as their words should be found confirmed by proofs drawn from the Scripture They have said that they did not care for the Testimony of men but that they would confirm what they said by the Voice of God which was more certain then all Demonstrations or to say better the only Demonstration It is Evident therefore that our Fathers could not take any other Rule of the Faith or Principle of the Reformation then the Holy Scripture In effect the Scripture is the Word of God the Law of our Soveraign Lord according to which we must all be Judged Pastors and People great and small Learned and Ignorant It contains the Foundations of Divine Revelation without which there is neither Faith nor a good Conscience nor peace of mind nor hope of Salvation and if they would consider these things a little more carefully then they ordinarily do I am perswaded they would make no Difference with us about this Article All Christians are agreed that the Word of God is the only source of all the Mysteries that are necessary to our belief in Order to our Salvation and that his will is the only Rule of our Worship This is a Maxim about which there is no dispute between us and those of the Church of Rome for they know with us that Faith comes out of the Word of God and that it is in vain to Honour God when we follow the Commandments of men All our difference consists but in the knowing where that word and that will is we restrain it to the Scripture our Adversaries extend it further for they would have it to be found in Traditions in the writings of the Fathers in the decisions of the Popes in the Determinations of the Councils and in all that which they call the belief of the Church not only while those things are conformable to the Scripture but also while they are besides the Scriptures But as for the decisions of the Popes and Councils our Adversaries themselves consess that God gives them not any new and immediate Revelation that discovers new Objects of Faith to them or new ways of Worship and that since Jesus Christ and his Apostles God has not given the like Revelations to men either in these latter or the proceeding Ages It is certain says Monsieur du Val his words being set down by Monsieur Arnaud in his second Letter That the Holy Ghost does not assist the Pope in the decisions of points of Faith by an immediate and express illumination as well because that Illumination would be miraculous and that there would be no necessity of establishing such a Miracle as because that no Pope ever attempted to prove that when he would decide any matter he should be immediately and expresly inlightned by the Holy Spirit A Council also adds he has not the like illumination or ever had And if ever any had had it it would have been without doubt the first of all which the Apostles held at Jerusalem at a time wherein the Holy Ghost visibly descended upon the Faithful And yet notwithstanding the Apostles in that Council did not determine any point of difference about the Legal Ceremonies by an express and immediate illumination but after a long debate and discussion It is therefore an unquestionable Truth that there is no new and immediate Revelation in the Church and that Revelation ceased in Jesus Christ and his Apostles From whence it evidently follows that all that is to be found either in the decisions of the Popes or in the Definitions of the Councils or in the Writings of the Fathers or the belief of the Church or in that which they call Tradition or in a word in all that proceeds from the Mouth and hands of men whatsoever Denomination they may pass under is the word of God but as far as it may be found conformable to that Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles But that being so as it is without any difficulty how can they be certain of that Conformity but as they refer to and compare things with the Scripture They say that there are certain Articles of that Revelation which the Apostles have delivered down in Trust from their own living voice alone to their Successors and which from hand to hand have came down to us But besides that that very thing is a matter of History about which we cannot have any certainty of Faith and upon which by Consequence we can build nothing firmly what certain sign can they give us to know those pretended Apostolical Traditions by or to discern the True by when they should be mingled with the false From the first Rise of Christianity Hereticks would say as may be seen in Saint Irenaeus to gain credit to their Errors that they had were the secret Mysteries which the Apostles taught not to all in Common but to the perfect in particular Papias himself as Eusebius Testifies had made a Collection of Tables and New Doctrines under the Title of unwritten Traditions which he had Learned from the Mouths of those who had seen the Apostles and conversed familiarly with them Saint Irenaeus speaks of a certain Tradition which had passed for currant in his Time in Asia as immediately coming from the Apostle Saint John to wit That Jesus Christ Taught after his Fortieth Year which is notwithstanding now held to be false by all Chronologers They do not not hold the Opinion of the Mâ—llenaries to be less false which divers Antient Fathers have approved and maintained as a Tradition proceeding from the Apostles The Churches of Asia who have the Feast of Easter Celebrated precisely on the Fourteenth Day of the Moons Age after the Vernal Equinox boast for that purpose of the Tradition of Saint John and Saint Philip and the rest of the Church hold on the contrary by Apostolical Tradition that it ought to be Celebrated on the Sunday of our Lord's Resurrection The Greeks Nestorians Abassines Latins Armenians have their contrary Traditions for Tradition changes its Face and Form according as the Nation changes one sort hold for a Tradition the necessity of three immersions in Baptism and that of the use of Leavened bread in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the other mock at it and reject it The one sort believe a Purgatory by Tradition the others believe it not The one by Tradition Circumcise their Children the others have that practise in horrour as being a Relique of Judaism The one sort fast by Tradition upon the Saturday the rest have that fasting in Execration One sort by Tradition Sacrifice Lambs at this day after the manner of the Jews the rest detest that custom Who can say Justly in so great a Confusion which this is Apostolical and this is not so Moreover there are a great many Antient Traditions which publick use heretofore Authorised and which Time has so abolished that there remains not the least shadow of them among the Latins as that of not Baptizing
I know not how many others that were evidently either the Remnants or Imitations of Antient Paganism Who would think it strange that an Idea of a Religion that plainly appear'd to be so little advantagious to it or to say better which was so contrary to the Spirit and the true design of Christianity should have touched our Fathers and inspir'd into them a desire of knowing those things a little more particularly then they had as yet done 3. They were yet further carri'd out with that desire when they considered the ill Effects that those Ceremonies borrow'd from the Pagans had produc'd and some others that were annexed to them as Rosaries Chaplets holy Salt their Pilgrimages and and Monastick Vows and such like things For they manifestly fill'd the minds of men with superstition they caused a thousand abuses among the people they ordinarily made way for lying Forgeries and which rendred them yet far more odious they fomented a too natural negligence which every one has for works of true and solid Piety whether by busying the minds of Christians too much or perswading them that they had very well acquitted themselves of their duty by doing these External things or lastly whether it was by infusing into them a false Idea of Divinity as if all its worship did consist in such Trumpery Who is it that sees not what a great prejudice this was against a Religion that taught such things and so solemnly enjoyned them to be practised 4. It had been yet very hard if our Fathers had not been offended by that worldly Pomp wherewith they saw Religion so excessively cloathed For they very well knew that true Christianity was contented to gain the Hearts and Souls of men by the Majesty of its Doctrines and Holiness of its Precepts And that for the rest it professed to retain its simplicity notwithstanding which they observed a clean contrary Character in the Magnificence of their Tenples in the Gold of their Tabernacles in the Pride of their Sacrifices in the Riches of their Ornaments and in general in all that external splendour which seem'd destin'd only to strike extraordinarily the sences and by this means to raise an ill grounded Admiration that which is proper to only corrupt Religions which as Tertullian takes notice labour to gain their Authority and to obtain the belief of the People by their Pomp and their profuseness 5. The Natural Effect of the Doctrines of Christianity when they are receiv'd with Faith and when its worship is practised with Devotion is to comfort the Conscience and to give it a certain satisfaction and calm which is better felt then it can be exprest But our Fathers were so far from receiving that Effect from the Doctrines and worship wherein they made in their days almost the Fundamentals of Religion to consist as in the Invocation of Saints the absolute Obedience to the Pope or to his Councils the conceit of Mens satisfactions the Adoration of Reliques the Pilgrimages and other things of the like nature they were I say so far from receiving it from these Doctrines that on the contrary they could not but feel secret remorses after having practised them For the Consciences of Christians are naturally carried out to none but God alone and cannot endure that that