those Decisions or any of like nature which may concern the Iustifiableness of our Christian Worship and indispensable way of Salvation the Church has Authority as she ever had in such Controversies to ratifie such Articles of Faith but she is not said to have Authority to make every Synodical Decision an Article of Faith whether the nature thereof will bear it or no. Nay her Authority is excluded from inforcing any thing besides what is clearly enough contained in the Scripture as assuredly those points are above mentioned though with weak or cavilling men they have been made questionable to be believed for Necessity of Salvation Which is the proper Character of an Article of Faith according as the Preface to the Athanasian Creed intimates And Monsieur Maimbourg himself is so sensible of this main Truth that in the Explication of his general Maxime he acknowledges that the Church has no Autority to coin any New Articles of Faith but only to declare she has discovered them existent before in the Scriptures but not so clearly espi'd or discerned as by an assembled Synod 5. But certainly no Article of Faith that is to say no Truth necessary to Salvation can be said to be pre existent in the Scriptures and having lain hid to be discovered afterwards that is not discovered but by such forced Interpretations of the Text that are repugnant to Common Sense and Reason Is not this a Reproach to the Wisdom of God that he should inspire the Holy Penmen to set down Truth necessary to Salvation so obscurely that the meaning cannot be reached without doing violence to Common Sense and Reason and running counter to those previous Principles without which it is impossible to make sense of any writing whatever Or without interpreting one place of Scripture repugnantly to the plain sense of another Which this Article expresly forbids as unlawful So plain is it that our Church limits the Authority of a Synod to certain Rules agreed of on all hands against which they have no Authority to define any thing And plain places of Scripture is one Rule contrary to which it is not lawful to interpret any either pretendedly or really obscure place Nor can any place at all be plain without the admittance of those Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated sense and common undeniable Notions essentially ingrafted in the mind of man whether they relate to Reason or Morality These both Synod and Contesters are supposed to be agreed on and therefore no Synodical Decision repugnant to these according to our Church in interpreting of Scripture if I rightly understand her ought to have Autority with it 6. But as for doctrinal Decisions such as concern the Justifiableness of the Christian Worship and are of Necessity to Salvation and such as although either weak or willful cavilling men may make questionable yet are clearly enough delivered in Scripture these questionless a Synod has Autority to determine as Articles of Faith And such as have not the like Clearness nor Necessity as also innocent and indifferent Rites and Ceremonies when the one and the other seem advantagious to the Church such Synodical Decisions may pass into Articles of Communion in that sense I have above explained And lastly As in that case of the Synod of Dort when the points controverted have on both sides that invincible Obscurity and Intricacy and there seems to be forcible Arguments for either conclusion What I humbly conceive is to be done in that case I have fully enough expressed already and therefore think it needless again to repeat 7. In the mean time I hope I have made it manifoldly apparent that Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime viz. That the Church in which are found the two Parties concerned has ever had the Power to determine all differences and to declare that as Matter of Faith which before there was no Obligation to believe And that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under the penalty of being Schismaticks is not especially as he would have his Maxime understood agreed on by all Churches as well Protestant as Pontifician And that therefore this Snare or Net wherewith he would catch and carry Captive the Protestants into a Profession of the Infallibility of the Church in Synodical Decisions so that the Church must be first allow'd Infallible that we may glibly swallow down whatsoever she decides even Transubstantiation it self with all other Errours of the Church of Rome this Net or Snare I hope I have sufficiently broken And I will only note by the bye how the subtilest Romanists declining the Merits of the Cause labour Tooth and Nail to establish the absolute Infallibility of their Church But our Saviour tells us By the fruit you shall know them Wherefore any man or Company of men that profess themselves infallible their Infallibility must be examined by their Doctrines which if they be plainly any one of them false their boast of Infallibility most certainly is not true 8. But forasmuch as an Appeal to a Maxime pretended to be agreed upon by both sides both Papists and Protestants is made use of with so much Wit and Artifice to ingage the Protestants to imbrace Transubstantiation and the rest of the Romish Errours I hope Monsieur Maimbourg will not take it amiss if I civilly meet him again in his own Way and show him by an Appeal not only to one Maxime but above a dozen at least of Common Notions which I did above recite and in which both Papists and Protestants and all mankind are agreed that it may demonstratively be made