Infallibility in the Parliament so neither can that of the Apostle do it for the Church for Societies do not always follow their natural appointments we see that they often enough depart from them I confess that the Church does not always wander from its end nor in all things yet it cannot also be imagin'd that she never departs For the wicked are mingled with the good in the same Society the Dignities of the Church are sometimes to be found more possessed by the men of the World then by the truly Faithful the very best men themselves are subject to weaknesses and they sometimes commit faults of that importance that may consequently be dilated by continuance and all that cannot but produce Errors and Corruptions which it will be most necessary to reform Behold all those passages of Scripture upon which they seem to me to found that pretension of the Infallibility of the Latin Church To them they joyn some Arguments 1. If say they it be possible for the Church to err why do we call it holy as we do in the Creed I believe the Holy Catholick Church Such an Assembly that is united in the profession of an error is so far unfit to be called Holy That on the contrary it is Impious since it agrees in a Doctrine that is contrary to the Holy Truths revealed by God I answer That if this Argument were good it would follow not only that the Church should be Infallible as to matters of Faith but also that she should be impeccable in respect of manners for she is called Holy as well from that Holiness that regards good works as from that which regards the Faith The Church is Holy but yet after an imperfect manner while she is here upon Earth and she will never be perfectly so but in Heaven Furthermore they ought to remember that the Title of Holy and generally all other Titles of Honour and Glory that are given to the Church belong to it in truth only in respect of the true Believers and not in respect of the Hypocrites and wicked which are mingled with the good in the same visible Society and that it is but only on the same account of the Good that all that visible Body is called the Church For they are none but those whom God has called to his Salvation who only can be the true mystical Body of Jesus Christ When then it shall come to pass that the number of the wicked prevails in that Visible Society they will fill up the Pulpits they will be Masters of Councils and of Decisions of Faith of the Government and Ministry of the Church and will not fail to introduce Errors and a false Worship but when those persons should introduce and authorise them the Church would not cease to be Holy not in respect of those wicked men who waste it and corrupt it as much as it lyes in their power to do but in regard of the Faithful whom God will keep pure by the illuminations of his Holy Spirit and the methods of his Providence The Church of Israel in the midst of its greatest Idolatries did not cease to keep the Titles of a Holy Nation and a Kingdom of Priests which Moses had given her but she kept them not in respect of her Corruptors and those wretched men that would have seduc't her but in respect of those that were Holy For it is certain that God has always done that which he did in the days of Elias where he reserv'd seven thousand men who had not bowed the Knee unto Baal and it is in those that the Church is preserv'd and always kept Holy 2. But yet further say they If the Church may err and particularly the Church Representative that is to say the Body of Pastors why do the Councils pronounce Anathema's against all those who shall not consent to their Decrees Would it not be very unjust to bind men under so great a penalty to consent to things that are uncertain and which may be false I answer that the force of the Anathema's of those Councils depends altogether on their Justice If those Councils have lawfully decided controversies according to the word of God and if with the Truth they have kept Love and Charity according to the Precept of the Apostle their Anathema is very efficacious and all that they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven But if they have decided any thing against the Truth or against Charity if they have abused their Places their Anathema's are vain and rash and will fall upon none but their Heads who pronounce them For God has never submitted his Righteousness to the Unrighteousness of any Prelats All the force of those Thunderbolts depends on those very things which have been decided We can do nothing says the Apostle against the Truth We ought not then to imagine that those Anathema's must needs be Infallible we ought not also to believe that they could not be rightly used if they had not that Infallibility Saint Hilary did not pretend to be Infallible and yet nevertheless he pronounc'd an Anathema against Liberius who was a Deceiver Saint Paul did not pretend to make us Infallible and yet notwithstanding he commands us to Anathematise even an Angel from Heaven and himself if he should Preach any other Gospel then that which he has preached unto us Cyril of Alexandria did not aspire after Infallibility and yet he thunders out his Anathema's against all the Errours of Nestorius The second Council of Tours never thought of being Infallible and yet nevertheless it Anathematis'd all those who after the third admonition refus'd to restore the goods of the Church In fine every private Person pronounces an Anathema against all Heresies The Anathema's of the Councils are not the Sentences of the Magistrate the force of which depends on the Authority of him who pronounces them they are only the Denuntiations that men make on Gods side as his Interpreters and his Ministers of the severity of his Judgments against the Unbeleivers the Wicked and the Hereticks And provided that those Denuntiations should be founded on the word of God as far as the light of the Pastors of the Church and their good Consciences could perswade them we ought not to doubt but that they would be just altho' they would not be Infallible For howsoever it be that good and lawful Councils assembled in the Name of Jesus Christ would never pretend that their Anathema's should bind any person any farther then their Decisions and their Canons were just and conformable to the Scripture 3. They add yet if it were possible for the Church to err it were possible for it totally to fall away after that manner that there should not be any longer a Church upon the Earth and yet notwithstanding how many promises have we in the Scripture that denote the Perpetuity of the Church God says in Hosea That he would betroth her unto him for ever
they make use of the Visibility of the Church to prove its Infallibility The True Church of Jesus Christ says one ought always to be Visible always plainly to be discerned whence it follows that she cannot err for if it were possible for her to do so she could be no longer acknowledged as a True Church and there would be no more means proposed to all men for their Salvation None can be saved out of the Communion of the True Church since it is impossible for any to be saved without Faith and that according to the Apostle none can have Faith without that Preaching which ought to be made by the Ministers of the Church The True Church ought then to be always Visible to the end that all men should set themselves under its Ministry to obtain Salvation or that at least they should be inexcusable if they did not so place themselves and by Consequence it is necessary that she should be Infallible To this Reason which alone makes a long Controversie and about which they make very long Chapters they add some passages of Scripture from whence they conclude that the Church is always Visible and some others that contain in their Opinion not only the promises of a perpetual Visibility but of a Visibility shining with such a brightness and such splendour that the True Church may be known to Strangers and Infidels to be so To Answer this Argument of theirs in the first place I say That the True Church may be so far from being always discernable by all men as they pretend it to be as that one cannot say so much as that all men have always been able to know that there has been a Society of Christians in the World for not to alledge that the Christian Church in its Original then when the Apostles were as yet in Jerusalem or thereabouts was very little known to the rest of the world not to say that the knowledge of that new Society did not so soon spread it self over the Roman Empire nor in the bordering Countries that the most of the people were ignorant for some time of what it was to be Christians it cannot be denyed that many Ages had slipt away before that the most considerable part of the Earth as all America could have any knowledge that there were any Christians in the World How then can any one say the True Church is always Visible and always discernable to all men Is it because those Americans before these last Ages were not men or is it because they were not bound to work out their own Salvation They ought then in good earnest to acknowledge that God is most free in the dispensing of the means of Salvation which he proposes to whom he will and refuses to whom he will Till the external Communion with the True Church shall be the only means of and absolutely necessary to Salvation none can conclude that she ought to be perpetually visible and discernable by all men For it frequently happens that God for most just reasons but which we ought not to search out with too great Curiosity may withdraw from men the external means of their Salvation and yet notwithstanding he does not fail to convince by other ways which render them inexcusable worthy of Condemnation Men are bound to place themselves in the true Church then when it is discernable to them to be so but when it is not so as it is not at this day to the Southern Nations we ought not to believe that God will damn them for not having put themselves into it they have other crimes enough to be punished for without making God to violate his Justice in that respect See here what I say for the defending of Gods Justice and to let you see the rashness of those Arguments which suppose that God is bound to make those Gentlemen Infallible to the end that he may condemn men with some reason But further I do not deny that one cannot in some sence say that God has always preserved some True Church Visible upon Earth but that one ought not to play with those ambiguous Terms it is necessary to make a distinction and to shew clearly in what sence it may and in what sence it may not be found to be True For beside that that I have said in the first place That the True Church is not Visible nor to be generally known by all we ought not to imagine that the True Church must be always Visible in one certain place that is to say that one only People one Society one body which has been for time a True Church may not in the end lose that quality after whatsoever manner that comes to pass whether it be by an entire forsaking of Christianity or whether it be by an extreme and general Corruption of that Religion God has sometimees taken away his Candlestick from the midst of a people according to that threatning which he made to the Church of Ephesus I will come quickly unto thee and take away thy Candlestick out of its place except thou repent The greatest part of the African Churches which heretofore were so flourishing are now no longer so and there is not any place upon the Earth neither Paris nor Constantinople nor Jerusalem nor Antioch nor Rome nor Avignon neither the Latin Church nor the Greek nor the Armenian nor the Aethiopian neither the Chair of Saint Peter nor that of Saint James nor that of Saint John nor that of Saint Denis that can promise it self that it shall never perish There are no such promises in the Scripture and it is a speech very criminal in the Mouth of any Church whatsoever it be if she says I sit a Queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow When therefore they shall say that God keeps up always a True Church in the World let them remember that it is in a way Independant on any Places and Sees or if that restriction will not please them let them produce those clear and solid and peculiar priviledges to us which may set the Latin Church above all its Fellows For as to that that some set before us that saying of Jesus Christ to S. Peter I have prayed for thee that thy Faith fail not it is clear from a plain view of that passage that it only regards the person of Saint Peter with relation to that violent Temptation wherewith he was hurried in the House of the High Priest and under which there wanted but a little of his Faith having wholly perished and that it does not in the least concern his pretended Successours whereof there is not so much as one word in all the Scripture I say the same to that Commandment that Jesus Christ gave him to Feed his sheep which respects only his re-establishment in the Office of an Apostle after his fall nor is there any promise adjoyned for his Successors nor for their See whereof there is not a