which is due to him should be divided between him and the Creatures They have naturally a reluctance to call upon any other Being then the first Cause of all to pay a Religious service to lifeless Images to subject themselves to any other Oracle then that of God to attribute any part of their Redemption to any others besides Jesus Christ who has acquired for them a fullness of Salvation And in a word to lay hold on any Creature as the object of their Confidence or Piety so our Fathers knowing from their own Experience that these Tenets and Devotions were not only barren of all that quiet but at the same time contrary to the peace of their Souls they could not but receive a great prejudice against those Tenets and against those Devotions themselves and against that Religion that proposed them 6. But that was not all they saw yet many things in that Religion most formally opposite to many plain and express passages of Scripture As the point of Images to the second Commandment Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. That of Communion only in one kind to that Command of Jesus Christ Drink ye all of this That of Praying in an unknown Tongue to the Prohibition of St. Paul in the fourteenth of the first Epistle to the Corinthians Else if thou shalt bless with the Spirit how shall he that occupieth the Room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks seeing he uuderstandeth not what thou sayest For thou verily givest thanks well but the other is not Edified And the business of blind Subjection to the Ministers of the Church to that strict Declaration of the Apostle We have not Dominion over your Faith That of the Papal Monarchy to these words of our Saviour The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship c. but it shall not be so with you That of humane satisfactions to the words of St. John The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all Sin And that of the Sacrifice of the Mass to that Doctrine of St. Paul to the Hebrews That Jesus Christ has once offered up himself for us I do not at all enquire whether the force of these passages may be eluded and distorted to a sence that may agree with those points which I have mentioned I do not enter upon that It is enough if any see that opposition of which I speak to appear at 1 sight that it likewise strikes the Soul and seems at least strong enough to Create great scruples and to form a prejudice that carri'd our Fathers on to examine those things a little more narrowly 7. To which they were yet further urg'd by the Consideration that they made of some Maxims and Distinctions which they ordinarily made use of to uphold the worshipping of Creatures for they discovered in them something that was extremly Scandalous For Example where they maintained the Worshipping of Angels and that of the Saints by saying that they did not adore them but by a lower sort of Adoration proportioned to the excellency they acknowledged to be in them not that they gave them that supream Adoration which is due to none but God alone I do not here put it in Question whether this distinction be good or bad it is sufficient that it had the ill luck to fall in with that which the Antient Heathens made use of for the defence of those Adorations which they paid to their Genius's to their Heroes to their Demy and inferiour Gods c. For the Pagans said the same that men did them great wrong in laying it to their charge that they worshipped their Genius's and inferiour Gods with that Soveraign Worship
None are ignorant how they had mingled some false pieces into the true Works of the Fathers as in those of Justin Martyr of Origen of Saint Cyprian of Saint Athanasius of Saint Hilary of Saint Ambrose of Saint Chrysostome of Saint Jerome of Saint Augustin and almost generally of all the Fathers whose names they have made use of to authorise their forgeries None are ignorant what alterations they had made in the true writings of the Fathers whether by changing their words or adding to them or sometimes in cutting off considerable clauses and whole passages entire Who sees not that these ill practises which of themselves are so odious in all sorts of matters and especially in those of Religion could not but encrease the just suspitions that our Fathers had of all that which they named Tradition 14. We might make the same judgment of that visible abuse about Reliques which was brought into the Church For on the one side the devotion of the people was so hot as to that point that it could not keep it self within any measure and on the other the Cheats about them were so multiplied that even those of the weakest understandings could not behold them without being ashamed of them That prodigious quantity of the wood of the true Cross which is scattered over the World witnesses this as likewise the Slippers and Hose of Saint Joseph the Shift of the Blessed Virgin her Coifs her Fillets her Girdles her two Combs her Cloaths her Wedding-Ring the Sword wherewith Saint Michael fought with the Devil the twelve Combs of the Apostles some of the Stones wherewith Saint Steven was stoned the Skin of Saint Bartholomew the Coals that broiled Saint Laurence Aarons Rod the Bones of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob And beyond all that the multiplication of one and the same Relique which is to be found in divers places for there is nothing more ordinary then for one to see two three or four Bodies of the same Saint as of Saint Gervase Saint Protais Saint Sebastian of Saint Pretonilla Saint Anthony and some others All which being very much recommended to the People as the true objects of their Devotion not only without any certain grounds but very often with all the appearances of falsness could not but create a vast prejudice of corruption in that Church and Religion 15. Moreover when our Fathers cast their eyes upon the four chief means that God has established in his Church for the preserving of true Faith and Piety in it which are the Scriptures the publick Worship Preaching and the Sacraments and when they considered after what manner they were altered and the use of all those means almost brought to nothing it was not possible they could do otherwise than conclude that corruption whereof we dispute For as to the Scripture instead of making that the only Rule of Faith they had joyn'd Traditions with them that is to say the most uncertain thing in the World the most subject to Impostures and the most mixed with humane inventions and weaknesses Instead of recommending the reading of that Divine word to the Faithful for their Instruction and their Comfort it could scarce be found even in the hands of some Church-men And as for the Schools they knew far better how to quote Aristotle the Master of the Sentences Albertus Magnus Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure then the Prophets and Apostles As for the publick Service they performed it some Ages ago in a strange Tongue unknown to the people who by this means were depriv'd of that benefit which they might justly expect So that the Assemblies were become in that respect Springs stopt up for any publick edification and their little Prayers themselves the Lords Prayer and the Creed were then read almost only in Latin and the Women and Children and People seemed to know God only by the Idea that was given them of that Tongue in which notwithstanding they understood nothing As for Preaching besides that the Pulpit in the greatest part of that time was abandoned we have yet some Books of the Sermons which they made in those days as of Jacobus de Voragine of a Menot a Maillard a Barelette a Discipulus de Tempore which did no very great honour to their Age. They treat there far oftner of the Legends of the Saints then the truths of Religion and that which was yet more deplorable instead of the Word of God they Preached almost nothing else but scandalously extravagant Opinions raw Parallels of a Saint with Jesus Christ ridiculous stories pleasant buffooneries and such like things which to speak moderatly were exceedingly remote from the natural design of the Pulpit and rendred it not only despised but after a sort odious For that which respects the Sacraments not to touch on those multitudes of unprofitable ceremonies wherewith they had loaded them we must confess that that opinion of the necessity of the intention of the Priest which was so generally taught in the School and which Eugenius the Fourth had defin'd in his Instruction to the Armenians in the Council of Florence it destroy'd almost all the benefit of those sacred Mysteries and cast mens Consciences into perpetual scruples and uncertainties For unless they could establish a revelation for every particular Christian what assurance could we have that he who administers the Sacrament to us had an intention to do that which the Church enjoyns him to do or that he had not an intention contrary to that of the Church What assurance could be given that in all that long Train of Priests Bishops and Popes that is to say the Bishops of Rome who had been from the beginning of Christianity down to this present time there had not been any in whom that intention which they make so necessary to the operation of the Sacrament had been defective Yet if one only Priest that shall happen to Baptise a Pope had not had an intention to Baptize him or if he himself was not truly a Priest by the default of the intention of him who gave him Orders or him who Baptized him If one only Bishop who confers Orders on a Pope then when he is made Priest had not an intention to do what the Church pretends to do all that which would come in consequence of that default would be spoiled the Bishops that that Pope afterwards should promote would not be lawful Bishops the Priests on whom those Bishops had conferred Orders would be no lawful Priests and the Sacraments that those Priests should administer would not be lawfully administred What could our Fathers think of such a dreadful confusion which they knew not how to undo unless by supposing a perpetual Miracle Which is that God should have so over-rul'd the intention of all those men that howsoever Wicked Athestical Hypocritical or Profane they should have been yet that not one of them nevertheless should fail in having an intention to do that which the Church enjoyns But what assurance have we
