its Adversaries upon the confidence of such Arguments which possibly are not so probable as the grounds pretended for it And if the same judgement might be made of any more of Numb 14. their Doctrines I think it were better men were not furious in the condemning such Questions which either they understood not upon the grounds of their proper Arguments or at least consider not as subjected in the persons and lessened by circumstances by the innocency of the event or other prudentiall considerations But the other Article is harder to be judged of and hath made greater stirres in Christendome and hath been dasht at Numb 15. with more impetuous objections and such as doe more trouble the Question of Toleration For if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation be false as upon much evidence we believe it is then t is accused of introducing Idolatry giving Divine worship to a Creature adoring of bread and wine and then comes in the precept of God to the Jewes that those Prophets who perswaded to Idolatry should be slaine But here we must deliberate for it is concerning the lives Deut. 13. of men and yet a little deliberation may suffice For Idolatry Numb 16. is a forsaking the true God and giving Divine Worship to a Creature or to an Idoll that is to an imaginary god who hath no foundation in essence or existence And is that kind of superstition which by Divines is called the superstition of an undue object Now it is evident that the Object of their Adoration that which is represented to them in their minds their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and eternall God hypostatically joyned with his Holy humanity which humanity they believe actually present under the veile of the Sacramentall signes And if they thought him not present they are so farre from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves professe it to be Idolatry to doe so which is a demonstration that their soule hath nothing in it that is Idololatricall If their confidence and fancyfull opinion hath engag'd them upon so great mistake as without doubt it hath yet the will hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to Idolatry Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas And although they have done violence to all Philosophy and the reason of man and undone and cancelled the principles of two or three Sciences to bring in this Article yet they have a Divine Revelation whose literall and Grammaticall sense if that sense were intended would warrant them to doe violence to all the Sciences in the Circle and indeed that Transubstantiation is openly and violently against naturall reason is an Argument to make them disbelieve who believe the mystery of the Trinity in all those niceties of explication which are in the Schoole and which now adayes passe for the Doctrine of the Church with as much violence to the principles of naturall and supernaturall Philosophy as can be imagin'd to be in the point of Transubstantiation 1. But for the Article it selfe we all say that Christ is there Numb 17. present some way or other extraordinary and it will not be amisse to worship him at that time when he gives himselfe to us in so mysterious a manner and with so great advantages especially since the whole Office is a Consociation of divers actions of Religion and Divine Worship Now in all opinions of those men who think it an act of Religion to communicate and to offer a Divine Worship is given to Christ and is transmitted to him by mediation of that action and that Sacrament and it is no more in the Church of Rome but that they differ and mistake infinitely in the manner of his presence which errour is wholly seated in the Understanding and does not communicate with the will for all agree that the Divinity and the Humanity of the Sonne of God is the ultimate and adequate object of Divine Adoration and that it is incommunicable to any creature whatsoever and before they venture to passe an Act of Adoration they believe the bread to be annihilated or turn'd into his substance who may lawfully be worshipped and they who have these thoughts are as much enemies of Idolatry as they that understand better how to avoid that inconvenience which is supposed to be the crime which they formally hate and we materially avoid This consideration was concerning the Doctrine it selfe 2. And now for any danger to mens persons for suffering Numb 18. such a Doctrine this I shall say that if they who doe it are not formally guilty of Idolatry there is no danger that they whom they perswade to it should be guilty and what persons soever believe it to be Idolatry to worship the Sacrament while that perswasion remaines will never bee brought to it there is no feare of that And he that perswades them to doe it by altering their perswasions and beliefes does no hurt but altering the opinions of the men and abusing their understandings but when they believe it to be no Idolatry then their so believing it is sufficient security from that crime which hath so great a tincture and residency in the will that from thence only it hath its being criminall 3. However if it were Idolatry I think the Precept of God Numb 19. to the Jewes of killing false and Idolatrous Prophets will be no warrant for Christians so to doe For in the case of the Apostles and the men of Samaria when James and John would have cald for fire to destroy them even as Elias did under Moses Law Christ distinguished the spirit of Elias from his own Spirit and taught them a lesson of greater sweetnesse and consign'd this truth to all Ages of the Church that such severity is not consistent with the meekenesse which Christ by his example and Sermons hath made a precept Evangelicall At most it was but a Iudiciall Law and no more of Argument to make it necessary to
voluntatum non opinionum True Faith which leads to charity Aquin. 22 ae q 37 a 1. leads on to that which unites wills and affections not opinions Upon these or the like considerations the Emperour Zeno Numb 3. publish'd his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which he made the Nicene Creed to be the medium of Catholick Communion and although he liv'd after the Councell of Chalcedon yet he made not the Decrees of that Councell an instrument of its restraint and limit as preferring the peace of Christendome and the union of charity farre before a forced or pretended unity of perswasion which never was or ever will be reall and substantiall and although it were very convenient if it could be had yet it is therefore not necessary because it is impossible and if men please whatever advantages to the publick would be consequent to it may be supply'd by a charitable complyance and mutuall permission of opinion and the offices of a brotherly affection prescrib'd us by the Lawes of Christianity And we have seen it that all Sects of Christians when they have an end to be serv'd upon a third have permitted that liberty to a second which we now contend for and which they formerly deny'd but now grant that by joyning hands they might be the stronger to destroy the third The Arrians and Meletians joyned against the Catholicks The Catholicks and Novatians joyn'd against the Arrians Now if men would doe that for charity which they doe for interest it were handsomer and more ingenuous For that they doe permit each others disagreeings for their interest 's sake convinces them of the lawfulnesse of the thing or else the unlawnesse of their own proceedings and therefore it were better they would serve the ends of charity then of faction for then that good end would hallow the proceeding and make it both more prudent and more pious while it serves the design of religious purposes SECT XXII That particular men may communicate with Churches of different perswasions and how farre they may doe it AS for the duty of particular men in the Question of communicating with Churches of different perswasions it is Numb 1. to be regulated according to the Lawes of those Churches for if they require no impiety or any thing unlawfull as the condition of their Communion then they communicate with them as they are Servants of Christ as Disciples of his Doctrine and subjects to his Laws and the particular distinguishing Doctrine of their Sect hath no influence or communication with him who from another Sect is willing to communicate with all the Servants of their Common Lord For since no Church of one name is infallible a wise man may have either the misfortune or a reason to believe of every one in particular that she erres in some Article or other either he cannot communicate with any or else he may communicate with all that doe not make a sinne or the profession of an errour to be the condition of their Communion And therefore as every particular Church is bound to Tolerate disagreeing persons in the senses and for the reasons above explicated so every particular person is bound to Tolerate her that is not to refuse her Communion when he may have it upon innocent conditions For what is it to me if the Greek Church denies Procession of the third Person from the second so she will give me the right hand of Fellowship though I affirm it therefore because I professe the Religion of Jesus Christ and retain all matters of Faith and necessity But this thing will scarce be reduced to practise for few Churches that have fram'd bodies of Confession and Articles will endure any person that is not of the same confession which is a plaine demonstration that such bodies of Confession and Articles doe much hurt by becomming instruments of separating and dividing Communions and making unnecessary or uncertain propositions a certaine meanes of Schism and disunion But then men would doe well to consider whether or no such proceedings doe not derive the guilt of Schism upon them who least think it and whether of the two is the Schismatick he that makes unnecessary and supposing the state of things inconvenient impositions or he that disobeyes them because hee cannot without doing violence to his conscience believe them Hee that parts Communion because without sinne hee could not entertain it or they that have made it necessary for him to separate by requiring such conditions which to man are simply necessary and to his particular are either sinfull or impossible The Summe of all is this There is no security in any thing Numb 2. or to any person but in the pious and hearty endeavours of a good life and neither sinne nor error does impede it from producing its proportionate and intended effect because it is a direct deletery to sin and an excuse to errors by making them innocent and therefore harmlesse And indeed this is the intendment and design of Faith For that we may joyn both ends of this Discourse together therefore certain Articles are prescribed to us and propounded to our understanding that so we might be supplyed with instructions with motives and engagements to incline and determine our wills to the obedience of Christ. So that obedience is just so consequent to Faith as the acts of will are to the dictates of the understanding Faith therefore being in order to obedience and so farre excellent as it selfe is a part of obedience or the promoter of it or an engagement to it it is evident that if obedience and a good life be secured upon the most reasonable and proper grounds of Christianity that is upon the Apostles Creed then Faith also is secur'd Since whatsoever is beside the duties the order of a good life cannot be a part of Faith because upon Faith a good life is built all other Articles by not being necessary are no otherwise to be requir'd but as they are to be obtain'd and fourd out that is morally and fallibly and humanely It is fit all truths be promoted fairely and properly and yet but few Articles prescribed Magisterially nor framed into Symbols and bodies of Confession least of all after such composures should men proceed so furiously as to say all disagreeing after such declarations to be damnable for the future and capitall for the present But this very thing is reason enough to make men more limited in their prescriptions because it is more charitable in such suppositions so to doe But in the thing it selfe because few kinds of errours are damnable it is reasonable as few should be capitall And because Numb 3. every thing that is damnable in it selfe and before Gods Judgement Seat is not discernable before men and questions disputable are of this condition it is also very reasonable that fewer be capitall then what are damnable and that such Questions should bee permitted to men to believe because they must be left to