word mentioned either there or any where else And as to that passage Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church c. Whether they understand it of that Confession which Saint Peter had made or whether they refer it to his person I say that no one can understand it of his Successors since there is not any mention made of them either directly or indirectly For when the See of Rome was not when it had never yet been The Church did not fail of being built upon that Confession of Saint Peter comprehended Jesus Christ upon whom the Church is every way built but also because that Confession of Saint Peter or Saint Peter Confessing was as one of the Chief Stones in that mystical Building which is not left alone for Jesus Christ who is not only the Foundation but the Soveraign Architect has added many others in all Ages and will always joyn others to them till the Building be intirely finished that is to say till God fulfilled the Decree of his Election But to go on with our Discourse of the Visibility of the True Church I affirm in the third place that we ought to know very well what a True Church Visible is For we ought not to imagine that all those persons who compose that Visible Society should be that True Church None but those True Believers I would say those who joyn to their external Profession of Christianty a true and sincere Piety are really the Church of Jesus Christ and as for the others that is to say the worldly Prophane and Hypocritical they are but the Church in appearance only and not indeed For having no inward Calling which consists in Faith and Love they do not belong to the Mystical Body of our Saviour nor are they of his Communion Notwithstanding they do not fail to be mixt with the Faithful by reason of that external profession as if they really were in the same Religious Society with them What then is the Visibility of the True Church as to us It is not that we can distinctly and with any certainty affirm Behold these be the Truly faithful of Jesus Christ None but but God alone can know them after that distinct manner and and without a possibility of being deceived But this we may say of that Visible Society that Vnder that Ministry and in that Communion God preserves and raises the truly Faithful Whence we may from this Judgment with Solidity and Truth and I may say also without a possibility of being deceived that there is a True Visible Church In that sence I declare that there has always been some way or other a True Church Visible upon Earth not but that God can make it wholly disappear to the Eyes of men whensoever it shall please him to do so without doing men any wrong or any breach of his promises since he has without doubt extraordinary ways to beget Faith in the hearts of his Children and to keep them on in that course and to lead them in the end unto Salvation without making use either of the publick Assemblies or Ministry but only because we ought not to believe that there ever hapned since the first rise of Christianity an Eclipse so full and intire that one could not some way say There is a Society in which God does keep the truly Faithful I say after some way For as that Judgment depends on two things the one to be able to know a Society and a Ministry and the other to know that under that Ministry and in that Society a Man may work out his own Salvation in respect of the first it is necessary to distinguish between two seasons the one of Liberty and Prosperity where the Church has its Assemblies and exercises its Ministry openly in the face of all the World For then she is much more visible then she would be otherwise that is to say it is far more easy to be known what Society and what Ministry that is Such was the State of the Church under Constantine and other Christian Emperours and it is in such times as those that the promises of Its outward splendour if there are any such in Scripture are accomplished The other season is that of its Afflictions and Persecution such was that of the first Century of the Church under the Pagan Emperours and the Enemies of Christianity For none can deny that then the Church was less discernable by its Assemblies not only because they were more private and less exposed to the publick view but also yet further because the name of Christian had been defamed by a thousand calumnies and charged with a thousand false imputations which made the knowledge of the Church to be far more difficult And it will be to no purpose to say That then the Church was visible and illustrious by the blood of its Martyrs For the blood of its Martyrs did not in the least hinder the accusing of the Christians of most odious crimes that which hindred its being liable to be easily known Those Accusations were as a Cloud before the eyes of the Common people which was necessarily to be discipated before they could come to know what Christianity was So that the True Church is more or less Visible according to the difference of its Seasons As to the second thing which is to know that one may be saved in that Society and under that Ministry it is necessary that we distinguish of the two States or Conditions wherein that Society may be found The one is a more pure State then when the word of God is preached without mixtures of the Doctrines of men when the publick Worship is perform'd without superstitions and the Sacraments plainly administred according to their Primitive Institution and when generally Religion is established taught and observed after the same manner wherein Jesus Christ and his Apostles left it to the World In that Condition it is certain that the True Church in very visible and very discernable for it is easy to behold all the Characters of its Truth which only consist in its Conformity to that lively primitive and natural Image of Christianity which God has left us in his Holy Scriptures But it is not less certain that a Church may fall into a quite contrary Condition that is to say into a State of Corruption then when it adds to divine Truths strange and adulterate Doctrines when it mingles superstitions with the true Worship of God and when in stead of a just Government it exercises an insolent and absolute Dominion over Mens Consciences in one word then when all things appear so confused and in that disorder that one can scarce any more see any traces of that beautiful and glorious Image of Christianity which I have before spoke of to shine forth In that Condition I affirm that True Church is very hard to be known for howsoever it were most Visible in quality of a Church because its Assemblies might be
much frequented it would be nevertheless least of all so in the quality of a True Church in that its natural beauty is so darkned and its Visage so disfigured that in judging according to its Appearances one can but very difficultly say that God does yet preserve some Faithful ones in that Communion and under that Ministry But they will say may not a Church fall into that Condition and yet for all that be a true Church I answer that a Visible Society as I have shewn is not called a true Church but only with respect to those true Believers who are in it and not with respect to the others When then it comes to pass that the party of the Men of the World prevails and fills that Society with its Corruptions all that Society taken in the general does not fail as yet to be called a True Church while their is some appearance how small soever it may be that God does yet keep and hold in it those good men who do not defile their Souls with that Corruption of the wicked But how can say they yet further those good men preserve themselves in the midst of such a Society I answer That they may preserve themselves there after that manner that one may preserve himself in a contagious Air where he draws in the Air because it is necessary to his Life but yet he may keep himself as well as he can from that Contagion by the help of Antidotes There are two things in a Corrupted Church the good and the evil if a Man can separate that good from the evil that is to say if he can take the one and keep himself from the other without falling into Hypocrisy and being bound to do as those who equally take the good and the evil which he knows not how to do without dividing between God and his Conscience he may be saved in a corrupted Communion and there may not be another more pure This evidently appears from the Examples of Zachary and Elizabeth of Simeon of Joseph and the Holy Virgin and divers other persons who liv'd in the Jewish Church when our Saviour came into the World and who preserved their Piety though that Church was fallen into the highest Corruption under the Ministry of the Scribes and Pharisees Jesus Christ himself who reproved the abuses of those wicked men and exhorted his disciples to take heed of their false Doctrines did not fail to live in that Common Society and to be found in the Temple with them and after that he had been Crucified by them his disciples did not wholly withdraw themselves from their Communion during some time and till they had indispensable reasons for it I will shew in the Progress of this Treatise that it does not from thence follow that we may at this day abide in the Roman Communion and that it much less follows that we may return thither by forsaking the Communion of the Protestants under a pretence that we may separate the good from the bad the pure from what is impure since we can no more do that then not become wicked Impostures Hypocritical and Detestable before God and Men. But as this is a point that belongs to another Place it shall suffice me to have clearly shewn in this Chapter in what manner and with what distinctions it may be said that there is always a true Visible Church and to have made it appear that it no ways follows from thence that she must needs be Infallible as the Church of Rome pretends that she is After all this it is not difficult to find out the just and true sence of some passages of Scripture which they abuse in this matter of Visibility For as to that of the Gospel whereof we have spoken Tell it to the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as the Heathens and the Publicans It is clear that particular Churches are treated of there and that the personal differences which we may have one with another and the meaning of it is that the Faithful are bound when they receive any wrong from their brethren to carry their complaints to the Church and to refer themselves to its Judgment Or if it is not to be understood in those Times and in those places where there shall be Churches established to the Judgment of their Guides and Pastors who may end those private Quarrels And if they will infer from thence that then there must be always a Visible Church that may be in a Condition to attend to those Reconciliations this is that that has no colour of Reason For that Command of Jesus Christ obliging the Faithful no further then as it lies in their power it would be but a very bad arguing to say that he has so engaged for that that he will so order it that there shall be perpetually a visible Assembly to hear Complaints and give Judgments It is within a little as if one should say that he was engaged that we should always have wherewithal to Lend and wherewithal to give Alms because he has bid us to Lend without hoping for any thing again and to make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness Or that our Kings were bound never to leave vacant the Office of a Constable or that of the Mayor of the Palace under a pretence that heretofore they order'd their subjects to acknowledge those Dignities and to have recourse to them in certain Affairs Tell it to the Church then does not in the least suppose that the True Church ought to be always in such a State wherein she should have Authority to pass her Judgments for the determining private Quarrels And besides what I have said Experience contradicts it for it is most true that during the hottest Persecutions of the Heathen Emperours where all was laid in desolation that it had in many places nothing like a Visible Tribunal to which men could easily address themseves There are some other Passages that denote the duty of the Pastors and in particular of the Apostles as those where they are called The Salt of the Earth the light of the World a City set upon a Hill a Candle not lighted to be set under a Bushel and the Gentlemen of the Roman Church do not fail to set them down to give some colour to their Pretensions But this is evidently to abuse the Scriptures to make them establish the perpetual Visibility of the Church after that meaning wherein they understand those passages which exhort the Apostles and after them the Ministers of the Gospel to acquit themselves faithfully of their charge without negligence and weariness from the Consideration of their Calling and the end to which God had appointed them For besides that their Office does not bind them to that of a Martyr which does not suppose a very splendid State of the Church Besides that the same does not oblige them to be Martyrs if they were not specially
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