evident that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is grosly false For that which in it self is false no declaring or saying it is true though by the vote of an entire Synod can make it true by the first of the Common Notions above-mentioned Chap. 8. Sect. 4. Secondly Whatever is plainly repugnant to what is true is certainly false and consequently can be no due Article of a true Faith or Religion by the second and third Common Notions And therefore Transubstantiation cannot pass into an Article of Faith by the Authority of any Synod whatever Thirdly Now that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false is manifest from the assurance of our Senses rightly circumstantiated To which our Saviour Christ appeals who is wiser than all the Synods that ever were or will be as was observed in Common Notion the fourth But our Senses assure us it is Bread still not the Body of Christ. Fourthly If Transubstantiation be true an Essence or Being that is one remaining still one may be divided or separated from it self which is repugnant to the fifth Common Notion Fifthly If Transubstantiation be true the whole is not bigger than the part nor the part less than the whole which contradicts the sixth Common Notion Sixthly If Transubstantiation be true the parts in a Division do not only agree with the whole but agree one with another and are indeed absolutely the same for divide a
Imprimatur Guil. Needham R mo in Christo Patri ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cantuar. à sacr Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Iul. 2. 1686. A BRIEF DISCOURSE OF THE Real Presence OF THE Body and Blood of CHRIST In the Celebration of the HOLY EUCHARIST WHEREIN The Witty Artifices of the Bishop of Meaux and of Monsieur Maimbourg are obviated whereby they would draw in the Protestants to imbrace the Doctrine of Transubstantiation John 6. v. 54 63. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calvin Instit. lib. 4. cap. 17. In sacra sua coena jubet me Christus sub Symbolis panis ac vini corpus ac sanguinem suum sumere manducare ac bibere Nihil dubito quin ipse verè porrigat ego recipiam Tantum absurda rejicio quae aut coelesti illius Majestate indigna aut ab humanae ejus naturae veritate aliena esse apparet LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S t Paul's Church-Yard 1686. A BRIEF DISCOURSE OF THE Real Presence CHAP. I. 1. The occasion of writing this Treatise 2. The sence of the Church of England touching Transubstantiation 3. Three Passages in her Articles Liturgie and Homilies that seem to imply a Real Presence 4. A yielding at least for the present that the Church of England is for a Real Presence but of that Flesh and Blood of Christ which he discourses of in the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel though she be for a Real Absence of that which hung on the Cross. 5. That our Saviour himself distinguishes betwixt that Flesh and Blood he bore about with him and that he there so earnestly discourses of 6. That this Divine Food there discoursed of the Flesh and Blood of Christ is most copiously to be fed upon in the Holy Eucharist and that our Communion-Service alludes to the same nor does by such a Real Presence imply any Transubstantiation 1. THE occasion of writing this short Treatise was this I observing the Papers here in England published in behalf of the Church of Rome and for the drawing off People from the Orthodox Faith of the Church of England which holds with the ancient pure Apostolick Church in the Primitive Times before that general Degeneracy of the Church came in to drive at nothing more earnestly than the maintaining their grand Error touching the Eucharist viz. their Doctrine of Transubstantiation Into which they would bring back the Reformed Churches by taking hold of some Intimations or more open Professions of theirs of a Real Presence though they absolutely deny the Roman Doctrine of Transubstantiation and thus entangling and ensnaring them in those free professions touching that Mystery of the Eucharist would by hard pulling hale them into that rightfully relinquish'd Errour for which and several others they justly left the Communion of the Church of Rome I thought it my duty so far as my Age and Infirmness of my Body will permit to endeavour to extricate the Reformation and especially our Church of England from these Entanglements with which these witty and cunning Writers would entangle Her in Her Concessions touching that mysterious Theory and to shew there is no clashing betwixt her declaring against Transubstantiation and those Passages which seem to imply a Real Presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ at the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist 2. Concerning which that we may the more clearly judge we will bring into view what She says touching them both And as touching the former Article 28. her words are these Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many Superstitions And in the latter part of the Rubrick at the end of the Communion-Service She says That the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural Substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Bloud of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the Truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one This is sufficiently express against Transubstantiation 3. Now those passages that seem to imply a Real Presence in the Eucharist are these In the above-named Article 28. The Body of Christ saith our