All the greater Bodies of those who divide from our Constitutions have some Rituals of their own so the Dispute in this must only be concerning the degrees and extent of this Power For if any Authority is allowed it will not be easy to fix any other Bounds to it but this that it must not invade the Divine Authority nor do any thing beyond the Rules and Limits set in the Scriptures for if there is the least degree of Authority in the Church the grounds upon which it is founded must carry it to every thing that cannot be proved to be unlawful Bare unfitness though it ought to be a Consideration of great weight when such things are deliberated about yet when they are once concluded can be no reason for disobeying them since the fitness of Order and the decency of Unity and Obedience is certainly of much more value than any special unfitness that can be supposed to be in any particular Instance So that one of these two must be admitted either that the Pastors of the Church have no sort of Authority even in the smallest Circumstances but are limited by the Rules of the Scripture and can only execute them strictly and not go beyond them in a title or this Authority must go to every thing that is lawful On that I will dwell no longer here the fuller discussion of this matter belonging to another Discourse It is a natural Consequence of the Authority given to the Pastors of the Church That they having declared and fixed their Doctrine and having setled Rules for their Rituals may excommunicate such as either do not live according to the Rules of their Religion which are a main part of their Doctrine or do not obey the Constitutions of their Society Excommunication in the Strictness of things is only the Churches refusing to receive a person into her Communion now as every Private man is the Master of his own Actions it is clear that every Body of Men must also be the Masters of theirs And thus though Excommunication in some respects is declaratory it being a solemn denunciation of the Judgments of God according to the tenor of the Gospel against persons who live in an open violation of some one or more of its Laws so it is also an authoritative Act by which a Church refuses to communicate with such a Person In this it is true Churches ought to make the terms of Communion with them as large and extensive as may consist with the Rules of Religion and of Order but after all they having a Power over themselves and their own Actions must be supposed to be likewise cloathed with a Power to communicate with other Persons or not to do it as they shall see cause in which great difference is to be made between this Power in it self and the use and management of it for any Abuses whether true or only pretended though they may well be urged to procure a proper Reformation of them yet cannot be alledged against the Power it self which is both just and necessary It is not so very clear to state the Subordination in which the Church is to be put under the Civil Power and how far all Acts of Church Power are subject to the Laws and Policies of those States to which the several Churches do belong It is certain that the Magistrate's being a Christian or not does not at all alter the Case that has only a relation to his own salvation for his Authority is the same whatever his Belief may be in matters of Religion His design to protect or to destroy Religion alters the Case more sensibly for the regards to that Protection and to the Peace and Order that follow upon it together with the Breaches and Disorders that might follow upon an ill understanding between Church and State are matters of Such Consequence that it is not only meer Prudence which may give perhaps too strong a Bias to carnal Fears and Policies but the Rules of Religion which oblige the Church to study to preserve that Order and Protection which is one of the chief Blessings of the Society and a main Instrument of doing much good Great difference is to be made between an Authority that acts with a visible design to destroy Religion and another that intends to protect it but that errs in its conduct and does often restrain the Rules of Order and impose hard and uneasy things Certainly in the latter much is to be born with that may be otherwise uneasy because the main is stil safe and private slips when endured and submitted to can never be compared to those publick disorders that a rigid maintaining of that which is perhaps in it self good must occasion But when the design is plain and that the Conduct of the Civil Powers goes against the Truth of Religion either in whole or in any main Article of it then the Body of the Christians of that State ought to fortify themselves by maintaining their Order and their other Rules in so far as they are necessary to their preservation Upon the whole matter it does not appear that the Church has any Authority to act in opposition to the State but meerly in those things in which the Religion that she professes is plain and positive so that the Question comes to be really this Whether is it better to obey God than Man There the Rule is clear and the Decision is soon made So when the Church acts meerly in obedience to Rules and Laws laid down in Scripture such as in declaring the Doctrine in administring the Sacraments and maintaining the setled Officers of the Church she is upon a sure Bottom and must cast her self upon the Providence of God whatever may happen and still obey God but in all things that have arisen out of ancient Customs and Canons in every thing where she has not a Law of God to support her I do not see any Power she has to act in opposition to Law and to the Supreme Civil Authority In this the constant practice of the Iews is no small Argument whos 's Sanhedrin that was a Civil Court and the Head of their State did give Rules and Orders which their Priests were bound to obey when not contrary to the Law of God We are sure this was the Rule in our Saviour's time and it was never censured nor reproved by him nor by the Apostles The Argument is also strong that is drawn from the constant practice of the Church from the time that she first had the protection of the Civil Authority till the times of the Papal Domination in which we find the Emperours all along making Laws concerning all the Administrations of the Church we find them receiving Appeals in all Church matters which they appointed such Bishops as hapned to be about their Courts to examine This was like our Court of Delegates for the Bishops who judged those matters did not act according to Canon or by the Ecclesiastical
Infants and the coldness of these Climates since such a manner might endanger their lives and we know that God loves mercy better than sacrifice this form of baptizing is as little used by those who separate from us as by our selves If we consider only the words of the Scripture without regarding the subsequent practice of the Church we see reason enough to imagine that the washing of feet should be kept up in the Church We have our Saviour's practice for it and words that seem to import an obligation on us to wash one anothers feet together with the moral use and signification of it that it ought to teach us Humility From all these things this Inference seems just That according to the practices of those who divide from us the Church must be suppos'd to have an Authority to adjust the Forms of our Religion in those parts of them that are meerly Ritual to the Taste to the Exigencies and Conveniencies of the several Ages and Climates I say in things that are meerly Ritual for I do not think that these Instances can justify a Church that should alter any main part of a Foederal Rite instituted by Christ such as the giving the Chalice in the Sacrament since this Institution is deliver'd with so particular a Solemnity and in express words is appointed to be continu'd till Christ's second coming and the Cup is given as a Seal of the New Covenant in his blood for the remission of sins which therefore all are requir'd to drink We are to consider that in matters that are meerly Ritual unless we suppose that Charms are ti'd to particular Rites there could be no other design in them but to secure some good purpose or to keep off some bad practice by those outworks If then the state of Mankind does so alter that what is good in one Age is liable to abuse mistake or superstition in another there must be suppos'd to be a power in the Pastors of the Church to alter or add as they see real occasions or good warrants for it Outward appearances work much on Mankind things that look light must dissipate men's Thoughts as much as graver methods do recollect them Dancing in the praises of God would look very wild now but in other Ages it had a better effect Since therefore the Christian Religion was to last to the end of the World and to be spread to very different Climates and since there is no special Rubrick of Forms digested in it since there is also no Limitation put upon the Church in this point but rules are given that sound very much to the contrary of doing all things that tend to Order Edification and Peace this great prejudice seems to be fully taken off and answer'd Nor do such Institutions lead to Superstition but rather to the contrary Superstition in its strict Notion is a baseness of mind that makes us fear without cause and over-value things too much imagining that there is more in them than really there is If things that are ritual were unalterable there might be from thence more occasion given to Superstition according to the conceit of the Iews who thinking that their Rites were unalterable came to fancy from thence that there was a real value in them which upon their own account render'd men the more acceptable to God Superstition is more effectually beat down by the opinion of the alterableness of all external forms according to the different Exigencies of times and places since this shews that Rites are only matters of Order and Decency which have no real value in them because they are alterable If any grow superstitious in the observance of them this is an abuse to which all things even the most Sacred the Sacraments themselves are liable It can as little be said That these Rules in Ritual Matters are Impositions on our Christian Liberty they are rather the exercise of a main part of it which is our not being tied up so strictly by a Law of Commandments as the Iews were The Notion of Liberty as it is stated by St. Paul is the Exemption under which Christians were brought from the Precepts of the Mosaical Law for those who asserted the standing Obligations of that Law were bringing Christians under a heavy Yoke in opposition to which the Apostles asserted their Liberty But it is