those who demanded of Pilate his Death by crying against him away with him away with him Crucify him and those in fine who rejected the word of his Apostles and who instead of being converted by them persecuted them would be sufficiently justified in their bold unbeleif and that detestable Parricide which they committed on the Person of the Son of God For what were all those things but just consequences of that Principle They would not hearken to the Censures that Jesus Christ made of the Traditions and Doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees their Church admitted those Traditions They would not believe that Jesus was the true Messiah their Church had determined that whosoever did believe it should be cast out of their Synagogues They rejected the Proofs that he gave them from the Scripture it was not for them to judge of the true meaning of the Scripture and the Church understood it otherwise They demanded that he might be Crucified the Church had condemned him for a Seducer as an Enemy to Moses and the Law it was not for them to inform themselves any farther They rejected his Miracles the Church did so too and said that he cast out Devils by the power of Beelzebub They would not hearken to his Apostles the Authority of the Church forbad them Hitherto their conduct is within due Rules supposing that the Principle of the Author of prejudices might be just and lawful and those miserable People are very much obliged to him for furnishing them with arms wherewith to defend themselves 4. That Maxim of the Author of those Prejudices draws yet far greater absurdities after it It ministers accusations against Jesus Christ himself against his Apostles and all those who were converted by their Words If the Faithful by those Laws of their submission to the Church ought not to have any other Eyes than hers why did Jesus Christ present himself immediatly to the People when he should first of all have made known his call from Heaven the Glory of his Person and the Dignity of his Office to the Church to have made them own it by proving it to them before he Preach't to the People He was they will say her Lord and the Church her self would have had no Authority but by him that is true But if the People owed the Church an absolute obedience they would have owed it all that time that the Lord would have remained unknown He ought then to have began to make himself known to her and to have opened her Eyes that he might at the same time have opened those of all the People If Jesus Christ had been known to have been indeed what he was there is no doubt to be made but that he would alone have been heard without any dependance on the Church of which he is the Soveraign Lord but as yet he was not and till that knowledge had obtained the People would have been always bound according to the Principle of the Author of Prejudices not to have seen but by the Eyes of the Church to which God had subjected them To speak then home to this Question whether Jesus Christ was the Son of God the promised Messiah or whether he was not the Faithful being bound to believe nothing but what the Church should tell them he could not but have addrest himself to her and not to the Faithful People immediatly Nevertheless it is most true that he addressed himself neither to the Priests nor to the Scribes nor to the Pharisees nor to the Doctors he Preached his Gospel to the simple People out of them he took his Disciples and it was among them that he did almost all his Miracles in fine he himself gives thanks to his Father for that he had hid his Mysteries from the Wise and Prudent and had revealed them unto Babes Whence could such a conduct proceed so contrary to that Soveraign Authority wherewith at this day they would invest the Church that is the Pastors in respect of the Lay-men It is not difficult to understand that it was because Jesus Christ did no ways act from that Principle nor owned it for a good one for if he had owned it he had never suffered the People to have violated it he had made use of another way to make himself known to them and he would have employed the Ministry of the Church for that end 5. One may see the same thing of the Apostles if the People ought entirely to refer themselves to the Church in matters of Faith and Religion Why did the Apostles sollicit the Jews to embrace their Doctrine when they could not so much as hear them without being criminal They will say they had a commandment from their Master to Preach this Gospel I confess it but the Jews lived under a Church that had openly declared it self against their Preaching and they might tell them according to the Maxim of those Gentlemen It is vain that you Preach to us that you work Miracles that you alledge the Scriptures We see by the Eyes of the Church we hear by her Ears we march after her Steps and we devest our selves of our own guidance to rest our selves upon hers This is our Duty and the Law that is imposed on us why do you go about to tempt us to violate it Suppose we that a Jew after having heard one of those Divine and admirable Sermons of Saint Paul should have addrest himself to him and have demanded of him what Authority he pretended to give to that new Christian Church which he took such care to establish whether he did not mean that its Children should render a blind Obedience to it and that they should refer themselves wholly to their Pastors for deciding matters of Faith without intermedling themselves to search out the true sence of the Scripture Suppose yet that that great Apostle should have answered him according to that Maxim of the Author of Prejudices That it was true that the darkness of our understandings and our prejudices might be able to hinder us from seeing in the Scriptures those Truths that are clearly contained in them that a man could not assure himself that he was not of the number of those who deceived themselves That that doubt is terrible but that which yet infinitely heightens that dread which it must needs cause is that men are necessarily bound to chuse their Party and to make so weighty a choice to wit of that Religion that they ought to follow amidst the cumbrances of a thousand cares and a thousand worldly necessities that almost wholly take them up and that will allow them but a very little time to examine the Truths of that Religion That the greatest part of Mankind wanted necessary helps that the half of Christians could not tell how to read that others did not understand any Language but their own that others had so narrow and limited a Capacity that they could but very difficultly conceive the most easie
who laboured in the Reformation of their Churches religiously Observed They constrained no person and they rejected nothing that was not Alien to the Christian Religion But says the Author of the Prejudices Those two hundred Burghers of a Swisse Town were as Learned and ready in matters of Divinity as we may easily Judge Swisse Burghers to be I answer that this is the Objection of the Pharisees This People said the Enemies of Jesus Christ know not the Law But Jesus Christ did not answer them amiss when he said to them Father I thank thee Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast bid these things from the Wise and Prudent and revealed them unto Babes Let the Author of the Prejudices if he will be of the number of those wise and prudent ones we shall not envy him his readiness and his Learning and we shall rest satisfied with this that it has pleased God to place us in the same Rank with those mean Swisse Burghers to whom as much Babes as they were God vouschafed to make his Gospel known The true knowledge of Christians does not consist in having a head full of Scholastick Speculations and a Memory loaded with a great many Histories and multitudes of passages of divers Authors or a great many Critical Notions nor in having well-studied Lombard Albertus Magnus Thomas Aquinas Scotus Bonaventure Capreolus Aegidius Romanus Occham Gabriel Biel the Canon Law the Decretals and all those other great Names wherewith they stunned the People in times past Our True knowledge is the Holy Scripture Read with Humility Charity Faith and Piety See here all that those poor Burghers of Zurich knew they were neither Prelats nor Cardinals nor Doctors of Lovain nor of the Sorbonne but they were good men they feared God they studied his Word and for the rest of the State of their understandings and the degree of their light may appear by the Reformation which they made for the Tree may be known by its Fruits 4. Objection The matter which was to have been handled in that pretended Synod cannot be more considerable For they Treated therein about abolishing all at once the Authority of all the Councils that were held in the Church since the Apostles days under a pretence of reducing all to the Scripture Answer Since the True Authority of the Fathers and Councils consists in their Conformity with the Divine writings the way solidly to establish them is to reduce all to the Scripture as they did in that Synod If the Author of the Prejudices pretends to give the Fathers and Councils and Authority quite different from that of the Word of God whereof they ought to be the Ministers and Interpreters we may answer him that he affronts them under a pretence of Honouring them For as it is the greatest real injury that can be done to a Subject to give him the Authority of his Prince So it is the most real injury which they can do to the Fathers to invest them with the Authority of God 5. Objection They medled with the Faith of all the other Christian Churches which the Switzers could not but condemn in embracing a new Faith Answer The Swisses did not embrace a new Faith but they renounced those Errors that it may be might have prevailed for some Ages but which were new in regard of the Christian Religion They did not condemn other Churches in that which they had of good but they condemned that evil which they had in them A sick person who has cured himself condemns the diseases of others but he condemns not that Life which remains in them On the contrary he exhorts them to be healed for fear least remaining in that sick condition they should die 6. Object They treated about all those dangerous Consequences which that Change of Religion would have produced and which were easy to have been foreseen Answ They Treated also about the Glory of God and their own Salvation and all those dangerous Consequences which could not but come from the blindness and passion of those who would hold the People of God under their servitude ought not to have prevailed over two such great interests as that of the Glory of God and Mens Salvation All these Objections are well near the same that the Pagans made against the Primitive Christians and it seems that the Author of the Prejudices has studied them out of Celsus Prophyrie and Julian to make use of them against us 7. Object Moreover they declared that they would have men make use of the Authority of the Scripture only and by that rash and unheard of Prejudice they condemned the procedure of all the foregoing Councils wherein they were wont to produce the opinion of the Fathers to decide the controverted Questions Answ The Scripture is the only Rule of the Faith of Christians and there is no other but that alone whose Authority we ought to admit as Soveraign and decisive of Controversies It is not True that all the foregoing Councils admitted of the Opinions of the Fathers and their Traditions under that Quality The Author of the Prejudice lays it down without Proof and Reason 8. Object The Church being in possession of its Doctrine they ought to have forced Zuinglius to produce his Accusations against that Doctrine and to have made the proofs which he alleadged against it to have been examined But in stead of that they ordered that he should appear in that Disputation in Quality of Defender and that it should be the others part to convince him if Error Answ If the Church of Rome would have the World believe the Doctrine that she Teacheth it is fit she should furnish it with proofs and her pretended possession cannot assure it Those who propound any thing as matter of Faith are naturally bound to prove it and it is absurd to say that Possession discharges that Obligation for the Faith ought to be always founded upon proof and it never stands upon meer possession otherwise the Heathens ought to have kept their Religion which was established on so Antient a Possession 9. Object All that Examination was further grounded upon this ridiculous Principle That if there could not be found any person within the Territory of Zurich that could make the Errors of Zuinglius appear by the Scripture it ought to be concluded that he had none As if the weakness of those who opposed his Doctrine could not be an effect of their Ignorance rather then a default in the cause they defended Answ This Objection is no more to the purpose then the foregoing What could the Senate of Zurich have done more then to have assembled all the Clergy of their States to have called the Bishop of Constance or his Deputies thither to have received all the World and given all liberty of propounding their Arguments and Proofs It belonged to them to propound them if they had any and if they had none they ought to have acknowledged that 'till then
the Reformation that he has established and which serves as a Foundation to that of the Calvinists In fine he explains himself in the 321 Page where he says That our behaviour in respect of the Lutherans is enough to give a ground to conclude that the Heads of the party of the Calvinists have been such as have guided themselves more by Policy then Conscience which being adds he most contrary to the Spirit of God and remote from that which ought to be found in those new Prophets which he would extraordinarily raise up for the reforming of his Church it is not possible for us to take them for men of that kind and we have a most just ground to refuse to hearken to them It results from thence that the Author of the Prejudices had a design to conclude 1. That they ought to reject us without Examining any thing that we say and without so much as hearing us 2. That we are a sort of men without any Conscience who have no Idea of Christian Vertue nor of the Spirit of Christianity and who guide our selves by Worldly Policy 3. That we overthrow the Reformation of Luther which serves nevertheless for the Foundation of our own 4. That our First Reformers had none of their Mission from God and that they were not the Instruments which he made choice of to Reform the Errors of the Church of Rome To establish these propositions he heightens on one side the differences that were between Luther Zuinglius and Calvin and all that the heat of Disputation made them say on one side and on the other and in the end he sets down the esteem that we have always had of Luther notwithstanding those Divisions and the Condescension that we have for him and those of his Party in oposition to the hatred that we have always says he Testified against the Church of Rome All that unjust Reasoning is founded upon divers false Propositions that the Author of the Prejudices has supposed as evident and beyond all doubt and of which notwithstanding he has captiously suppressed one part to give the more Colour to his Invective 1. His Reasoning is founded upon ' this Proposition That we hold our First Reformers to be new Prophets or as he speaks to be the Apostles of a new Gospel But this is a false and calumnious Supposition for we hold on the contrary that our Reformers Preached nothing new they were not under the Quality either of new Prophets or Apostles of a new Gospel they did not boast that they brought a new Revelation into the World but they only opposed humane Errors that had no Foundation in the old Revelation and in that respect I have shewn that they