Church is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an Heavenly and Spiritual manner And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith Against which our Adversaries suggest that no Faith can make us actually receive and eat that which is God knows how far distant from us and that therefore we imply that the Body of Christ is really present in the Eucharist Another Passage occurs in our Catechism where it is told us That the inward part of the Sacrament or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper Where verily and indeed seems to imply a Real Presence and Participation of the Body and Bloud of Christ. The last place shall be that in the Homily of worthy receiving and reverend esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ. The words are these But thus much we must be sure to hold that in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain Ceremony no bare Sign no untrue Figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the Table of the Lord the Bread and Cup of the Lord the Memory of Christ the Annunciation of his Death yea the Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the Operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the Souls of the faithful Whereby not only their Souls live to Eternal Life but they surely trust to win their Bodies a Resurrection to Immortality And immediately there is added The true understanding of this Fruition and Union which is betwixt the Body and the Head betwixt the true Believers and Christ the ancient Catholick Fathers both perceiving themselves and commending to their people were not afraid to call this Supper some of them the Salve of Immortality and sovereign Preservative against Death others the Deifick Communion others the sweet Dainties of our Saviour the Pledge of Eternal Health the Defence of Faith the Hope of the Resurrection Others the Food of Immortality the Healthful Grace and the Conservatory to Everlasting Life There are so many high Expressions in these passages that our Adversaries who would by this Hook pluck us back again into the Errour of Transubstantiation will unavoidably imagine and alledge from hence that if we will stand to the Assertions of our own Church we must acknowledge the Real Presence of the Body and Bloud of our Saviour
Heresy and Schism is 11. The fifth Prop further explained by Mounsieur Maimbourg in two Propositions 12. An Answer to the two Propositions 1. I HAVE I hope by this time sufficiently proposed and confirmed both the Truth and Usefulness of the distinction of the Body and Blood of Christ which occurs in the Primitive Fathers into Natural and Spiritual or Divine From whence it may plainly appear to any pious and uprejudiced Reader that the Inference of a Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Real Body and Blood of Christ from a Real Presence of them in the Lord's Supper is very weak and invalid Which Monsieur Maimbourg as well as the Bishop of Meaux formerly Bishop of Condom though he take special notice of in his Peaceable Method viz. that this Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper is generally acknowledged by the Protestants Chap. 3. whom he will have to hold That the Sacrament is not a Figure or empty Sign without Efficacy but they do maintain saith he that it does communicate unto us in a most real and effectual Manner the Body of Jesus Christ to be the Food of our Souls And he will have Monsieur Claud himself acknowledge that before this Novelty of Transubstantiation was introduced every one believed that Iesus Christ is present in the Sacrament that his Body and Blood are there truly received by the faithful yet he is so wise and cautious as not to trust to the strength of this Engine for the pulling us back into a belief and profession of that incredible Hypothesis but according to the Fineness of his wit has spread a more large Net to catch us in and carry us captive not only into this gross Errour of Transubstantiation but into all other Errours which the Church of Rome has broached or may hereafter broach and propose as Articles of Faith And therefore it is a point worth our closest consideration 2. His general Maxim is this That that Church in which are found two Parties concerned has ever had the power to determine all differences and to declare that as matter of Faith which before there was no obligation to believe and that we are bound to acquiesce in her Decisions under Penalty of being Schismaticks By the Church her declaring as matter of Faith which seems to sound so harshly he does not mean That the Church has Authority to frame New Articles of Faith pag. 17. but that She is to act according to a Rule which is Holy Scripture and Tradition truly and purely Apostolical from which we have also received the Holy Scripture it self And page 18. The Church never did make and undoubtedly never will make any New Articles of Faith since it is not in her power to define any thing but according to the Word of God which she is always to consult with as with her Oracle and the Rule she is bound to follow His meaning therefore must be this That besides those plain and Universally known Articles of the Christian Faith and acknowledged from the very beginning of Christianity such as are comprised in the Apostles Creed there have been and may be other Articles of Faith more obscurely and uncertainly delivered in Scripture which until the Church in a lawful Synod or Council has determined the sense of those places of Scripture that appertain to the Controversie men have no obligation to believe but go for the present for but uncertain and indifferent Opinions But when once the true Church in which the Parties differing in Opinion are and her lawful Representative assisted by the Holy Ghost as is affirmed Chap. 2. pag. 28. a Canonical Assembly which alone has full Power and Sovereign Authority to say juridically Chap. 4. pag. 27. