OF FAITH Necessary to SALVATION And of the NECESSARY GROUND OF Faith Salvifical Whether this alway in every Man must be INFALLIBILITY OXFORD Printed in the Year M DC LXXXVIII FIVE SHORT TREATISES I. Concerning Faith Necessary to Salvation II. Of Infallibility III. Concerning the Obligation of not Professing or Acting against our Judgment or Conscience IV. Concerning Obedience to Ecclesiastical Governors and Trial of Doctrines V. Concerning Salvation possible to be had in a Schismatical Communion Estius in Sent. 3. d. 23. §. 13. Utrum in haereticis vera sit Fides Articulorum in quibus non errant Quaestio est in utramque partem probabiliter a Doctoribus disputata Ibid. Fidei impertinens est per quod medium primae veritati credatur id est quo medio Deus utatur ad conferendum homini donum Fidei Ibid. Nihil vetat quo minus haeretici quamvis in multis errent in aliis tamen sic divinitus per fidem illustrati sint ut recte credant Courteous Reader THese Treatises by divers passages may seem to have been written before the Author was fully united to the Catholick Church So that some things in them are not so cautiously and clearly explained as had himself liv'd to publish them they would have been But we thought it our duty rather to represent them as he left them than to make any breach in the Discourse it self or to pull any threads out of so close and well wrought a contexture CORRIGENDA Page 8. Marg. such points very few p. 9. l. penult necessary besides the assent p. 32. l. 18. and is in some l. 38. some degree of incredulity Of Infallibility Pag. 15. l. 12. tho this can never p. 20. l. 1. pertaining to Faith methinks sufficient ibid. l. 9. in Doctrinals pertaining to Faith certain of truth p. 28. l. 17. But I say he shall never be so Of Submission of Judgment Pag. 30. l. 7. that it was generally practised Trial of Doctrine Pag. 21. l. 18. by most of differing p. 28. l. 5. He may be free l. 7. from the sin of Schisin and invincibly ignorant of the errors which are profess'd in his Communion he may attain in such a Church life everlasting because in desire he is hoped to be of the true Church l. 22. sufficient thro Godâ—s infinite goodness l. 23. crimes and invincibly errs in not-fundamentals errors unknown to them l. 30. we may hope Danger of Schism Pag. 3. l. 13. and if she deny it l. 14. which are accounted THE CONTENTS PART I. 1. COncerning Faith necessary for Salvation § 1. 1. Concerning the object or matter of Faith. 2. Concerning the necessity of our belief of such object of Faith. § 2. 1. That it is necessary to our salvation to believe whatever is known by us to be Gods word Where 1. Concerning our obligation to know any thing to be Gods word which knowledg obliges us afterward to belief § 3. 2. And concerning sufficient proposal § 6. 2. That it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is Gods word be known by us to be so or in general be known by us to be a truth § 10. Where 1. That it is necessary to salvation that some points of Gods word be expresly known by all Such points very few Not easily defined § 13. In respect of these the Apostles Creed too large 2. That it is highly advantageous to salvation that several other points of Gods word besides these be known § 14. 3. And our duty each one according to his calling to seek the knowledg of them In respect of which the Apostles Creed is too narrow § 15. 4. That the obligation of knowing these varieth according to several persons c. And § 17. That the Decrees of Councils not obligatory at least to some against a pure nescience but only opposition thereof and not any opposition but only when known to be their Decrees PART II. II. Concerning the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical whether it must be in every Believer an Infallibility that the matter of such Faith is a Divine truth or Gods word § 20. Concessions § 21. I. Concerning the object of Faith that this is only Gods word II. Concerning the Act of Faith and the certainty which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church Tradition § 22. That the Authority of Scriptures and Church is learnt from Universal Tradition § 23. Concessions concerning Tradition § 25. 1. That there is sufficient assurance in Tradition whether infallible or no to ground a firm Faith upon 2. That Tradition may have a sufficient certainty tho such Tradition be not absolutely Universal § 28. 3. That no one Age of the Church is mistaken in delivering any eminent Tradition § 29. 4. That the testimony of the present Age is sufficient to inform us therein § 30. 5. That Tradition of the Church is easier to be understood in some things expounded by her than the Scriptures § 31. 6. That the Church is a sufficiently-certain Guide to us in Doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary § 32. Digr 1. That all Traditions carry not equal certainty § 33. Digr 2. The difference between the Church's and Mahometan and Heathen Traditions III. Concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the inward operation of God's Spirit § 35. Concessions concerning the Spirit 1. That it is always required besides outward means 2. That all Faith wrought by the Spirit is infallible § 36. 