THE PROTESTANT RESOLUTION OF FAITH Being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true sense of Scripture II. Whether a visible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this Succession an infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this Succession can teach the true sense of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession LONDON Printed for F. Gardiner at the White-horse in Ludgate-street 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THese Papers which are here presented to thee were writ for the use of a private Person and by the Advice of some Friends are now made Publick We find how busie the Romish Emissaries are to corrupt our People and think our selves equally concerned to Antidote them against Popery and Fanaticism Two extreams equally dangerous to the Government of Church and State in these Kingdoms both in their Principles and Practices and both of them very great Corruptions of the Christian Religion and very dangerous to mens Souls Some of our Clergy have already been so charitable to our Dissenters as to warn them of their danger and by the Strength and Evidence of Scripture and Reason to Convince them of their mistakes and I pray God forgive those men and turn their Hearts who will not contribute so much to their own Conviction and Satisfaction as diligently and impartially to read and consider what is so charitably offered to them Ignorance and mistake may excuse men who have no opportunities of knowing better but such willful and resolved Ignorance which bars up mens minds against all means of better Information will as soon damn them as sins against knowledge And now it might justly be thought want of Charity to those of the Roman Communion should we take no care at all of them nay want of Charity to those of our own Communion and to Dissenters themselves who are daily assaulted by the busie Factors for Rome For the Disputes against the Church of Rome as well as against Dissenters are for the most part too Learned and too Voluminous for the instruction of ordinary People and therefore some short and plain Discourses about the principal Matters in dispute between us is the most effectual way we can take to confirm men in their Religion and preserve them from the crafty Insinuations of such as lie in wait to deceive Some few Attempts which have been already made of that kind give me some hope that several other Tracts will follow that the ruine of the Church of England if God shall please ever to permit such a thing whether by Popery or Fanaticism may not be charged upon our neglect to instruct People better Some Persons it seems whose Talent lies more in censuring what others do than in doing any good themselves are pleased to put some sinister Constructions on this Design as it is impossible to design any thing so well but men of ill minds who know not what it means to do good for goods sake shall be able to find some bad name for it Some guess that we now write against Popery only to play an after-Game and to regain the Favour and good Opinion of Dissenters which we have lost by writing against them But I know not that any man has lost their Favour by it nor that any man values their Favour for any other reason than to have the greater advantage of doing them good If so good a work as confuting the Errors of the Church of Rome will give the Dissenters such a good Opinion of us as to make them more impartially consider what has been writ to perswade them to Communion with the Church of England I know no reason any man has to be ashamed to own it though it were part of his design but whether it is or not is more than I know I dare undertake for those Persons I am acquainted with that they neither value the favour nor fear the displeasure either of Fanaticks or Papists but yet heartily desire to do good to them both But there is a more mischievous suggestion than this that the design of such Papers is only to raise a new cry and noise about Popery and to alarm the People and disturb the Government with new Fears and Jealousies Truly if I thought this would be the effect of it I would burn my Papers presently for I am sure the Church of England will get nothing by a Tumultuary and Clamorous Zeal against the Church of Rome and I had much rather suffer under Popery than contribute any thing towards raising a Popular Fury to keep it out We profess our selves as irreconcileable Enemies to Popery as we are to Fanaticism and desire that all the World may know it but we will never Rebell nor countenance any Rebellion against our lawful Soveraign to keep out either we leave such Principles and Practices to Papists and Fanaticks But when we find our People Assaulted by the Agents of Rome and do not think our selves secure from Popish Designs we think it our Duty to give them the best instructions we can to preserve them from such Errors as we believe will destroy their Souls and cannot but wonder that any men who are as much concerned to take care of Souls as we are should think this a needless or a scandalous undertaking I wish such men would speak out and tell us plainly what they think of Popery themselves If they think this Design not well managed by those who undertake it it would more become them to commend the Design and do it better themselves I know no man but would very gladly be excused as having other work