likewise a true piece of Liberty and a very necessary one for the Societies of Christians to have among them a power of of using or forbearing to use such external things as do either advance or obstruct the main ends of Religion That some Churches may abuse and that others have abused this Authority by carrying it too far and imposing too great a load of external performances is not to be denied The number of them may become a vast burden and a distraction rather than a help towards the main Design of Religion Ludicrous Rites begetâ— prophaneness and Pompous ones and undue gaity But the apprehension of an abuse in the extent of an Authority cannot justify the quarrelling at a few Rites when it is visible there is no disposition to swell or encrease them If every year were producing some new Rite or other there might be good ground to fear that there would be no end of such Impositions but this cannot be appli'd to our Circumstances It is also a question whether in case that there were indeed too many Rites enjoin'd every one of which were innocent in it self so that no special Objection lay against any one but against them all as too many whether I say in such a case private persons were not oblig'd rather to bear their burden than by shaking it off to rend the Body and disturb the Peace and Order of the Church It seems they ought rather to bear it The Rulers of a Church have indeed much to answer for who press her too hard with burdens that are both useless and heavy to be born but the obligations to Peace seem to conter-ballance this inexpediency For tho private persons must judge for themselves whether things requir'd of them are lawful or unlawful and must act accordingly yet Expediency or Inexpediency is only to take place in cases in which they are entirely at their own disposal and where the rules of Prudence or Charity can only determine them But where the quiet and order of the Body is concern'd Publick orders and determinations being interpos'd they are not to depart from those upon their conceiving them inexpedient for it is certainly more inexpedient and mischievous to break Publick Order than it can possibly be to practice any Rite which perhaps if left free to us might seem not expedient and were better let alone The expediency of Forms and Rites is a very proper Subject of publick Consultations and those who are concern'd in them will have much to answer for to God if they do not weigh this together with all that counterbalances it very critically but
their Majesties and their Government and to endeavour to keep your People always in mind of the extream Miseries as well as of the visible Dangers of Popery and Tyranny This must still be remembred as a lasting honour to this Church That some years ago there was in a day of Trial so noble an Opposition given to that Religion and the steps that were then made to bring it in upon us We are still in the struggle and are strangely mistaken if we imagine the Danger is past We plainly see the Clouds return after the Rain and a Relapse into that State would make the latter end much worse than the beginning The Hope which then supported and afterwards delivered us would no more soften our Miseries with the prospect of better Times The Rage as well as the Power of our Enemies would be much encreased and there is no doubt to be made but that those who have no Religion whose numbers God knows do swell vastly would hope to atone for all that has been done with the change of their No-Religion for that to which their Interest should lead them And if ever God for our great and crying Sins is provoked to visit us in so terrible a manner we who have been hitherto the most favoured of all the Churches of God must become the most miserable Whither can we fly for shelter or where can we promise our selves either Retreat or Relief The prospect of such a Calamity seems to be one of the blackest of all that has been since the World begun and yet how tamely do many look for it while others with a fury that is as much without bounds as it is without sense are endeavouring to bring on that Evil Day to make the Nation grow weary of its Deliverance and present Quiet and return back into Egypt While they spread so many False Reports with a Spite that is as restless as it is insolent shall we at such a time stand as neutral and unconcerned while all is at stake Shall it be said That whereas some years ago during the Debates concerning the Exclusion we sided so openly and with a Zeal that shewed it self on all occasions and in Instances which were better forgotten than remembred yet now when all that can concern us either as we are Men and Englishmen or as we are Christians and the Ministers of the Church of England is in such eminent danger we seem to let all Parties fight it out the best they can while we only do what is enjoined and express neither affection nor zeal I will not offer to say any thing to convince you of the Lawfulness of the present Constitution For I cannot admit so bad a thought of any of you as to imagine that you could take the Oaths and continue to perform Divine Offices Ordinary and Extraordinary unless you were fully satisfied in your Consciences concerning the Lawfulness both of the one and of the other This is so black an Imputation to suppose that Men of common Probity not to say Men that ought to be the Paterns as well as the Instructers of others should swear an Oath and adhere so long to it which is an interpretative renewing of it ever till it is openly retracted and should in those frequent returns of daily Prayers besides the special Offices of Fasts and Thanksgiving-days offer up Devotions to God contrary to their Persuasions that no man is capable of so heinous and so continued a Prevarication unless he is either a determinate Atheist or a man of a seared and hardned Conscience Now as this is of so odious a nature that indeed it is not easy to find words severe enough to set it out by so supposing men once convinced of the Lawfulness of our present Scituation it is very extraordinary if they are cold and unconcerned in a Point which when it is once yielded to be lawful is unquestionably of the greatest importance and consequence possible If Liberty and Religion are valuable things and if they are not what is valuable If the maintaining the Purity of the Christian Religion free from Idolatry and Superstition from Imposture and Cruelty if the maintaining a Church that without partiality is to be preferred to any Church now in the World and if the keeping out of a Religion which is without partiality the worst of any that carries the Name of Christ If the preserving a Government that is just and mild that is guided by Law and that maintains Property and that leaves Mankind to all the Liberties of a free-born Nature and of a well Constituted Society And if the withstanding an absolute and Despotical an Arbitrary and Violent Tyranny that tramples on all thinge Sacred and Human that oppresses Liberty and destroys Property and that makes men Slaves and treats them as brute Beasts If I say all these things are well weighed then we must conclude That we owe the utmost degrees of affection and zeal to Their Majesties and to Their Government We ought to make all our People sensible both of the Happiness that we do now enjoy and of the Miseries that we are preserved from by Their means and under Their Protection We ought to set Popery and Slavery before them in their true Colours with all the light and life that we can give them We ought to set our selves against those false Brethren that pretend they are of the Church of England but are not and are of the Synagogue of Satan which in its strict notion signifying an Adversary we may without any breach of Charity affirm that they associate themselves to the Enemy of our Nation and of our Religion whose Person Government Forces and Successes they are always magnifying on design to intimidate such as can be wrought on by their false Surmises These things we ought to repress and oppose on all occasions with the Spirit and Courage that such matter require It is Stupidity and not Patience to be cold and luke-warm while England and the Protestant Religion are in the last struggles whether they must live or die If God does not bless so good a Cause in all the steps it makes with the Success that we ought to desire and pray for we should teach our people not to murmur nor aggravate matters not to sink or despond but to consider how much our sins have provoked God's Wrath how small a share we bear of those devouring Calamities that have ruin'd so great a part of Europe while we only bear the Charge but feel few of the Miseries of War If some years are less prosperous than others have been we ought to reflect on former Successes and the ill use that we have made of them which may have provoked God to change his methods and yet take all together it must be acknowledged that we have had of late more publick Blessings and fewer Misfortunes than any Nation under Heaven Can one reflect on the Blasphemy and Infidelity the dissolution of all good Morals and
respects as bad as ever this indeed is so slight a thing that a greater disparagement cannot de offered to our Religion nor can a greater strengthning of sin be contrived than the giving any sort of encouragement to it for it is one of the greatest and the most mischievous of all those practical Errors which have corrupted Religion These are the most important parts of our whole Commission and therefore we ought to state them first aright in our own thoughts that so we our selves may be fully possessed with them that they may sink deep into our own minds and shew their efficacy in the reforming of our Natures and Lives and then we shall be able to open them to others with more clearness and with better advantages when our hearts are inflamed with an overcoming sense of the Love and Goodness of God If the Condition of this New Covenant were deeply impressed on our thoughts then we should publish them with more life and joy to others and we might then look for the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel on our selves and on our labours DISCOURSE III. Concerning the INFALLIBILITY AND AUTHORITY of the CHURCH AFTER we are well setled in the Belief of the Christian Religion our next enquiry must naturally be into the Way and Method of being rightly Instructed in the Doctrine and other parts of this Religion and that chiefly in one great Point Whether we ought to employ our own Faculties in searching into this and particularly into the meaning of those Books in which it is contain'd or Whether we must take it from Oral Tradition and submit to any man or body of men as the Infallible Depositaries