Heresy and Schism is 11. The fifth Prop further explained by Mounsieur Maimbourg in two Propositions 12. An Answer to the two Propositions 1. I HAVE I hope by this time sufficiently proposed and confirmed both the Truth and Usefulness of the distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ which occurs in the Primitive Fathers into Natural and Spiritual or Divine From whence it may plainly appear to any pious and uprejudiced Reader that the Inference of a Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Real Body and Blood of Christ from a Real Presence of them in the Lord's Supper is very weak and invalid Which Monsieur Maimbourg as well as the Bishop of Meaux formerly Bishop of Condom though he take special notice of in his Peaceable Method viz. that this Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper is generally acknowledged by the Protestants Chap. 3. whom he will have to hold That the Sacrament is not a Figure or empty Sign without Efficacy but they do maintain saith he that it does communicate unto us in a most real and effectual Manner the Body of Jesus Christ to be the Food of our Souls And he will have Monsieur Claud himself acknowledge that before this Novelty of Transubstantiation was introduced every one believed that Iesus Christ is present in the Sacrament that his Body and Blood are there truly received by the faithful yet he is so wise and cautious as not to trust to the strength of this Engine for the pulling us back into a belief and profession of that incredible Hypothesis but according to the Fineness of his wit has spread a more large Net to catch us in and carry us captive not only into this gross Errour of Transubstantiation but into all other Errours which the Church of Rome has broached or may hereafter broach and propose as Articles of Faith And therefore it is a point worth our closest consideration 2. His general Maxim is this That that Church in which are found two Parties concerned has ever had the power to determine all differences and to declare that as matter of Faith which before there was no obligation to believe and that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under Penalty of being Schismaticks By the Church her declaring as matter of Faith which seems to sound so harshly he does not mean That the Church has Authority to frame New Articles of Faith pag. 17. but that She is to act according to a Rule which is Holy Scripture and Tradition truly and purely Apostolical from which we have also received the Holy Scripture it self And page 18. The Church never did make and undoubtedly never will make any New Articles of Faith since it is not in her power to define any thing but according to the Word of God which she is always to consult with as with her Oracle and the Rule she is bound to follow His meaning therefore must be this That besides those plain and Universally known Articles of the Christian Faith and acknowledged from the very beginning of Christianity such as are comprised in the Apostles Creed there have been and may be other Articles of Faith more obscurely and uncertainly delivered in Scripture which until the Church in a lawful Synod or Council has determined the sense of those places of Scripture that appertain to the Controversie men have no obligation to believe but go for the present for but uncertain and indifferent Opinions But when once the true Church in which the Parties differing in Opinion are and her lawful Representative assisted by the Holy Ghost as is affirmed Chap. 2. pag. 28. a Canonical Assembly which alone has full Power and Sovereign Authority to say juridically Chap. 4. pag. 27. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us has given definitive Sentence touching the Controversie that which before was but an indifferent Opinion becomes now Matter of Faith and is to be received as an Article of Faith by the Dissenting Party upon penalty of being Schismaticks and Hereticks This I conceive to be his precise meaning But the great Artifice of all is That he will have this meaning of his to be the general Opinion also of the Protestant Churches Who can says he page 27. question but the Protestant Churches of England France Germany and Switzerland and the Low Countries do hold as a Fundamental Maxim that in such Controversies as do arise concerning Doctrine in Matters of Religion the true Church of which the Dissenting Parties are Members has full and sovereign power to declare according to the Word of God what is of Faith and that there is an Obligation of standing to her Decrees under pain of being Schismaticks And page 35. I demand saith he nothing more for the present I will content my self with what themselves do grant That that Church of which the Parties contesting are Members be she fallible or infallible has full power to decide Differences and her Decrees do oblige under the Penalty of being Schismaticks 3. Now from this general Maxim granted as he conceives on both sides and which he does chiefly endeavour to prove from the carriage of the Synod of Dort toward the Arminians all which things to repeat here would be too moliminous and inconsistent with the Brevity I intend a full Answer to Monsieur Maimbourg's Method requiring some more able Pen he declining I say all dispute touching the Merit of the Cause the point of Transubstantiation he would hence draw us in to the imbracing that Doctrine merely because we were once of that Church that has Synodically determined for it and consequently reconcile us to all the rest of the Errours of the Church of Rome But that we may not so easily be taken in this Net or pulled in by this Engine we will first examine the Supposals that support the strength of it or of which it does consist The first and chiefest whereof is That such Synods to whose definitive sentence he would have us stand are assisted by the Holy Ghost The second That whether they be or be not we are to stand to their determination The third Whatever Matters of Opinion as they are for the present but such are decided by such a Synod pass into Articles of Faith The fourth That those that will not close with these Decisions be they what they will they are guilty of Schism as being bound to assent The fifth That these decisive Synods or Assemblies are to decide according to the Rule of the Word of God The sixth and last That both the Protestants and Papists are agreed in all these 4. Now before I examine these Particulars these Supposals Parts or Props of his general Maxim by which he would draw the Protestants again into the Church of Rome and make them embrace Transubstantiation and all other Superstitions and Errours which they have Synodically decided for matters of Faith I will following the very method of this shrewd Writer