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us has given definitive Sentence touching the Controversie that which before was but an indifferent Opinion becomes now Matter of Faith and is to be received as an Article of Faith by the Dissenting Party upon penalty of being Schismaticks and Hereticks This I conceive to be his precise meaning But the great Artifice of all is That he will have this meaning of his to be the general Opinion also of the Protestant Churches Who can says he page 27. question but the Protestant Churches of England France Germany and Switzerland and the Low Countries do hold as a Fundamental Maxim that in such Controversies as do arise concerning Doctrine in Matters of Religion the true Church of which the Dissenting Parties are Members has full and sovereign power to declare according to the Word of God what is of Faith and that there is an Obligation of standing to her Decrees under pain of being Schismaticks And page 35. I demand saith he nothing more for the present I will content my self with what themselves do grant That that Church of which the Parties contesting are Members be she fallible or infallible has full power to decide Differences and her Decrees do oblige under the Penalty of being Schismaticks 3. Now from this general Maxim granted as he conceives on both sides and which he does chiefly endeavour to prove from the carriage of the Synod of Dort toward the Arminians all which things to repeat here would be too moliminous and inconsistent with the Brevity I intend a full Answer to Monsieur Maimbourg's Method requiring some more able Pen he declining I say all dispute touching the Merit of the Cause the point of Transubstantiation he would hence draw us in to the imbracing that Doctrine merely because we were once of that Church that has Synodically determined for it and consequently reconcile us to all the rest of the Errours of the Church of Rome But that we may not so easily be taken in this Net or pulled in by this Engine we will first examine the Supposals that support the strength of it or of which it does consist The first and chiefest whereof is That such Synods to whose definitive sentence he would have us stand are assisted by the Holy Ghost The second That whether they be or be not we are to stand to their determination The third Whatever Matters of Opinion as they are for the present but such are decided by such a Synod pass into Articles of Faith The fourth That those that will not close with these Decisions be they what they will they are guilty of Schism as being bound to assent The fifth That these decisive Synods or Assemblies are to decide according to the Rule of the Word of God The sixth and last That both the Protestants and Papists are agreed in all these 4. Now before I examine these Particulars these Supposals Parts or Props of his general Maxim by which he would draw the Protestants again into the Church of Rome and make them embrace Transubstantiation and all other Superstitions and Errours which they have Synodically decided for matters of Faith I will following the very method of this shrewd Writer
notwithstanding S t Paul's long Exhortation against Religibus Exercise in an unknown Tongue 1 Cor. 14. they should by some distinction or evasion conclude it lawful If when as it is said Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image to worship and fall down before it they should distinguish and restrain it only to the graven Images of the Heathen Gods If when as it is said Thou shalt have no other Gods but me they should distinguish Gods into Supream and Subordinate and declare we may have many Subordinate Gods but only One Supream If when as it said Honour thy Father and thy Mother they should restrain it to a Father or Mother of the same Religion with our selves whether Political Father or Natural otherwise we are free from this Command and may despise both our Natural Parents and our Prince if they be not of the same perswasion with our selves And whereas it is said Thou shalt not commit Adultery if they should understand it only of such an Adultery as is committed for the mere pleasure of the Flesh not for the health of the Body or assisting the Conjugal Impotency of his Neighbour If the Commandment against Murther or Killing an Innocent Person they should restrain to Murther that is accompanied with delight in Cruelty not that which is committed to raise a livelyhood or secure an Interest the Murtherer has espoused If the Commandment against Stealing they should restrain to such Theft as is against Men of our Religion and Perswasion but that we may rob and steal from others without sin And according to the same tenour they should interpret Thou shall not bear false witness against thy Neighbour c. I demand I say whether Monsieur Maimbourg does conceive that the Protestants nay or his own Party are agreed that all such determinations are to be submitted to upon penalty of being Schismaticks Let him ask the Reformed Churches if they be thus agreed or rather let him ask his own Conscience if he think they are Wherefore it is plain that what he produces out of the History of the Synod