had a more then sufficient Call in the Right that is Common to all Christians and in the Ministry which they themselves exercised in the Latin Church without any necessity that there should be any Extraordinary and immediate Mission of God for that and I have explained in what sence it must be understood that there was something of Extraordinary in their Call 2. That Reasoning supposes That we ought not to hear any Reformers 'till first we have examined the Quality of their persons and if the Quality of their persons do not satisfy us we ought to reject their words and to remain in the State we were in before But there is nothing more pernitious then this Principle to which I oppose a contrary Principle which is That we ought to judge of that which our Reformers said by the word of God and by the proper Characters of Truth or Falshood which are in the things themselves after a manner abstracted from the Judgment that we may make of those persons and that it is a way to Error to Judge by the Qualities of the persons This is that which I have made appear elsewhere and shall not omit to establish it yet further in this place for the greater clearing of this Truth I say then that when it falls out that those who Preach have personal Qualities that do not satisfy us it is indeed a Reason that Obliges us to take the greater heed to their Doctrine But those matters being at the bottom as they are true or false in themselves without the persons that propound them changing their natures they ought to be chiefly considered in themselves if we would assure our selves in a good Conscience that we are in the way of Truth for we cannot have that assurance if we Judge only by the persons since the Faith is immediatly founded upon the word of God and not upon that of men whosoever they be Moreover every one knows that a Judgment concerning persons is oftentime far harder and more subject to Error then that of the things themselves whether it be because ordinarily it depends upon a great number of particular circumstances which one cannot exactly know and which yet one ought to know before a man can be able to Judge or whether it be also because it is open to the Illusions of Hypocrisy which hides real vices under the appearances of Vertue and to those of Calumny which turns the best actions into a bad meaning that suppresses the good and heightens the bad Besides that it is certain that the Judgment which is made of persons ought partly to depend on that of things so far is it from that that what is made of things should depend on that of persons For on the one side how many Founders of Heresy have there been whose life has appeared to have been very exemplary and who were notwithstanding ravenous Wolves how many Pharisees who have boasted of their righteousness while their Doctrine was a Leaven whereof great heed was to be taken There have been some who have even gone so far as to have wrought Miracles and Jesus Christ has foretold that false Christs and false Prophets shall arise who shall work great Signs and Wonders capable of seducing the very Elect if it were possible And on the other side do not sufficiently understand the ways of Divine Providence to be able to conclude without rashness that it never makes use of persons guilty of many crimes either for the Propagation of its Truth or the Reformation of Errors Saint Paul says that God puts his Treasure into Earthen Vessels that the Excellency of his power may be of God and not of man The same Apostle Teaches us that divers in his Time Preached Jesus Christ out of a Spirit of Envy and Contention God heretofore made use of Salomon not only for the building and preservation of his Temple but also to give the Church one part of the Canon of its Scriptures which is much more then the Temple and yet notwithstanding that Prince gave himself over to the love of Women and fell into Idolatry and lastly Jesus Christ made use of a Judas at first that sold him into his Enemies Hands But to decide this Question by Examples drawn out of the
how to Read What will become of those who have no understanding nor any readiness of mind How can all those People examine all those Points the Discussion of the least of which notwithstanding is evidently necessary to make them rationally determine It is easy to see that all that heap of Objections and Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices has proposed against the way of the Scripture tends only to lead men to the Authority of the Church of Rome to the end they should subject themselves to that as a Soveraign and Infallible Rule But as the Doctrine of the Soveraign Authority of that Church is not one of those first Principles which the light of Nature dictates to all men since of Thirty parts of our known World there are at least nine and twenty who do not acknowledge it and as they cannot also say that it is one of the first and common notions of Christianity since of all those who profess themselves to be Christians there are Three parts which reject it The Author may freely give us leave if he pleases that we should first demand of him upon what Foundation he would build that Doctrine to make us receive it as a point of Divine Faith I say of Divine Faith for if we should hold it only as a matter of human Faith he himself would see well that we could not believe the things which the Church of Rome should teach in vertue of its Authority otherwise then with a humane Faith since the things which depend upon a principle cannot make an impression in us different from that which the principle has made To the end therefore that I should believe with a Divine Faith that which the Church of Rome shall teach me by its Authority it is necessary that I should also believe its Authority with a Divine Faith Thus far methinks we should not have any Controversy Let us see therefore upon what Foundations of Divine Faith he would pretend to establish this Proposition The Authority of the Church of Rome is Soveraign and Infallible He can only do it by these Three ways The first is by a new Revelation that God should have made to us of this Truth the Second in shewing that it is one of the Articles that is contained in the Revelation of the Apostles and the Third in shewing us the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility impressed upon the Church of Rome even after the same manner as every thing proves it self by the marks that distinguish it and thus it is that we pretend that the Scripture forces the acknowledgment of its own Divinity The first of these ways is nullified since they agree with us that since Jesus Christ and his Apostles there has been no new Revelation and that there must not be any expected The second would be proper and necessarily supposes a recourse either to Tradition or the Scripture for there are but these two Channels in which we can seek for the Revelation of the Apostles But that of the Scripture is forbidden us by the Author of the Prejudices by reason of the unconquerable difficulties which he discovers there It is says he a way full of obstacles and difficulties and even those who profess to spend all their days in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their abilities He must therefore content himself with the way of Tradition But before he can make use of that he must be first assured and that with a certainty of Divine Faith that that which that Tradition contains is come down from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles or at least that this particular point of the Authority of the Roman Church in the state wherein it is at present must have proceeded from thence that the Apostles must have Transmitted it viva voce down to their Successours and that their Successours must have received it and Transmitted it down to those who descended from them in the same sence and every whit the same as the Apostles had given it to them If he cannot be assured of that Transmission all that he would build upon it will be uncertain and if he cannot be assured of it with a Divine Faith that which he would build upon it will not be more so But how can he be assur'd of that He has no more that living Voice of the Apostles to represent it to us he must rely upon Testimonyes would it therefore be the Roman Church that must assure us But her Divine and Infallible Authority is as yet in Question and while it shall be questioned it remains suspended it cannot be believed any further then with a humane Faith Shall it be the Scripture that must give Testimony to that Tradition But there are so many Difficulties in that way says the Author of the Prejudices That it is Evident that it is not that which God has chosen to Instruct us in his Truths Must we learn it from that Tradition it self But to decide that point whether that Tradition came from the Apostles or no Tradition it self can be yet no other than a humane Testimony I mean that the Successors of the Apostles declare to us that they have received such and such Doctrines from the Apostles viva voce and that they have receiv'd them in the same sence in which the Apostles gave them to them we cannot at the most have more then a humane Faith for them for they are men as well as others Hitherto therefore there cannot be had a Divine Faith concerning the point of the Sovereign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church and nothing by Consequence that can assure the Conscience and set the mind of man at rest Let us therefore pass over to the third means which is that of examining the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility that may be seen in the Roman Church It is in my Judgment in the sight of this that they give us certain external Marks and we have already seen that the Author of the Prejudices establishes upon this that Authority about which we dispute The most eminent Authority says he that can be in the world is easily discover'd to be in the Catholick Church because though there are Sects that dispute with it the Truth of its Tenets yet there are none that can with any Colour contend with it for that eminence of Authority which arises from its External Marks But without entring here far into the Controversy touching those Marks I say that he is very far from being able to establish such a certainty upon them as we ought to have of a Principle of Religion And this will appear from these three Reasons The First is That the greatest part of those marks are common to false Societies and even to Schismatical Churches which not only are not Infallible but which are actually in Errour as I have shewn in the first part of this Treatise The Greek Church for example in
or two Nations Jerusalem and Babylon which although they be mixed together do not fail to be really separated and he would have the Head of the one to be Jesus Christ but the Devil the head of the other It is for the same Reason that he distinguishes between being in the Church and being of the Church for he would that although the wicked might be in the Church yet that nevertheless they were not of the Church that they doe not belong to its Body but that they are in its Body as ill humours that oppressed and disturbed it and it is to the Faithful alone Exclusively to all others that he ascribes all the Rights of the Church although the wicked may sometimes have the dispensing them in quality of Ministers and Pastors for he would in that Case that those might be inhabitants of Babylon who distributed that good which did not belong to them but to the Truly Faithful only the only Inhabitants of Jerusalem It is then a certain and manifest Truth That the Truly Faithful only are the Church and that to them alone belong all the Rights of the Church but if we would here add another to it which is not less certain since it is founded upon the promises of Jesus Christ to wit That there always has been a Church in the World it would evidently follow That if our Communion has the advantage of the True Faith and Worship over the Roman Communion in a word if we have Reason at the Foundation we are not only the True Church but that we are so by a Just Succession de jure and de facto to that Church which preceded us and which even preceded us immediately before the Reformation It is no more to be inquired after where it was or which it was for the promise of Jesus Christ assures us that he had one his Scripture Reason the Fathers declare to us that it consisted wholly in the Truly Faithful Put then these truly Faithful where you please in France in Spain in Italy in the West in the East or in the Indies if you will it is nothing to our Question If we are truly Faithful as they we are their lawful Successours in all the Rights of the Christian Society Whether we received the Faith from their hands or whether we received it elsewhere it matters not we do not fail to be their true Heirs for God as Saint John Baptist said may even of these Stones raise up Children unto Abraham They are our Fathers by the Right of Age but they are our Brethren also by the Unity of the same Faith and one and the same Spirit that animates us and makes us to be one Body with them When they were in the World in what condition soever they were the Ministry was theirs the Sacraments were theirs the Right of Assemblies belonged to them since those things can only belong to the Faithful and when God has sent them to their rest that Mystical Heritage could be raised by none but other true Believers for such is the Law of the Family of God that it is neither flesh nor blood nor Transmission of Pulpits and Benefices that make a Succession but the Spirit of Jesus Christ or as Tertallian speaks the Consanguinity of the Faith and Doctrine If then we have that Spiritual Consanguinity we are their true Successours and we make but one only body one Church with them But they will say How can it be that you should make but one only Body with the Church which was before the Reformation since that Church lived then in Communion with those from whom you are now Separated She had an Exterual Worship quite