and Declarers of this Tradition In this single point consists the Essence of the differences between us and the Church of Rome While we affirm that the Christian Doctrine is compleatly contain'd in the Scriptures and that every man ought to examine these with the best helps and all the skill and application of which he is capable and that he is bound to believe such Doctrines only as appear to him to be contain'd in the Scriptures but may reject all others that are not founded upon that Authority On the other hand The foundation upon which the Church of Rome builds is this That the Apostles deliver'd their Doctrine by word of mouth to the several Churches as the Sacred Depositum of the Faith That the Books of the New Testament were written occasionally not with intent that they should be the Standard of this Religion that we have these Books and believe them to be Divine only from the Church and upon her Testimony that the Church with the Books gives us likewise the Sense and Exposition of them they being dark in many places and that therefore the Traditional Conveyance and the Solemn Decisions of the Church must be Infallible and ought to be submitted to as such otherwise there can be no end of Controversies while every man takes upon him to expound the Scriptures which must needs fill mens Minds with Curiosity and Pride as well as the World with Heresies and Sects that are unavoidable unless there is a living speaking Judge This they also prove from some places of Scripture such as Christ's words to St. Peter Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and unto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Tell the Church I am with you alway even to the end of the World the Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth This is their Doctrine and these are their chief Arguments upon which it is founded There is no point in Divinity that we should more clearly understand than this for it is in it self of great Consequence and is that which determines all the rest if it is true it puts an end to all other Controversies and if it is false it leaves us at liberty to examine every thing and gives us the justest and highest prejudices possible against that Church that pretends to it without just grounds It is also that which of all others the Missionaries of that Church understand the best and manage the most dextrously they are much practised to it and they begin and end all their practice with this which has fair appearances and will bear a great deal both of popular Eloquence and plausible Logick so if men are not on the other hand as well fortifi'd and as ready on the other side of the Argument they will be much entangled as often as they have occasion to deal with any of that Church There is not indeed any one point that I know of that has been open'd and examin'd both with that Beauty and Force that is in Chillingworth's Unvaluable Book upon this Subject Few things of this nature have ever been handled so near a Mathematical Evidence as he has pursu'd this Argument and his Book is writ with such a thread of Wit and Reason that I am confident few can enter upon it without going through with it I shall now endeavour in as narrow a compass as is possible to set this matter in its true Light We must then begin with this That the freedom of a man's Thoughts and Understanding is the most Essential Piece of his Liberty and that in which naturally he can the least bear to be limited therefore any Restraints that are laid upon him in this must be well and fully proved otherwise it is to be suppos'd that God could never intend to bring us under the yoke in so sensible and so valuable a thing without giving clear and evident warrants for it And as every Invasion on the Liberties of the Human nature ought to be well made out so every Priviledge which any person claims against the common fate of Mankind ought to be also fully proved before others can be bound to submit to it We perceive in our selves and we see in all others such a feebleness of understanding such an easiness to go too quick and judge too fast and such a narrow compass of knowledge that as we see all Mankind is apt to mistake things so we have no reason to believe that any one is exempted from this but as there are evident Authorities to prove it Since then this is a Priviledge in those that have it as well as an Imposition on those that have it not it ought not to be offer'd at or obtruded on the world without a full Proof Probabilities forced Inferences or even disputable Proofs ought not to be made use of here since we have reason to conclude that if God had intended to put any such thing upon us he would have done it in so plain and uncontested a way that there should have been no room to have doubted of it Besides all such things as do naturally give jealousy and offer specious grounds of mistrust ought to be very clear Since
been so overcome by the men of Labour and Learning that even the Church that boasts of Infallibility would have made a small progress without their Endeavours And why should we imagine that a Religion which we feel to be so hard in practice should be made so easy in the speculative part that we should be in no danger and need no Industry to understand it A Promise of the Spirit is indeed pretended that the Church should be thereby guided into all Truth But it is to be consider'd that this Promise was made personally to the Apostles who were Inspir'd and so were infallibly guided which appears more plainly from the following words and he shall shew you things to come that is clearly a promise of the Spirit of Prophesy to which since no Body of men can now pretend they cannot claim the other neither for both must go together according to the force of those works Nor is there any reason from those words to conclude that this any more than the Inspiration of the Apostles was to descend to others after them or if any will through a parity of Reason think that this was to continue in the Church why should it not belong to every Christian and not be confin'd to any Body or Succession of men especially since those who think that the same parity will hold as to the other effects of the Spirit promis'd there of its dwelling in them of bringing things to their remembrance of giving them Confort Peace Ioy and Victory over the World and that these do descend to others after the Apostles do believe that they belong to all Christians and are not to be contracted to a small number Now if all the other promises were to descend thus why not this of being led into all Truth as well as the rest For all promises even tho express'd in positive words do carry a condition naturally in them so that when this promise is believ'd to belong to all Christians yet it is not absolute but supposes men's using their utmost Endeavours with an honest and good Mind in which case no man can deny but that whether that promise was specially meant to them or not yet it shall be so far accomplish'd in them that they shall be left in no Error that shall be fatal to them but that either they shall be deliver'd from it or that it shall be forgiven them since it is inconsistent with the Notion of infinite Goodness that any man should perish who is doing all he can in order to his Salvation If it be said That Error does disturb the Peace and Order of the Church beyond what is to be apprehended from Sin Error runs men into parties and out of those Factions do arise which break not only the Peace of the Church but the whole order of the World and the Quiet of Civil Society whereas Sin does only harm to those who are guilty of it or to a few who may be corrupted by their ill example But to this it is to be answer'd That Sin does naturally much more mischief to Mankind than Error he that errs if he is not Immoral with it is quiet and peaceable in his Error therefore still the greatest mischief is from Sin which corrupts men's Natures through its own Influence And the mischief that Error does procure arises chiefly from the pretensions to Infallibility or something that is near a-kin to it for if men were suffer'd to go on in their Errors with the same undisturbed quiet that they have for most of their sins they would probably be much quieter in them since Sin of its nature is a much fiercer thing than a point of Speculation can be suppos'd to be but if men apprehend Inquisitions or other Miseries upon the account of their Opinions then they stand together and combine for their own Defence and Preservation so that it is not from the Errors themselves but from the methods of treating them that all those Convulsions have arisen which have so violently shaken Churches and Kingdoms But the last and Main thing that is urg'd on this Head is That no private Understanding is strong enough to find out Truth in all the points of Religion that it is an indecent and an insolent thing for private men for Tradesmen perhaps or for Women to pretend to expound Scripture or to judge in points of Religion This feeds Pride and self-conceit beyond any thing that can be imagin'd whereas a Spirit of Submission and Humility of thinking others particularly Superiours wiser than our selves has so great a resemblance to the Spirit of the Gospel and seems to agree so well with the design of this Religion that we must believe it to be a part of it This is indeed specious but after all it is to be consider'd that God has made us of such a nature that our apprehensions of things must determine us whether we will or not and it is not likely that God would make us as he has done and yet at the same time so limit our Faculties that they should not be imploy'd in the Matters of Religion We naturally love Freedom and we believe things the more firmly the more profoundly we have inquir'd into them when we come to be once fully satisfi'd about them when we find our selves oft call'd on in the Scriptures to search them to prove all things to try the Spirits when we see a great part of the New Testament was directed to whole Churches to all the Saints that is to the whole Body of the Christians when so much of it is writ in the Style of one that argues that descends from that Apostolical Authority by which he might have commanded those he writes to to receive and rest in his Decisions and that lays things in their natural Connexions and Consequences before those he writes to we see in that such an appeal to their Reasons and that even in the Age of Miracles in which there was another sort of Characters of the Divine Commission that render'd the Apostles Infallible when I say this Appeal was made to their Reasons and Understandings at that time it seems much more reasonable that in the succeeding Ages men should have a right to imploy their Faculties in finding out the Sense and examining the Books of the New Testament Here let us consider the state of every Iew at that time and see if this reasoning for Authority and Infallibility was not then as strong to keep him in Judaism There was a Controversy between the Apostles and the Sanhedrim whether Iesus was the Messias or not A decision of this was in a great measure to be made from the Prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the Messias which were urg'd by the Apostles but the Rabbies the Scribes and Pharisees put other senses on these Now what was a private Iew to do Must he take upon him to judge so intricate a Controversy Must he pretend to be wiser than all the Doctors