3. That sometimes the Spirit produceth evidence beyond science § 37. IV. That from these Concessions it follows not that all who savingly believe have or must have an infallible or such sufficient certainty as may possibly be had of what they believe § 38. Neither from the evidence of Scriptures § 39. Nor of the Spirit § 40. Nor of Church-Tradition § 41. For these following reasons § 43. Necessary Inferences upon the former reasons § 51. CONCERNING FAITH necessary to SALVATION AND Of the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether This always in every Man ought to be Infallibility SIR YOU have importuned me to communicate to You my opinion on these four Queries as being you say the chief subjects which are debated by our modern Controvertists and in which if one side should gain the victory there would follow a speedy decision of most other Theological Controversy The First concerning FAITH What or how much is necessary for our Salvation The Second concerning Infallibity in this Faith Whether it be necessary in every Believer to render his Faith Divine and Salvifical The Third concerning the Infallibility of the Church Whether this is at all or how far to be allowed The Fourth concerning Obedience and submission of private Judgment Whether this be due to the Church supposed not in all her decisions infallible For the two latter I must remain for a while your Debter On the two former I have returned you as briefly as
most firmly the principle and ready to quit the point controverted when to them apparently repugnant to it charged by the contrary party of the Reformed to be fallen from Salvation but are easily admitted to one anothers communion So the Roman or rather all the visible Church of God before Luther whether Eastern or Western in adoration of the Eucharist is conceived by consequence of this not being the Body of our Saviour upon which ground they worship it to worship a meer Creature and so to commit idolatry and give God's honour to another yet this Church holding the contrary principle That no Creature may be worshipped with divine adoration is not said by this practice to err in a fundamental nor are those unconvinced of their error dying in the Roman communion and in this practice by the contrary reformed parties denied Salvation See Dr. Potter sect 3. p. 78. sect 4. p. 123. But note That if the Sentence of the Church be a sufficient ground in such dangerous points to regulate and guide our belief and that her Definition of them may be called a sufficient proposal now after such decree we stand guilty in any of these erroneous Tenents tho our reason perceives not the ill consequences thereof because here contrary to the Supposition made before we have a sufficient proposal of the truth or an authorized proposer what in such doubtful points we are to hold For if we know or being impartial might know that there is such an authority as it to which we are bound to submit our judgment we are convinced by this authority determining as well as by arguments proving Neither have the first Councils endeavoured to prove their Creeds to those to whom they did enjoyn them And thus much of Necessaries or Fundamentals in the second place the set number of which varying so much according to several persons and conditions yet all of these obliged to acquire as much knowledge as they can tending any way to their Salvation can much less be prescribed than of the former The next consideration will be concerning the Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether it ought to be absolute Infallibility or Whether we cannot savingly and with such a faith as God requires believe some divine truth unless we be infallibly certain that it is a divine truth 1. First then concerning the object of Saving Faith It is true and granted that the object thereof is only God's Word and that this Word is infallible and that since God cannot lye fidei non potest subesse falsum Which saying refers not to the act but the matter of faith i. e. the matter of faith Salvifical cannot be false because it is the Word of God which is apprehended by this Faith Thus therefore true faith is always grounded on or ultimately resolved into something which is infallible i. e. God's Word whether this be written or not written and in believing divine things we cannot savingly for the matter tho we may unfeignedly for the act believe any thing but what is certainly true Saving Faith then requires both 1. that that which is believed be God's word and 2. that it be believed by us to be so So the Schools Fides non assentit alicui nisi quia est a Deo revelatum And 3ly that this word be believed to be utterly infallible From whence this therefore follows 1. That Faith believing any thing which is false is no true faith 2ly That Faith believing any thing which is true yet not as divine revelation or God's word or this word not to be infallible