consequence for all than for one 9. In fine it will also follow from thence that our Fathers were bound upon that pretence of the Latin Church to examine all the Points of that Religion For firmly to assure themselves of the Truth of that Priviledge it was not enough to consider it in its Grounds and its Causes which are those Proofs that they call a Priori they ought further to look on it in its effects that is to say to see it in the Doctrines of that Church in its Maxims in its Voice and diligently to take notice whether they may see all the Characters of Infallibility resplendent in it or whether they may not discover some Error It was after this manner that the Disciples of Jesus Christ acknowledged and cleaved to him I have given unto them says he the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee To whom should we go Said they to him Thou hast the words of Eternal Life Our Fathers had so much the more reason to use theirs also when all the prejudices of Corruption which we have taken notice of in the foregoing Chapters presented themselves to their sight They observed there all the Characters of humane Weakness of Ambition Covetousness Interest Negligence of plotting Contrivances and of the Spirit of the World and all the other marks of Fallible men who can then blame them for holding so circumspect a course to come to the full and clear knowledge of the Truth So that that pretence of Infallibility was so far from driving our Fathers from the examining of those Doctrines which were taught in their days that the very same thing necessarily engaged and led them to it CHAP. VI. An Examination of the proofs which they produce to establish the Infalliblity of the Church of Rome LEt us see nevertheless upon what Foundations that pretended Prerogative of the Latin Church is built They produce on this Subject some passages of Scripture and some Arguments But as to the Passages of Scripture it is evident that there is not any one which respects more peculiarly the Latin Church then the Greek the Aegyptian the Aethiopian and others every one of which has as much reason to apply them to themselves as the Latin Yet we do not here dispute about a favour common to all Christian Societies but about a peculiar prerogative pretended to by the Latins For they are all agreed that all other Societies have err'd notwithstanding all those passages They ought then necessarily to alleadge something which belongs to the Latins peculiarly exclusively from all others or they ought to come to an acknowledgment that those passages do not at all establish the Infallibility of a visible Church since if they did so establish it being so general as they are they would have the same cogency in favour of the Greeks the Armenians and the Jacobites as well as the Latins 1. In effect one sort of those passages respect the true Church of Jesus Christ that is to say not that multitude of men who make profession of Christianity or who live in the same external Society of Religion but the truly faithful those holy men whom God has inwardly regenerated by his Spirit and whom he leads to life everlasting It is of that Church that it is said That she is the body of Jesus Christ That there is one Body and one Spirit That Jesus Christ is her head That she is his spouse It is only of the truly Faithful and no otherwise that these promises are verifi'd Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I will be with you always unto the end of the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter who shall abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth shall lead you into all Truth where two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be there in the midst of them These passages denote nothing less then an Infallibility either in the whole Body of the Visible Church or in the side that is strongest or in Councils or in the Decisions of Popes or in Traditions and Ancient Customs but they only signify that God will have always some truly Faithful upon the Earth even unto the end of the World and that he will accompany them with such a measure of the light and grace of his Spirit as shall in the end bring them to the Glory of his Kingdom 2. There are others which they yet make use of far less to the purpose because they signify only the Duty of Pastors and what they are appointed to do and not that that in effect they shall do Such as these Go Teach all Nations Baptising them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Son of man I have set thee for a Watch-man over the House of Israel The Priests lips shall keep knowledge and they shall seek the Law at his Mouth I have set watch-men upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastours and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ These and some other like passages shew to what the Offices of the Ministry are naturally appointed and the Obligation of those that are called to it but they are very far from giving from thence a Prerogative of Infallibility 3. They alledge also some passages that recommend to the Faithful the having a respect for and an Obedience to their Pastors Such are these He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works But I cannot see what this last passage should let us see but that all those Exhortations that God makes to the Faithful to have a submission to the word of their Pastours denote very truly the Duty of the people in that matter but they do not in the least settle any Infallibility in their Pastours For is this that that Jesus Christ would say That the Scribes and Pharisees as long as they sat in the Chair of Moses were Infallible he that on the contrary accus'd them of having made void the Commandments of God by their Traditions and who elsewhere gave his Disciples such a Charge to take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees that is to say of their pernicious Doctrines How many times is that Obedience that Respect and that Submission recommended to Children to give to their Fathers in the Scriptures Is it that the Scripture in that ascribes to their
3. But we must go yet higher and follow the Scripture yet farther It teaches us that God has put his Sacred Writings immediately into the hands of all the Faithful as well as into those of the Pastors with an obligation to read them exactly and to build their Faith and their Hope upon them whence it follows that they have right to refer the Doctrines of their Pastors and to examine them by that Rule and that they are not bound To see with the Eyes of the Prelates nor to devest themselves of their own guidance to rest themselves upon that of their Prelates The Proof of this Truth may appear from a thousand places of Scripture When God would give his Law to the Israelites he said to Moses Gather me the people together that I may make them hear my words that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth and that they may teach their children Moses just before his death assembled all of Israel together and said to them O Israel hearken unto the Statutes and unto the Judgments which I teach you for to do them that ye may live Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it Keep the Statues and Judgments of God and do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the Nations which shall hear these Statutes And another time having assembled the same people he speaks to them these words Hear O Israel the statutes and judgments which I pronounce this day that hearing them ye may learn them and keep and do them The words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart Thou shalt teach them diligenty unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes Thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and upon thy gates It was in following that Primitive Institution that the Faithful among the Jews Read the Scripture so carefully Blessed is the man says David whose delight is in the Law of the Lord and meditates in that Law day and night and elsewhere he would have the young men order their ways according to the word of God Saint Paul by the same Spirit commends Timothy in that from a child he had known the holy Scriptures See then the Old Law the Antient Scriptures given immediately into the hands of all the Faithful with a command to Read them and meditate upon them and consequently to build immediately upon them their Faith their Piety and their Comfort But because we should not imagine that that Order has been changed under the New Testament we need but to run through the first Verses of the greater part of the Epistles of Saint Paul and those of Saint Peter of Saint James of Saint Jude and they will see that they are addrest to the Faithful of the Churches as well as to the Pastors To all that be in Rome called to be Saints To the Saints and Faithful in Jesus Christ which are at Ephesus To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi where he distinguishes them from the Pastors for he adds with the Bishops and Deacons All that lets us see clearly that there was nothing changed in that regard They will say it may be that it does not follow from thence that the more simple among the Faithful should take to themselves that liberty of searching out by themselves the true meaning of the Scriptures and that they ought not to refer themselves to their Pastors who are the Interpreters of them But if that were so why should he have addrest them immediately to them why should he have put them in their