of their Law or the Conveyers of their Traditions to them Must he set up his Skill and Reason above theirs Thus we see that if this Reasoning is true it being founded on Maxims that are equally true at all times then it was as true at that time as it is now It is of no force to say that the Miracles which our Saviour and his Apostles wrought gave them such Powers that the people were upon that account bound to believe them rather than their Teachers For one part of the Debate was both the truth of the Miracles and the Consequences that arose from them So the Appeal according to this way of Reasoning did still lie to their Sanhedrim In a word In such Matters every man must judge for himself and every man must answer to God for the Judgment that he has made he judges for no body else but for himself He and He only can be the Judge and if he uses a due degree of Industry and frees himself from every corrupt Biass from Pride Vain-glory and affectation of Singularity or the pursuing any ill ends under those appearances of searching for Truth and the adhering to it he is doing the best thing which according to that nature of which God has made him he can do and so he may reasenably believe that he shall succeed in it Nor is there any pride in this for a man to think according to his own Understanding no more than to see with his own Eyes His Humility ought to make him slow and cautious modest and fearful but no humility can oblige him to think otherwise than he feels he must needs think Among the Works of the flesh Heresies or Sects are reckon'd as one sort and species Now by Works of the flesh are to be understood the appetites of a vicious and depraved nature the meaning therefore of reckoning Heresies among these is this That when a man out of a bad disposition of mind and on ill designs chuses to to be of a party he then is a Heretick but he that in sincerity of Heart goes into persuasions from an overcoming sense of their Truth cannot be one because he does not chuse his persuasion out of a previous ill design but is of it not out of choice but necessity since his Understanding in which those matters may be variously represented offers them so to him that he must believe them to be true in the same manner in which he apprehends them If upon this Principle there happen to be many Sects and Divisions in the Church this is a part of that Wo that Christ left upon the World by reason of Offences and Scandals for he forsaw that they must needs come God has made this present Scene of Life to be neither regular nor secure The strange Follies and Corruptions of Mankind must have their Influence on Religion as well as they have on all other things God has reserv'd a fulness of Light and of unerring Knowledge to another State Here we are in the dark but have light enough if we have honest Minds to use and improve it aright to guide us thither and that is the utmost share that God seems to have design'd for us in this Life we must therefore be contented and make the most of it that we can I go next to shew That the same Difficulties if not greater ones he upon those who build on Infallibility for before they can arrive at the use of it they must have well examin'd and be fully assur'd of two things either of which has greater Difficulties in it than all those put together with which they press us First They must be convinced that there is an Infallibility in the Church and next they must know to which of those many Churches into which Christendom is divided this Infallibility is fastned Unless the design is to make all men take their Religion implicitely from their Forefathers these things must be well consider'd If men are oblig'd to adhere blindly to the Religion in which they were bred then Iews Heathans and Mahometans must continue still where they are If this had been the Maxim of all times Christianity had never got into the World If then men are allow'd to examine things they must have very good reason given them for it before they can believe that there is an Infallibility among men Their own Reason and Observation offers so much against it that without very clear grounds they ought not to receive it Now the reasons to persuade it must be drawn either from Scripture or from outward visible Characters that evidence it The Scriptures cannot be urg'd by these men because the Scriptures as they teach have their Authority from the Testimony of the Church Therefore the Authority of the Church must be first prov'd for the Church cannot give an Authority to a Book and then prove its own Authority by that Book This is plainly to prove the Church by her own Testimony which is manifestly absurd it being all one whether she affirms it immediately or if she affirms it by affirming a Book in which it is contain'd here a Circle is made to run for ever round in Why do you believe the Church because the Scriptures affirm it and why do you believe the Scriptures because the Church affirms them I do not deny but they may urge the Scriptures for this very pertinently against us who acknowledge their Authority but I am now considering upon what grounds a man is to be instructed in the stating the grounds of his own Faith and resolving it into Principles In this an Order must be fix'd and in the progress of it every step that is made must be prov'd without any relation to that which is afterwards to be proved out of that and therefore either the Church or the Scriptures must be first prov'd and then other things must be prov'd out of that which is once fix'd and made good But in the next place if we should suffer them to bring Proofs from Scripture how shall it he prov'd that the true sense of them is that which makes for infallibility Other senses may be given to them which may both agree to the Grammatical Construction of the words to the contexture of the Discourse and to the Phraseology of the Scriptures who shall then decide this Matter It were very unreasonable to prove what is their true Sense by the Exposition that any Church puts on those passages in her own favour that were to make her both Judge and Party in too gross a manner Therefore at least thâ—se passages and all that relates to them must fall under the private Judgment and in these Instances every man must be suffer'd to expound the Scriptures for himself for he cannot be bound to submit to any exposition of them but that which satisfies his own Reason and if this step is once admitted then it will appear as reasonable to leave a man all over to the use of his
Faculties since these passages and that which necessarily relates to them will lead a man into the understanding of the hardest parts of the whole New Testament If this method is let go they must prove the Infallibility of the Church by Arguments drawn from some other Visible Characters by which a man is to be convinc'd that God has made her Infallible If there were such eminent ones as the gift of Tongues Miracles or Prophecies that did visibly attest this here were a proof that were solid indeed It were the same with that by which we prove the Truth of the Christian Religion But then these Miracles must be as uncontestedly and evidently proved they must also belong to this point that is they must be Miracles publickly done to prove the truth of this Assertion But to this Appeal they will not stand what use soever they may make of it to amuse the weaker and the more credulous The Character of an uninterrupted Succession from the days of the Apostles is neither an easier nor a surer one since other Churches whom they condemn have it likewise nor can it be search'd into by a private man unless he would go into that Sea of examining the History the Records and Succession of Churches This is an Enquiry that has in it Difficulties vastly greater and more insuperable than all those that they can object to us If they will appeal to the vast Extent of a Church that so many Nations and Societies agree in the same Doctrine and are of one Communion this will prove to be a dangerous point for in the state in which we see Mankind Numbers make a very bad Argument It were to risque the Christian Religion too much to venture on a Poll with the Mahometans In some Ages the Semi-Arrians had the better at numbers and it is a question if at this day those that are within or without the Roman Communion make the greatest body Nor must a man be put to chuse his Religion by such a laborious and uncertain way of Calculation To plead a continuance in the same Doctrine that was at first deliver'd to the Church by the Apostles is to put the matter upon a more desperate issue For as no man can hope to see to the end of this so it lets a man in into all Controversies when he is to compare the present Doctrine with that which was deliver'd by the Apostles Let then any Character be assign'd that shall oblige a man to believe the Church Infallible and it will soon appear very evidently that the searching into that must put the world on more difficult Enquiries than any of those that we are pressed with and that in the issue of the whole the determination must be resolv'd into a private Judgment Another Difficulty follows close upon this which is In what Church this Infallibility is to be found Suppose a man was born in the Greek Church at any time since the IX Century how shall he know that he must seek the Infallibility in the Roman Communion and that he cannot find it in his own He plainly sees that the Christian Religion began in the Eastern parts and by every step that he makes into History he clearly discerns that it flourished for many Ages most eminently there but now that there is a breach between them and the Latins he cannot judge to which Communion he is to adhere without he examines the Doctrine for both have the outward Characters of a Succession of Martyrs and Bishops of Numbers and an appearance of continuing in the same Doctrine only with this difference that the Greeks have the advantage in every one of these they have more Apostolical Churches I mean