the word of God and prayer For these wayes are most naturall most prudent most peaceable and effectuall Only let not men be hasty in calling every dislik'd opinion by the name of Heresy and when they have resolved that they will call it so let them use the erring person like a brother not beat him like a dog or convince him with a gibbet or vex him out of his understanding and perswasions And now if men will still say I perswade to indifferency there is no help for me for I have given reasons against it I must beare it as well as I can I am not yet without remedy as they are for patience will help me and reason will not cure them let them take their course and He take mine Only I will take leave to consider this and they would doe well to doe so too that unlesse Faith be kept within its own latitude and not cald out to patrocinate every lesse necessary opinion and the interest of every Sect or peevish person and if damnation be pronounced against Christians believing the Creed and living good lives because they are deceived or are said to be deceived in some opinions lesse necessary there is no way in the world to satisfie unlearned persons in the choice of their Religion or to appease the unquietnesse of a scrupulous conscience For suppose an honest Citizen whose imployment and parts will not enable him to judge the disputes and arguings of great Clerks sees factions commenced and managed with much bitternesse by persons who might on either hand be fit enough to guide him when if he follows either he is disquieted and pronounced damned by the other who also if he be the most unreasonable in his opinion will perhaps be more furious in his sentence what shall this man doe where shall he rest the sole of his foot Upon the Doctrine of the Church where he lives Well! but that he heares declaimed against perpetually and other Churches claime highly and pretend fairely for truth and condemne his Church If I tell him that he must live a good life and believe the Creed and not trouble himselfe with their disputes or interesting himselfe in Sects and Factions I speak reason Because no law of God ties him to believe more then what is of essentiall necessity and whatsoever he shall come to know to be reveal'd by God Now if he believes his Creed he believes all that is necessary to all or of it selfe and if he doe his morall endeavour beside he can doe no more toward finding out all the rest and then he is secured but then if this will secure him why doe men presse further and pretend every opinion as necessary and that in so high degree that if they all said true or any two indeed of them in 500 Sects which are in the world and for ought I know there may be 5000 it is 500 to one but that every man is damn'd for every Sect damnes all but it selfe and that is damn'd of 499 and it is excellent fortune then if that escape and there is the same reason in every one of them that is it is extreme unreasonablenesse in all of them to pronounce damnation against such persons against whom clearely and dogmatically holy Scripture hath not In odiosis quod minimum est sequimur in favoribus quod est maximum saith the Law and therefore we should say any thing or make any excuse that is in any degree reasonable rather then condemn all the world to Hell especially if we consider these two things that we our selves are as apt to be deceived as any are and that they who are deceived when they used their morall industry that they might not be deceived if they perish for this they perish for what they could not help But however if the best security in the world be not in neglecting all Sects and subdivisions of men and fixing our selves on points necessary and plain and on honest and pious endeavours according to our severall capacities and opportunities for all the rest if I say all this be not through the mercies of God the best security to all unlearned persons and learned too where shall we fix where shall we either have peace or security If you bid me follow your Doctrine you must tell me why and perhaps when you have I am not able to judge or if I be as able as other people are yet when I have judged I may be deceived too and so may you or any man else you bid me follow so that I am no whit the nearer truth or peace And then if we look abroad and consider how there is scarce any Church but is highly charg'd by many Adversaries in many things possibly we may see a reason to charge every one of them in some things And what shall we do then The Church of Rome hath spots enough and all the world is inquisitive enough to find out more and to represent these to her greatest disadvantage The Greek Church denies the procession of the holy Ghost from the Son If that be false Doctrine she is highly too blame if it be not then all the Western Churches are too blame for saying the contrary And there is no Church that is in prosperity but alters her Doctrine every Age either by bringing in new Doctrines or by contradicting her old which shewes that none are satisfied with themselves or with their own confessions And since all Churches believe themselves fallible that only excepted which all other Churches say is most of all deceived it were strange if in so many Articles which make up their severall bodies of Confessions they had not mistaken every one of them in something or other The Lutheran Churches maintaine Consubstantiation the Zuinglians are Sacramentaries the Calvinists are fierce in the matters of absolute Predetermination and all these reject Episcopacy which the Primitive Church would have made no doubt to have called Heresy The Socinians professe a portentous number of strange opinions they deny the holy Trinity and the satisfaction of our blessed Saviour The Anabaptists laugh at Paedo-baptism The Ethiopian Churches are Nestorian where then shall we fix our confidence or joyn Communion to pitch upon any one of these is to throw the dice if salvation be to be had only in one of them and that every errour that by chance hath made a Sect and is distinguished by a name be damnable If this consideration does not deceive me we have no other help in the midst of these distractions and dis-unions but all of us to be united in that common terme which as it does constitute the Church in its being such so it is the medium of the Communion of Saints and that is the Creed of the Apostles and in all other things an honest endeavour to find out * Clem. Alex. stromat 1. ait Philosophiam liberam esse praestantissimam quae scil versatur in perspicaciter seligendis dogmatis omnium Sectarum
there are few that finde it In the pursuance of this great truth the Apostles or the holy Numb 7. men their Contemporaries and Disciples composed a Creed to be a Rule of Faith to all Christians as appears in Irenaeus a Apol. contr Gent. c. 47. de veland virg c. 1. Tertullian b In exposit Symbol S. Cyprian c Serm. 5. de tempore cap. 2. S. Austin d In Symbol apud Cyprian Ruffinus and divers e Omnes orthodoxi Patres affirmant Symbolum ab ipsis Apostolis conditum Sext. Senensis lib. 2. bibl 5. vide Genebr l. 3. de Trin. others which Creed unlesse it had contain'd all the intire object of Faith and the foundation of Religion it cannot be imagin'd to what purpose it should serve and that it was so esteem'd by the whole Church of God in all Ages appears in this that since Faith is a necessary pre-disposition to Baptism in all persons capable of the use of reason all Catechumens in the Latine Church comming to Baptism were interrogated concerning their Faith and gave satisfaction in the recitation of this Creed And in the East they professed exactly the same Faith something differing in words but of the same matter reason design and consequence and so they did at Hierusalem so at Aquileia This was that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These Articles were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 5. Cod. de S. Trinit fid Cath. Cùm recta Now since the Apostles and Apostolicall men and Churches in these their Symbols did recite particular Articles to a considerable number and were so minute in their recitation as to descend to circumstances it is more then probable that they omitted nothing of necessity and that these Articles are not generall principles in the bosome of which many more Articles equally necessary to be believed explicitely and more particular are infolded but that it is as minute an explication of those prima credibilia I before reckoned as is necessary to salvation And therefore Tertullian calls the Creed regulam fidei quâ salvâ formâ ejus manente in suo ordine possit in Scriptura Numb 8. tractari inquiri si quid videtur vel ambiguitate pendere vel obscuritate obumbrari Cordis signaculum nostrae militiae Sacramentum S. Ambrose calls it lib. 3. de velandis virgin Comprehensio fidei nostrae atque perfectio by S. Austin Serm. 115. Confessio expositio regula fidei generally by the Ancients The profession of this Creed was the exposition of that saying of S. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The answer of a good conscience towards God For of the recitation and profession of this Creed in Baptism it is that Tertullian de resur carnis sayes Anima non lotione sed responsione sancitur And of this was the prayer of Hillary lib. 12. de Trinit Conserva hanc conscientiae meae vocem ut quod in regenerationis meae Symbolo Baptizatus in Patre Filio Spir. S. professus sum semper obtineam And according to the Rule and Reason of this Discourse that it may appear that the Creed hath in it all Articles primò per se primely and universally necessary the Creed is just such an explication of that Faith which the Apostles preached viz. the Creed which S. Paul recites as containes in it all those things which entitle Christ to us in the capacities of our Law-Giver and our Saviour such as enable him to the great work of redemption according to the predictions concerning him and such as engage and encourage our services For taking out the Article of Christs descent into Hell which was not in the old Creed as appeares in some of the Copies I before referd to in Tertullian Ruffinus and Irenaeus and indeed was omitted in all the Confessions of the Eastern Churches in the Church of Rome and in the Nicene Creed which by adoption came to be the Creed of the Catholike Church all other Articles are such as directly constitute the parts and work of our redemption such as clearly derive the honour to Christ and enable him with the capacities of our Saviour and Lord. The rest engage our services by proposition of such Articles which are rather promises then propositions and the whole Creed take it in any of the old Forms is but an Analysis of that which S. Paul cals the word of salvation whereby we shall be saved viz. that we confesse Jesus to be Lord and that God raised him from the dead by the first whereof he became our Law-Giver and our Guardian by the second he was our Saviour the other things are but parts and maine actions of those two Now what reason there is in the world that can inwrap any thing else within the foundation that is in the whole body of Articles simply and inseparably necessary or in the prime originall necessity of Faith I cannot possibly imagine These doe the work and therefore nothing can upon the true grounds of reason enlarge the necessity to the inclosure of other Articles Now if more were necessary than the Articles of the Creed I demand why was it made the * Vide Isidor de Eccles. offic lib. 1. cap. 20. Suidan Turnebum lib. 2. c. 30. advers Venant For. in Exeg Symb. Feuardent in Iren. lib. 1. c. 2. Characteristick note of a Numb 9. Christian from a Heretick or a Jew or an Infidell or to what purpose was it composed Or if this was intended as sufficient did the Apostles or those Churches which they founded know any thing else to be necessary If they did not then either nothing more is necessary I speak of matters of meer beliefe or they did not know all the will of the Lord and so were unfit Dispensers of the mysteries of the Kingdom or if they did know more was necessary and yet would not insert it they did an act of publike notice and consign'd it to all Ages of the Church to no purpose unlesse to beguile credulous people by making them believe their faith was sufficient having tryed it by that touch-stone Apostolicall when there was no such matter But if this was sufficient to bring men to heaven then why not now If the Apostles admitted all to their Communion that Numb 10. believed this Creed why shall wee exclude any that preserve the same intire why is not our saith of these Articles of as much efficacy for bringing us to heaven as it was in the Churches Apostolicall who had guides more infallible that might without errour have taught them superstructures enough if they had been necessary and so they did But that they did not insert them into the Creed when they might have done it with as much certainty as these Articles makes it clear to my understanding that other things were not necessary but these were that whatever profit and advantages might come from other Articles yet these were sufficient and however certain persons might accidentally