differing from yours she was under quite another Ministry then yours for she was under a Ministry that professed to invocate Saints religiously to Worship their Images and their Reliques to Sacrifice really the Body of Jesus Christ to believe Transubstantiation the Real Presence and all the other Articles that you at this day profess to reject How can you be the same Church How can your Ministers be Successours to those who were at that time Bishops Arch-Bishops Cardinals Patriarchs and Popes Your Liturgies are different your Discipline is not less you have neither Feasts nor Processions nor any of the Solemnities practised openly among us how can it be otherwise then that you should be a new Church I answer First That if that Reasoning were Just it would conclude that the Church before the Reformation was not the same Church with that which the Apostles established at first for according to the Idea that the Holy Scripture gives us of the Apostolick Church we cannot see there any thing like to that which was done immediately before the Reformation We find there neither the same Tenets nor the same Worship nor the same Solemnities nor the same form of Ministry nor the same Government nor the same Discipline nor the same Sacraments nor the same Liturgies nor in fine any thing of that which our Fathers reformed Let them tell us then after what manner they mean that the Church before the Reformation was not the one and the same Church with that of the Apostles For if they were in effect two different Churches and that we were obliged to chuse one to have Communion with or an Identity with as they speak we should not hesitate upon the choice We should have a thousand times more Consolation and Assurance to find our selves conformed to the Apostolick Church then to be in nothing different from that which immediately preceded the Reformation since the Apostolick ought to be lookt on as the Mother Church the Original Exemplar or Pattern to all the Ages following from which it is not allowable to recede Let the Author of the Prejudices then if he pleases do one of these two things either shew us in the Church of the Apostles all those things which we have not in Conformity with the Church that was immediately before the Reformation and upon which ground he would have us be a new Church let him shew us that there was Transubstantiation there the Real presence the Sacrifice of the Mass the Adoration of the Eucharist the Worshipping of Images the Invocation of Saints the Worshipping of Reliques the Orders and vows of their Religious the Caelibacy of Church-men Worship in an unknown Tongue Their Feasts Processions and in general all that that according to him made us a new Church differing from that which preceded the Reformation or if he will not engage himself so far let him at least tell us after what manner he understands that the Church before the Reformation was not it self a new Church differing from that which the Apostles established He cannot tell how to do the first of those things because it is absolutely impossible and he can never do the second because his principles wholly oppose it and in effect it is true that those who believed and practised all that which I have
any Relation to that Religion was not of the Essence of the Church but its State the mixture of Errors and Abuses with the sound Doctrine the Corruptions of Worship the Vices of the Ministry the Superstitious Ceremonies the form of Government the Religious as they speak that is to say the divers Orders of Monks the different degrees of the Hierarchy Feasts Processions Fasts and in a Word all that which has been noted in the Objection and in which that Church was then different from the Protestant All that I say belonged to the condition of the Church then and could by consequence be changed without making either the one or the other a new Church That the Faithful found themselves insensibly overpowred by almost an infinite number of the Worldly who mingled themselves with them as Tares with the Wheat That those worldly made themselves Masters of the Pulpits the Ministry the Councils that they brought in Errors Superstitions and Abuses that they changed the form of the Government of the Church and that of the Publick Worship all that does not respect the Essence of the Church which consists only in the True Faith but its Condition so that when our Fathers Reformed those things we may well say they Changed the State of the Church in their days but not that they changed the Church nor that they made a new one and their Church will not cease notwithstanding that Change to be joyned by a true Succession of Times and Persons to that which was before A Town full of Strangers who make themselves more powerful there left desolate by those popular diseases which those Strangers brought thither and filled with those disorders which they caused does not cease to be the same Town by a True Succession of Times and Persons when those Strangers should quit it and its good Citizens be established in their Just and Lawful State as heretofore Rome sackt by the Goths did not cease to be the same Rome when it was freed from them and a River swelling with the Waters of the neighbouring Brooks that make it overflow the Fields and break over its Banks is yet the same River when those Waters go back and retire into their Ordinary Channel CHAP. III. That the Ministry Exercised in the Communion of the Protestants is Lawful and that the Call of their Ministers is so also WE come now to Justify the Right that we have to the Gospel-Ministry and to defend our Call not only against the Ordinary Objections of those of the Church of Rome but also against the Accusations of the Author of the Prejudices in Particular For that Author who thinks it meritorious to go beyond others especially in his Passions is not contented meerly to say that we are Pastors without Mission and Ministers without a Call but by a heat of Zeal obstinately adhering to him he call us Thieves and Robbers Tyrants Rebells false Pastors and Sacrilegious Vsurpers of the Authority of Jesus Christ Nevertheless as those injuries are nothing else but the Effect of his ill humour it will be no hard matter to shew him that all the Conditions that we can rationally require to make a Ministry Just and Lawful are to be found in that of the Protestant Ministers and that Thanks be to God they can reproach them with nothing on that occasion This is that which I design to shew in this Chapter and to this Effect I shall first propound some Observations which I Judge necessary for the unfolding of that Question I say then in the First place That we do not here dispute about the Call that our Fathers had for a Reformation but only of that which they had and which we have after them for the Ordinary Ministry of the Gospel For we ought to take great heed least we confound as the Author of the Prejudices has done those two sorts of Calls that we acknowledge our Fathers to have had and which the Church of Rome disputes with them For That which they had to Reform themselves that is to say to reject that which we call their Errors and Superstitions that were brought into the Latin Church and that which regards the Ordinary Preaching of the word of the Gospel the Administration of the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline These two Calls are wholly different The one which is that of the Reformation is of Right common to all Christians there being no one who is not Lawfully called by his Baptism to destroy Errors contrary to the Nature or Purity of the true Faith and to exhort his Neighbours to do the same thing for the Interest of his own Salvation and that of the Glory of God as I have already shewn in my Second part From whence it follows That in that Respect they can have nothing to say against our Fathers and much less against those whom they call the first Reformers since being as they were in publick Offices they had more of a Call for that then was necessary The other which is that which respects the Ordinary Preaching of the Word of the Gospel the Administration of the Sacraments and the exercise of Discipline is not common to every private man On the contrary no one ought on his own head to thrust himself in without being otherwise Lawfully called The Reason of this Difference is that the Reformation consisted in the meer Acts of Faith and Charity which are those Particular Acts that none can dispence with because no one can say that it does not belong to him to be of the true Faith or to be Charitable but the Preaching of the Word the Administration of the Sacraments and the exercise of Discipline are those Acts of Authority that no one can do in his own name but in the name of another that is to say in the Name of God or in the Name of the whole Church so that he ought to be Lawfully Authoriz'd to do them It is then this latter Call that we are concerned about in this Question 2. In the Second place we must note that we do not here any more dispute about that Extraordinary Ministry which Jesus Christ himself immediately Communicated to his Apostles to give men the first Call to the Christian Faith and to Assemble them in a Society For our Fathers did not make any new Convocation nor any new Society nor any new Church as I have shewn in the Two Foregoing Chapters They did not preach a new Testament or a new Covenant differing from that which the Apostles preached They were not qualified either as new Apostles or new Prophets or new Evangelists they did not bring with them any new Revelation to the World but they Purged and Reformed the Corrupted State of Religion and the Church by the same Scriptures that the Apostles left us they laboured to Reduce things into their Antient and Natural State and for the rest they Preached the same Gopel and Administred the same Sacraments that the Apostles left and
more than those External Guides that God has Established in the Church to lead men to the Scripture and even such Guides as cannot hinder us from going thither of our selves if we will and it is the Scripture the voice of the Apostles or to say better the voice of Jesus Christ that speaks by the Apostles that does all There is therefore a great difference between those two sorts of Ministers the one preceded the Church the other follows it the one is immediately Communicated by God and the other is Communicated by means of men the one has an Independent and Soveraign Authority and Infallibility on its side and the other is exposed to Vices Disorders Errours and humane weaknesses Inferior and depending on the Church the one is every way Divine and the other is partly Divine and partly Humane 7. From that sixth Observation there arises another not less important and that which I have already touched upon in divers places of this Treatise that is That the Ordinary Ministry is a Right that belongs to the True Church and of which it can never be spoiled The Reason of this Truth is taken from the very Nature of the Church For the Church being a Society that God has call'd together by the Ministry of his Apostles and which he yet every day calls together and upholds by the word of his Scriptures and the use of his Sacraments we must necessarily say that in forming it he has given it in that very thing that he has formed it a sufficient full and entire Right to make use of all the means that may help its preservation and upholding amongst which that of the Ministry is without doubt most considerable That same Providence that gives men a Natural Life and appoints them to preserve their life by that Food it furnishes them with gives them by that very thing a right to employ persons to gather that food together and to prepare it to the end they may make use of it according to what it is designed for and it would be a great Extravagance to demand of a man what Right he has to prepare himself to eat and drink for he could have nothing more to say but that the Nature that gave him life gave him at the same time all the Right that was necessary to provide for the upholding of that life And to make use of another Example The same Nature or to say better the same Providence that Assembles men together in a Civil Society and ordains them in their so uniting together to uphold that Society by a rational Order does it not give them at the very same time and by the same Right that Assembles them a Right to have Magistrates to Govern them by and to make the Laws of that Society to be Executed to have Judges to decide their differences to have Remedies for the Healing of Diseases and Tradesmen for the publick good And would it not be an absurdity to demand of a people what Right they had to have Magistrates Judges Physicians Tradesmen Teachers of Commerce Lawyers since they could not have a fuller and juster Right than that which is founded upon the reason of Order and the Society it self We need but to apply these Examples to the Subject we are upon The Church is a Body to which God has given a Spiritual Life and he has ordained it to be preserved and upheld in the use of Mystical Aliments of which he himself has made a publick Magazine in his Holy Scriptures it is therefore evident that he has given it by that very thing a Right to have Ministers or Pastors who should prepare those Sacred Aliments and season them for its Spiritual Nourishment The Church is a Religious Society composed of divers persons that God himself has Assembled to live together not in Confusion but in Order he would have that Society subsist he has appointed it to uphold and preserve it self he himself has suggested the means he has then without doubt by that very thing given a Right to have Guides to Govern her Pastors to lead them forth into the Heavenly Pastures of the Scriptures Ministers to dispense the Divine Sacraments that he has instituted for her Watch-men and Guides to be careful of her and to go before her In a word he who has given Faith Piety and Christian Holiness to the Church has at the same time indispensably obliged them to these four Duties