enough to imploy his time but yet I had rather spend my vacant minutes this way than in censuring the good that other men do while I do none my self The Words of the Paper which was sent to me are these IT is my Opinion that the infinite Goodness of our Legislator has left to us a means of knowing the true sense and meaning of the Holy Scriptures which is the Church Now I judge this Church must be known to be the true Church by its continual visible Succession from Christ till our Days But I doubt whether or no the Protestant Church can make out this continual visible Succession and desire to be informed ANSWER THAT Christ has left a means of knowing the true sense and meaning of the Holy Scriptures I readily grant or else it had been to no purpose to have left us the Scriptures But the latter Clause is very ambiguous for the meaning may either be that we may understand by the Scriptures which is the Church or that the Church is the means whereby we must understand the true sense and meaning of the Scripture The first is a true Protestant Principle and therefore I presume not intended by this Objector For how we should know that there is any Church without
the Information we receive by the Scripture I cannot Divine and yet we may as easily know that there is a Church as we can know which is the true Church without the Scripture For there is no other means of knowing either that there is a Church or what this Church is or what are the Properties of a True and Sound and Orthodox Church but by Revelation and we have no other Revelation of this but what is contained in the Holy Scriptures As for the Second That the Church is the means of knowing the true sense and meaning of the Scriptures it is in some sense very true in some sense very false 1. It is in some sense true and acknowledged by all sober Protestants As 1. If by the Church we understand the Universal Church of all Ages as we receive the Scriptures themselves handed down by them to our time so whatever Doctrines of Faith have been universally received by them is one of the best means to find out the true sense of Scripture For the nearer they were to the times of the Apostles the more likely they were to understand the true sense of their Writings being instructed by the Apostles themselves in the meaning of them And thus we have a certain Rule to secure us from all dangerous Errors in expounding Scripture For the great and fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion are as plainly contained in the Writings of the first Fathers of the Church and as unanimously asserted by them as the Authority of the Scriptures themselves and therefore though we have not a Traditionary Exposition of every particular Text of Scripture yet we have of the great and fundamental Doctrines of Faith and therefore must never expound Scripture so as to contradict the known and avowed sense of the Catholick Church And this course the Church of England takes she receives the Definitions of the four first General Councils and requires her Bishops and Clergy to Expound the Scriptures according to the profest Doctrines of those first and purest Ages of the Church 2. We ought to pay great deference to and not lightly and wantonly oppose the Judgment and Authority of the particular Church wherein we live when her Expositions of Scripture do not evidently and notoriously contradict the sense of the Catholick Church especially of the first and best Ages of it For it does not become private men to oppose their Sentiments and Opinions to the Judgment of the Church unless in such plain Cases as every honest man may be presumed a very Competent Judge in the matter and no Church nor all the Churches in the World have such Authority that we must renounce our Senses and deny the first principles of Reason to follow them with a blind and implicite Faith And thus the Church that is the Sense and Judgment of the Catholick Church is a means for the finding out the true sense of Scripture and though we may mistake the sense of some particular Texts which the Romanists themselves will not deny but that even infallible Councils may do who tho' they are infallible in their Conclusions yet are not always so in the Arguments or Mediums whether drawn from Scripture or Reason whereby they prove them yet it is Morally impossible we should be guilty of any dangerous mistake while we make the Catholick Doctrine of the Church our Rule and in other matters follow the Judgment and submit to the Authority of the Church wherein we live which is as absolutely necessary as Peace and Order and good Government in the Church 2. But then this is very false if we mean that the Church is the only means of finding out the true sense of the Scriptures or if by the Church we understand any particular Church as I suppose this Person does the Roman Catholick that is the particular universal Church of Rome or if we mean the Church of the present Age or by Means understand such a Decretory Sentence as must determine our Faith and command our Assent that we must seek for no other Reason of our Faith but the Authority of the Church in expounding Scriptures I shall discourse something briefly of each of these 1. To say that the Church is the only Means to find out the true sense of Scripture is very false and absurd For 1. This supposes the Holy Scriptures to be a very unintelligible