of Dort reaches not the point that he drives at that is to say That it is acknowledged by them that after a Synod has decided the Controversie or given the sense of places of Scripture controverted be it what it will be the Decision is to be stood to under penalty of being Schismaticks and that there are not some commonly known Truths common Notions of Reason and Morality with which if the determination of a Synod does clash it is ipso facto null and a demonstration that the Spirit of God did not assist 3. I observe farther That all the Citations that are produced either by Monsieur Maimbourg himself or his Translator in his Preface and Appendix will not amount to the Protestants professing that every Controversie or controverted Opinion after the Decision of the Synod passes into an Article of Faith which properly signifies such a Doctrine as without the Belief of which when it is proposed he that mis-believes it forfeits his Salvation for hereby the Synod of Dort had damned all the Lutheran Churches For my own part I must confess that in points that are so obscure intricate and abstruse and which as touching the main part of them have exercised and much baffled humane understanding through all Ages it had been a great piece of Christian Prudence for that Synod to have made Decrees against all bitterness of speech of the disagreeing Parties one against another and to have admonished them that they were bound notwithstanding their difference of Opinion to live in mutual Love one to another which is the true Badge of Christ's genuine Disciples rather than to have exasperated one Party against another by making that Doctrine Authentick which is really in it self from places of Scripture and Reason so intricate and disputable But it seems to have been the sleight of Satan for the weakning the Reformed Churches that drove them to it But I must say on the other side that when the Synod had determined they who were determined against ought to have submitted to her determination in a thing so really disputable and by this Christian Policy to have conserved the peace of the Church and out-witted the Devil For if they had had any modesty in them they might very well in such abstruse dark and disputable points have compromised with the Synod and preferred the peace and safety of the Reformed Churches before the satisfaction of their own Opinionativeness 4. And that wise Prince King Iames the first of Blessed Memory seems to come near to what I have said in the words delivered by his Embassadour at the Synod of Dort as they are cited by Monsieur Maimbourg himself in his Peaceable Method pag. 23. That for the allaying those troubles There was but that one only means which the Church had ever made use of a National Synod which was to be judge in the case and to decide which of the two Opinions was more conformable to the Word of God or at least how and in what manner the one or the other might be tolerated in the Church of God Which latter part is cunningly left out by the Translator in his Preface pag. 3. But in those latter words King Iames plainly intimates his moderate Sentiments touching the Controversy and that he would not have the Decision made too rigidly and pinchingly on either side And sutably to this excellent judgment of his in the Conference at Hampton-Court when the Puritans would have had the nine Lambeth Articles which are more full and express against the points of Arminianism to be embodyed into the Articles of our Church concluded on in the Convocation holden at London in the Year 1562. the King earnestly refused it And in his Instructions to his Divines he sent over to the Synod of Dort this remarkable one was amongst the rest That they would advise the Churches that the Ministers do not deliver in Pulpit to the People those things for ordinary Doctrines which are the highest points of the Schools and not fit for vulgar Capacities but disputable on both sides And we may be sure when he was so careful in this for the foreign Churches he would not neglect to infuse the same good Principles into his own And that he could not easily believe that upon the Decision of the Synod of Dort that passed into an Article of Faith without which there is no Salvation which yet he would have hid from the knowledge of the People CHAP. X. 1. What Synodical Decisions are capable of passing into proper Articles of Faith and what not 2. The necessity of distinguishing the doctrinal Decisions of Synods into Articles of Faith properly so called and Articles of Communion 3. The meaning of the King's Answer to Mr. Knewstub in the Conference at Hampton-Court And that Synods have unlimited Power to put what sense they please on places of Scripture and make them pass into