hands with commands to Read them to Learn them and to Mediate of them in their Houses in their Journeys in their rising Up and lying Down why should he have said that it was all their Wisdom and all their Understanding if he had not supposed that they could of themselves comprehend the meaning of them at least of so much as might be sufficient for their particular Comfort and for their Salvation Moreover that is clearly refuted by the Use that Jesus Christ and his Apostles would have us make of the Scripture that we might know him to be the true Messiah notwithstanding the contradictions of the ordinary Pastors of that Church who gave to that Scripture a quite contrary meaning Search the Scriptures said our Lord to them for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testifie of me To what purpose should he have said that if he would not have them by themselves search out the true sence of the Scripture and that they should correct the false Interpretations which their ordinary Pastors gave of it It is from this Principle that Saint Peter and Saint Paul proved Jesus Christ to be the Messiah not of the Scriptures and Converted the people as it may appear by their Sermons And it is also upon this Foundation that the Inhabitants of Berea are praised for having made use of that Right and for having by themselves had recourse to the Scripture to know whether that which Saint Paul and Silas told them was true These were saith St. Luke more noble than those Jews in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so After that how can any one affirm that the Faithful ought blindly to believe their Pastors and to strip themselves of their own conduct to rest themselves upon that of the Prelates Is not this to condemn that which the Scripture praises If you look on those of Berea as being yet Jews had they not their ordinary Pastors who had before condemned Jesus Christ and all his Doctrine Wherefore then had they recourse to the Scriptures Could they better comprehend the sence of them than all the Church to which they had submitted themselves a Church I say which was upheld by all the Authority of Moses by the Sacred Names of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob by the glory of a thousand Miracles by the sending of the Prophets by the Holiness of a Temple where God had placed his Name for ever and by the Majesty of a Succession that had been preserved for near twenty Ages And if you look upon them as new made Christians were not Paul and Silas their True Pastors whom their Zeal their Constancy their Travels their Preaching their Knowledg and their Miracles had made famous every where Why did not they trust them why did they yet farther compare their words with the Scripture CHAP. VIII A Further Examination of that Authority of the Prelats and that absolute Obedience
against the abuses of the Court of Rome as those of the rest of the Prelats Can they tell us what effect the complaints of Emperors of Kings of Princes and of the People produced who for so long a Time panted after a Reformation It is a hundred and fifty Years said Arnald du Ferrier the Ambassador of France to the Council of Trent since a Reformation of the Church has been all along in vain demanded in divers Councils at Constance at Basil at Ferrara Let them tell us what good change has hapned since St. Bernard wrote That the Dignities of the Church were managed by a most dishonest bartering and with a Trade of darkness That the saving of Souls was no more sought after but the abundance of Riches That it was for this that they took their Orders that they frequented the Churches and Celebrated Masses and sung Psalms Now a days says he they strive without any shame for Bishopricks for Arch-Deaconries and Abbies and other Dignities to the end they may dissipate the revenues of the Church in Superfluity and Vanity What remains but that the Man of sin the Son of Perdition should be Revealed The Demon not only of the day but of the noon day who transforms himself into an Angel of Light and lifts up himself above all that is called God and worshipped What good change could they see since Cardinal Hugo borrowing the words of Saint Bernard had wrote That those words of David could not be more properly applied to any then to the Clergy They are not in Trouble as other men For every order of men has its Labours and its pleasures but I admire says he the wisdom of our Clergy who have chosen all the pleasures for themselves and rejected the Labour They are as proud as Souldiers they have as great a train of Servants as they and of Horses and Birds and they live as merrily as they They are arrayed like women with skins of great value they have rich Bids Baths and all the Allurements of soft delights But they take great heed least they put on a Breast-plate with the Souldiers or pass away the nights in the Field or to expose themselves to Battels and yet they take less heed to keep Modesty and the Laws of Decency which are proper to women and to labour so much as they do At the Resurrection then when men shall arise every one in his own order what place do you imagine those men will find The Souldier will not own them for they took no part with them in their Labours nor in their dangers The Labourers and Dressers of the Vineyard will not any more for the same Reason What then can they look for But to be driven from and accused by all Orders and to go into those places where there is no Order but where Everlasting horrour Dwels Has it been amended since William Bishop of Mande wrote these words Alas the Churches are reduced to that Condition that when they come to be vacant one can hardly find any persons fit to be chosen to succeed And if sometimes which rarely happens there be found some good Man hid as a Lilly among the Thorns the Number of the wicked and uncapable exceeds so much that they will never let a good man be chosen Prelate but crying up such as themselves they chuse men after their own hearts to the Ruin of the Church and the people that are under them Else if the greater part in the Church were good the Elections would be made by the Majority of voices and they would be good and Canonical for those that would chuse for God would be the far greater number then those who should chuse for the Devil But in these days it is quite the contrary It is the Fashion that there must be more wicked then good so that usually the Elections are rather Diabolical then Canonical and not made by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but by a Conspiracy or Treacherous Machination All these Complaints were to no purpose the evil was too general and too inveterate to be stopt or remedied In the Council of Constance all those Nations who liv'd under the disorders of a long and obstinate Schisme propounded some Articles to Reform as well the Head as the Members and correct the ill manners of the Church But Martin the Fifth who was then Pope eluded that Proposition with saying That that Council had already lasted four years to the great damage of the Bishops and the Churches That it was needful to turn over that business to another Time and that that Affair deserved to be thought on more leisurely because says he according to St. Jerome every Province has its Maxims and its opinions which cannot be changed without stirring up great Troubles As if Justice Piety Holiness and good Discipline were not the same among all people and in every Countrey The Council of Basil assembled some Time after with a design to proceed to a Reformation of the Head and the Members A Declaration was made very Solemnly that there the very beginning and their first Acts should contain no other thing But when they would have meddled with the Court of Rome and the Popes Soveraign Authority every one knows after what manner Eugenius the Fourth exalted himself against them and what endeavours he used to separate them or at least to render their designs unprofitable That produced new Troubles and new disorders and cast the Latin Church into a new schism For that Council declaring its right deposed Pope Eugenius and chose Amadeus Duke of Savoy but all that came to nothing For Eugenius remained Master Amadeus was at length constrained to renounce the Papacy The Council of Basil and all its good designs were brought to nothing and things remained in the same State in which they were before Which made an Author in those Times say That there could not be any thing expected from those who presided in the Councils on the behalf of the Popes unless that when they saw the affairs of the Council ordered against their Masters and against themselves they should oppose their Decrees either by Dissolving the Council or making Divisions spring up in it So that says he matters come to nothing and return into their old Chaos that is to say into Error and Darkness which no man can be ignorant of at least that has any knowledge of things past and the Tragedy that hapned in our Age at the Council of Basil is a most manifest proof of Some Time after that Pope Innocent the Eighth being dead and all preparations made for a new Nomination Lionel Bishop of Concordia made a long and fine Oration to the Cardinals who were to go into the Conclave to perswade them to make a good Election that might answer the desires of the whole Church he represented to them That Christianity was threatned every day by the Power of the Turk that the Hussites were in