who those men are must also be certaine before it will be adjudg'd a sinne not to submit But if I mistake not Christs saying call no man master upon earth is so great a prejudice against this pretence as I doubt it will goe neere wholy to make it invalid So that as the worshipping of Angels is a humility indeed but it is voluntary and a will-worship to an ill sence not to be excused by the excellency of humility nor the vertue of Religion so is the relying upon the judgement of man an humility too but such as comes not under that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that obedience of Faith which is the duty of every Christian but intrenches upon that duty which we owe to Christ as an acknowledgement that he is our great Master and the Prince of the Catholike Church But whether it be or be not if that be the Question whether the disagreeing person be to be determined by the dictates of men I am sure the dictates of men must not determine him in that Question but it must be settled by some higher principle So that if of that Question the disagreeing person does opine or believe or erre bonâ fide he is not therefore to be judg'd a Heretick because he submits not his understanding because till it bee sufficiently made certaine to him that hee is bound to submit he may innocently and piously disagree and this not submitting is therefore not a crime and so cannot make a heresy because without a crime he may lawfully doubt whether he be bound to submit or no for that 's the Question And if in such Questions which have influence upon a whole systeme of Theology a man may doubt lawfully if he doubts heartily because the authority of men being the thing in Question cannot bee the judge of this Question and therefore being rejected or which is all one being questioned that is not believed cannot render the doubting person guilty of pride and by consequence not of heresy much more may particular questions be doubted of and the authority of men examined and yet the doubting person be humble enough and therefore no Heretick for all this pretence And it would be considered that humility is a duty in great ones as well as in Idiots And as inferiours must not disagree without reason so neither must superiours prescribe to others without sufficient authority evidence and necessity too And if rebellion be pride so is tyranny and it being in materiâ intellectuali both may be guilty of pride of understanding sometimes the one in imposing sometimes the other in a causelesse disagreeing but in the inferiours it is then only the want of humility when the guides impose or prescribe what God hath also taught and then it is the disobeying Gods dictares not mans that makes the sinne But then this consideration will also intervene that as no dictate of God obliges men to believe it unlesse I know it to be such So neither will any of the dictates of my superiours engage my faith unlesse I also know or have no reason to dis believe but that they are warranted to teach them to me therefore because God hath taught the same to them which if I once know or have no reason to think the contrary if I disagree my sinne is not in resisting humane authority but divine And therefore the whole businesse of submitting our understanding to humane authority comes to nothing for either it resolves into the direct duty of submitting to God or if it be spoken of abstractedly it is no duty at all But this pretence of a necessity of humbling the understanding is none of the meanest arts whereby some persons have Numb 13. invaded and usurpt a power over mens faith and consciences and therefore we shall examine the pretence afterwards and try if God hath invested any Man or company of Men with such a power In the meane time he that submits his understanding to all that he knowes God hath said and is ready to submit to all that he hath said if he but know it denying his own affections and ends and interests and humane perswasions laying them all down at the foot of his great Master Jesus Christ that man hath brought his understanding into subjection and every proud thought unto the obedience of Christ and this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the obedience of Faith which is the duty of a Christian. But to proceed Besides these heresies noted in Scripture the age of the Apostles and that which followed was infested Numb 14. with other heresies but such as had the same formality and malignity with the precedent all of them either such as taught practicall impieties or denyed an Article of the Creed Egesippus in Eusebius reckons seven only prime heresies that sought to defloure the purity of the Church That of Simon that of Thebutes of Cleobius of Dositheus of Gortheus of Masbotheus I suppose Cerinthus to have been the seventh man though he expresse him not But of these except the last we know no particulars but that Egesippus sayes they were false Christs and that their doctrine was directly against God and his blessed Sonne Menander also was the first of a Sect but he bewitched the people with his Sorceries Cerinthus his doctrine pretended Enthusiasm or a new Revelation and ended in lust and impious theorems in matter of uncleannesse The * Vid. Hilar. lib. 1. de Trin. Ebionites denyed Christ to be the Sonne of God and affirmed him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 begot by naturall generation by occasion of which and the importunity of the Asian Bishops S. John writ his Gospel and taught the observation of Moses Law Basilides taught it lawfull to renounce the faith and take false oaths in time of Persecution Carpocrates was a very bedlam halfe-witch and quite mad-man and practizd lust which he cald the secret operations to overcome the Potentates of the world Some more there were but of the same nature and pest not of a nicety in dispute not a question of secret Philosophy not of atomes and undiscernable propositions but open defiances of all Faith of all sobriety and of all sanctity excepting only the doctrine of the Millenaries which in the best Ages was esteemed no heresy but true Catholike Doctrine though since it hath justice done to it and hath suffered a just condemnation Hitherto and in these instances the Church did esteeme Numb 15. and judge of herefies in proportion to the rules and characters of Faith For Faith being a Doctrine of piety as well as truth that which was either destructive of fundamentall verity or of Christian sanctity was against Faith and if it made a Sect was heresy if not it ended in personall impiety and went no farther But those who as S. Paul sayes not only did such things but had pleasure in them that doe them and therefore taught others to do what they impiously did dogmatize they were Hereticks both in
Testament the Jewes pretend that the Christians have corrupted many places on purpose to make symphony between both the Testaments On the other side the Christians have had so much reason to suspect the Jewes that when Aquila had translated the Bible in their Schooles and had been taught by them they rejected the Edition many of them and some of them called it heresy to follow it And Justin Martyr justified it to Tryphon that the Jewes had defalk'd many sayings from the Books of the old Prophets and amongst the rest he instances in that of the Psalm Dicite in nationibus quia Dominus regnavit à ligno The last words they have cut off and prevail'd so farre in it that to this day none of our Bibles have it but if they ought not to have it then Justin Martyrs Bible had more in it then it should have for there it was so that a fault there was either under or over But however there are infinite Readings in the New Testament for in that I will instance some whole Verses in one that are not in another and there was in some Copies of S. Marks Gospel in the last Chapter a whole verse a Chapter it was anciently called that is not found in our Bibles as S. Hierom. ad Hedibiam q. 3. notes The words he repeats Lib. 2. contra Polygamos Et illi satis faciebant dicentes saeculum istud iniquitatis incredulitatis sub stantia est quae non sinit per immundos spiritus veram Dei apprehendi virtutem idcirco jam nunc revela justitiam tuam These words are thought by some to favour of Manichaisme and for ought I can finde were therefore rejected out of many Greek Copies and at last out of the Latine Now suppose that a Manichee in disputation should urge this place having found it in his Bible if a Catholike should answer him by saying it is Apocryphall and not found in divers Greek Copies might not the Manichee ask how it came in if it was not the word of God and if it was how came it out and at last take the same liberty of rejecting any other Authority which shall be alledged against him it he can finde any Copy that may favour him however that favour be procured and did not the Ebionites reject all the Epistles of S. Paul upon pretence he was an enemy to the Law of Moses indeed it was boldly and most unreasonably done but if one title or one Chapter of S. Mark be called Apocryphall for being suspected of Manicheisme it is a plea that will too much justify others in their taking and chusing what they list But I will not urge it so farre but is not there as much reason for the fierce Lutherans to reject the Epistle of S. James for favouring justification by works or the Epistle to the Hebrewes upon pretence that the sixth and tenth Chapters doe favour Novatianisme especially since it was by some famous Churches at first not accepted even by the Church of Rome her selfe The Parable of the woman taken in adultery which is now in Joh. 8. Eusebius sayes was not in any Gospel but the Gospel secundum Hebraeos and S. Hierom makes it doubtfull and so does S. Chrysostome and Euthimius the first not vouchsafing to explicate it in Homilies upon S. John the other affirming it not to be found in the exacter Copies I shall not neede to urge that there are some words so neer in sound that the Scribes might easily mistake There is one famous one of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yet some Copies read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sense is very unlike though the words be neer and there needs some little luxation to straine this latter reading to a good sense That famous precept of S. Paul that the women must pray with a covering on their head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the Angels hath brought into the Church an opinion that Angels are present in Churches and are Spectators of our devotion and deportment Such an opinion if it should meet with peevish opposites on one side and confident Hyperaspists on the other might possibly make a Sect and here were a cleer ground for the affirmative and yet who knowes but that it might have been a mistake of the Transcribers to double the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for if it were read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the sense be women in publike Assemblies must weare a vaile by reason of the Companies of the young men there present it would be no ill exchange for the losse of a letter to make so probable so cleare a sense of the place But the instances in this kinde are too many as appears in the variety of readings in severall Copies proceeding from the negligence or ignorance of the Transcribers or the malicious * Graeci corruperunt novum Testamentum ut testantur Tertul. l. 5. adv Marcion Euseb. l. 5. Hist. c. ult Irenae l. 1. c. 29. allu haerel Basil l. 2. contr Eunomium endeavour of Hereticks or the inserting Marginall Notes into the Text or the neerenesse of severall words Indeed there is so much evidence of this particular that it hath encouraged the servants of the Vulgar Translation for so some are now adayes to preferre that Translation before the Originall for although they have attempted that proposition with very ill successe yet that they could think it possible to be prov'd is an Argument there is much variety and alterations in divers Texts for if they were not it were impudence to pretend a Translation and that none of the best should be better then the Originall But so it is that this variety of reading is not of slight consideration for although it be demonstrably true that all things necessary to Faith and good manners are preserv'd from alteration and corruption because they are of things necessary and they could not be necessary unlesse they were delivered to us God in his goodnesse and his justice having oblig'd himself to preserve that which he hath bound us to observe and keep yet in other things which God hath not oblig'd himselfe so punctually to preserve in these things since variety of reading is crept in every reading takes away a degree of certainty from any proposition derivative from those places so read And if some Copies especially if they be publike and notable omit a verse or title every argument from such a title or verse loses much of its strength and reputation and we finde it in a great instance For when in probation of the mystery of the glorious Unity in Trinity we alledge that saying of S. John there are three which bear witnesse in heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one the Antitrinitarians think they have answered the Argument by saying the Syrian Translation and divers Greek Copies have not that verse in them and therefore being of doubtfull Authority cannot conclude with certainty in a Question of