is no divine or saving faith So that there is alway an infallible object for faith to rest upon But our Quaere goes further Whether it be requisite to Saving Faith that we not only believe what is God's infallible word but likewise that we be able to prove infallibly that it is God's word which we believe 2. Concerning the act of faith and the certainty and assurance which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church and Tradition 1. First it seems that whatever certainty our faith may receive from these these again both the authority of the Scriptures and of the Church do externally derive only or chiefly from that which is ordinarily called Universal Tradition By which I mean * a Tradition so universal as these things are rationally considering all circumstances capable of i. e. from all persons who could come to the knowledge of them and who have no apparent interest which may incline them to corrupt truth and * a Tradition so full and sincere as that the like in other matters leaves in men no doubt or dispute 1. For first supposing the Church infallible yet is she finally proved to be so only from Universal Tradition which universal Tradition hath its certainty and infallibility from the nature and plenitude thereof and not from the testimony of Scripture and so escapes a circular proof The series then of proof is this The Church is proved infallible at least in Necessaries from our Saviour's promise of assisting her c testified in Scripture These Scriptures are proved to be God's word and so infallible from universal Tradition and universal Tradition is allowed to be infallible from the evidence and nature of it self because it is morally i. e. considering their manners and reasonable nature impossible for so many men of so many ages so dis-interested to conspire to deliver a lye in such a matter Or as some others express it such Tradition tho it were not so plenary as is delivered to us by that congregation of men which is called the Church must be allowed to be infallible from its being invested and endued with such marks and signs amongst which are Miracles as it is contrary to the veracity of God supposing that he requires from his creatures a due service and worship to permit that they should be fallacious The series of the probation runs thus The Scriptures are proved to be God's word and so infallible from the testimony of the Church which testimony of the Church or of so many people so qualified is proved to be infallible not from our Saviour's promise testified by Scripture for thus the proof would run in a circle tho to any one acknowledging first the Scriptures this proof is most valid I mean the proof of the infallibility of the Church from the testimony of Scripture is most valid tho it be true also that the Scriptures are rightly proved to be God's word from the Church's testimony but as being so universal a Tradition or a Tradition so sufficiently testified and confirmed as it is morally impossible especially considering God's veracity and providence that it should deceive us But as I said to prove the Church the other way to be infallible i. e. by testimony of those Scriptures which Scriptures to be divine we learn only from the Church Or more plainly thus to prove the Church to be infallible in
in obliging them to that of the Church 3ly It is granted that as our judgment is taken in this 2d sence namely for the private reasons and evidences we have of a subject in it self secluding from authority in some things we are allowed to use and follow it or to follow such reasons But we cannot collect from hence that we are permitted by God or have equal reason to follow it I mean our private opinion or reason in every thing unless it be proved 1. That all things are equally easie to be discovered by it and 2ly That there is no divine command for our yeilding obedience in some things to anothers judgment If any one should advise one to find out some reputed wise and experienced person in such affairs to consult with about something wherein himself knoweth little and such a one found wholly to rely on his directions and judgment therein answered he well that should say If I may rely on my own judgment in seeking out such a person why may I not as well rely on it for the matter about which I seek to him which only is well answered if these two be equally easie or difficult So the Reformed granting that we are to use our own private reason for discovering what books are the true word of God yet will not allow us having found such books to be his word to use our own private reason to examin by it whether what we find delivered to us therein be truth or no or when ever any thing therein seems I say not is against our reason as a Trinity of Persons in an Unity of Essence then to follow our reason in expounding it otherwise then it appears but now we are to lay aside the arguing of our reason and to believe all these Scriptures proposed after that by our reason we have found them to have divine authority So supposing that some Church were