Arms against their Brethren the Catholicks that pernitious Errors against the Orthodox Faith might be observed to increase in all places That the Church of Rome the Mother and Root of the Vniversal Church was every day more and more despised that Luxury reigned in the Clergy and that it was extream among the people That the Patrimony of Saint Peter was wasted That Christian Princes animated with a mortal hatred one against another were just ready to destroy one another and that in fine to make use of the words of Jeremy One desolation called to another which made him to weep over the Church and say to it Daughter of Sion thy Desolation is great as the stretching out of the Sea who is it that will bring thee any Remedy After having represented those things he adds That although the affliction of the Church was exceeding great yet they might notwithstanding mitigate it if laying aside their own passions their Canvassings and their Cabals they would look to nothing else in chusing a Pope but Holiness Learning and Fitness or Capacity That the Eyes of all the Church were upon them to beg of them a Pope who might by the good odor of his Name allure the Faithful people to Salvation He urged that discourse much farther in shewing them the necessity that the Church stood in of a Holy man whose life should be without reproach He added to his Exhortations threatnings on Gods part and passed by nothing that might move the minds of those Cardinals to do some good Will you not say that words so weighty and so pungent ought to have made some Impression on the minds of those Cardinals and that at least for that Time they should have done well They saw the whole Church in disorder the Conquests that the Infidels made Christian Princes in Arms one against another Church-Discipline overthrown the lives of the Clergy profuse Piety violently beat down and Christianity degenerated in all places could any one imagine that such sad representations would not have been considered But be not hasty All the effect that they produced was the Creation of Alexander the sixth That Name alone sufficiently Celebrated in the History of the Popes was enough to make men understand of what disposition those Prelats were and how little they were touched with the wounds of the Latin Church Let us hear nevertheless what Raynaldus says who in these kind of things is an Author that can no ways be suspected The greatest part of the Cardinals says he were very remote from those good Counsels for Authors complain that some corrupted with Money others gained by promises of Benefices and Places and others drawn by the Conformity of a vitious and impure life gave their Voices to Roderic Borgia So that in stead of chusing a chaste man they chose one who was infamous for his uncleannesses and fornications for which he had been reproved by Pius the Second yet was so far from amending under that reproof that he took no care to conceal his impurities For on the contrary he lived with Vacosia a Courtisan of Rome as if she had been his real Wife and he had divers Children by her upon whom he heape'd Riches and Honors as much as it was possible for him to do as if they had been his Legitimate Children Behold what the Court of Rome was then Alexander the Sixth being dead and Pius the Third who succeeded him having lived but thirty days after his Election the Cardinals met again in the Conclave And because the Life and Government of Alexander had given scandal to all the World and that the Cardinals themselves had been but very ill satisfied with it before they proceeded to an Election they drew up some Articles which every one swore to observe upon condition the Nomination should fall upon him and there was one among the rest which carried this with it That the new Pope should call at the end of two years a General Council for the Reformation of the Church in its Head and its Members Julius the Second was chosen but he did not believe himself bound to keep his Oath for seven years past away without any thing being talkt either of a Council or a Reformation And therefore it was that this Pope thought the less of it Nevertheless it fell out that having ill Treated one party of the Colledge of Cardinals and having moreover stired up the Emperor Maximilian and Lewis the Twelfth the King of France against him those two great Princes joyned with the disgraced Cardinals and called a Council at Pisa The Act of that Convocation on the part of the Princes says expresly that it was for the Extirpation of Heresies and Errors which through the negligence of Superiors had sprung up in divers parts of the World and particularly for the Reformation of the manners of the Vniversal Church in the Head and the Members and for the amendment of many great notorious long continued and almost incorrigible crimes which had scandalized the Vniversal Church The Cardinals also alleaged the Oath that the Pope had took just before his promotion in these very words I swear to observe and perform these Articles throughout and in every particular sincerely unfeignedly seriously and in good earnest and under pain of falling under perjury and an Anathema from which I cannot absolve my self nor give power to any other person to absolve me They added to that that by another Article they all and Julius himself had sworn That if he who should be chosen should not perform his promise in good earnest he should be held guilty of perjury to be a breaker of his Vow and of his Faith a disturber of the Church and the cause of Scandal to all Christianity and that then two thirds of the Sacred Colledge should have power to assemble a General Council The Council then being assembled declared openly That there was a most evident necessity of Reforming the Church in the Head and the Members and made a Decree formed in these words The Holy and sacred General Synod of Pisa lawfully called in the name of the Holy Ghost composing a General Council and representing the Catholick Church doth define and declare That that Holy Synod would not nor could not dissolve it self till the Vniversal Church should be Reformed in Faith and Manners as well in the Head as the Members and till the Heresies and Schisms that had sprung up should be Extinguished Behold hitherto the fairest hope in the World It is not necessary for us to inquire whether that Reformation was the true Cause of the Calling of that Assembly together or whether it was only a pretence and according to all appearances it was the latter But whatsoever it might be whether a pretence or not three thing result from it the one That that Reformation was generally judged to be most necessary the other That it was extreamly desired by the people for they would never have contrived to have took up
from Interests and continency was always joyned to their Ministry We may say of that Author without doing him an injury that he does not write ill what he thinks but that he scarce thinks well that which he writes and that which I shall here come to shew is an Example of it for he here lays down a great Trifle under the shew of one of the fairest things in the World Saint Cyprian Saint Athanasius and those other Bishops were not Marryed I see it but who told him That they did it by vertue of a general Law that forbad Bishops to be Married Who told him that divers other Bishops who were not less great then those for their Sanctity their disengagement from the interests of the World never lived in Marriage as Saint Spiridion Saint Gregory the Father of Gregory Nazianzen Saint Gregory Nysscne Saint Prosper Saint Hilary Sydonius Apollinaris Synesius Saint Eupsychus of Cesarea and divers others Who told him that Priests were not generally Married in the Primitive Church whether it were in the East or in the West as may be justified by a Thousand Proofs And in fine that they do not vainly wrangle in saying that those Bishops or those Priests were really Married before their Ordination but that they were not during their Prelateship or Priesthood whether it were that their Wives were dead and whether they were put away it is good to Note what the History of Saint Eupsychus of Cesaria in Cappadocia relates whom Saint Athanasius formally called a Bishop suffered Martyrdom within a little after his Marriage being as yet as it seemed in the days of his Nuptials and what Saint Cyprian relates of Novatus a Priest who was accused to have kicked his Wife who was great with Child and to have caused an Abortion which evidently concludes the use of Marriage during the Prelateship and Priesthood What then can the Author of the Prejudices conclude from the Example of Saint Athanasius and Saint Chrysostome and those others unmarried unless this that each one was in that regard in his full liberty and that as there were some that did marry so there were also some that did not Did he need for so little a matter to declaim Rhetorically and to set down these great words with an Emphasis That our Reformers struck mens Eyes with a Spectacle that could not but Create horrour according to the general Idea's of Piety and Vertue that the Fatheri give us I shall not say that the Idea's of Piety and Virtue do not depend on the Fathers but on the Gospel and right Reason and that it is by them that we ought to judge the Fathers and not those by the Fathers I will not say that the Fathers of the purer Antiquity are so far from giving us an horrour at the Marriage of Ecclesiasticks that Chrysostom assures us on the contrary that what Saint Paul wrote to Titus concerning a Bishops being the Husband of one Wife he has wrote wholly to stop the months of those Hereticks who condemned Marriage and to shew that Marriage is not only an Innocent thing but that it is so Honourable also that according to him it may be elèvated as high as the Episcopal Throne But I will only say and I will say it with an assurance of its being approved by all honest and upright men that the Marriage of Church-men which of it self is an honest and Holy State practised under the Old Law practised in the primitive Church and Authorised by the Scripture cannot be considered but with the greatest Edification when it shall be set in opposition to the disorders and filthinesses that Caelibacy has produced which is but a purely humane Institution without any lawful Foundation It belongs therefore to those of the Church of Rome to tell us whether they are much edified