inculpably both on their own and their Parents part they misse of baptism for that is the doctrine of the Church of Rome which they learnt from S. Austin and others also doe from hence baptize Infants though with a lesse opinion of its absolute necessity And yet the same manner of precept in the same forme of words in the same manner of threatning by an exclusive negative shall not enjoyn us to communicate Infants though damnation at least in forme of words be exactly and per omnia alike appendant to the neglect of holy Baptism and the venerable Eucharist If nisi quis renatus shall conclude against the Anabaptist for necessity of baptizing Infants as sure enough we say it does why shall not an equall nisi comederitis bring Infants to the holy Communion The Primitive Church for some two whole Ages did follow their own principles where ever they lead them and seeing that upon the same ground equall results must follow they did Communicate Infants as soon as they had baptized them And why the Church of Rome should not doe so too being she expounds nisi comederitis of orall manducation I cannot yet learn a reason And for others that expound it of a spirituall manducation why they shall not allow the disagreeing part the same liberty of expounding nisi quis renatus too I by no meanes can understand And in these cases no externall determiner can bee pretended in answer For whatsoever is extrinsecall to the words as Councels Tradition Church Authority and Fathers either have said nothing at all or have concluded by their practise contrary to the present opinion as is plaine in their communicating Infants by vertue of nisi comederitis 5. I shall not need to urge the mysteriousnesse of some points in Scripture which ex natura rei are hard to be understood Numb 8. though very plainly represented For there are some secreta Theologiae which are only to be understood by persons very holy and spirituall which are rather to be felt then discoursed of and therefore if peradventure they be offered to publike consideration they will therefore be opposed because they runne the same fortune with many other Questions that is not to be understood and so much the rather because their understanding that is the feeling such secrets of the Kingdome are not the results of Logick and Philosophy nor yet of publike revelation but of the publike spirit privately working and in no man is a duty but in all that have it is a reward and is not necessary for all but given to some producing its operations not regularly but upon occasions personall necessities and new emergencies Of this nature are the spirit of obsignation beliefe of particular salvation speciall influences and comforts comming from a sense of the spirit of adoption actuall fervours and great complacencies in devotion spirituall joyes which are little drawings aside of the curtaines of peace and eternity and antepasts of immortality But the not understanding the perfect constitution and temper of these mysteries and it is hard for any man so to understand as to make others doe so too that feele them not is cause that in many Questions of secret Theology by being very apt and easy to be mistaken there is a necessity in forbearing one another and this consideration would have been of good use in the Question between Soto and Catharinus both for the preservation of their charity and explication of the mystery 6. But here it will not be unseasonable to consider that Numb 9. all systems and principles of science are expressed so that either by reason of the Universality of the termes and subject matter or the infinite variety of humane understandings and these peradventure swayed by interest or determin'd by things accidentall and extrinsecall they seem to divers men nay to the same men upon divers occasions to speak things extremly disparate and sometimes contrary but very often of great variety And this very thing happens also in Scripture that if it were not in re sacrâ seria it were excellent sport to observe how the same place of Scripture serves severall turns upon occasion and they at that time believe the words sound nothing else whereas in the liberty of their judgement and abstracting from that occasion their Commentaries understand them wholy to a differing sense It is a wonder of what excellent use to the Church of Rome is tibi dabo claves It was spoken to Peter and none else sometimes and therefore it concerns him and his Successors only the rest are to derive from him And yet if you Question them for their Sacrament of Penance and Priestly Absolution then tibi dabo claves comes in and that was spoken to S. Peter and in him to the whole Colledge of the Apostles and in them to the whole Hierarchy If you question why the Pope pretends to free soules from Purgatory tibi dabo claves is his warrant but if you tell him the Keyes are only for binding and loosing on Earth directly and in Heaven consequently and that Purgatory is a part of Hell or rather neither Earth nor Heaven nor Hell and so the Keyes seem to have nothing to doe with it then his Commission is to be enlarged by a suppletory of reason and consequences and his Keyes shall unlock this difficulty for it is clavis scientiae as well as authoritatis And these Keyes shall enable him to expound Scriptures infallibly to determine Questions to preside in Councels to dictate to all the World Magisterially to rule the Church to dispence with Oaths to abrogate Lawes And if his Key of knowledge will not the Key of Authority shall and tibi dabo claves shall answer for all We have an instance in the single fancy of one man what rare variety of matter is afforded from those plain words of Oravi pro te Petre Luk. 22. for that place sayes Bellarmine is otherwise to be understood of Peter otherwise of the Popes and otherwise of the Church of Rome And pro te Bellar. lib. 1. de Pontif. c. 3. § respondeo primò signifies that Christ prayed that Peter might neither erre personally nor judicially and that Peters Successors if they did erre personally might not erre judicially and that the Roman Church might not erre personally All this variety of sense is pretended by the fancy of one man to be in a few words which are as plain and simple as are any words in Scripture And what then in those thousands that are intricate So is done with pasce oves which a man would think were a commission as innocent and guiltlesse of designs as the sheep in the folds are But if it be asked why the Bishop of Rome calls himselfe Universall Bishop pasce oves is his warrant Why he pretends to a power of deposing Princes Pasce oves said Christ to Peter the second time If it be demanded why also he pretends to a power of authorizing his
sayes nothing against those Articles though he misse the particular sense of the place there is no danger or sinne in his Exposition but how that analogy of Faith should have any other influence in expounding such places in which those Articles of Faith are neither expressed nor involv'd I understand not But then if you extend the analogy of Faith further then that which is proper to the rule of Symbol of Faith then every man expounds Scripture according to the analogy of Faith but what His own Faith which Faith if it be questioned I am no more bound to expound according to the analogy of another mans Faith then he to expound according to the analogy of mine And this is it that is complain'd on of all sides that overvalue their own opinions Scripture seems so clearly to speak what they believe that they wonder all the world does not see it as clear as they doe but they satisfie themselves with saying that it is because they come with prejudice whereas if they had the true beliefe that is theirs they would easily see what they see And this is very true For if they did believe as others believe they would expound Scriptures to their sense but if this be expounding according to the analogy of Faith it signifies no more then this Be you of my mind and then my Arguments will seem concluding and my Authorities and Allegations pressing and pertinent And this will serve on all sides and therefore will doe but little service to the determination of Questions or prescribing to other mens consciences on any side Lastly Consulting the Originals is thought a great matter Numb 5. to Interpretation of Scriptures But this is to small purpose For indeed it will expound the Hebrew and the Greek and rectifie Translations But I know no man that sayes that the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek are easie and certaine to be understood and that they are hard in Latine and English The difficulty is in the thing however it be expressed the least is in the language If the Originall Languages were our mother tongue Scripture is not much the easier to us and a naturall Greek or a Jew can with no more reason nor authority obtrude his Interpretations upon other mens consciences then a man of another Nation Adde to this that the inspection of the Originall is no more certain way of Interpretation of Scripture now then it was to the Fathers and Primitive Ages of the Church and yet he that observes what infinite variety of Translations of the Bible were in the first Ages of the Church as S. Hierom observes and never a one like another will think that we shall differ as much in our Interpretations as they did and that the medium is as uncertain to us as it was to them and so it is witnesse the great number of late Translations and the infinite number of Commentaries which are too pregnant an Argument that wee neither agree in the understanding of the words nor of the sense The truth is all these wayes of Interpreting of Scripture which of themselves are good helps are made either by design Numb 6. or by our infirmites wayes of intricating and involving Scriptures in greater difficulty because men doe not learn their doctrines from Scripture but come to the understanding of Scripture with preconceptions and idea's of doctrines of their own and then no wonder that Scriptures look like Pictures wherein every man in the roome believes they look on him only and that wheresoever he stands or how often soever he changes his station So that now what was intended for a remedy becomes the promoter of our disease and our meat becomes the matter of sicknesses And the mischiefe is the wit of man cannot find a remedy for it for there is no rule no limit no certain principle by which all men may be guided to a certain and so infallible an Interpretation that he can with any equity prescribe to others to believe his Interpretations in places of controversy or ambiguity A man would think that the memorable Prophesy of Jacob that the Scepter should not depart from Judah till Shiloh come should have been so clear a determination