infallible it will not follow that if one may use his judgment in finding her he may afterward also use his judgment against her or any her decrees 4ly If you ask therefore in what things we may use and follow our private reason and opinion I answer in all things wherein God or right reason hath not submitted us to the judgment of another We may use it therefore in the discovery and search whether there be any such Judge at all appointed by God over us in Spiritual matters and what person or court it is to whose judgment he hath subjected us And in order to this we may use it in the finding out which of the several religions that are in the world is the true and which in the several divisions and sects that are in the true i. e. where some truth is by all retained is the Catholick and whether that particular Church wherein we were bred hath any way departed from it So in the finding out which Councils in some doubt concerning them are legitimate and truly General to whose acts we are to render up the submission of our judgment and which is the right and genuine sence where any ambiguity of their decrees in finding them out I say by the judgment and testimony which we find the present Church of our own days or that part thereof which seems to our private reason the Catholick to give thereof In this search that Proposition of Dr. La is very true Intellectus cujusque practicus judicare debet utrum is qui pro Judice haberi velit sit utique verus legitimus an media quae adducuntur ad hoc probandum fidei faciende sufficiant But such a Judge by our private reason being found to be and found who it is we may not for the things once judged and decided by him use or follow our own private reason any further but are now to quit it and our judgment having once discovered that such is appointed our Judge in such matters in this excludes it self and this Resignation we make of our judgment is also an act of our judgment In this manner the Apostle exhorts elsewhere not to trust every teacher but to try their doctrines whether agreeing with those of the Apostles i. e. with those of the appointed Governors of the Church and elsewhere that doctrine which they find the Church-governors to have delivered to them to stand constant and stedfast in it See Col. 2. 7 8. 2 Thes. 2 15. compared with 1. 1. Tit. 1. 9. Eph. 4. 11. compared with 14. Jude 3. 4. But you will say What if upon using my private reason I find not that there is any Judge or Law-giver in Spiritual matters cannot I then in all such matters use my private reason and follow the dictates thereof without sinning No if your reason in such search was faulty for as I said vitiously contracted ignorance never excuseth omission of duty 5ly As it is our duty where any cause of doubt diligently with our best reason to seek out the true Spiritual Guides and then having found to submit our judgment and reason as readily unto them so it seems much more easie to find out the Church which is to be our guide and to decide things to us than to find out the truth of all those things she decides more easie to find out who are those Spiritual Magistrates and Substitutes of our Saviour left to govern and guide his Church until his second coming lights not put under a bushel but set on high upon a candlestick to give light to all and a corporation and city set on an hill to be seen of all or amongst several sects and divisions to find out which is the Catholick communion from which all the rest in their several times have gone forth at the first very few in number v. Trial of Doctrines § 32. than by our own guidance and steering entring every one as a rasa tabula upon search of truth amongst the many subtleties of contrary pretences of contrary traditions in Antiquity to find out what is orthodox in all those points which points wean-while after so many hot contentions and wavering of opinion and mis-quoted Authors the Guide we neglect in her several Councils hath prudently fixed that we might no more like children be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive What wise work have the Socinians made and what strange truths have they discovered by waving the authority of Councils and laying hold of private reason to conduct them and be their judge assisted with plain Scripture after that they had made quest after some other Judge and could find none sufficiently infallible for their turn Who have bin so much so dangerously deceived as these wise and wary men who would trust none but the infallible 6ly Against that which is usually said that the words of Scripture are as plain and intelligible as the decrees of a Council and therefore our private