Book which is a great reproach to the Holy Spirit by which it was Indited that he either could not or would not speak intelligibly to the World 2. This is a direct Contradiction to those Exhortations of Christ and his Apostles to study the Scriptures which were made to private men and therefore necessarily supposes that the Holy Scriptures are to be understood as other Writings are by considering the Propriety of the Words and Language wherein they are written the Scope and Design of the place and such other means as honest and studious Inquirers use to find out the meaning of any other Book 3. If the Scriptures are so unintelligible that an honest man cannot find out the meaning of them without the infallible interpretation of the Church I would desire to know whether Christ and his Apostles Preach'd intelligibly to their Hearers If they did not to what purpose did they Preach at all By what means were men Converted to the Faith If they did how come these Sermons to be so unintelligible now they are written which were so intelligible when they were spoken For the Gospels contain a plain History of what Christ did and of what he said and the Apostles wrote the same things to the Churches when they were absent which they Preach'd to them when they were present and we reasonably suppose that they as much designed that the Churches should understand what they Wrote as what they Preach'd and therefore that they generally used the same form of words in their writing and in their Preaching And this makes it a great Riddle how one should be very plain and easie to be understood and the other signifie nothing without an infallible Interpreter 4. If the Scriptures be in themselves unintelligible I would desire to know how the Church comes to understand them If by any humane means together with the ordinary Assistances of the Divine Spirit then they are to be understood and then why may not every Christian in proportion to his Skill in Languages and in the Rules of Reason and Discourse understand them also If the Church cannot understand the Scriptures by any humane means but only by Inspiration for there is no Medium between these two to what purpose were the Scriptures written For we might as well have learnt the will of God from the Church without the Scriptures as with them God could have immediately revealed his will to the Church without a written Rule as well as reveal the meaning of that written Rule which it seems has no signification at all till the Church by Inspiration gives an Orthodox
France and Holland are and has no more right to impose her Expositions of Scripture upon other Churches than they have to impose upon her If there happen any Controversie between them it is not the Authority of either Church can decide it but this must be done by an appeal to Scripture and the sense of the Catholick Church in the first and purest Ages of it For when we say that the belief and Practice of the Catholick Church is the best means to find out the true sense of Scripture we do not mean that the Church is the Soveraign and absolute Judge of the sense of Scripture but the meaning is that those Churches which were founded by the Apostles and received the Faith immediately from them and were afterwards for some Ages governed by Apostolical men or those who were taught by them and convers'd with them are the best Witnesses what the Doctrine of the Apostles was and therefore as far as we can be certain what the Faith of these Primitive Churches was they are the best Guides for the Expounding Scripture So that the Authority of the Church in Expounding Scripture being only the Authority of Witnesses it can reach no farther than those Ages which may reasonably be presumed to be Authentick and Credible Witnesses of the Doctrine of the Apostles and therefore if we extend it to the four first general Councils it is as far as we can do it with any pretence of Reason and thus far the Church of England owns the Authority of the Church and commands her Ministers to Expound the Scriptures according to the Catholick Faith owned and profess'd in those days but as for the later Ages of the Church which were removed too far from the Apostles days to be Witnesses of their Doctrine they have no more Authority in this matter than we have at this day nor has one Church any more Authority than another 3. And therefore if by the Church being the means of knowing the sense and meaning of the Holy Scriptures be understood the Judgment and Sentence and Decree of the Church that we must seek no farther for the reason of our Faith than the insallible Authority of the Church in Expounding Scripture this also is absolutely false and absurd This is more than Christ and his Apostles assumed to themselves while they were on Earth they were indeed infallible Interpreters of Scripture but yet they never bore down their Hearers meerly with their Authority but Expounded the Scriptures and applied ancient Prophesies to their Events and took the Vail off of Moses's Face and shewed them the Gospel-state concealed under those Types and Figures they confirmed their Expositions of Scripture by the force of Reason and appealed to the Judgments and Consciences of their Hearers whether these things were not so Christ commands the Jews not meerly to take his own word and to rely on his Authority for the truth of what he