of the time of the Messias that a Jew should never have doubted it to have been verified in Jesus of Nazareth and yet for this so clear vaticination they have no lesse then twenty six Answers S. Paul and S. James seem to speak a little diversly concerning Justification by Faith and Works and yet to my understanding it is very easy to reconcile them but all men are not of my mind for Osiander in his confutation of the book which Melanchton wrote against him observes that there are twenty severall opinions concerning Iustification all drawn from the Scriptures by the men only of the Augustan Confession There are sixteen severall opinions concerning originall sinne and as many definitions of the Sacraments as there are Sects of men that disagree about them And now what help is there for us in the midst of these uncertainties If we follow any one Translation or any one Numb 7. mans Commentary what rule shall we have to chuse the right by or is there any one man that hath translated perfectly or expounded infallibly No Translation challenges such a prerogative as to be authentick but the Vulgar Latine and yet see with what good successe For when it was declared authentick by the Councell of Trent Sixtus put forth a Copy much mended of what it was and tyed all men to follow that but that did not satisfie for Pope Clement reviews and corrects it in many places and still the Decree remaines in a changed subject And secondly that Translation will be very unapt to satisfie in which one of their own men Isidore Clarius a Monk of Brescia found and mended eight thousand faults besides innumerable others which he sayes he pretermitted And then thirdly to shew how little themselves were satisfied with it divers learned men amongst them did new translate the Bible and thought they did God and the Church good service in it So that if you take this for your precedent you are sure to be mistaken infinitely If you take any other the Authors themselves doe not promise you any security If you resolve to follow any one as farre only as you see cause then you only doe wrong or right by chance for you have certainty just proportionable to your own skill to your own infallibility If you resolve to follow any one whether soever he leads we shall oftentimes come thither where we shall see our selves become ridiculous as it happened in the case of Spiridion Bishop of Cyprus who so resolv'd to follow his old book that when an eloquent Bishop who was desired to Preach read his Text Tu autem tolle cubile tuum ambula Spiridion was very angry with him because in his book it was tolle lectum tuum and thought it arrogance in the preacher
temporall felicities and this thing proceeding from so great an Authority as the testimony of Papias drew after it all or most of the Christians in the first three hundred years For besides that the Millenary opinion is expresly taught by Papias Justin Martyr Irenaus Origen Lactantius Severus Victorinus Apollinaris Nepos and divers others famous in their time Justin Martyr in his Dialogue against Tryphon sayes it was the beliefe of all Christians exactly Orthodox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet there was no such Tradition but a mistake in Papias but I find it nowhere spoke against till Dionysins of Alexandria confuted Nepo's Book and converted Coracion the Egyptian from the opinion Now if a Tradition whose beginning of being called so began with a Scholar of the Apostles for so was Papias and then continued for some Ages upon the meer Authority of so famous a man did yet deceive the Church much more fallible is the pretence when two or three hundred years after it but commences and then by some learned man is first called a Tradition Apostolicall And so it hapned in the case of the Arrian heresy which the Nicene Fathers did confute by objecting a contrary Tradition Apostolicall as Theodoret reports Lib. 1. hist. c. 8. and yet if they had not had better Arguments from Scripture then from Tradition they would have faild much in so good a cause for this very pretence the Arrians themselves made and desired to be tryed by the Fathers of the first three hundred years which was a confutation sufficient to them who pretended Vide Petaâ— in Epiph. her 69. a clear Tradition because it was unimaginable that the Tradition should leap so as not to come from the first to the last by the middle But that this tryall was sometime declined by that excellent man S. Athanasius although at other times confidently and truly pretended it was an Argument the Tradition was not so * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matt. diâ—l ad Tryph. Iud. clear but both sides might with some fairnesse pretend to it And therefore one of the prime Founders of their heresy the Heretick †Euse. l. 5. c. ult Artemon having observed the advantage might be taken by any Sect that would pretend Tradition because the medium was plausible and consisting of so many particulars that it was hard to be redargued pretended a Tradition from the Apostles that Christ was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the Tradition did descend by a constant succession in the Church of Rome to Pope Victors time inclusively and till Zepherinus had interrupted the series and corrupted the Doctrine which pretence if it had not had some appearance of truth so as possibly to abuse the Church had not been worthy of confutation which yet was with care undertaken by an old Writer out of whom Eusebius transcribes a large passage to reprove the vanity of the pretender But I observe from hence that it was usuall to pretend to Tradition and that it was easier pretended then confuted and I doubt not but oftner done then discovered A great Question arose in Africa concerning the Baptism of Hereticks whether it were valid or no. S. Cyprian and his party appealed to Scripture Stephen Bishop of Rome and his party would be judged by custome and Tradition Ecclesiasticall See how much the nearer the Question was to a determination either that probation was not accounted by S. Cyprian and the Bishops both of Asia and Africk to be a good Argument and sufficient to determine them or there was no certain Tradition against them for unlesse one of these two doe it nothing could excuse them from opposing a known truth unlesse peradventure S. Cyprian Firmilian the Bishops of Galatia Cappadocia and almost two parts of the World were ignorant of such a Tradition for they knew of none such and some of them expresly denyed it And the sixth generall Synod approves of the Canon made in the Councell of Carthage under Cyprian upon this very ground because in praedictorum praesulum locis solum secundum Can. 2. traditam eis consuetudinem servatus est they had a particular Tradition for Rebaptization and therefore there could be no Tradition Universall against it or if there were they knew not of it but much for the contrary and then it would be remembred that a conceal'd Tradition was like a silent Thunder or a Law not promulgated it neither was known nor was obligatory And I shall observe this too that this very Tradition was so obscure and was so obscurely delivered silently proclaimed that S. Austin who disputed against the Donatists upon this very Question was not able to prove it but L. 5. de baptism contr Donat. c. 23. by a consequence which he thought probale and credible as appears in his discourse against the Donatists The Apostles saith S. Austin prescrib'd nothing in this particular But this custome which is contrary to Cyprian ought to be believed to have come from their Tradition as many other things which the Catholike Church observes That 's all the ground and all the reason nay the Church did waver concerning that Question and before the decision of a Councell Cyprian and others might dissent without breach of charity It was plain then there was no clear Tradition Lib. 1. de baptism c. 18. in the Question possibly there might be a custome in some Churches postnate to the times of the Apostles but nothing that was obligatory no Tradition Apostolicall But this was a suppletory device ready at hand when ever they needed it and De peccat original l. 2. c. 40. contra Pelagi Caelest S. Austin confuted the Pelagians in the Question of Originall sinne by the custome of exorcisme and insufflation which S. Austin said came from the Apostles by Tradition which yet was then and is now so impossible to be prov'd that he that shall affirm it shall gaine only the reputation of a bold man and a confident 2. I consider if the report of Traditions in the Primitive Numb 4. times so neare the Ages Apostolicall was so uncertain that they were fain to aym at them by conjectures and grope as in the dark the uncertainty is much encreased since because there are many famous Writers whose works are lost which yet if they had continued they might have been good records to us as Clemens Romanus Egesippus Nepos Coracion Dionysius Areopagite of Alexandria of Corinth Firmilian and many more And since we see pretences have been made without reason in those Ages where they might better have been confuted then now they can it is greater prudence to suspect any later pretences since so many Sects have been so many warres so many corruptions in Authors so many Authors lost so much ignorance hath intervened and so many interests have been served that now the rule is to be altered and whereas it was of old time credible that that was Apostolicall whose beginning they
alike necessary or alike indifferent if the former why does no Church observe them if the later why does the Church of Rome charge upon others the shame of novelty for leaving of some Rites and Ceremonies which by her own practice we are taught to have no obligation in them but to be adiaphorous S. Paul gave order that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife The Church of Rome will not allow so much other Churches allow more The Apostles commanded Christians to Fast on Wednesday and Friday as appeares in their Canons The Church of Rome Fasts Friday and Saturday and not on Wednesday The Apostles had their Agapae or love Feasts we should believe them scandalous They used a kisse of charity in ordinary addresses the Church of Rome keeps it only in their Masse other Churches quite omit it The Apostles permitted Priests and Deacons to live in conjugall Society as appears in the 5. Can. of the Apostles which to them is an Argument who believe them such and yet the Church of Rome by no meanes will endure it nay more Michael Medina gives Testimony that of 84 Canons Apostolicall which Clemens collected De sacr hom continent li 5. c. 105. scarce six or eight are observed by the Latine Church and Peresius gives this account of it In illis contineri multa quae temporum corruptione non plenè observantur aliis pro temporis De Tradit part 3. c. de Author Can. Apost materiae qualitate aut obliteratis aut totius Ecclesiae magisterio abrogatis Now it were good that they which take a liberty to themselves should also allow the same to others So that for one thing or other all Traditions excepting those very few that are absolutely universall will lose all their obligation and become no competent medium to confine mens practises or limit their faiths or determine their perswasions Either for the difficulty of their being prov'd the incompetency of the testimony that transmits them or the indifferency of the thing transmitted all Traditions both rituall and doctrinall are disabled from determining our consciences either to a necessary believing or obeying 6. To which I adde by way of confirmation that there are some things called Traditions and are offered to be proved to Numb 9. us by a Testimony which is either false or not extant Clemens of Alexandria pretended it a Tradition that the Apostles preached to them that dyed in infidelity even after their death and then raised them to life but he proved it only by the Testimony of the Book of Hermes he affirmed it to be a Tradition Apostolicall that the Greeks were saved by their Philosophy but he had no other Authority for it but the Apocryphall Books of Peter and Paul Tertullian and S. Basil pretend it an Apostolicall Tradition to sign in the aire with the sign of the Crosse but this was only consign'd to them in the Gospel of Nicodemus But to instance once for all in the Epistle of Marcellus to the Bishop of Antioch where he affirmes that it is the Canon of the Apostles praeter sententiam Romani Pontificis non posse Conciliae celebrari And yet there is no such Canon extant nor ever was for ought appears in any Record we have and yet the Collection of the Canons is so intire that though it hath something more then what was Apostolicall yet it hath nothing lesse And now that I am casually fallen upon an instance from the Canons of the Apostles I consider that there cannot in the world a greater instance be given how easy it is to be abused in the believing of Traditions For 1. to the first 50. which many did admit for Apostolicall 35 more were added which most men now count spurious all men call dubious and some of them universally condemned by peremptory sentence even by them who are greatest admirers of that Collection as 65. 