that great Benefit of the Remission of our Sins in the Blood of Christ and thereby of our Reconciliation to God so in the Answer mentioned before is contained that singular Benefit of perfecting our Sanctification by the nourishing and corroborating our inward man by eating or partaking of the Spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of our Saviour which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Verily that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly in counterdistinction to Typically or Symbolically the Bread and Wine being but Types or Symbols of this Touching which in the Answer to the Question What are the Benefits whereof we are made partakers thereby it is said The strengthening and refreshing our Souls by the Body and Blood of Christ as our Bodies are by the Bread and Wine viz. which are but Types of the true spiritual or Divine Body and Blood of Christ but they have a very handsome Analogy the one to the other But we proceed to the following words And indeed that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reverâ or really not as one scoptically would make us to profess that this real participation of the Body and Blood of Christ has no reality any where but in our phancy which we call Faith To which sense the Translator of the peaceable method for the re-uniting Protestants and Catholicks speaks in his Preface to his Translation To which exception this Notion of the Primitive Fathers according to which our Communion-Service is framed and our Homilies allude to and we so much insist upon is not lyable By the Faithful and that only by them which Body and Blood the Faithful do not receive by champing it with their Teeth and swallowing it down their Throat But by a fervid and living devotional Faith more than ordinarily kindled at the Celebrating the Holy Eucharist they draw this Divine and Celestial Food the true Manna from Heaven into their Hearts whereby their inward Man is fed and strengthened and nourished up to Eternal Life and so the New Birth getting growth daily arrives at last to the due measure of the stature of Christ. 6. This is the Priviledge of the faithful Receiver But for those that are devoid of this true and living Faith though the Divine Body and Blood of Christ is every where present to the faithful yet they who are unregenerate and consequently devoid of the Divine Life are capable of no union therewith nor of any growth or strength therefrom But it is like the light shining into a dead man's eye of which there is no vital effect But for those who are regenerate and consequently have a real hunger and thirst after the Righteousness of God though the great Feast upon this Heavenly Food is more especially and copiosely injoyed in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist yet they may in some good measure draw it in day by day by Faith and Devotion as without the Presence of the Bread and Wine we may at any time devotionally think of the Sacrifice of the Death of our Saviour But certainly this solemn Institution of Celebrating his last Supper being particularly and earnestly injoyn'd us by Christ if we conscientiously observe the same it will have a more than ordinary efficacy in us for the ends it was appointed 7. Sixthly and lastly as those words of the Catechism the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received c. have considered in themselves a very easie and natural sense so explained as we have according to the Analogy of the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers and our Church's Homilies that allude to them explained them so do they not at all clash with those words of the Rubrick affixed at the end of the Communion-Service where it is affirmed That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remains still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one There is I say in this no contradiction to what occcurs in the Catechism which affirms that there is a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper though here a Real Presence is denyed of the natural Body of Christ. But it is to be considered that this Affirmation and Negation is not of the same Body of Christ and therefore can be no contradiction and further to be observed how the very Rubrick suggests to us this distinction of the Natural Body of Christ which is appropriated to his particular Soul and which hung on the Cross and was Crucified and his Divine or Spiritual Body the Body of the Essential Life or Spirit of the Eternal Logos and therefore rightly termed the Body of the Logos incarnate or of Christ. And therefore when passages of the Ancient Fathers in the Primitive Times before the degeneracy of the Church came in may some of them favour a Real Absence other a Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ according as different places of the Scripture might occur to their minds touching this matter the controversy might well be composed by distinguishing betwixt the Natural Body of Christ and his Divine or Spiritual Body According to the former whereof is the Real Absence according to the latter the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood to be received by the Faithful in the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist CHAP. VIII 1. Monsieur Maimbourg so cunning and cautious as not to attempt to bring the Protestants to Transubstantiation by their common consent in the Real Presence but by a more general Maxime which he says we are all agreed in 2. The aforesaid Maxime with the Explication thereof 3. Six Supposals surmiz'd for the strengthening this Engine for the pulling the Protestants into the belief of Transubstantiation 4. A Counter-Engine consisting of sixteen common Notions in which not only the Romanists and we but all mankind are agreed in 5. An Examination of the strength of Monsieur Maimbourg's Engine by recurring upon occasion to these Common Notions The first Prop examined viz. the Churches Infallibility by assistance of the Spirit and discovered to be weak from the Dissention of Churches in matters of Faith in his sense 6. From the promise of the Spirit being conditional 7. And from the Predictions in the Prophetical Writings of a general Degeneracy of the Church 8. The Examination of the second Prop that would have Transubstantiation believed upon the Synodical decision of a fallible Church 9. The Examination of the third Prop that would have the Synodical decision pass into an Article of Faith 10. The fourth Prop examined by defining truly what