founded by the Apostles than the Latins and they have stuck more firmly with fewer Additions and Innovations to their Ancient Rituals than the Latins have done How can he then decide this matter without examining the grounds of their difference and making a private Judgment upon a private Examination of the Scriptures or other Authorities If it be said that the present depress'd and ignorant state of those Churches makes it now very sensible that there can be no Infallibility among the Easterns To this it is to be answer'd that I have put the case all-along from the 9th Century downward In many of those Ages the Greeks were under as good Circumstances and had as fair an appearance as the Latins had if not better for the outward appearances of the Roman Communion in the next Centuries the 10th and 11th are not very favourable even by the Representation that their own Writers have made of them and if we must judge of the Infallibility of a Church by outward Characters it may be urg'd with great shews of Reason that a Church which under all its Poverty and Persecutions does still adhere to the Christian Religion has so peculiar a Character of bearing the Cross and of living in a constant state of Sufferings that if Infallibility be in the Church as a favour and priviledge from God and not as the effect of human Learning and other Advantages I should sooner believe the Greek Church Infallible than any other now in the World But when these difficulties are all got over there remain yet new and great ones Suppose one is satisfi'd that it is in the Roman Church he must know where to find it without this it is of no more use to him than if one should tell a hungry man that there is food enough for him without directing him where to seek for it he must starve after all that general Information if he has not a more particular direction And therefore it seems very absurd to affirm that the believing of Infallibility is an Article of Faith but that the proper Subject in whom it rests is not likewise an Article of Faith This is the general Tenet of the whole Roman Communion who that they may maintain their Union notwithstanding their difference in this do all agree in saying that the subject of this Infallibility is not a matter of Faith This destroys the whole pretension for all the Absurdities of no end of Controversies of private Judgment and every man's expounding the Scriptures do return here and the whole design of Infallibility is defeated For how can a man be bound to submit to this in any one Instance or to receive any proposition as coming from an Infailible Authority if he does not know who has it Thus according to that Maxim of Natural Logick that a Conclusion can have no certainty beyond that which was in both the Premises if it is not certain with whom the Infallibility dwells as well as that there is an Infallibility in the Church all the noise about it will be quite defeated and of no use If a man had many Medecines of which one was an Infallible Cure of such or such Diseases can it be suppos'd that he would communicate these to the World and tell that one of them
going to Cornelius and baptizing the Gentiles he only delivers his Opinion as one person in the Council of Ierusalem but St. Iames gives the definitive Sentence St. Paul never makes any Appeal to him in the Contests of which he writes He settles matters and makes Decisions without ever having recourse to his Authority He seems on the contrary to avoid it and when probably some of the Judaisers among the Galatians were appealing to him or at least to some practices of his St. Paul shews how he had fail'd in those matters for tho the Apostles were so govern'd by Divine Inspiration that they could not err nor be mistaken in points of Doctrine yet as to their Actions they were left to the freedom of their own Wills and so humane frailty might in some Instances have prevail'd over them It is evident from that Epistle that St. Paul own'd no dependance upon him nor did he submit in any sort to him as having any degrees in his Commission or Authority superiour to his own These are all such pregnant Intimations as make it more reasonable to give such a sence to those words as will import no special Authority given to St. Peter since it does not appear that either St. Peter or the Apostles themselves understood them so for since they persist afterwards to have their Disputes which of them was the greatest it is plain they did not understand this to be the Importance of our Saviour's Words And it is as plain that no part of the Scripture-History makes for this but very much against it Now as to the words themselves they begin with an Allusion to his Name and Phrases built upon such Allusions are seldom to be strictly and Grammatically understood By Vpon this Rock will I build my Church many of the Fathers have understood the Person of Christ others which amounts to the same thing faith in him or the Confession of that faith for strictly speaking the Church can only be said to be founded upon Christ and his Doctrine In a secondary Sense it may indeed be said to be founded on the Apostles and upon St. Peter as the first in Order as well as the forwardest among them and since the Apostles are all reckon'd Foundations tho this should be allow'd to be the meaning of these words which yet is a sense in which they were not taken for many Ages it will import nothing peculiar to St. Peter What follows of the gates of hell 's not being able to prevail against it may either be understood according to the Greek Phrase Death which is often thus represented as the entrance to the Grave which is the signification of the word rendered Hell and then the meaning is That the Church which Christ was to found was never to come to a period and to die as the Iewish Religion was then to do Or by a Phrase common among the Iews who understand by Gates the Wisdom and Strength of a Place since their Court and Councils were held near their Gates these words may signify That all the powers of Darkness with all their force and spite should not be able to bear down or destroy this Church but this does not bar any Errors or Corruptions from creeping into any part of it for the word rendred prevail properly signifies an entire Victory by which it should be conquered and extirpated As for the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ promised to give to him it must again be consider'd that these words are figurative so that it is never safe to argue from them since Figures are capable of larger and narrower Significations No man will carry them so far as to think that the power of giving or denying Eternal Life is hereby put in St. Peter for that is singly in the Mediator's hands This shews how difficult it is to know how much is to be drawn from a Figure By Kingdom of Heaven through the whole Gospels with very few or no exceptions we find that the Dispensation of the Messias is to be understood this appears evident from the first words with which both St. Iohn Baptist and our Saviour begun their preaching Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and this is the sense in which it is taken in all those Parables to which our Saviour compares the Kingdom of Heaven and in those words the Kingdom of Heaven is among you and it cometh not with observation or the like This being laid down as that which will soon appear to every one that shall attentively read the Four Gospels then by the Keys of the Dispensation of the Messias the most natural and least forc'd signification and that which agrees best with those words of the same figure he that hath the Key of the house of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and that shutteth and no man openeth and also with the Phrase of the Key of knowledge by which the Lawyers were described for they had a Key with writing Tables given them as the Badge of their Profession which naturally imported that they were to open the door for others entring into the knowledge of the Law With which our Saviour reproach'd them that they entred not in themselves and hinder'd those that were entring From all these hints I say we may gather that according to the Scripture-phrase by the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven is meant that St. Peter was first to open the Dispensation of the Gospel which he did in the first preaching of it to the Iews after the wonderful Pentecost and this was yet more eminently perform'd by him when he first open'd the door to the Gentiles to which the words of the Kingdom of Heaven seem to have a more particular respect This Dispensation was committed to him and executed by him and seems to be claim'd by him as his peculiar Priviledge in the Council at Ierusalem so we may safely conclude that this is the natural meaning of these words and is all that was to be imported by them and those who carry them further must use several distinctions lest they give St. Peter that which belongs only to our Saviour himself What follows concerning the binding and loosing in Heaven whatsoever he should bind or loose on earth is no special Priviledge of St. Peter's since we find the same words said by our Saviour to all his Apostles so that this was given in common to all the Apostles According to the sense now given of the Kingdom of Heaven these words will be easily understood which are otherwise very dark but they are full of Figures and so are not to be too far stretch'd By binding and loosing we find the Rabbins do commonly understand the affirming or denying the Obligation of any Precept that was in dispute This then being a common form of speech among the Iews a genuine Paraphrase of these words is That Christ committed to the Apostles the dispensation of his Doctrine to the