67. and 8 ⅘ Canons For the first 50 it is evident that there are some things so mixt with them and no mark of difference left that the credit of all is much impared insomuch that Isidor of Sevill sayes they were Apoeryphall made by Hereticks and published under the Apud Gratian. dist 16. c. Canones title Apostolicall but neither the Fathers nor the Church of Rome did give assent to them And yet they have prevail'd so farre amongst some that Damascen is of opinion they should Lib. ◠c. 18 de Orthod fide be received equally with the Canonicall writings of the Apostles One thing only I observe and we shall find it true in most writings whose Authority is urged in Questions of Theology that the Authority of the Tradition is not it which moves the assent but the nature of the thing and because such a Canon is delivered they doe not therefore believe the sanction or proposition so delivered but disbelieve the Tradition if they doe not like the matter and so doe not judge of the matter by the Tradition but of the Tradition by the matter And thus the Church of Rome rejects the 84 or 85 Canon of the Apostles not because it is delivered with lesse Authority then the last 35 are but because it reckons the Canon of Scripture otherwise then it is at Rome Thus also the fifth Canon amongst the first 50 because it approves the marriage of Priests and Deacons does not perswade them to approve of it too but it selfe becomes suspected for approving it So that either they accuse themselves of palpable contempt of the Apostolicall Authority or else that the reputation of such Traditions is kept up to serve their own ends and therefore when they encounter them they are more to be upheld which what else is it but to teach all the world to contemn such pretences and undervalue Traditions and to supply to others a reason why they should doe that which to them that give the occasion is most unreasonable 7. The Testimony of the Ancient Church being the only Numb 10. meanes of proving Tradition and sometimes their dictates and doctrine being the Tradition pretended of necessity to be imitated it is considerable that men in their estimate of it take their rise from severall Ages and differing Testimonies and are not agreed about the competency of their Testimony and the reasons that on each side make them differ are such as make the Authority it selfe the lesse authentick and more repudiable Some will allow only of the three first Ages as being most pure most persecuted and therefore most holy least interested serving fewer designs having fewest factions and therefore more likely to speak the truth for Gods sake and its own as best complying with their great end of acquiring Heaven in recompence of losing their lives Others * Vid. Card. Petron. lettre an Sieur Casaubon say that those Ages being persecuted minded the present Doctrines proportionable to their purposes and constitution of the Ages and make little or nothing of those Questions which
Psal. 132. S. Hilary f L. 2. contra heres tom 1. haer 61. S. Epiphanius and divers others all speaking words to the same sense with that saying of S. g 1. Cor. 4. Paul Nemo sentiat super quod scriptum est will see that there is reason that since no man is materially a Heretick but he that erres in a point of Faith and all Faith is sufficienly recorded in Scripture the judgement of Faith and Heresy is to be derived from thence and no man is to be condemned for dissenting in an Article for whose probation Tradition only is pretended only according to the degree of its evidence let every one determine himselfe but of this evidence we must not judge for others for unlesse it be in things of Faith and absolute certainties evidence is a word of relation and so supposes two terms the object and the faculty and it is an imperfect speech to say a thing is evident in it selfe unlesse we speak of first principles or clearest revelations for that may be evident to one that is not so to another by reason of the pregnancy of some apprehensions and the immaturity of others This Discourse hath its intention in Traditions Doctrinall and Rituall that is such Traditions which propose Articles new in materiâ but now if Scripture be the repository of all Divine Truths sufficient for us Tradition must be considered as its instrument to convey its great mysteriousnesse to our understandings it is said there are traditive Interpretations as well as traditive propositions but these have not much distinct consideration in them both because their uncertainty is as great as the other upon the former considerations as also because in very deed there are no such things as traditive Interpretations universall For as for particulars they signifie no more but that they are not sufficient determinations of Questions Theologicall therefore because they are particular contingent and of infinite variety and they are no more Argument then the particular authority of these men whose Commentaries they are and therefore must be considered with them The summe is this Since the Fathers who are the best Numb 12. Witnesses of Traditions yet were infinitely deceived in their account since sometimes they guest at them and conjectured by way of Rule and Discourse and not of their knowledge not by evidence of the thing since many are called Traditions which were not so many are uncertaine whether they were or no yet confidently pretended and this uncertainty which at first was great enough is increased by infinite causes and accidents in the succession of 1600 yeares since the Church hath been either so carelesse or so abused that shee could not or would not preserve Traditions with carefulnesse and truth since it was ordinary for the old Writers to set out their own fancies and the Rites of their Church which had been Ancient under the specious Title of Apostolicall Traditions since some Traditions rely but upon single Testimony at first and yet descending upon others come to be attested by many whose Testimony though conjunct yet in value is but single because it relies upon the first single Relator and so can have no greater authority or certainty then they derive from the single person since the first Ages who were most competent to consign Tradition yet did consign such Traditions as be of a nature wholy discrepant from the present Questions and speak nothing at all or very imperfectly to our purposes and the following Ages are no fit Witnesses of that which was not transmitted to them because they could not know it at all but by such transmission and prior consignation since what at first was a Tradition came afterwards to be written and so ceased its being a Tradition yet the credit of Traditions commenc'd upon the certainty and reputation of those truths first delivered by word afterward consign'd by writing since what was certainly Tradition Apostolicall as many Rituals were are rejected by the Church in severall Ages and are gone out into a desuetude and lastly since beside the no necessity of Traditions there being abundantly enough in Scripture there are many things called Traditions by the Fathers which they themselves either proved by no Authors or by Apocryphall and spurious and Hereticall the matter of Tradition will in very much be so uncertain so false so suspitious so contradictory so improbable so unproved that if a Question be contested and be offered to be proved only by Tradition it will be very hard to impose such a proposition to the beliefe of all men with any imperiousnesse or resolved determination but it will be necessary men should preserve the liberty of believing and prophesying and not part with it upon a worse merchandise and exchange then Esau made for his birth-right SECT VI. Of the uncertainty and insufficiency of Councels Ecclesiasticall to the same purpose BUt since we are all this while in uncertainty it is necessary that we should addresse our selves somewhere where we Numb 1. may rest the soale of our foot And nature Scripture and experience teach the world in matters of Question to submit to some finall sentence For it is not reason that controversies should continue till the erring person shall be willing to condemn himselfe and the Spirit of God hath directed us by that great precedent at Jerusalem to addresse our selves to the Church that in a plenary Councell and Assembly shee may synodically determine Controversies So that if a Generall Councell have determin'd a Question or expounded Scripture we may no more disbelieve the Decree then the Spirit of God himselfe who speaks in them And indeed if all Assemblies of Bishops were like that first and all Bishops were of the same spirit of which the Apostles were I should obey their Decree with the same Religion as I doe them whole preface was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis And I doubt not but our blessed Saviour intended that the Assemblies of the Church should be Judges of Controversies and guides of our perswasions in matters of difficulty But he also intended they should proceed according to his will which he had revealed and those precedents which he had made authentick by the immediate assistance of his holy Spirit He hath done his part but we doe not doe ours And if any private person in the simplicity and purity of his soule desires to find out a truth of which he is in search and inquisition if he prayes for wisedome we have a promise he shall be heard and answered liberally and therefore much more when the representatives of the Catholike Church doe meet because every person there hath in individuo a title to the promise and another title as he is a governour and a guide of soules and all of them together have another title in their united capacity especially if in that union they pray and proceed with simplicity and purity so that there is no disputing against the pretence
de bapt Donat. c. 3. Concilia nationalia à plenariis ipsaque plenaria priora à posterioribus emendari Not only the occasion of the Question being a matter not of fact but of Faith as being instanc'd in the Question of rebaptization but also the very fabrick and oeconomy of the words put by all the answers of those men who think themselves pressed with the Authority of S. Austin For as Nationall Councels may correct the Bishops Letters and Generall Councels may correct Nationall so the later Generall may correct the former that is have contrary and better Decrees of manners and better determinations in matters of faith And from hence hath risen a Question whether is to be received the former or the later Councels in case they contradict each other The former are nearer the fountaines Apostolicall the later are of greater consideration The first have more Authority the later more reason The first are more venerable the later more inquisitive and seeing And now what rule shall we have to determine out beliefes whether to Authority or Reason the Reason and the Authority both of them not being the highest in their kinde both of them being repudiable and at most but probable And here it is that this great uncertainty is such as not to determine any body but fit to serve every body and it is sport to see that Bellarmine will by all meanes have the Councell of Carthage preferr'd before the Councell of Laodicea because it is later and L. 2. de Conc. c. 8. § respondeo in primis yet he preferres the second Nicene * Ibid. § de Concilio autem Councell before the Councell of Frankfurt because it is elder S. Austin would have the former Generals to be mended by the later but Isidore in Gratian sayes when Councels doe differ scandum esse antiquioribus the elder must carry it And indeed these probables are Dist. 20. Can. Domino Sancto buskins to serve every foot and they are like magnum parvum they have nothing of their own all that they have is