by the lives that their Priests led in the Age of the Reformation and by that permission which they gave them for a Sum of Money publickly to keep their Concubines They are to tell us whether they have no horrour for those strange assertions of their Doctors That a Priest Sins less who through the infirmity of the flesh falls into the Sin of Fornication then if he should marry and that it is a less evil for Priests to burn then to Marry As for us we have that general precept of Saint Paul which has its use as well in respect of Church-men as others if they cannot contain let them Marry and the Doctrine of the same Apostle Marriage is Honourable in all or in all things but the Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge But the Author of the Prejudices says That the Law of Celibacy whether it were just or unjust or whether it did not begin if they will have it so till Pope Siricius's time they cannot at least deny That the spirit of God did not carry out all the Famous Bishops of Old and those who have been eminent for Sanctity to imitate Saint Paul and to follow that Counsel which he gives to renounce Marriage to set themselves wholly to please God and that the same spirit did not from the very first Ages of the Church inspire a very great number of Christians of both Sexes to remain Virgins all their Lives as Saint Justin witnesses and Origen against Celsus Whence then comes it to pass that there should have nothing appeared of that instinct or of those motions of Gods spirit in the pretended Reformers nor in the Societies which they have established any more than all those other Graces which shone so Illustriously in the Saints of Antiquity Here is yet further another example of that which I said just before that that Author does not take too much care of that which he writes For can there be a rasher thing in the World than to offer to thrust ones self into the Counsels of God and magisterially to decide what qualities the Reformers ought to have had Continency and Virginity are the Cifts that God distributes to men as he pleases but it is what he has given only to some Persons it no ways follows either that their Persons were not acceptable to him nor that he could not make use of them in the greatest works of his Providence Abraham the Father of the Faithful as the Scripture calls him was not he Married Isaac Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs who founded the Church of Israel were not they Moses the deliverer of the Antient People by whom God gave his Law and by whom he had wrought so many Miracles was not he Aaron and all the High-Preists who succeeded him were not they All those Calls and divers others whereof the Scripture speaks were methinks most weighty and for the greatest part extraordinary and nevertheless we do not see that God in giving them has made any Reflection upon the Advice of the Authour of the Prejudices Who ever gave him a right to lay down Rules with such Authority of what God ought
themselves if they should yield any obedience to their Soveraigns On the other side Clement VII who kept his seat at Avignon was not wanting to proceed against Vrban and his Followers and to Treat him and his Party with the same heat that Vrban had shew'd against him See here differences which were methinks sufficiently heightned Notwithstanding whatsoever Animosity there was there between those two parties whatsoever Wars they made one against another whatsoever Anathema's they mutually thundred out the Church of Rome has not failed to own and Canonize for Saints those person who lived and died in those two contrary Obediences and who even died in the hottest Quarrels of those two Anti-Popes For she has Canonized on the one side Saint Catherine of Siena who took part with Vrban and who Treated his competitor as Anti-Christ and a member of the Devil and his Cardinals as Devils incarnate and on the other side she has Canonized Peter of Luxemburg who died the Cardinal of Clement VII and who had received that Dignity from his hands against the express prohibition of Vrban VI. under pain of Excommunication so that here are two Saints on the one and the other side lawfully Excommunicated Mr. Daille in his Answer to the Monsieurs Adam and Cottiby intending to retort this same Objection that the Author of the Prejudices gives us has set before us the Example of Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril of Alexandria who were cruelly and passionately carried out against Saint John Chrysostom so far as to compare his fall to the fall of Babylon and to call him Traytor Judas Jechonias he has also alledged the Example of Stephen Bishop of Rome who in the Quarrel that he had with Saint Cyprian calls him a false Christ a false Apostle and deceitful worker But the Author of the Prejudices does not think that these Examples are to the purpose He says That the Difference between Saint Chrysostome and Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril respected only personal Actions in which none ever denied but that it might happen to the Saints themselves to be surprized in respect of one another But this is only a shift for if we may understand that it has hapned to the Saints to be violently carried out against another Saint after the fiercest manner in the World upon personal differences which have no other Foundations then a Surprise I see not why we may not also understand that it may happen to good men to be violently carried out against one another about the points of Religion which afford a more just pretence of Animosity when each thinks he has the Truth of his side Before I let go this Example I cannot forbear noting by the by that it is but very ill to the purpose that the Author of the Prejudices censures M. Daille for having said that Theophilus of Alexandria and Epiphanius had condemned Excommunicated and deposed Chrysostom from his Bishoprick for it is evident to those who are not ignorant of History that Theophilus condemned and deposed him and that Epiphanius being gone to Constantinople before that same condemnation refused to hold Communion with Chrysostom which is precisely that which M. Daille would have said But the Author of the Prejudices does not Answer me better upon the Quarrel of Saint Cyprian and Stephen Their difference says he was only upon a point which had not then been decided by the Church This Evasion is very pittiful The more trivial the occasion is about which one is violent that passion is both the more blameable and the prejudice against the persons who are so carried away with it is the better grounded To Answer after that manner aggravates the passion of Stephen in stead of excusing it Stephen adds he who had more reason at the bottom was carried out by the ardour of his Zealonly to some threats of Excommunication Or if you will to an Excommunication which having had no ground would have produced no real division and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should still have been honoured by the Church of Rome and Saint Stephen by that of Africa It is not certain that Stephen had more reason at the bottom then Saint Cyprian on the contrary there were in their days as many Hereticks at least whose Baptism ought to have been rejected as there was whose ought to have been admitted And as for the rest whether Stephen had in effect Excommunicated Saint Cyprian or whether he had meerly threatned it what is that to our Question If he contented himself with a meer Threatning of it he remained in Communion with a man whom he called a false Christ a. false Apostle a. deceitful Worker and with a man whom on his part he accused of Stupidity of Pride of Obstinacy of Presumption of Folly of blindness of Mind and of Wickedness He abode in Communion with Firmilianus who had the same interests with Saint Cyprian and who also accused Stephen of Inhumanity Boldness of Insolence of Schism and manifest Folly who compared him to Judas and said of him that he took part with Hereticks If he actually Excommunicated them it further notes the excess of his Passion which could not in effect have been Judged to have been less then a Passion and a violent heat since according to the Author of the Prejudices himself it would have had no ground and would not have hindred but that Saint Cyprian should have been always honoured by the Church of Rome Since the Author of the Prejudices was in the way to refute the Answer of M. Daille it had possibly more conduced to the publick Edification if in stead of shallowly insisting on those remote Examples he had applied himself to that wherein M. Daille adjoyns the fierce injuries wherewith the Divines of the Roman Church may be every day seen to rend one another although they then remain and though they yet live in one and the same Communion They acknowledge one another for Brethren they assist at the same Altars they call upon the same Saints and yet nevertheless as M. Daille relates they write one against another after the most passionate and violent manner in the World One sort of them say of their Adversaries That they were infected with Heresies and were Enemies of the Apostolick See and that their Opinion was full of Heresie and Perfidiousness That it was Presumptious Injurious to the State of the Religious and that it savoured of Calvinism and to speak Plainly that it was Erroneous in the Faith that it openly stifled the word of God and the Authority of the Fathers that it was blasphemous against Jesus Christ and all the Saints plainly and evidently Heretical and contrary to the Council of Trent The others say on the contrary That the Propositions which they have laid down were false rash presumptious pernitious to all faithful People that they were Erroneous and injurious to the Bishops tending to overthrow or disturb the Hierarchy and that