no wonder if he raises the Authority and the Priviledges of the Church to a vast height Yet after all these were not his setled thoughts for he goes off from them whensoever he has an eye on his Disputes against the Pelagians for the System which he had framed in those Points could not bear with any other Notion of the Church but that of the persons predestinated to whom all the Promises belonged And thus whatever he himself asserts in his zeal against the Donatists comes to be thrown down when the Pelagians are in his view so we see from hence how much deference is due to his Authority in this Point The last head relating to this whole matter is to explain in what the Authority of the Church does consist what it is both in matters of Faith and Discipline As to matters of Faith it is certain that every Body of men is bound to study to maintain its own Order and Quiet and must be authoris'd to preserve it otherwise it cannot long continue to be one Body This binds the Body of Christians yet much more who are strictly charged to love one another to worship God with one heart and mouth to be of the same mind and judgment to assemble themselves together and to withdraw from all such as cause divisions or corrupt the great Trust of the Faith committed to their keeping It must be therefore a great part of the duty of those that are bound to feed the flock to observe when any begin to broach new Opinions that they may confirm the weak and stop the mouths of gainsayers which as the Apostles themselves did during their own lives so by the charges that they gave to the Churches in their Epistles and more fully by those given to Timothy and Titus it appears that a main part of their Care and Authority was to be employ'd that way When therefore any new Doctrines are started or when there arise Disputes about any part of Religion the Pastors of the Church ought to consider whether or not it is in a matter of any great consequence in which the Faith or Lives of men may be concerned If the point is not of a great importance it is a piece of wisdom to connive at lesser matters and to leave men to a just freedom in things where that freedom is not like to do hurt only even there care is to be taken to keep men in temper that they become not too keen in the management of their Opinions and that they neither disturb the Peace of the Church nor State upon that account If the matters appear to be great either in themselves or in the consequences that are like to follow upon them then the Pastors of the Church ought to consider them with an equal and impartial mind they ought to here Parties fully and weigh their Arguments carefully they ought to examine the sense of the Scriptures and of the best times of the Church upon those Heads and finally to give Sentence In which two things are to be considered the one is That great regard is due to a Decision made by a Body of men who seem to have acted without prejudice or interest For I confess it will be very hard to maintain such a respect for a Company in which matters are carried with so much Artifice and Intrigue as even Cardinal Palavicini represents in the management of the Council of Trent where Bishops were caressed or threatned well paid or ill used as they gave their Voices Such a proceeding as this will rather inflame than allay the opposition but a fair and equitable a just and calm way of examining matters of dispute will naturally beget a respect even in such as cannot yield a submission to their Decrees After all it must be confessed That no Man can be bound to a blind Submission unless we suppose an Infallibility to be in the Church yet Private Men owe to Publick Decisions when decently made a due respect they ought to distrust their own judgments and examine the matter more accurately But if they are still convinc'd that the Decision is wrong they are bound to persist in their own thoughts only they ought to oppose modestly to consider well the Importance of Order and Peace and whether their Opinion even suppose it true is worth the Noise that may be made about it or the Disorders that may follow upon it After all If they are still convinced that their Opinions are true and that they relate to the indispensible Duties of Religion or the necessary Articles of Christianity they must go on as they will answer it to God upon the sincerity of their Hearts and the fulness of their Convictions So that the Definitions of the Church may have very good Effects even when it is not pretended that they are Infallible Another thing to be consider'd in those Decisions is That though they are not Infallible yet they may have Authority in this respect That they are the established Doctrine of such a Body of Christians who will have no other to be taught among them and will admit none to be of their Body or at least to be a Teacher among them who is not of the same mind In this it is certain great Tenderness and Prudence is to be used and the natural liberty of Mankind is not to be too much limited But yet as any Man may fix and declare his own Opinion so certainly by a much greater parity of reason any Society or Body of Men may declare their Opinions and so far fix them as to exclude all other Doctrines and the Favourers of them from being of their Body or from bearing any Office in it So that though such Decisions do not enter into Mens Consciences nor bind them further than as they are convinced by the Reasons and Authorities upon which they are founded yet they may have a vast influence on the Order and Peace of Churches and States As to Rituals it is certain that there are many little Circumstances and Decencies that belong to the Worship of God the Order of Religious Assemblies and their Administrations and that in these the Pastors of a Church by the Natural Right that all Societies have to keep themselves in order must have a Power to determine all things of this nature This becomes yet clearer in the Christian Societies from the Rules that the Apostles gave to the Churches To do all things in Order and for the ends of Edification and Peace There is not one of the Rules laid down in Scripture concerning the Sacraments or the Officers of the Church to which many Circumstances do not belong now either these must be all left to every Man's liberty which must needs create a jarring disagreement in the several parts of this Body that would both breed confusion and look very ridiculous and absurd or there must be an Authority in the Pastors of the Church to meet together and to settle these by mutual consent
next to examine the Pretences for disjointing this Union among our selves and see whether the main Body among us I mean our Church has imposed unlawful terms of Communion on her Members for if that is true we by so doing have broke this Union or whether any who have separated from us have not done it upon less binding Considerations for then they have broken the Union This I will manage with all possible fairness and without the least reflection on Persons and Parties I will state their grounds and put their Arguments with the utmost force that I can apprehend belongs to them and when I have weighed them I will leave the whole matter to an Impartial consideration The first point in which every man must fix his thoughts is that it is not free to him to chuse to which Body he will join himself as it is free to him to chuse in which Parish he will settle himself for since all Parishes make but one Communion and Church the one cannot be compared to the other And if all that was said before is true then certainly it is not lawful for any man to break the Union of the Body unless he is persuaded that it cannot be maintained but upon unlawful terms Therefore except a man is under this persuasion he sins if he departs from the Union of the Body But since Conscience is a word that may be used in the following part of this Discourse its true notion ought to be well setled which is according to the natural signification of the word in all Languages an inward persuasion founded upon some reason apprehended to be true concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a thing By this it will appear that a bare aversion or dislike to a thing without any reason on which that dislike is grounded cannot be called Conscience since things with which we are not acquainted or that are uncouth to us which we have often heard spoken against are disliked by us through a habit or prejudice conceived against them but unless this is founded upon some reason that appears to us true drawn either from the nature of things or from the Scriptures it is not Conscience I do not say that every man under these Convictions must be able to maintain those his Reasons to others to be just and good for then a better Arguer who can silence him should be able to alter his Conscience But though he cannot answer Objections yet as long as his Persuasion appears to be well grounded to himself such a man is still under the bonds of his Conscience I am not now to examine how far an erring Conscience obliges or at least excuses it is enough to have stated in general the true Notion of Conscience by which every man that does not intend to deceive himself may certainly know whether he is really under the persuasions of Conscience or if he is only guided by Humour Conceit or the power of Education and Prejudice The main Foundation out of which most of the Objections against some of the Terms of our Communion are rais'd is this That the Church is only empower'd to execute those Rules and Orders that are set Christians in the Scriptures That the pretending to add to these is to accuse the Scripture as defective That all Additions to those Rules set us in Scripture are Superstitious Usages That they impose a yoke upon us and so deprive us of our Christian Liberty That if some Rites may be added others upon the like reasons may be also added to these and so on without bounds as in Fact it appears That when the Church went once off from the first simplicity in which the Apostles deliver'd the Christian Religion to the World and that new Rites were invented to beautify the Worship these Additions did at last swell up to that intolerable height in which they are now in the Church of Rome In Religious Matters it is not enough according to St. Paul's Rule that a thing is lawful it must also be expedient But for that pretended expediency which is alledged for some Rites that they are expressive and significant it is rather an Argument against them for a significant Ceremony is of the nature of a Sacrament the common definition of which that it is a visible sign of an invisible Grace agreeing to it and certainly the appointing Sacraments is above the power of the Church and can belong only to Iesus Christ who is its Head and Founder But all this is in appearance the stronger if Rites so enjoin'd have been abus'd to Idolatry and are parts of an Idolatrous Worship To retain these is to conform our selves to it tho the Scriptures command us to come out from among all such and not to be conformable to them Hezekiâ— broke the Brazen Serpent tho a Memorial of a signal Miracle in which it had been in some sort an Instrument yet when even that was abus'd to Idolatry a good King broke it to pieces This will hold stronger against things that are but of human Institution That they ought to be taken away how innocent soever they may be in themselves after they are grosly abus'd To keep up the use of such things is to scandalize and offend the weaker Christians tho St. Paul lays great weight upon this and charges all Christians not to lay a stumbling-block in one anothers way he calls the doing otherwise the destroying a weak Brother and in conclusion since St. Paul said whatsoever is not of faith is sin these Rites therefore not being warranted from Scripture cannot be of Faith the Object of which is a Divine Revelation they must therefore be sinful And thus I have set down all the Branches of the Plea against Ceremonies with as much advantage as I can imagine belongs to them I go therefore in the next place to take it to pieces and to examine the strength of the whole and of every part of this Reasoning that as must be acknowledg'd wants not fair and specious colours The main stress lies upon this Whether the Church in her Rituals is so limited to the Scriptures that she has no power to add any thing to what is prescribed in them Great difference is to be made between matters of Doctrine Rules of Life Foederal Acts together with the other Acts of Worship which are parts of the New Covenant or conditions of it and some Ritual Appointments such as the Circumstances of those Instituted Acts the forms for the Solemn Acts of Worship together with some other Institutions which are helps to Devotion and do fix or raise the attention For the former sort it is confess'd That Christ and his Apostles having deliver'd this Religion to the World it must continue in the same state in which they setled it without additions or variations but since all instituted Actions must be determined by the Circumstances of persons places times words and postures these must be all manag'd with such