in comparison of others so these topicks have nothing of resolute and dogmaticall truth but in relation to such ends as an interessed person hath a mind to serve upon them 5. There are many Councels corrupted and many pretended and alledged when there were no such things both which Numb 9. make the topick of the Authority of Councels to be little and inconsiderable There is a Councell brought to light in the edition of Councels by Binius viz. Sinvessanum pretended to be kept in the year 303 but it was so private till then that we find no mention of it in any ancient Record Neither Eusebius nor Ruffinus S Hierom nor Socrates Sozomen nor Theodoret nor Eutropius nor Bede knew any thing of it and the eldest allegation of it is by Pope Nicholas I in the ninth Century And he that shall consider that 300 Bishops in the midst of horrid Persecutions for so then they were are pretended to have conven'd will need no greater Argument to suspect the imposture besides he that was the framer of the engine did not lay his ends together handsomely for it is said that the deposition of Marcellinus by the Synod was told to Diocletian when he was in the Persian Warre when as it is known before that time he had return'd to Rome and triumph'd for his Persian Conquest as Eusebius in his Chronicle reports And this is so plain that Binius and Baronius pretend the Text to be corrupted to go to * Pro cum esset in bello Persarum legi volunt cum reversus esset è bello Persarum Euseb. Chronicon vide Binium in notis ad Concil Sinvessanum Tom. 1. Concil Baron Annal Tom. 3. A. D. 303. num 107. mend it by such an emendation as is a plain contradiction to the sense and that so un-clerk-like viz. by putting in two words and leaving out one which whether it may be allowed them by any licence lesse then Poeticall let Criticks judge S. Gregory saith that the Constantinopolitans had corrupted the Synod of I. 5. Ep. 14. ad Narsem Chalcedon and that he suspected the same concerning the Ephesine Councell And in the fifth Synod there was a notorious prevarication for there were false Epistles of Pope Vigilius and Menna the Patriarch of Constantinople inserted and so they passed for authentick till they were discovered in the sixth Generall Synod Actions the 12. and 14 And not only false Decrees and Actions may creep into the Codes of Councels but sometimes the authority of a learned man may abuse the Church with pretended Decrees of which there is no Copy or shadow in the Code it selfe And thus Thomas Aquinas sayes that the Epistle to the Hebrewes was reckoned in the Canon Comment in Hebr. by the Nicene Councell no shadow of which appears in those Copies we now have of it and this pretence and the reputation of the man prevail'd so farre with Melchior Canus the learned Bishop of Canaries that he believ'd it upon this ground Vir sanctus rem adeo gravem non astrueret nisi compertum habuisset and there are many things which have prevail'd upon lesse reason and a more slight Authority And that very Councell of Nice hath not only been pretended by Aquinas but very much abused by others and its Authority and great reputation hath made it more lyable to the fraud and pretences of idle people For whereas the Nicene Fathers made but twenty Canons for so many and no more were received by a Con. Carthag VI. cap. 9. Cecilian of Carthage that was at Nice in the Councell by S. b Con. African Austin and 200 African Bishops with him by S. c Ibid. c. 102. c. 133. Cyrill of Alexandria by d Lib. 1. Eccl. Hist. c. 6. Atticus of Constantinople by Ruffinus e In princ Con. de Synod Princ. Isidore and Theodoret as f Baronius tom 3. A. D. 325. n. 156. Tom. 3. ad A. D. 325. n. 62 63. Baronius witnesses yet there are fourscore lately found out in an Arabian M. S. and published in Latine by Turrian and Alfonsus of Pisa Jesuites surely and like to be masters of the mint And not only the Canons but the very Acts of the Nicene Councell are false and spurious and are so confessed by Baronius though how he and g Panopl l. 2. c. 6. Lindanus will be reconcil'd upon the point I neither know well nor much care Now if one Councell be corrupted we see by the instance of S. Gregory that another may be suspected and so all because he found the Councell of Chalcedon corrupted he suspected also the Ephesine and another might have suspected more for the Nicene was tampered fouly with and so three of the foure Generals were fullied and made suspicious and therefore we could not be secure of any If false Acts be inserted in one Councell who can
trust the actions of any unlesse he had the keeping the Records himselfe or durst swear for the Register And if a very learned man as Thomas Aquinas was did either wilfully deceive us or was himselfe ignorantly abused in Allegation of a Canon which was not it is but a very fallible Topick at the best and the most holy man that is may be abused himselfe and the wisest may deceive others 6. And lastly To all this and to the former instances by way of Corollary I adde some more particulars in which it is notorious Numb 10. that Councels Generall and Nationall that is such as were either Generall by Originall or by adoption into the Canon of the Catholike Church did erre and were actually deceived The first Councell of Toledo admits to the Communion him that hath a Concubine so he have no wife besides and this Councell is approved by Pope Leo in the 92 Epistle to Rusticus Bishop of Narbona Gratian sayes that the Councell meanes by a Concubine a wife married sine dote solennitate but this is Dist. 34. can omnibus dawbing with untemper'd mortar For though it was a custome amongst the Jewes to distinguish Wives from their Concubines by Dowry and legall Solennities yet the Christian distinguished them no otherwise then as lawfull and unlawfull then as Chastity and Fornication And besides if by a Concubine is meant a lawfull wife without a Dowry to what purpose should the Councell make a Law that such a one might be admitted to the Communion for I suppose it was never thought to be a Law of Christianity that a man should have a Portion with his Wife nor he that married a poore Virgin should deserve to be Excommunicate So that Gratian and his Followers are prest so with this Canon that to avoid the impiety of it they expound it to a signification without sense or purpose But the businesse then was that Adultery was so publike and notorious a practise that the Councell did chuse rather to endure simple Fornication that by such permission of a lesse they might slacken the publike custome of a greater just as at Rome they permit Stewes to prevent unnaturall sinnes But that by a publike sanction Fornicators habitually and notoriously such should be admitted to the holy Communion was an act of Priests so unfit for Priests that no excuse can make it white or cleane The Councell of Wormes does authorize a superstitious custome at that time too much used of Cap. 3. discovering stoln goods by the holy Sacrament which a Part. 3. q 80. a. 6. ad 3 m. Aquinas justly condemns for Superstition The b Can. 72. sixth Synod separates persons lawfully married upon an accusation and crime of heresy The Roman Councell under c Can ego Berengar de consecrat dist 2. Pope Nicholas II. defin'd that not only the Sacrament of Christs body but the very body it selfe of our blessed Saviour is handled and broke by the hands of the Priest and chewed by the teeth of the Communicants which is a manifest errour derogatory from the truth of Christs beatificall Resurrection and glorification in the Heavens and disavowed by the Church of Rome it selfe But Bellarmine that answers all the Arguments in the world whither it be possible or not possible would faine make the Lib. 2. c. 8. de Concil matter faire and the Decree tolerable for sayes he the Decree meanes that the body is broken not in it selfe but in the sign and yet the Decree sayes that not only the Sacrament which if any thing be is certainly the sign but the very body it selfe is broken and champed with hands and teeth respectively which indeed was nothing but a plaine over-acting the Article in contradiction to Berengarius And the answer of Bellarmine is not sense for he denies that the body it selfe is broken in it selfe that was the errour we charg'd upon the Roman Synod and the sign abstracting from the body is not broken for that was the opinion that Councell condemn'd in Berengarius but sayes Bellarmine the body in the sign What 's that for neither the sign nor the body nor both together are broken For if either of them distinctly they either rush upon the errour which the Roman Synod condemn'd in Berengarius or upon that which they would fain excuse in Pope Nicholas but if both are broken then 't is true to affirm it of either and then the Councell is blasphemous in saying that Christ's glorified body is passible and frangible by naturall manducation So that it is and it is not it is not this way and yet it is no way else but it is some way and they know not how and the Councell spoke blasphemy but it must be made innocent and therefore it was requisite a cloud of a distinction should be raised that the unwary Reader might be amused and the Decree scape untoucht but the truth is they that undertake to justifie all that other men say must be more subtle then they that said it and must use such distinctions which possibly the first Authors did not understand But I will multiply no more instances for what instance soever I shall bring some or other will be answering it which thing is so farre from satisfying me in the particulars that it increases the difficulty in the generall and satisfies me in my first beliefe For * Illa demùm cis videntur edicta Concilia quae in rem suam faciunt reliqua non pluris aestimant quam conventum muliercularum in textrinâ vel thermis Ludo. Vives in Scholiis lib. 20. Aug. de Civit. Dei c. 26. if no Decrees of Councels can make against them though they seeme never so plain against them then let others be allowed the same liberty and there is all the reason in the world they should and no Decree shall conclude against any Doctrine that they have already entertain'd and by this meanes the Church is no fitter instrument to Decree Controversies then the Scripture it selfe there being as much obscurity and disputing in the sense and the manner and the degree and the competency and the obligation of the Decree of a Councell as of a place of Scripture And what are we the nearer for a Decree if any Sophister shall think his elusion enough to contest against the Authority of a Councell yet this they doe that pretend highest for their Authority which consideration or some like it might possibly make Gratian preferre S. Hierom's single 36. q. 2. c. placuit Testimony before a whole Councell because hee had Scripture of his side which sayes that the Authority of Councels is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that Councels may possibly recede from their Rule from Scripture and in that case a single person proceeding according to Rule is a better Argument which indeed was the saying of Panormitan in concernentibus Part. 1. de election Et elect potest cap. significant