without a Case of necessity but only at the Solemn Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide of giving of Milk and Honey to the Baptized of Administring the Eucharist to little Children after Baptism of Praying standing upon the Lords day and from Easter till Whitsuntide of Celebrating the Communion on the Evening of Fast-days of every ones carrying home with him a piece of the Bread of the Communion of distributing the Cup to all the faithful Communicants of receiving the Communion not on ones Knees but standing of mutually kissing one another before the Communion and divers others which the Latins have Abrogated On the other side how many Latin Traditions are there which the use of the Church of Rome Authorises at this Day of which we cannot find the least Trace in the Primitive Church and which from thence visibly discover themselves to be New and by consequence false and not Apostolical as the Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Use of Altars that of Lights or Tapers Masses without any Communion the Divine Service in a Tongue not understood by the People the Soveraign Authority of the Church of Rome over all other Churches Auricular Confession the Number of the seven Sacraments and as many more that the Primitive Church which came nearest to the Apostles never knew as we have often Justified from whence it follows that they are not Apostolical and descending from that only and last Revelation without which there is no word of God There is therefore nothing more improper to be the Rule of Faith then that pretended Tradition which is not established upon any certain Foundation which serves for a pretence to Hereticks which is embraced pro and con which changes according as times and places do and by the favour of which they may defend the greatest absurdiries by meerly saying that they are the Traditions which the Apostles Transmitted from their own Mouths to their Successours In a word if they would have us to believe a Mystery with a Divine Faith if they would that we should practise a Worship with a perswasion that it is agreeable to God they ought to shew us that that Mystery and that Worship proceeds from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles for without that all that is in the World is of Men's Invention since after Christ and his Apostles there has been no Revelation as we are both agreed But they can only shew us that by these two ways either by that of the Scripture in shewing us that those Mysteries and that Worship are conformable to it or by that of Transmission viva voce But as to that Transmission viva voce we are so far from being able to have a Divine certainty that we can't have so much as a humane for the Reasons which I have alleadged Which are that from the beginning of Christianity Hereticks have boasted of them and yet they were not believed for them that the Orthodox themselves were deceived in them alleadging them in false and vain things which the following Ages have rejected that the Schismatical Churches alledge them against the Latins and the Latins against the Schismaticks without one sides having any better ground then the other that the Church of Rome sets them before us for those New things which the first Ages never knew It remains therefore that the way of the Conformity to the Scripture upon which we are all agreed is that in which the Divine Revelation is contained CHAP. IX An Examination of the Objections which the Author of the Prejudices makes against the Scripture BUt this way of the Scripture according to the Author of the Prejudices is Infinite Ridiculous Impossible it has such consusions and length that we cannot come to the end of it with all our diligence The Principle of the Calvinists says he includes all these Maxims without which it cannot subsist 1. That the Church is not infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith 2. That Traditions do not make any part of the Rule of the Faith 3. That the Scripture contains in general all the points of Faith and so that whatsoever is not contained in the Scripture cannot be of Faith 4. That it contains them clearly and after a manner that is fitted to the under standing of all the World So that the certainty of that way and the hope that we can rationally conceive of it must depend upon the certainty of these Maxims Upon that we must note that it is not here Questioned whether the Scripture be Divine or not but that supposing that it is so he says only That he must demand of us those formal and decisive passages that prove those four Propositions And that when we do propose any one we must first be assured that it is taken out of a Canonical Book and to that effect we must examine the controversy of the Canonical Books and see by what Rules they may be known 2. We must be certain that that passage is conformable to the Original and to that effect we must consult the Originals 3. We must be certain that there are not different ways of Reading it that may weaken the proof 4. That we must narrowly see into the sence of the passage not to give it too great a Latitude nor to blind our selves with an appearance 5. That we must see whether there are no expressions or contrary passages which force us to take the passage in another sence 6. That we ought to consult the Interpreters of one side and of the other and to know what they say upon that passage 7. That after this we must come to the distinction of Fundamental points and those that are not Fundamental and prove it by Scripture 8. That we must examine the passages which each Sect produces in its Favour 9. That lastly after all this it is necessary that a man should trust his own Eyes and his Memory which failing to go through all the former reasons and preserving only a consused Idea of them will not further allow him to make a Just Judgment of things He concludes from thence that this way is not only interrupted with unconquerable difficulties and obstacles but that it is of a length so little proportioned to mens minds that it is evident that it cannot be that which God has chosen to instruct us in the Truths by which he would lead us to Salvation For says he if they themselves who make a profession of spending all their lives in the Study of Divinity ought to Judge that Examination to be above their abilities what will become of those who are obliged to spend the greatest part of their Time in other Occupations What will become of Judges Magistrates Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children who have as yet a very weak Judgment What will become of those who do not understand so much as any of the Languages into the which the Bible is Translated What will become of the blind who know not
noted were not one and the same Church with that of the Apostles If then he can do neither the one nor the other he ought to look to it how he means that his Church should be the True Church of Jesus Christ for it is enough as to us to find our selves conformable to the Church of the Apostles since that being as we are certain that it is the same Body that God has Established upon Earth to which Jesus Christ has promised a perpetual subsistence and without which we should very difficultly know precisely how he has Executed his promise we should no ways doubt that we were the same Church which has subsisted even down to the Time of the Reformation For when we should be ignorant of the manner how it has subsisted when we should not be able to understand that we should be notwithstanding certain that it has subsisted since the word of Jesus Christ is inviolable and none can call it in question without impiety whence it follows that we are not a new Church but the same which has always abode and which was immediately before the Reformation That way which we hold to assure our selves of this Truth is not only good solid and certain but it is yet further the only one that any Communion can or ought to hold if it would be certain with a good Conscience that it was the true Church of Jesus Christ which has always subsisted and which will always subsist I would say it ought to compare it self with the Church of the Apostles to know whether it be conformable to that and as to what respects the following Ages it ought to rest assured upon the word of Jesus Christ who has said that he will be with his until the end of the World for that certainty arises from thence that being one with the Church of the Apostles it is also one with that of all the Ages following But if he will take another way and say that Communion is the same with the Church of the fifteenth or sixteenth Age therefore it is the same with that of the Apostles because that Jesus Christ has promised that his Church shall always subsist it is evidently to expose himself to Error and Illusion and to follow a very false and deceitful way of Reasoning The Reason is evident because by this means one is liable to take that for the Church in the 15 or 16 Age which it may be is not so For in that visible Body which they call the Church mixed there are two Parties the one which is properly the Church and the other which is not the one which is the Wheat that the Son of God has sown and the other which is the Tares sown by the hand of the Enemy the one which is the good seed and the other which is the chaff But it may so fall out that the Tares should exceed the Wheat and that a heap of chaff should cover the good seed and by consequence the conformity which they pretend to have with that Church might be nothing else but a conformity with the Chaff and the Tares and not with the Wheat which would be the greatest of all Illusions But if they took the former way they would be in no danger of falling into that Error because we know that in the Church of the Apostles the Wheat surmounted the Tares the good grain the Chaff and that that which appeared to their Eyes was of Jesus Christ and not of the wicked one whence it follows that they could not be deceived in taking one Unity for another This then is