those Decisions or any of like nature which may concern the Iustifiableness of our Christian Worship and indispensable way of Salvation the Church has Authority as she ever had in such Controversies to ratifie such Articles of Faith but she is not said to have Authority to make every Synodical Decision an Article of Faith whether the nature thereof will bear it or no. Nay her Authority is excluded from inforcing any thing besides what is clearly enough contained in the Scripture as assuredly those points are above mentioned though with weak or cavilling men they have been made questionable to be believed for Necessity of Salvation Which is the proper Character of an Article of Faith according as the Preface to the Athanasian Creed intimates And Monsieur Maimbourg himself is so sensible of this main Truth that in the Explication of his general Maxime he acknowledges that the Church has no Autority to coin any New Articles of Faith but only to declare she has discovered them existent before in the Scriptures but not so clearly espi'd or discerned as by an assembled Synod 5. But certainly no Article of Faith that is to say no Truth necessary to Salvation can be said to be pre existent in the Scriptures and having lain hid to be discovered afterwards that is not discovered but by such forced Interpretations of the Text that are repugnant to Common Sense and Reason Is not this a Reproach to the Wisdom of God that he should inspire the Holy Penmen to set down Truth necessary to Salvation so obscurely that the meaning cannot be reached without doing violence to Common Sense and Reason and running counter to those previous Principles without which it is impossible to make sense of any writing whatever Or without interpreting one place of Scripture repugnantly to the plain sense of another Which this Article expresly forbids as unlawful So plain is it that our Church limits the Authority of a Synod to certain Rules agreed of on all hands against which they have no Authority to define any thing And plain places of Scripture is one Rule contrary to which it is not lawful to interpret any either pretendedly or really obscure place Nor can any place at all be plain without the admittance of those Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated sense and common undeniable Notions essentially ingrafted in the mind of man whether they relate to Reason or Morality These both Synod and Contesters are supposed to be agreed on and therefore no Synodical Decision repugnant to these according to our Church in interpreting of Scripture if I rightly understand her ought to have Autority with it 6. But as for doctrinal Decisions such as concern the Justifiableness of the Christian Worship and are of Necessity to Salvation and such as although either weak or willful cavilling men may make questionable yet are clearly enough delivered in Scripture these questionless a Synod has Autority to determine as Articles of Faith And such as have not the like Clearness nor Necessity as also innocent and indifferent Rites and Ceremonies when the one and the other seem advantagious to the Church such Synodical Decisions may pass into Articles of Communion in that sense I have above explained And lastly As in that case of the Synod of Dort when the points controverted have on both sides that invincible Obscurity and Intricacy and there seems to be forcible Arguments for either conclusion What I humbly conceive is to be done in that case I have fully enough expressed already and therefore think it needless again to repeat 7. In the mean time I hope I have made it manifoldly apparent that Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime viz. That the Church in which are found the two Parties concerned has ever had the Power to determine all differences and to declare that as Matter of Faith which before there was no Obligation to believe And that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under the penalty of being Schismaticks is not especially as he would have his Maxime understood agreed on by all Churches as well Protestant as Pontifician And that therefore this Snare or Net wherewith he would catch and carry Captive the Protestants into a Profession of the Infallibility of the Church in Synodical Decisions so that the Church must be first allow'd Infallible that we may glibly swallow down whatsoever she decides even Transubstantiation it self with all other Errours of the Church of Rome this Net or Snare I hope I have sufficiently broken And I will only note by the bye how the subtilest Romanists declining the Merits of the Cause labour Tooth and Nail to establish the absolute Infallibility of their Church But our Saviour tells us By the fruit you shall know them Wherefore any man or Company of men that profess themselves infallible their Infallibility must be examined by their Doctrines which if they be plainly any one of them false their boast of Infallibility most certainly is not true 8. But forasmuch as an Appeal to a Maxime pretended to be agreed upon by both sides both Papists and Protestants is made use of with so much Wit and Artifice to ingage the Protestants to imbrace Transubstantiation and the rest of the Romish Errours I hope Monsieur Maimbourg will not take it amiss if I civilly meet him again in his own Way and show him by an Appeal not only to one Maxime but above a dozen at least of Common Notions which I did above recite and in which both Papists and Protestants and all mankind are agreed that it may demonstratively be made evident that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is grosly false For that which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true though by the vote of an entire Synod can make it true by the first of the Common Notions above-mentioned Chap. 8. Sect. 4. Secondly Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false and consequently can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion by the second and third Common Notions And therefore Transubstantiation cannot pass into an Article of Faith by the Authority of any Synod whatever Thirdly Now that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false is manifest from the assurance of our Senses rightly circumstantiated To which our Saviour Christ appeals who is wiser than all the Synods that ever were or will be as was observed in Common Notion the fourth But our Senses assure us it is Bread still not the Body of Christ. Fourthly If Transubstantiation be true an Essence or Being that is one remaining still one may be divided or separated from it self which is repugnant to the fifth Common Notion Fifthly If Transubstantiation be true the whole is not bigger than the part nor the part less than the whole which contradicts the sixth Common Notion Sixthly If Transubstantiation be true the parts in a Division do not only agree with the whole but agree one with another and are indeed absolutely the same for divide a