might not faile for it was necessary that no bitternesse or stopping should be in one of the first springs least the current be either spoil'd or obstructed that therefore the faith of Pope Alexander VI or Gregory or Clement 1500 years after should be be preserved by vertue of that prayer which the forme of words the time the occasion the manner of the addresse the effect it selfe and all the circumstances of the action and person did determine to be personall And when it was more then personall S. Peter did not represent his Successors at Rome but 22 ae q. 2. a. 6. ar 6. ad 3 m. the whole Catholike Church sayes Aquinas and the Divines of the University of Paris Volunt enim pro solâ Ecclesiâ esse L. 4. de Roman Pont. c. 3. § 1. oratum sayes Bellarmine of them and the glosse upon the Canon Law plainly denies the effect of this prayer at all to appertain to the Pope Quaere de quâ Ecclesia intelligas quod hoc dicitur quod Caus. 21. cap. à recta q. 1. non possit errare si de ipso Papâ qui Ecclesia dicitur sed certum est quod Papa errare potest Respondeo ipsa Congregatio fidelium hic dicitur Ecclesia talis Ecclesia non potest non esse 29. dist Ana. statius 60. dist si Papa nam ipse Dominus orat pro Ecclesiâ voluntate labiorum suorum non fraudabitur But there is a little danger in this Argument when we well consider it but it is likely to redound on the head of them whose turns it should serve For it may be remembred that for all this prayer of Christ for S. Peter the good man sell fouly and denyed his Master shamefully And shall Christs prayer be of greater efficacy for his Successors for whom it was made but indirectly and by consequence then for himselfe for whom it was directly and in the first intention And if not then for all this Argument the Popes may deny Christ as well as their cheife and Decessor Peter But it would not be forgotten how the Roman Doctors will by no meanes allow that S. Peter was then the chiefe Bishop or Pope when he denyed his Master But then much lesse was he chosen chiefe Bishop when the prayer was made for him because the prayer was made before his fall that is before that time in which it is confessed he was not as yet made Pope And how then the whole Succession of the Papacy should be intitled to it passes the length of my hand to span But then also if it be supposed and allowed that these words shall intaile infallibility upon the Chaire of Rome why shall not also all the Apostolicall Sees bee infallible as well as Rome why shall not Constaentinople or Byzantium where S. Andrew sate why shall not Ephesus where S. John sate or Jerusalem where S. James sate for Christ prayed for them all ut Pater sanctificaret eos sua veritate Joh. 17. 2. For tibi dabo claves was it personall or not If it were then the Bishops of Rome have nothing to doe with it Numb 4. If it were not then by what Argument will it be made evident that S. Peter in the promise represented only his Successors and not the whole Colledge of Apostles and the whole Hierarchy For if S. Peter was chiefe of the Apostles and Head of the Church he might faire enough be the representative of the whole Colledge and receive it in their right as well as his own which also is certain that it was so for the same promise of binding and loosing which certainly was all that the keyes were given for was made afterward to all the Apostles Mat. 18. and the power of remitting and retaining which in reason and according to the stile of the Church is the same thing in other words was actually given to all the Apostles and unlesse that was the performing the first and second promise we find it not recorded in Scripture how or when or whether yet or no the promise be performed That promise I say which did not pertaine to Peter principally and by origination and to the rest by Communication society and adherence but that promise which was made to Peter first but not for himselfe but for all the Colledge and for all their Successors and then made the second time to them all without representation but in diffusion and perform'd to all alike in presence except S. Thomas And if he went to S. Peter to derive it from him I know not I find no record for that but that Christ convey'd the promise to him by the same Commission the Church yet never doubted nor had she any reason But this matter is too notorious I say no more to it but repeat the words and Argument of S. Austin Si hoc Petro tantum dictum est non facit hoc Ecclesia If the Keyes were only given and so promised to S. Peter that Tra. 50. in Ioann the Church hath not the Keyes then the Church can neither bind nor loose remit nor retaine which God forbid if any man should endevour to answer this Argument I leave him and S. Austin to contest it 3. For pasce oves there is little in that Allegation besides the boldnesse of the Objectors for were not all the Apostles Numb 5. bound to feed Christ's sheep had they not all the Commission from Christ and Christ's Spirit immediately S. Paul had certainly did not S. Peter himselfe say to all the Bishops of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithinia that they should feed the flock of God and the great Bishop and Shepheard should give them an immarcescible Crown plainly implying that from whence they derived their Authority from him they were sure of a reward In pursuance of which S. Cyprian laid his Argument upon this basis Nam cum statutum sit omnibus L. 1. Epist. 3. nobis c. singulis pastoribus portio gregis c. Did not S. Paul call to the Bishops of Ephesus to feed the flock of God of which the holy Ghost hath made them Bishops or Over-seers and that this very Commission was spoken to Peter not in a personall but a publike capacity and in him spoke to all the Apostles we see attested by S. Austin and S. Ambrose and generally by all Antiquity De agone Christi c 30. and it so concern'd even every Priest that Damasus was willing enough to have S. Hierom explicate many questions for him And Liberius writes an Epistle to Athanasius with much modesty requiring his advice in a Question of Faith Epist. ad Athanas apud Athanas. tom 1. pag 42. Paris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I also may be perswaded without all doubting of those things which you shall be pleased to command me Now Liberius needed not to have troubled himselfe to have writ into the East to Athanasius for if he had but seated himselfe
have been believed But I said the fancy was new and I had reason for it was so unknown till yesterday that even the late Writers of his own side expound the words of the confession of S. Peter exclusively to his person or any thing else as is to be seen in a Desens pacis part 2. c. 28. Marsilius b Recommend sacr Script Petrus de Aliaco and the glosse upon Dist. 19. can ita Dominus § ut supra which also was the Interpretation of Phavorinus Camers their own Bishop from whom they learnt the resemblance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which they have made so many gay discourses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. But upon condition I may have leave at another time to Numb 7. recede from so great and numerous Testimony of Fathers I am willing to believe that it was not the confession of S. Peter but his person upon which Christ said he would build his Church or that these Expositions are consistent with and consequent to each other that this confession was the objective foundation of Faith and Christ and his Apostles the subjective Christ principally and S. Peter instrumentally and yet I understand not any advantage will hence accrue to the Sea of Rome For upon S Peter it was built but not alone for it was upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himselfe being the chief corner stone and when S. Paul reckoned the Oeconomy of Hierarchy he reckons not Peter first and then the Apostles But first Apostles secondarily Prophets c. And whatsoever is first either is before all things else or at least nothing is before it So that at least S. Peter is not before all the rest of the Apostles which also S. Paul expresly averres I am in nothing inferiour to the very chiefest of the Apostles no not in the very being a Rock and a foundation and it was of the Church of Ephesus that S. Paul said in particular it was columna firmamentum veritatis that Church was not excluding others for they also were as much as she for so we keep close and be united to the corner stone although some be master builders Vid. Socrat. l. 1. c. 19. 20. Sozom. l. 2. c 14. Niceph. l. 14. c. 40. yet all may build and we have known whole Nations converted by Lay-men and women who have been builders so farre as to bring them to the corner stone 6. But suppose all these things concern S. Peter in all the Numb 8. capacities can be with any colour pretended yet what have the Bishops of Rome to doe with this For how will it appear that these promises and Commissions did relate to him as a particular Bishop and not as a publike Apostle Since this later is so much the more likely because the great pretence of all seemes in reason more proportionable to the founding of a Church then its continuance And yet if they did relate to him as a particular Bishop which yet is a further degree of improbability removed further from certainty yet why shall S. Clement or Linus rather succeed in this great office of headship then S. Iohn or any of the Apostles that survived Peter It is no way likely a private person should skip over the head of an Apostle or why shall his Successors at Rome more enjoy the benefit of it then his Successors at Antioch since that he was at Antioch and preached there we have a Divine Authority but that he did so at Rome at most we have but a humane and if it be replyed that because he dyed at Rome it was Argument enough that there his Successors were to inherit his priviledge this besides that at most it is but one little degree of probability and so not of strength sufficient to support an Article of faith it makes that the great Divine Right of Rome and the Apostolicall presidency was so contingent and fallible as to depend upon the decree of Nero and if he had sent him to Antioch there to have suffered Martyrdome the Bishops of that Town had been heads of the Catholike Church And this thing presses the harder because it is held by no meane persons in the Church of Rome that the Bishoprick of Rome and the Papacy are things separable And the Pope may quit that Sea and sit in another which to my understanding is an Argument that he that succeeded Peter at Antioch is as much supream by Divine Right as he that sits at Rome both alike that is Vid. Cameracens Qu. vel◠est neither by Divine Ordinance For if the Roman Bishops by Christ's intention were to be Head of the Church then by the same intention the Succession must be continued in that Sea and then let the Pope goe whether he will the Bishop of Rome must be the Head which they themselves deny and the Pope himselfe did not believe when in a schisme he sate at Avignon and that it was to be continued in the Sea of Rome it is but offered to us upon conjecture upon an act providence as they fancy it so ordering it by vision and this proved by an Author which themselves call fabulous and Apocryphall under the name of Linus in Biblioth PP de passione Petri Pauli A goodly building which relies upon an event that was accidentall whose purpose was but infinuated the meaning of it but conjectur'd at and this conjecture so uncertain that it was an imperfect aime at the purpose of an event which whether it was true or no was so uncertain that it is ten to one there was no such matter And yet again another degree of uncertainty is to whom the Bishops of Rome doe succeed For S. Paul was as much Bishop of Rome as S. Peter was there he presided there he preach'd and he it was that was the Doctor of the Uncircumcision and of the Gentiles S. Peter of the Circumcision and of the Jewes only and therefore the converted Jewes at Rome might with better reason claim the priviledge of S. Peter then the Romans and the Churches in her Communion who doe not derive from Jewish Parents 7. If the words were never so appropriate to Peter or also Numb 9. communicated to his Successors yet of what value will the consequent be what prerogative is entail'd upon the Chaire of Rome For that S. Peter was the Ministeriall Head of the Church is the most that is desir'd to be prov'd by those and all other words brought for the same purposes and interests of that Sea Now let the Ministerall Head have what Dignity can be imagined let him be the first and in all Communities that are regular and orderly there must be something that is first upon certain occasions where an equall power cannot be exercised and made pompous or ceremoniall But will this Ministeriall Headship inferre an infallibility will it inferre more then the Headship of the Jewish Synagogue
Latines acted their master-piece of wit and stratagem the greatest that hath been till the famous and superpolitick design of Trent And for the Latine Church h Lib. 4. adv Mar. Tertullian i L. 2. de Cain c. 2. S. Ambrose k Ep. 111. ad Fortunatianum S. Austin l In Psal. 138. S. Hilary m De exeq desunctor Prudentius n L. 7. c. 21. Lactantius o In c. 6. Apoc. Victorinus Martyr and p Serm. 3. de om sanctis Vid. enim S. Aug. in Enchir. c. 108. l. 12. de civit Dei c. 9. in Ps. 36. in l. 1. retract c. 14. Vid. insuper testimonia quae collegit Spala l. 5. c. 8. n. 98. de repub Eccl. Sixt. Senens l. 6. annot 345. S. Bernard are known to be of opinion that the soules of the Saints are in abditis receptaculis exterioribus atriis where they expect the resurrection of their bodies and the glorification of their soules and though they all believe them to be happy yet they enjoy not the beatifick Vision before the resurrection Now there being so full a