one is to persevere in the Exercise of those Vertues unto the end The other is to defend themselves against the Assaults and wiles of the Enemy of their Salvation the third is to increase and strengthen themselves more and more and lastly to propagate them as much as in them lyes from us down to our Children and even amongst Strangers that is to say among those who are not as yet in that Relation It follows therefore necessarily that that has given the Church a sufficient full and entire Right for the Ministry since the Ministry is but a fit and lawful means for all that It could not have a Right more lawful than that which is founded upon those indispensable Duties for in that case it is not only a Right that makes the thing just but it is an obligation that imposes a necessity of it as in the State the Right that every one has to learn the Will of the Prince is indisputable because it is built upon the obligation that lies upon every one to conform himself to it It is clear then that there could not have been a Right to have Ministers more lawful than that of a Faithful People a True Church since it is founded upon those four Duties which I have noted that are indispensable and that give not only a Right but an Obligation to have a Ministry But we ought here to take notice of the Fallacy that their Missionaries are wont to make and that the Authour of the Prejudices who has Adopted their Method would have us make with them For see after what manner they argue Where there is no lawful Ministry there is no True Church But among the Protestants there is no True Church I set aside the Question Whether we have or whether we have not a lawful Ministry in the same sence that he intends I will only at present consider his way of Reasoning that makes the True Church depend upon a lawful Ministry Admitting that to be a True Church where the Ministry is and denying that to be a True Church where the Ministry is not I say that this is a vain deceitful and illusory way of Reasoning to which I oppose this other Argument Where there is the True Church there is a Right to a Lawful Ministry But the True Church is among the Protestants Therefore the Right to a Lawful Ministry is among the Protestants Of those two ways of arguing it is certain that this latter is the justest and almost only just right and natural For the True Church
to do and what he should not have done and by that means to raise himself so high as to be a Censor of God's Actions He ought at least to have called it to mind that Jesus Christ made no scruple to chuse married men out of whom to make his Apostles and Evangelists The Scripture mentions the Mother-in-law of Saint Peter that is to say his Wives Mother for that word in Greek can be taken in no other sence but that It speaks also of the four Daughters of Philip the Evangelist The Authour of the Commentaries upon the Epistles of Saint Paul under the name of Saint Ambrose assures us that all the Apostles had Wives except Saint Paul and Saint John and Saint Ignatius and Saint Basil say the same thing without any exception Virginity is not then an inseparable character of the Call of God as the Authour of the Prejudices would perswade us But after that first assault of the Authour of the Prejudices which was made with all the weapons that he first found in his hands he reproaches the Reformers with the little fruit that their Preaching wrought for the Sanctification of those people who followed them Their Ministers themselves says he have been constrained by the Evidence of the Truth to acknowledge That all their pretended Reformation did not produce any Renovation of the spirit of Christianity and that it had rather increased then lessened the disorders of those who embraced it and for that he produces the complaints of some Ministers as of Capito and Calvin himself and of Luther against the Vices of their Age. I acknowledge that if they compare our Fathers manners and ours with the Grace that God has given us in renewing his Gospel in the midst of us they would find but too much reason to make us cover our Faces with confusion that we were unworthy of so great a Favour I confess also that there may be many found among those who at first embraced the Reformation who instead of profiting by it abused it as the best things may be abused But I say that they ought not to insult over that Confession that we make in that regard for besides that a Doctrine is not the less found for not being so carefully observed as it deserves we can yet further say for our selves and say it to the Glory of that God whom we serve that he has poured forth a sufficiently abundant measure of his blessing on our Fathers and that if any compare their manners with those of the other Party who rejected the Reformation they will find reason enough to confess that God was in the midst of us It is true indeed that they might not see there those Pharisaical Devotions of which the hypocrites and superstitious make a vain shew They might not see there those men who publish to all the world their Mortifications and their Fasts who withdraw themselves out of the crowd to make themselves to be more taken notice of and who never enter into their secret retirements but with the greater ease to be able to mix themselves in all that that is common in the World But they may there behold a solid Piety plain and natural without Art and Affection a true fear of offending God with a free and open carriage which never sought to hide it self by distinctions and illusions but in good earnest to follow the dictates of Conscience without saying to hinder them from doing their Duty either what will become of us or what will become of our Brethren or Sisters Because they knew that those Events were in the hand of God and that poor worldly interest ought never to prevail over the love of the Truth As to the Wars that the Author of the Prejudices imputes to the Reformation it had been methinks his prudence not to have turned the Dispute upon a Matter on which he well knows that we have but too many things to say for our Justification If some Princes of Germany took up Arms to defend themselves against the assaults of their Enemies they thought that the Justice and Law of Nations authorised that defence and that being Soveraign in their States they were bound to protect their Subjects and to preserve that Trust that God had put into their hands And as for those Commotions that hapned in France in the times of the Reformation there is no person who is ignorant of their true Causes It is true that the Interest of our Religion had some part in them but it had at least the good fortune to be found joyned with that of the preserving of that great Kingdom to its just possessours against those pernitious designs which made but too great a noise afterwards and whatsoever sad Remembrances the Authour of the Prejudices has awakened by his undeserved reproaches yet we shall not fail to maintain that the blood of our Fathers was very well spent for so good a Cause Luther says he was not afraid of animating his followers to Murders and Blood by those horrible words which are to be found in his first Tome of his Works of Wittingburg Edition If we hang up Robbers on Gibbets if we punish Hereticks and Thieves with the Sword why do not we assault with all our Forces those Cardinals and those Popes and all that scum of the Roman Sodom that ceases not to corrupt the Church of God why do we not embrue our hands in their Blood It is certain that there can scarce be any passage related after a more invenomed and base manner than the Authour of the Prejudices relates that and this will appear if they well but make these following Observations 1. That he separates those words from the sequel of the Discourse to give them quite another Sence than Luther intended by them which is to speak Properly a kind of falsification more dangerous then that of corrupting the words of a Sentance 2. That he would make us imagine that those words are addrest to the followers of Luther to animate them to Blood and Slaughter which is a perfect Calumny 3. That he quotes them not as spoken upon a supposition but as spoken purely and simply which is further contrary to the Truth Behold then what the matter truly was Sylvester Prierias Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome having wrote against Luther's Doctrine concerning the Pope and in particular against his Appeal to a Council had peremptorily maintained That it was not lawful to Appeal from the Pope to a Council because the Pope was a Soveraign Judge and liable to no Appeal and that those who sued out such Appeals were cast out of the Church and Excommunicate That the Pope alone was the Infallible Rule of Truth whose decisions were certain and irrefragable without a Council where those of a Council were nothing without the Pope nor bound any person if they were not authorised by the Pope so that whatsoever should not receive the Doctrine of the Pope as the Infallible Rule
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
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
even to the opening of their mouths by force and that those to whom they offered that violence look'd upon it as the most cruel of all punishments that divers made so great a resistance to it that they could not obtain their ends and that in their rage they tore their Breasts to revenge themselves of their refusals He himself testifies that the Horror which the Orthodox had to be found in the same Assemblies with the Arians was so great that having no Churches wherein they could publickly worship God they assembled with the Novatians who had three Churches in that City because these latter were indeed Schismaticks but not Hereticks as the Arians and that if the Novatians had been willing the Catholicks would have made but one only Church with them Sozomen relates also that the Emperour Valens who was an Arian having gone to the City of Edessa and having learned there that the Orthodox that is to say those who persever'd in the faith of the Consubstantiality of the Son made all their Assemblies in a Field near the City because all the Churches were in the hands of the Arians he punished the Governour of the Province who suffered those Assemblies and commanded him to go thither the next day to hinder them with all his force from assembling themselves and to punish those who should oppose themselves that the people having heard that Order did not fail to meet there and the Governour having gone thither and finding in the way a Woman who was running thither with her little Child he asked her if she had not heard what the Emperour had commanded but that the Woman without being moved answered him that she was not ignorant of it and that it was for that very reason that she ran thither to be there with others which made such an impression upon the Spirit of the Governour that he went back to the Emperour and acquainted him with that obstinate resolution and caused him to revoke the Orders he had given I confess that there were many of the Orthodox who had not courage enough to go so far as a Separation and who contented themselves with only groaning under the Arian Tyranny in waiting for better Times But it is also certain that those who had more zeal and courage withdrew themselves from the Communion of those Hereticks and that they believed themselves bound to do it for the making sure of their salvation Therefore it was that Faustinus in his Treatise against the Arians said That if any one did not believe that the Society of the Arians could be rendered culpable under a pretence that he had the testimony of his own conscience which did not accuse him of having violated or renounced the faith there it belonged to such a one to take heed and to examine himself But as for me adds he the cause of God being concerned I judge my self bound to be more pre-cautioned and to have a greater fear than those persons have For it is written a man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject knowing that he who is such is perverted and that he sins being condemned in himself And as to the punishment of dissemblers it is written All flesh shall worship before my face saith the Lord God and the Saints shall come forth and they shall see those who have transgressed against me for the worm of the Hypocrites shall not dye and their fire shall not be quenched The Apostle forbids us also to enter into fellowship with unbelievers And elsewhere after having given a description of sins he condemns not only those who commit such things but those also who consent to those who commit them There are divers other passages in the Scripture which forbid our companying with Hereticks but I would only note these here briefly to the end that you should not think that it is out of a vain superstition that we avoid the Communion of those whom the Divine Justice has condemned Behold then two Actions that I have propounded in my judgement sufficiently justified and by consequence the right of separating our selves from the body of our ordinary Pastors when they teach Doctrines contrary to the true faith which they would constrain the faithful to profess established by an example against which I do not see any thing which they can rationally oppose or hinder it from being like to that of our Fathers For if they say that there were in that party of the Orthodox that separated themselves divers Bishops that authorized that Action besides that we may say the same thing of the Party of the Reformation in which they know that there was a very considerable number of Pious and Learned Prelates and even some who had the courage to suffer death in the defence of that cause Besides that I say it is certain that it is not the Episcopal Dignity that makes the Reformation lawful it is lawful as often as it has causes that are just sufficient and necessary at the foundation and wheresoever those causes are to be found the faithful people have as much right to separate themselves as the Bishops If the people had no right to separate themselves from the Body of their Pastors who should teach them false Doctrine it could not be by reason of the Authority which the Pastors have over the people for the Body of the Pastors has at least as much authority over particular Pastors as it has over the people so that if that reason were not sufficiently valid in regard of particular Bishops they may very well see that it would not be so in regard of the faithful people In effect a Separation founded upon the fear of dishonouring God and prejudicing ones own salvation is a common right and the Laity are not less bound to it than the Bishops since both the one and the other ought according to the precept of the Apostle to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling If they say that the Separation which fell out in time of the Arians was founded upon the Authority of the Nicene Council wherein Arius and his followers had been condemned whereas that of our Fathers is not established by the Authority of any Council since there is not one that has condemned the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome I answer that this difference is yet null and void For not to mention that the Arians of whom we speak called themselves the Catholicks and took it as a great injury when they were called Arians or Followers of Arius and that their Councils had pronounced nothing directly against that of Nice their separation was founded upon the things themselves that is to say upon the necessity of acknowledging the Son of God to be consubstantial with the Father in order to the acknowledging him to be truly God and not upon the bare Authority of the Nicene Council to which they might have opposed that of the Church then in her