Deceency and Beauty as may carry on the Order and Edification of the Church and since some Actions seem to have a very natural tendency to give good Impressions and to raise a seriousness and awe for Divine Performances these may be also appointed by those who are to feed teach and guide their people We see the Iews tho their Religion seems to have in it a sufficient share of Rituals did add a great many Ceremonies to those which Moses gave them They had in their Pascal-Supper a thick sawce of Dates Almonds and Figs pounded together and wrought up into the form of Clay to remember them of the Clay of which their Fathers had made Bricks in the Land of AEgypt and yet our Saviour observ'd this Paschal-Supper with the same addition for this was probably the sawce into which Iudas dipt the Sop. They had likewise a form of Initiating Proselytes into their Religion by Baptism not mention'd in the Old Testament and after this Paschal-Supper the Table was spread a second time and nothing but Bread and Wine was set on it yet tho these two last mention'd were Rites added by them to the Divine Institution our Saviour was so far from condemning them for those additions that he took these and hallow'd them to be the two Foederal Rites of his own Religion Nor does he so much blame the Pharisees for the observation of those Rites which Tradition had handed down to them as because they set that value on them as to make the Laws of God of no effect upon their account when those voluntary assum'd Ceremonies were preferr'd by them to the Moral Law it self so that the over-valuing of Rituals and the imagining that by them Compensation can be made to God for the weghtier Matters of the Law Faith Justice and the Love of God is indeed severely reprimanded by our Saviour but the bare observance of them is no where censur'd by him On the contrary The whole service of the Synagogues was only a human Institution no print of any Divine Precept appearing for it in the whole Old Testament yet our Saviour came to their Synagogues and bore a share in the Acts of Worship that were perform'd there A Feast was Instituted by the Maccabees in commemoration of their having purg'd the Temple from Idolatry which was observ'd by our Saviour and the whole New Testament is full of allusions to some Forms and Rites which were their practised by the Iews in their Worship tho no where instituted in the Old Testament There are also some Precepts given in the New Testament about Ritual Matters which are now taken away only by disuse that is by the Authority of the Church that has discontinu'd the practice of them such is the Decree that the Apostles with the rest at Ierusalem made against the eating of meats strangled or offered to Idols or of blood which as they are join'd with Fornication so the prohibition of them is reckon'd among necessary things yet these are now no more consider'd as forbidden that prohibition being lookt on either as a compliance with the Iews in those precepts which they believe were given to the Sons of Noah or as a direction to keep the Christians at a due distance from all compliances with the Gentiles in their Idolatrous practises And now that all regards to the Iews have ceased with God's rejecting them from being his people at the destruction of Ierusalem and all danger of coming too near the practices of the Gentiles is likewise at an end we living no more among Heathenish Idolaters the nature of the things prohibited by that Decree not being evil in themselves when the ground of the Prohibition ceases all men reckon that the Prohibition must be at an end Here then the Authority and Practice of the Church seems to be strong even in bar to an Apostolical Decree and none of those Bodies that are offended at our Rituals have revived this So at least this Argument is of force against those who do it not for certainly a greater degree of Authority is necessary to take away a practice that has the face of a plain Commandment in Scripture enjoining it than for adding such Rites as are recommended by new Emergencies To this may be added the Practice and Rules given by the Apostles concerning Deaconesses Phoebe and others are mention'd that serv'd in that Function St. Paul also in the Rules that he gives concerning the Age the Qualifications and the Functions of the Widows seems plainly to mean them and we do certainly know that they were in the first Ages of Christianity and were imploy'd in the Instruction and about the Baptism of such women as were converted to the Faith But when afterwards some Scandals rose upon them as the Council of Nice prohibited the Clergy to keep any women that were not very nearly related to them in their houses so in the Fifth Century upon some publick Scandals given by them we find that as they were put down in the Western Church by several Provincial Synods so they insensibly wore out of the Greek Church and yet none in our days have endeavour'd to revive this Institution The kiss of peace was likewise us'd in the Apostles times and is mention'd in their Epistles yet that Rite being perhaps made use of by prophane Scoffers to represent the Assemblies of the Christians as too licentious for the black and unjust Imputations cast on their Meetings seem to have no other Foundation but this it wore out of practice and I do not hear that any in our days have endeavour'd to bring it again in use We see likewise that they had Love-feasts before the Eucharist which was taken from the Iews and tho St. Paul complains of some abuses in this practice he does not condemn it nor order it to be let fall yet it wore out and is not now offer'd to be reviv'd by any among us Thus we see that as to Matters that are expresly mention'd in Scripture with warrants that seem to impose them as standing Rules upon succeeding Ages the abuses or unfitness which afterwards appear'd in them were thought sufficient Reasons for departing from them To these Instances another may be added that must needs press all that differ from us one Body only excepted very much We know that the first Ritual of Baptism was by going into the Waters and being laid as dead backwards all-along in them and then the persons baptized were rais'd up again and so they came out of them This is not only mention'd by St. Paul but in two different places he gives a Mystical Signification of this Rite that it signified our being buried with Christ in Baptism and our being raised up with him to a new life so that the Phrases of rising with Christ and so putting on Christ as oft as they occur do plainly relate to this and yet partly out of modesty partly in regard to the tenderness of
the acceptance of them if well kept The Iews also fixed one Anniversary in commemoration of their Deliverance from Haman's wicked designs against them and another for remembring the Purifying the Temple from its Idolatrious Defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes This last was observed by our Saviour at least we find him in the Temple on that day Now can any reason be assign'd either from the nature of things or from any special limitations in the Scripture that should restrain the Power that is naturally in every body of men for appointing things of this nature The commemorating the Dispensation of the Gospel committed to the Apostles has nothing of the Superstition of Popery in it No Invocations or Addresses being made to them and no Sacraments administred for their Honor or recommended to their Intercession God is only blessed for those several Dispensations of which they were made the Channels and Instruments But we ought rather to be concern'd That these Commemorations are practic'd in so slight a manner that we seem much more liable to an Objection upon that account and tho in the first fervour of Christianity in which those early Converts lived almost wholly in the Meditations of Christ and of what related to him some Institutions of days for more special remembrances of particular Circumstances had not been made there might have been very good reason for the succeeding Ages to have studied to keep alive that fervour by such appointments of days for the more solemn Commemoration of such signal Blessigns and tho there were not the same clear warrants from Antiquity for every one of these yet it was still in the Power of the Church to make such new Orders as should seem necessary for carrying on the main Design of Religion The Ancient Church thought that the whole fifty days between Easter and Pentecost ought to be kept with a special Solemnity of Rejoycing for the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour and for the Effusion of the Holy Ghost since some more particular Devotions on those heads during that whole time did not break off the labours of their other Employments nor interrupt the common business of life upon the same parity of reason they might appoint some time before that season of Ioy to be spent in confessing past sins and mourning for them in higher degrees of Prayer and Fasting This being only the prescribing a method for appropriating such Exercises in Devotion to the several seasons of the year an over-valuing of these things together with a nice distinction of Meats was a piece of Superstition which might corrupt that which was good