the way that we hold and which by the Grace of God gives us great peace of Conscience those who follow the other ought to take heed that they go not from it See here my first Answer the second is That that which regards the Essence of the Church never ought to be confounded with that which regards only its Condition The Church as I have so often already said consists only in the truly Just and Faithful and not in that confused heap of the worldly who Assemble with them under the same Ministry and who partake of the same Sacraments That therefore which makes the Essence of the Church is the True Faith Piety and Charity and it is most true that those Vertues cannot be without the true Doctrine disintangled from all those Errors which separate us from the Communion of one only God and the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ Whence it follows That the True and pure Doctrine is the Essence of the Church But it is also true that while the Foundation of the True Doctrine remains in a Communion and there is yet left there some liberty to the Minds and Consciences of men for the choice of the Objects of the Faith and Practice of the Actions of Religion how impure soever that Communion may be whatsoever Errors may be Taught there whatsoever false Worship they may practise there how corrupted soever the Publick Ministry may be there is always a means there to separate the good from the bad and to secure one's self from this in holding to the other without falling into Hypocrisy or acting against the Dictates of ones Conscience by false shews But I affirm this to be the Condition of that Visible Communion that we call the Latin Church immediately before the Reformation I acknowledge that Transubstantiation was believed there the Real presence the Sacrifice of the Mass the merit of good Works Purgatory human Satisfactions Indulgences the Monarchy of the Pope that they religiously Worshipped the Images of God there and those of the Saints that in those days they gave a Religious Worship to Reliques that they adored the Eucharist there as being the very person of Jesus Christ that they then Invocated the Saints and in a Word that they then believed and practised all that which they now believe and practise in the Church of Rome But the foundation of Christianity was as yet there and we may truly say that in that good which there was there they had light enough to reject that which was bad That Commandment alone Thou shalt Worship one only God was enough to let a good Soul know that he ought not to adore either Saints or Angels or to call upon them or render any Religious Worship to their Images and Reliques nor to take any Creature for the Object of this Devotion The Doctrine of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross and that of his sitting on the Right hand of God was sufficient to make them reject those of the Sacrifice of the Mass the Real presence Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host Haman Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory For it is true that the Religion then was composed of two contradictory Parties that overthrew one another those who took things on the wrong side destroyed the good by the bad for in adoring for Example the Saints and Angels they overthrew that good Doctrine Thou
the Magistrates receive their Jurisdiction from it He adds afterwards That it is the same in the Keys of the Church that Jesus Christ gave them to the whole Church in the person of Saint Peter And that it is the Church that Communicates them to the Prelats but which notwithstanding Communicates them without depriving it self of them so that says he the Church has them and the Prelats have them but in a different manner for the Church has them in respect of Origine and Vertue and the Prelats have them only in respect of Vse The Church has them vertually because she can give them to a Prelate by Election and she has them Originally also For the Power of a Prelate does not take its origine from it self but from the Church by means of the Eelction that it makes of him The Church that chose him gives him that Jurisdiction but as for the Church it receives it from no Body after its having once received it from Jesus Christ The Church therefore has the Keys Originally and Virtually and whenever she gives them to a Prelate she does not give them to him after the manner that she has them to wit Originally and Virtually but she gives them him only as to Vse To this we may add that some Councils of these latter Ages as those of Constance and Basil seem to have acted themselves upon this Principle when they gave themselves the Title of Representing the whole Universal Church Vniversalem Ecclesiam Representans For to what end did they take that specious Title if they would not acknowledge that the Origine of the Authority of the Prelats or the Pastors is in the Body of the whole Society and that it is from thence that it is transmitted to them to exercise it in the name of the whole Body But that which is most considerable is That it appears from the Testimony of the Holy Scripture that the Body of the Church that is to say the faithful people in opposition to the Pastors has taken part from the beginning in the Acts of its proper Government and particularly in the Calls of Ministers which evidently notes that it is a natural Right that belongs to it For that when after the Apostacy and Tragical Death of Judas they were to substitute another Apostle in his place Jesus Christ not having done it immediately by himself before his Ascention the History of the Acts relates that the whole Church which then only Consisted in an hundred and twenty Persons was Assembled and that upon the Proposal that Saint Peter made to them they appointed two upon whom the Lot having been cast and falling upon Matthias with a common consent he was put into the number of the Apostles They were there about the Call of an Apostle that is to say of a Minister who ought to come immediately from God and therefore it was that they cast the Lot but because the Church was then formed and that Jesus Christ being no more corporally present upon Earth those Calls could not be made wholly and immediately by him men took some part in them for by their Election they limited the Lot to two persons and in the end declared by their acquiesence that they look'd upon the Declaration of the Lot as if it had been the very voice of Jesus Christ This is all the part that men could take there but it was not only the Apostles who did those two things it was the whole Body of the Church The History notes that the Assembly was about an hundred and twenty persons that Saint Peter made a Proposal to them that upon that Proposal of Saint Peter they presented Two Joseph and Matthias and that the Lot falling upon Matthias he was numbred with the Eleven Apostles by common Agreement that is to say by the common consent of all That evidently shews us that the Body of the Faithful and not meerly the Body of the Pastors is the Right source of Calls The same things appear in the Call of the Seven Deacons for the Story expresly notes that the murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews falling out and giving occasion to the Apostles to think of that Call they called the multitude of the Disciples and that when they had made a Proposal to them the Assembly approved of it and that in the end they chose seven persons whom they presented to the Apostles who after having prayed to God laid their hands on them But that further le ts us see from whence a Lawful Call proceeds to wit from the Body of the Faithful and not meerly from the Body of the Pastors for it was the whole Assembly that approved of the Proposal of the Apostles and that chose and not the Apostles alone who did nothing else but propose and lay their hands on them This is further justified by the Practice of the Apostles which would readily admit the people in the most weighty Affairs that respected the Government of the Church into their deliberations and Acts when that might be done without Confusion So in the First Council of Jerusalem the Question being ventilated whether the Observation of the Ceremonies of the Law was necessary to the Gentiles it is said that it pleased the Apostles and Elders or Presbyters for it is the same thing with the whole Church to send to Antioch and write to the Church there That Letter was in effect written in the name of all and sent to all indifferently The Apostles and Elders and Brethren unto the Brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Cyria and Cilicia and it is expreslynoted that when Jude and Silas who were the bearers of that Letter were arrived at Antioch they Assembled the multitude that is to say the people and there acquitted themselves of their Commission which distinctly shews that the people then took cognizance of the matters of Religion and that they interven'd in publick Deliberations So when Saint Paul would Excommunicate the Incestuous person of Corinth he calls the Church to that Action In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit let such a man be delivered unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh that the Body may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus which notes the same thing Those who have read the writings of Saint Cyprian Bishop of Carthage cannot be ignorant that that great Saint governed his Church by the common Suffrages not only of his whole Clergy but of all his people also and that he consulted with them in the most weighty Affairs since he has declared it himself in divers places of his writings I could not saies he in one of his Epistles to his Clergy answer to that which our Brethren Donatus Fortunatus Novatus and Gordius have wrote to me because I am alone for from the first entrance into my Bishoprick I purposed to do nothing of my self without your Counsel and the Consent