there is reason for that or no it is sufficient that he consents that they should not any more have had those for their Pastors which were so before and that they should have withdrawn themselves from their communion and external worship we demand no more at present We ought now to pass on to the second Proposition upon which the Objection is grounded that I have propounded in the beginning of this Chapter and to examine whether the Priviledge of the Church of Rome is such that one ought not upon any pretence whatsoever to separate ones self from her communion All the world knows that this is the pretension of that Church and that it is for that that she makes her self the Mother and the Mistress of all others and that she has also made it to be defined in her Council of Trent It is upon that account that one of her Popes Boniface the Eighth formerly determined That it was necessary to the Salvation of every creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome But clearly to decide so weighty a Question there seems to me to be only these two wayes The first is to enquire whether that Church can or cannot fall into Error and cease to be the True Church of Jesus Christ for if it be true that she can never fall into Errors nor lose the quality of a true Church we must conclude that we ought alwayes to remain in her Communion But if on the contrary she may erre and cease to be a true Church we must also conclude that we may and ought to separate our selves when there shall be a just occasion there The second way is that laying aside the Question Whether she may err or not we examine whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches as she pretends whether he has established her to be the perpetual and inviolable Center of the Christian Unity with a command to all the faithful not to fly off from her For if it be an Order that God has made we cannot resist it without destroying our selves but if it be only an ill-grounded pretension of that Church her communion is neither more necessary nor more inviolable than that of other particular Churches But as to the first of these wayes I have already shewn that it engages those who will follow it in the examination of the foundation and in effect the proofs that they set before us to establish the Infallibility of the Roman See are neither so clear nor so concluding that it should not be necessary to see whether the Doctrines that the Church of Rome teaches answer that pretension which she makes to be infallible and unable to fall away or to say better those proofs are so weak and so trivial that they themselves bind us to have recourse to the examination of the Doctrines of that Church to judge of her pretension by them These two Arguments are equally good as to their form The Church of Rome cannot err in the Faith therefore the things which she teaches us of Faith are true And the things which the Church of Rome teaches us are not true therefore the Church of Rome may err I do not here examine the question which of these two wayes of reasoning is the more natural I yield if they will that they should chuse the first but when they shall have chose it good sense would also require that if the things which they shall set before us to prove this Proposition The Church of Rome cannot err in the faith do no wayes satisfie the mind if instead of assuring us they plunge us into the greatest uncertainties we must pass over to the other way and by consequence we must enter into the examination of the foundation But to judge of what nature those proofs are which they give for the infallibility of the Church of Rome we need but a naked view of them For they are not the express declarations of the will of God although it should be very necessary that they should have such a one for the establishment of so great and peculiar a priviledge the knowledge of which is so very important to all Christians They are not evident consequences drawn from some passages of Scripture or some actions of the Apostles they are neither clear and convincing reasonings nor even strong presumptions and such as have much likelihood They are strained consequences which they draw as they are able from two or three passages of the Scripture and which a man that should have never heard them speak of that Infallibility with all his circumspection would not have gathered They produce the Testimony that St. Paul gives to the Church of Rome in his dayes That her faith was spoken of through all the world and they consider not that he gives the same testimony to the Thessalonians in far higher terms than to the Romans for he tells them That they were an example to the faithful and that the word of the Lord sounded from them not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place also Although they do not conclude the infallibility of the Church of Thessalonica from thence They do not see that he renders well near the same testimony to the Philippians in adding a clause that seems much more express to wit That he is assured of this very thing that he which had begun a good work in them would perform it until the day of Jesus Christ Although they cannot notwithstanding conclude infallibility from thence in the behalf of the Church of Philippi In effect these testimonies only regard the persons who at that time composed those Churches and not those who should come after them and do not found any priviledge on them They produce the passages of the Gospel that relate to S. Peter as this Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and this I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. and this I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not when therefore thou art converted strengthen thy brethren and this Feed my sheep But to perceive the weakness of the consequence which they draw from these passages we need but to see that which is between two things of which it is necessary that we should be assured before we can conclude any thing First of all we must be assured that S. Peter was at Rome that he preached and fixed his See there for these actions are not so evident as they imagine they are inveloped with divers difficulties that appear unconquerable and accompanied with many circumstances that have no appearance of truth and which make at least that whole History to be doubted I confess that the Ancients did believe so but they have sometimes readily admitted Fables for truths and after all these
Assemblies most lawful For as to that which is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepheard and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad it would be manifestly to abuse that passage if they would conclude from it an absolute necessity of the Pastors for the subsistence of that Society For that is a Prophecy which notes not that which the Faithful ought to do when they have no Pastors but that which should befal the Disciples of Jesus Christ in the Time of his Passion when the fury of the Jews and the sad Condition wherein they should behold their Divine Master should force them to be scattered which has nothing common to the Question we are now Treating of In the Third place I say that to understand well the true use and the Necessity of the Actions of the Ministry the Church must be considered in two Seasons in her first formation and in her subsistence For in her first formation it is certain that the Actions of the Ministry were necessary for the calling of men to the light of the Gospel whereof as yet they had no knowledge and by Consequence they were necessary to the Establishment of the Christian Communion or Society amongst them which could not be without that knowledge To this end Jesus Christ employed his Apostles and Evangelists Go says he and Teach all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and it is that to which Saint Paul has a chief regard when he says That Christ has given some Apostles and some Prophets and some Exangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the gathering together of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ Those glorious Heralds by the efficacy of their word accompanied with the power of Jesus Christ called together the Church if we must so say as the Holy Assembly of God they Established the Christian Religion in the World and so united men among themselves in an External Society by the profession of one and the same Faith of one and the same Hope and Charity which inspired them so that the Acts of their Ministry were absolutely necessary for that first Establishment because their Preaching was the only means that God would make use of to draw men from the Pagan Idolatry or the Jewish Obstinacy and to give them that Faith without which they could never have had a Christian Society In this respect there is Reason to urge the force of the word Church which signifies not a rash and tumultuary Assembly made by chance or Sedition but an Assembly lawfully called for it was God himself who called it by the voice of his Apostle according to the Prophecy of David The mighty Lord the Eternal God hath spoken and called to all the Earth from the rising up of the Son to the going down of the same He has called the Heavens from on high and the Earth to Judge his People saying Gather ye my Saints together In this first Establishment the Apostles and Evangelists did three things On one hand they spread abroad the Faith every where and by this means bound men in an External Communion or Society on the other hand they set together the Christian Truths which are the Objects of Faith in the Cannon of the Scriptures and in fine they established Ordinary Pastors for the upholding and Government of the Church By the first of those things in Establishing the Faith in mens hearts they assembled called them together and put them into a Society by the second they laid as I may so speak the Fountain or the External and perpetual Magazine of the Evangelical Doctrine By the Third they provided for the Ordinary Dispensation of that Fountain setling of Ministers to distribute it by their Preaching the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline Of these three things there is none but the first only to which we ought to refer the Convocation of the Church and Establishment of the Christian Society But we must say that all Three serve for its preservation and increase for they are so many ways and means which the Apostles left for the preservation of the Faith and strengthning of it in those who had before received it and to propagate it to their Children and in those who had not as yet received it in which the preservation of a Society consists The first contributes much for as Lights or Torches lighted all together preserve and mutually strengthen their fire and are capable of lighting others So many faithful Christians united together confirm one another in the Faith and Piety and are fit to Communicate that Faith and Piety to those who have not yet received it The Second does not contribute less for the Faithful preserve and increase their light their Faith Piety Sanctity by the immediate Reading of the Holy Scriptures Infidels themselves may be converted this way and those that go astray be brought back to the purity of the Gospel The Third is also of exceeding great Use for the Pastors by their Preaching their Direction and their Writings by their Examples by the Sacraments they Administer and in a word by all the Actions of their Ministry confirm the Faith where it is and propagate it where it is not The Divine Wisdom has so prepared its divers means for the preservation of that Society and the Propagation of his Church That if the Actions of the Ministry do not produce that effect for which they are appointed the other means shall and supply that defect In Effect when the publick Preaching and presence of the Pastors fail the Reading of the Scripture private Exhortation of the simple Christians the writings of their Pastors either dead or absent may come to succour and make the Faith and Charity and Piety subsist and by consequence the External Society of the Church and its Assemblies How then are the Actions of the Ministry necessary They are so first By Necessity of Precept as they speak I mean as it is a means that Jesus Christ has ordained the Use whereof we cannot neglect without sin Those who contemn it resist the Order that God himself has established and make themselves unworthy of his Grace and to this those passages in the Scripture refer which recommend the Pastors to the Faithful 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 2. The Actions of the Ministry are necessary to the Churches well being though not absolutely necessary to its being It is not absolutely impossible for a Church to subsist without having actually any Pastors not only because sometimes Faith and Piety may subsist without their heavenly food which is the Word and Sacraments as a Body may subsist sometimes without its nourishments but also because one part of that food may come to us otherwise then from the mouth of the