Articles of Faith not proved to be the Opinion of the Protestant Churches 4. That our English Church is against it largely proved out of her Articles 5. No Article of Faith pre-existent in Scripture that cannot be fetched thence but by interpreting against the Proleptick Principles of rightly circumstantiated Sense and Common Notions ingrafted essentially in the Humane Understanding 6. Of Decision of points necessary to Salvation and to the justifying the Christian Worship and those that are less necessary and less clear and lastly those that have an Insuperable Difficulty on both sides 7. Monsieur Maimbourg's general Maxime that it is not agreed in by the Protestant Churches abundantly demonstrated with a Note of the Subtilty of the Romanists in declining the Dispute of the particular merits of their Cause and making it their business to perswade first that their Church is Infallible 8. A Meeting with Monsieur Maimbourg once more in his own Method and thereby demonstrating that Transubstantiation is grosly false and consequently the Church of Rome fallible with an hint of a true peaceable Method of reconciling Papists and Protestants 1. WHerefore it seems needful to take notice of this distinction of the Doctrinal Decisions of Synods that some pass into or rather are of the nature of the Articles of Faith the knowledge of them being necessary to keep us from Sin and Damnation And such were the Doctrinal Decisions of those ancient Primitive Councils who out of Scripture plainly declared the truth of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the God-head without which the Church would be involved in gross Idolatry And therefore the Decisions of the Controversies did naturally pass into professed Articles of the Christian Faith and such as our Salvation depended on But to imagine that every Doctrinal Decision of a Synod passes into a proper Article of Faith without which there is no Salvation and that a Synod has power to make that an Article of Faith before which men were safe and sinless as to that point is to put it into the power of a Synod to damn God knows how many Myriads of men which Christ dyed for and had it not been for these curious or rather mischievous Decisions might have been saved than which what can be more prodigious 2. Whence we see plainly it is most necessary to make this distinction in Doctrinal Decisions of Synods that some may be Articles of Faith others only Articles of Communion that if any oppose or disparage the said Articles whether they be of the Clergy or Laity they make themselves obnoxious to Excommunication and if a Clergy-man does not subscribe to them he makes himself uncapable of Ecclesiastical Imployment This is all that Monsieur Maimbourg can squeeze out of all his Citations out of the story of the Synod of Dort so far as I can perceive or his Translator in his Preface and Appendix out of those he produces touching the Church of England 3. And that which his Translator in his Preface would make such a great business of viz This wise Kings answer to M r Knewstubs at the Conference at Hampton Court when he was asked How far an Ordinance of the Church was to bind men without impeachment of their Christian Liberty to which he said he would not argue that point with him but answer therein as Kings are wont to speak in Parliament Le Roy s'avisera And therefore I charge you never speak more to that point how far you are bound to obey when the Church has once ordained it I say nothing more can be collected out of this answer but that he modestly intimated his Opinion that he meant not that all Synodical Decisions passed into Articles of Faith but may be only Articles of Communion in the sense I have already explained And what I have already said if seriously and considerately applyed to what he produces in his Appendix will easily discover that they prove nothing more touching the Church of England than what we have already allowed to be her Doctrine touching the Authority of Synods But that a Synod without any limitation or appeal to certain Principles in which both the Synod and Parties contesting are all agreed in may by her bare immediate Authority give what sense she pleases on places of Scripture alledged in the Controversy and that her Decision passes into an Artiticle of Faith which the Parties cast are bound to assent to under the pain of becoming Hereticks and Schismaticks Nothing can be more contrary than this to the Declarations of the Church of England So far is it from truth That all the Protestant Churches are agreed in his grand Maxime above mentioned 4. Let the Church of England speak for her self Artic. 19. As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch so also the Church of Rome has erred not only in their Living and Ceremonies but also in Matters of Faith And Article 21. General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometimes have erred even in things appertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here our Church plainly declares that forasmuch as a Council or Synod consists of fallible Persons they can determine nothing necessary to Salvation but what they can make out that it is clearly to any unprejudiced Eye contained in the Scripture not fetched out by weak and precarious Consequences or phanciful Surmises much less by a distorted Interpretation and repugnant to Common Sense and Reason which are necessarily supposed in the understanding of any Scripture or Writing whatsoever as I have intimated above And even that Article 20. which the Translator produces in his Preface in the behalf of Monsieur Maimbourg's grand Maxime do but produce the whole Article and it is plainly against it For the words are these The Church has power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Autority in Controversies of Faith and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so beside the same ought it not to inforce any thing to be believed for Necessity of Salvation It is true the Church is here said to have Authority in Controversies of Faith As certainly if any should raise new Stirs in any National Church touching such points as the Antient Primitive Synods have concluded for in the behalf of the Divinity of Christ and Triunity of the God-head pretending they have clearer demonstrations than ever yet were proposed against