in any Constitution The distinction of Meats for that season is among us founded meerly on a Law of the Land for Civil and Political Ends since the Church only recommends Prayer and Fasting in general witout any further Specialities as to the measure of the Fast so no just exception lies to any part of this whole matter concerning days and times appropriated to particular Exercises I wish our Practice in these were such that this part of our Constitution were not too evidently a matter of Form and observed with too visible a slightness And thus I have gone round â—ll that I remember ever to have met with in Books or Discourses from any of the Dissenters except from those call'd Quakers against our Constitution and have offer'd you those answers which to me after the most impartial search that I am capable of seem full to satisfy 'em all It remains That I consider such as are offer'd by those who are called Quakers First They are against all sorts of stated Forms their main Principle being That nothing is to be done by us by virtue of any outward warrant unless there is an inward excitation or opening of the Spirit that leads to it And therefore all fixed Rules being contrary to the freedom of the Spirit they are against them all But either this Principle must have some limitation to restrain it or it will cast open a door to subvert all Religion and Policy for those inward Excitations being only known to those who have them every man's word must be taken concerning them If then a man by affirming that he had or had not such or such an excitation will be thereby justified or excus'd then he may do or not do what he will and the whole Order of Religion Morality and Civil Society will be thereby dissolv'd but if they say that there is that Harmony between the secret leadings of the Spirit and the Scriptures that whatsoever is commanded in the one is always witnessed to by the other then we are to examine this matter by the Scriptures and to conclude That if there are rules given in them for the constant use of the Sacraments then they are hereby condemned who have laid them aside Our Saviour encourag'd his Apostles to go and execute the Commission that he gave them to make Disciples and Baptize all Nations with this Promise That he was to be with them alway even to the end of the World The promise is given as as an encouragement to the duty enjoin'd and from hence we may conclude that the precept of Baptisme must continue likewise to the end of the World To this we must join those other words of our Saviour Except a man is born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which is affirmed without any limitation of time By the Kingdom of Heaven is plainly meant the Dispensation of the Gospel and since Baptism was then practised and was well understood by them who were born Iews nothing in reason can be understood by the being born of Water and of the Spirit but the being initiated by Baptism and the being inwardly Sanctified The one as well as the other is made indispensably necessary to the being a member of this new Dispensation St. Mark also has recorded those words of our Saviour He that believeth and is baptized stall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Now since Baptism is only enjoined by Precept and is not necessary as a mean but only as an act of Obedience therefore tho the doing it is commanded in order to Salvation yet Damnation is not the consequent of its not being done since one may be prevented in it by death or other Impossibilities may put it out of his power to procure Baptism to himself And therefore as the one branch of this period shews the obligation laid on us to be baptized in order to Salvation so the leaving it out in the other branch shews that our not coming within the rites of our Religion when that failure is no fault of ours does not exclude us from Salvation or bring us to a state of Damnation In the beginnings of Christianity the wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost was thought a true reason for baptizing such persons on whom it fell and therefore St. Peter said when
the Holy Ghost fell visibly on Cornelius and his Friends Can any man forbid water that those should not be baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we And with this he settled the minds of those who were a little offended at that action This shews that no pretence to a high dispensation of the Spirit can evacuate that Precept since on the contrary an evidence of the giving the Holy Ghost was pleaded as an Argument for baptizing Nor does any one passage in which Baptism is mentioned in the New Testament limit it to that time and intimate that it belonged only to the beginnings of Christianity or that it was to determine when it was more fully setled so that this with the constant practice of all succeeding Ages without a shadow of any Exception must conclude us as to this Point Our Saviour did also appoint the other Sacrament to be continued in remembrance of him by which St. Paul says we shew forth his death till he come Now these words cannot be understood of any supposed inward and spiritual coming since the most signal coming in that sense was the effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and yet after that time the Apostles continued to practice it and delivered it to the Churches as a Precept still obligatory till Christ should come If then we ought still to remember him and shew forth his death if it is the Communion of his Body and Blood if it is the new Covenant in his Blood for the remission of sins then as long as these things are Duties incumbent on us so long we must be under the obligation of eating that Bread and drinking that Cup. Further If Christ has left different Gifts to different Orders of men some Apostles some Prophets some Evangeliste and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting the Saints for the work of the Ministry and for edifying the Body of Christ till we come unto a perfect man and are no more in danger of being tossed to and fro and carried away with every wind of doctrine These words do plainly import That as long as mankind is under the frailties of this present state and in this confused Scene that some of these Orders must still be continued in the Church and that those Rules and Preceps given to Timothy and Titus concerning such as were to be ordained Bishops or Elders that is Priests and Diacons were to be lasting and standing Rules for indeed if the design had not been to establish that Order for the succeeding Ages there was less need of it in that in which there was such a plentiful Measure of the Spirit poured out upon all Christians that such Functions in that time might have been well spared if it had not been for this that they were then to be setled under the Patronage if I may so speak of the Apostles themselves from whom they were to receive an Authority which how little necessary soever it might seem in that wonderful time yet was to be more needed in the succeeding Ages Therefore we may well conclude That whatsoever was ordered concerning those Offices or Officers of the Church in the first Age was by a stronger parity of reason to be continued down through all the Ages of the Church and in particular if in that time in which Women received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost so that some prophesied and others laboured much in the Lord that is in the Gospel yet St. Paul did in two different Epistles particularly restrain them from teaching or speaking in the Church to which he adds That it was a shame for Women to speak in the Church that is it might turn to be a reproach to the Christian Religion and furnish Scoffers with some colours of exposing it to the scorn of the Age. This was to be much more strictly observed when all those extraordinary Characters that might seem to be exemptions from common Rules did no longer continue As for those distinctions into which they have cast themselves of the Hat and the denying Titles and speaking in the singular Thou and Thee it is to be considered That how unfit soever it be and how unbecoming Christians to be conformed to this world yet it rather lessens than heightens the great Idea that the world ought to have of the Christian Religion when it states a diversity among men about meer Trifles Our Saviour and his Apostles complied as much in all innocent Customs as they avoided all sinful ones Honour to whom honour is due is a standing Duty and though the bowing the Body and falling prostrate are postures that seem liker Idolatry and more abject in their nature than the Hat yet the very Prophets of God paid these respects to Kings Outward Actions or Gestures signify only what is entended to be expressed and what is generally understood by them so that what is known to be meant only for a piece of Civil respect can never be stretched to a Religious respect and though that abject homage under which the Iewish Rabbies had brought their Disciples and which they had exprest in Titles that imported their profound submission to them was reproved by our Saviour yet we see that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir or Lord was then used as commonly as we now do since Mary Magdalen called him whom shee took for a Gardener Sir or Lord. And St. Paul gave Festus the Title which belonged to his Office it being the same that Claudius Lysias gave Felix who certainly was not wanting in that and that being the Title of men of Rank St. Luke adresses both his Books to Thephilus designing him in one ofthem in the same manner Words signify nothing of themselves as they are meer sounds but according to the signification in which men agree to use them so if the speaking to one man in the plural number is understood only as a more respectful way of treating him then the plural is in this case really but a singular Indeed these things scarce deserve to be so narrowly lookt into The Scruple against Swearing is more important both to them and to the Publick They have indeed the appearance of a plain Command of our Saviour's against all manner of Swearing which is repeated by St. Iames but this must be restricted to their communication according to the words that follow since we find Swearing not only commanded in the Old Testament but practised in the New The Apostles swear at every time they say God is witness and more solemnly when God is called for a record upon their Soul The Angel of God lifts up his hand and swears by him that lives for ever and ever God swears by himself and an Oath for confirmation that is for affirming any matter is the end of all Controversy We find our Saviour himself answered upon Oath when adjured by the High Priest to tell If he was the