said but to study the Scriptures themselves and the Bereans are commended for this generous temper of mind that they were more noble than those of Thessalonica for they daily searcht the Scriptures to see whether the Doctrine the Apostles Preach'd were to be found there or not Now I think no Church can pretend to be more infallible than Christ and his Apostles and therefore certainly ought not to assume more to themselves than they did and if the Church of Rome or any other Church will convince us of the truth of their Expositions of Scripture as Christ and his Apostles convinc'd their Hearers that is by inlightning our Understandings and convincing our Judgments by proper Arguments we will gladly learn of them This course the Primitive Christians took as is evident in all the Writings of the ancient Fathers against Jews and Hereticks they argue from the Scriptures themselves to prove what the sense of Scripture is they appeal indeed sometimes to the sense of the Catholick Church not as an infallible Judge of Scripture but as the best Witnesses of the Apostolical Doctrine Thus Tertullian argues against Hereticks in his Book De Praescriptionibus but when they reason about the sense of Scripture they never direct us to any infallible Judge but use such Arguments as they think proper to convince Gain-sayers Nay this is the way which was observed in all the ancient Councils the Bishops of the Church met together for Common Counsel and Advice and in matters of Discipline and Government which were subject to their Authority they considered what was most for the publick benefit of the Church and determined them by their Authority not as infallible Judges but as Supreme Governours of the Church In the disputes of Faith they reason from Scripture and the sense of the Catholick Church not from their own Authority and what upon a serious debate and inquiry they found to be most agreeable to the sense of Scripture and the Doctrine of the Church of former Ages that they determined and decreed to be received in all Churches as the Catholick Faith That this is so is evident from all the Histories of the most Ancient and celebrated Councils which any man may consult who pleases Now I would ask some few Questions about this matter 1. Whether these Councils took a sure and safe way to find out Truth If they did not what reason have we to believe that they determined right If they did then we may use the same way which they did for that which is a good way in one Age is so another and then there is no necessity of an Infallible Judge to find out the sense of Scripture because we have other certain ways of doing this the same which all the ancient Councils observed 2. I would know whether it be not sufficient for every Christian to receive the Decrees and Determinations of these Councils upon the same Reason and Authority which moved the Fathers assembled in Council to make these Decrees Whether for Instance we must not believe the Eternal God-head of Christ and that he is of the same substance with his Father for the same Reasons for which the Nicene Fathers believed this and required all Christians to believe it If we must then Scripture and the sense of the Catholick Church not the Authority of a general Council or any Infallible Judge is the Reason of our Faith For the Nicene Fathers who were the first that met in a General Council could not believe this upon the Authority of any other General Council much less upon their own Authority unless we will say that they first Decreed this then believed it because they themselves Decreed it If Scripture and the sense of the Catholick Church antecedently to the determinations of a General Council or any other pretended Infallible Judge be not a sufficient foundation for our Faith then the whole Christian World before the Council of Nice which was the first general Council had no sufficient Foundation for their Faith for there was no particular Bishop or
Church in those days which pretended to be the Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures We Protestants have the same way to understand the Scriptures have the same Reason and Foundation of our Faith which the Nicene Fathers themselves had or which any Christian could have before there was any general Council and if the Church of Rome do not think this enough we cannot help that we are abundantly satisfied with it The Authority of a general Council in those days was deservedly sacred and venerable not as an Infallible Judge which they never pretended to but as the most certain means they could possibly have to understand what was and in all Ages had been the received Doctrine of the Catholick Church They met together not to make new Articles of Faith which no Council in the World ever had any Authority to do but to declare what was the truly ancient and Apostolick Faith and to put it into such Words as might plainly express the Catholick sense and meet with the Distempers of that Age. For this end Grave and Reverend Bishops assembled from all parts of the Christian World not meerly to give their private Opinions of things but to Declare what was the received Doctrine of those Churches over which they presided and I know no better Argument of an Apostolick Tradition than the consent of all Churches as remote from each other as East and West which were planted by several Apostles and