souls but to make Jesus Christ reign who is the only Monarch of the Church We Preach not our selves saith St. Paul but Jesus Christ the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake and elsewhere he says that he was made a Minister of the Church of God All these passages by themselves are very concluding but taken together make up a Demonstration that will persuade all men who are not prepossest with prejudice For what likelyhood is there that God would have filled his Scriptures with so many things contrary to this Dominion if he had had a design to invest the Pastors of his Church with an Authority so absolute over mens Consciences and of making them Soveraign Lords of their Faith Is not that Authority after the way they pretend to it a real Empire and a much more powerful Empire than the Temporal ones which they set up over the Hearts and Souls of men where the others do but establish theirs over their bodies Bellarmine and Du Perron busie themselves very much in eluding the force of that passage where Jesus Christ forbids his Disciples that Dominion They say that he forbids not Dominion but the manner of that Dominion that is to say that he would not have them affect that Dominion nor that they should Rule Tyrannically or with violence but that nevertheless he would have them Rule Who sees not the absurdity of this answer For when Jesus Christ said The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship but it shall not be so with you it is clear that the distinction that he makes between Kings and Pastors falls upon that Dominion and not upon the manner of that Dominion I confess that he forbids the affectation of that Dominion but I affirm that he forbids also that Dominion it self as it appears from his words for he says not the Kings of the Gentiles affect Dominion but he says they do exercise that Dominion and that it shall not be so with them which shews he would distinctly say that they should not exercise Lordship Else it was necessary that in those words Jesus Christ should have set down some difference between the Government of the Gentile Nations and that of his Church But that difference cannot consist in this that they ought not to affect the manner of Dominion in his Church for that would make him say that they ought or might lawfully affect it in the Civil Government which yet is not true And as to what they say of a Tyrannical and violent Domination they evidently deceive themselves For the contest of his Disciples was no ways about that violent Dominion nor about the gentleness of that Dominion but about the Dominion it self they strove among themselves which of them should be greatest Whence it follows that Jesus Christ who answers to their thoughts speaks of a Dominion whatsoever it be and not simply of a Tyrannical one To which I add that those other Passages to which they know not how to apply those evasions learly determine the sence of that saying of Jesus Christ 2. But the Scripture is not contented only to forbid that Soveraign and Absolute Authority to the Ministers of the Church it farther gives the Faithful a right to examine that which they teach and at the same time obliges them to do it to separate the Good from the Bad. Hence it is that Jesus Christ who would have his Disciples do all that that the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in the Chair of Moses commanded them to do yet would have them discern also their false Doctrines and to take heed of them Take heed to your selves says he of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Saducees which in the close he explains of the leaven of their Doctrine In the sight of that Saint John gives this Lesson to the Faithful Not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they be of God and Saint Paul To prove all things and to hold fast that which is good The same Apostle elsewhere prays That they may have an abundant measure of all judgment and knowledge That they might try things that differ that they might be sincere and without offence until the day of Jesus Christ And there where he lets us understand that the Pastors in building upon the Foundation might heap up Wood Hay Stubble as well as Gold Silver and Pretious Stones it is evident from that Advertisement that he engages them to make a just discerning of those things It is not less clear that he supposes in the Faithful an Examination and a judgment in respect of those things which their Pastors should teach them when he has recourse to their Testimony for the Justification of his Doctrine We have not says he handled the word of God deceitfully but have commended our selves to every mans Conscience in the sight of God by the manifestation of the Truth Ye are witnesses and God also says he to the Thessalonians how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved our selves among you that believe But what more can be added to the force of his words which we find in his Epistle to the Galatians If we our selves or an Angel from Heaven preach to you another Gospel than we have preached to you let him be accursed Who can deny that he forbids by those words that blind obedience which they would have us give at this day to the Pastors of the Church and that he does not on the contrary command us to examine their Preaching by the Rule of the Primitive and Original Gospel Who sees not that that exaggeration which he uses serves but to let us see the importance the necessity the force of that obligation which he would lay upon us and how inviolable and indispensable it is He commands us not only to make a sincere discernment he does not only speak of a simple rejecting of that that shall be Forreign and Alien to it and shall not agree with the Gospel He enjoyns an Anathema an Execration He would not only have us pronounce it against men indefinitely or against those whom the Councils and the Popes shall declare Hereticks he declares that it ought to be pronounced against an Apostle against himself the most famous among the Apostles against him who had had Visions and Revelations who had been caught up into the third Heaven and who had laboured with such an abundant expence of his blood and of his Life for Jesus Christ This is not all yet he enjoyns the same against an Angel from Heaven if he undertook to Preach another Gospel than that which he has Preached unto us What can be said more weighty What is there in the Church beyond an Anathema What is there upon Earth among men greater than Saint Paul What is there in Heaven above an Angel And shall the ordinary Pastors the Prelates Patriarchs Popes and Councils be exempted from that Rule when the Apostles and Angels themselves are not
from that humane Intervention that the bad State of the Ministry proceeds If God would alwayes send them immediately as he did his Apostles and Evangelists there would be some ground to believe that it would never be remote from its first Institution but since they are men that send them no one can deny that it cannot be Corrupted through that Channel for God has never promised any thing to the contrary in that matter God has not promised that he would accompany those Elections and Humane Calls with an Infallible Spirit that should give them all a happy Success and besides that the experience of all the Ages past Contradicts it Jesus Christ himself seems purposely to have forbidden such a rash Imagination for although he knew the Heart and the thoughts of it yet nevertheless he would have a Judas added to the Number of his first Disciples and he permitted that a Nicholas who was afterwards the Head of the Sect of the Nicolaitans should have a part in the Election that the Church made of her first Deacons to give us to understand that it was not his intention actually to hinder the Ministry from ever falling into very bad hands 6. We must note in the sixth place That although the Church and the Ordinary Ministry which we speak of are two things naturally joyned together yet it is not the Church that depend s upon the Ministry but it is the Ministry on the contrary that depends upon the Church For the Ordinary Pastors were not Established but when the Church was first formed and when care was taken for its Preservation and Propagation so that naturally it preceded Pastors The Church was produc'd at first by the Extraordinary Ministry of the Apostles the first thing which they propounded was not to make Ordinary Pastors but true Beleivers They called men to the Knowledge of Jesus Christ they assembled them together they united them in a Society before they provided for the upholding of that Society in setting up an Ordinary Ministry in the midst of it They first took care for the birth of the New Creature and after they procured it Breasts to nourish it Therefore it is that the Ordinary Ministers were called Pastors in reference to Shepheards who fed and led their Flocks They were called Presbyters or Elders with reference to the Senators among the Jews they were called Bishops that is Overseers or Super-Intendants by an Allusion to the Super-Intendants of Victuals among the Greeks who were called Bishops also But the Shepheards suppose their Flocks the Chosen Senators among the people suppose the people the Super-Intendants or Overseers suppose those over whom they gave a right of Super-Intendance and Inspection The Ordinary Ministers therefore suppose the Church and not the Church the Ministers she is not because they are but they on the contrary because she is she does not own her being to them but they theirs to her This Truth will yet appear more clearly if we set before their eyes what I have already said in the first Chapter of this Fourth Part That the Ordinary Ministry is not absolutely necessary to the being of a Church but that it is only necessary to its well being and to hinder it from falling into Ruine For when the Faithful should have no Pastors they would yet be joyned together in a Society since it is Grace and Faith that unite s them and not the Ministry And as in the Civil Society it is the Nature and not the Magistrate that unites men and that after men are united in a Society the Magistrate is made by reason of Order and by the necessity of the preservation of that Society so that it is the Society that makes the Magistrate and not the Magistrate the Society So here it is the same The Faith and Grace Assemble men into a Religous Society they are those things that make the Church and afterward the Ministry arises by reason of Order and to help the preservation of the Church and so naturally it is the Church that produces the Ordinary Ministry and not the Ordinary Ministry that produces the Church The Church was the Fruit of the Extraordinary Ministry of the Apostles and Evangelists that Ministry produc'd it at first and not only produc'd it but it has always since made use of that means or that source for its subsistence and we may truly say that it yet produces it and that it will produce it unto the end of the World for it is the Faith that makes and alwayes will make the Church and it is the Ministry of the Apostles which makes and will always make the Faith It is their voice that calls Christians together at this day it is their word that Assembles them and their Teaching that unites them It is certain that the Ministry of the Apostles was singular that is to say only tyed to their persons without succession without Communication without Propagation but it ought not to be thought that it was also as Transitory a Ministry as that of other men for it is perpetual in the Church Death has not shut their Mouths as it has the others they speak they instruct they incessantly spread abroad the Faith Piety and Holiness among the Souls of Christians and there is not another Fountain from whence those Vertues can descend but from them If any demand of us what is that perpetual Voice that we ascribe to them We answer That it is the Doctrine of the New Testament where they have set down all the Efficacy of their Ministry and the whole vertue of that Word which gave a Being to the Church There it is that their True Chair and their Apostolick See is there is the Center of the Christian Unity there it is that they incessantly call men and join them into a Society every other Voice besides theirs is false and supposititious it is from theirs alone that the Church proceeds and because to Assemble with those is to Assemble with Jesus Christ we may very well say that not to Assemble with them is to disperse instead of Assembling But as to the Ordinary Ministry of the Pastors we cannot say the same thing it is not their Voice as it is distinct from that of the Apostles that begets the Faith that Assembles Christians into a Society or that produces the Church they are no more but meer dispensers of the Word of the Apostles or if you will External Instruments to make us the better understand their Voice They are not not only the Ordinary Pastors who gave a Being to the Church at first but yet further at this day to speak properly it is not their word that produces the Faith in those who had it not before for that which confirms it in those who have it and that which produces it in those who have it not is the word of the Apostles themselves to whom we must go for conduct if we would have good success They are then to speak properly no