differed very much from each other in some External Rites and Usages but yet all agreed in the same Faith And this is the true Authority of those ancient Councils that they were most likely to understand the true sense of Scripture and of the Catholick Church This is the Protestant Resolution of Faith and the Nicene Fathers themselves had no other way nor pretended to any other Nay the Church of Rome her self as much as she talks of Infallibility makes very little use of it She has never given us an infallible Comment on Scripture but suffers her Doctors to write as fallible Comments and in many things as contrary to each other as any Protestant Divines do And I cannot imagine what good Infallibility does if an infallible Church has no better means of understanding Scripture than the Comments of fallible men that is no better means than every fallible Church has for no man can understand the Scripture ever the better for the Churches being infallible unless this infallible Church improve this glorious Talent of Infallibility in Expounding Scripture which she has not done to this day and I believe never will Indeed it is apparent that Infallibility as it is pretended to by the Church of Rome can be of no use either in the Resolution of Faith or in Confuting Hereticks who deny this Infallibility and then I cannot imagine what it is good for but to multiply Disputes instead of ending them As for the Resolution of Faith suppose I ask a Papist why he believes such Articles as the Divinity of Christ or the Resurrection of the dead to be contained in Scripture if he answer as he must do Because he is taught so by the Church which is infallible my next Question is How he knows the Church to be infallible If he says he learns this from Scripture I ask him how he comes to understand the Scripture and how he knows that this is the sense of it If he know this by the infallible interpretation of the Church then he runs round in a Circle and knows the Scripture by the Church and the Church by the Scripture as I observed before if he can find out the Churches infallibility by the Scripture without the help of an infallible Judge then it seems the Scripture is to be understood without the infallible interpretation of the Church and if men can find out infallibility in Scripture without the Church I am confident they may find out any thing else in Scripture as well without the Churches infallibility For there is no Article of our Creed so hard to be found there as the Churches infallibility is But however that be after all this boast of infallibility a Papist has no more infallible Foundation for his Faith than a Protestant has nor half so much We believe the Articles of the Christian Faith because we find them plainly taught in Scripture and universally received as the sense of Scripture by the Catholick Church in the best and purest Ages of it A Papist believes the Church to be infallible because he thinks he finds it in Scripture though the Catholick Church for many Ages never found it there and the greatest part of the Christian Church to this day cannot find it there Now if they will but allow that a Protestant though a poor fallible Creature may reason about the sense of Scripture as well as a Papist and that the Evidence of reason is the â—â—me to both then we Protestants stand upon as firm ground as the Papists here and are at least as certain of all those Doctrines of Faith which we find in the Scripture and are ready to prove by it as they are of their Churches infallibility but then we have an additional Security that we Expound the Scriptures right which they want and that is the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church which confirms all the Articles of our Faith and Rules of Worship and Discipline but gives not the least intimation that the Pope or Church of Rome was thought infallible by them and if the Primitive Church was ignorant of this which is the best witness of Apostolical Tradition it is most probable that no such thing is contained in Scripture though some mercenary Flatterers of the Pope have indeavoured to perswade the World that they found it there So that we have a greater assurance of all the Articles of our Religion from Scripture and Catholick Tradition than a Papist can have of the Churches Infallibility and yet he can have no greater assurance of any other Doctrines of Religion which he believes upon the Churches Infallibility than he has of Infallibility it self So that in the last Resolution of Faith the Protestant has much the advantage of the Papist for the Protestant resolves his Faith into the Authority of the Scriptures Expounded by the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church the Papist resolves his into the Infallibility of the Church which he finds out only by Expounding Scripture by a private Spirit without the Authority of any Church but that whose Authority is under dispute And as the Doctrine of Infallibility is of no use in the last Resolution of Faith so it is wholly useless in disputing with such Hereticks as we are who deny Infallibility for it is a vain thing to attempt to impose any absurd or groundless and uncatholick Doctrines upon us by the Churches infallible Authority who believe there is no such infallible Judge but are resolved to trust our own Eyes and to adhere to Scripture and the Catholick