all her traditions or doctrines from the testimony of the Scriptures our Saviour's promise c. delivered there and then to prove the Scriptures to be God's word or infallible because this is one of her traditions or doctrines is granted even by some of the Roman writers to be a circle See Dr. Holden 1. l. 9. c. Non audentes fidem divinam in certitudine evidentia naturali i. e. in universal tradition and he gives the reason because they cannot be perswaded quod illi nulla prorsus subsit aberrandi facultas fundare in circulum hunc inevitabiliter illabuntur in orbem turpissime saltant c. Indeed such argumentation would have no more strength in it than this of Mahomet If he should first write a law which tells the people that whatever he delivers to them is infallible truth and then prove to them that law to be or to say to them an infallible truth because he delivers it A circle I say it is to those who will not grant the Supposition that Scriptures are the word of God otherwise to men as to Protestants supposing the verity of Scriptures tho unproved by the Church t is no circle if any one suppose a Catholic from them being granted attempt to prove ad hominem the Church's authority or infallibility tho the same Romanist also doth affirm that the Scriptures are proved to be God's word from the Church'es testimony or from tradition Only where both these Scripture and Church-infallibility are denied neither can be proved by the other till one is either supposed as true or proved by some other medium which medium is received to be tradition and if so then I say there can be no more certainty that the Church is infallible than that certainty which lies in universal Tradition 2. And secondly the same may be said for Scriptures which being supposed to be infallible because God's word yet if they are proved only by the same tradition to be God's word all the certainty that I have of their infallibility is also from universal tradition For the Conclusion can have no more evidence than the Premises or Proof hath Again suppose I were without tradition infallibly certain that such Books are God's word yet can I not for all this quit the dependence upon Tradition in some points at least of my faith For my faith being grounded not on the bare words but sense of those books and the sense of the same words being divers especially since the sense of no one text must oppose the sense of any other and hence Scriptures most clear in their expression by reason of other Scriptures as seemingly clear that express the contrary notwithstanding this clearnes become very ambiguous and that in some necessary points of faith as appears in those many controversies concerning their sense some of which contests doubtless are in very necessary points and matters of faith to know therefore amongst these which is the true sense as suppose in the controversies about the sacred Trinity Grace and Free will Justification c. upon which first known I must ground my faith I am no way helped by knowing that the writing is God's word Here therefore tho the Scripture for the Words should not yet my Faith for their Sense would have a dependance upon and repair unto universal Tradition and where-ever the Sense is doubtful to me as the Scriptures may be doubtful to one where perspicuous to another the chief certainty I can have for that Sense which my Faith ought to embrace will be from the universal Church-tradition Now concerning this Universal Tradition therefore on which as the Final assurer of the Scriptures or of the Church'es Infallibility the act of Faith must rest let it be granted 1. First without disputing whether it be absolutely infallible because it is needles to the stating of our business That there is in it certainty or assurance sufficient to ground a firm faith upon For tho t is willingly assented to that Tradition being in its nature a relation of a thing gives not nor cannot give us such an assurance as that we know the contrary thereof to be absolutely impossible for t is not absolutely impossible for all men in the world from the beginning thereof till this time to have lied in every thing they have said but yet he were no ordinary mad-man that upon this nonimpossibility would believe no relation at all only because t is not absolutely impossible that they may err and himself hit the right yet 1. we must either allow a sufficient certainty therein or else that we have no sufficient certainty of the Scriptures that they are God's word Which granting that some few learned and studied men may sufficiently discern from the light of Scripture yet for this the most of men especially as to some of the books thereof depend on the certainty of Tradition And indeed it were impious to affirm that we have not a sufficiently sure ground of that knowledg of good and evil upon which our eternal happi nes is to be acquired or misery sustained or that God hath not left an undoubtable evidence of those truths whereby we are to direct our lives to that end for which he hath created us But this can be assigned no other at least to most men than Tradition Therefore it is the interest of all Christians as well those who submit themselves only to the Scripture as those who submit also to the Church unanimously to maintain a sufficient certainty therein lest whilst the grounds of our faith ascend not to a Mathematical or sensible demonstration they be made Scepticism and Quodlibets 2. But 2ly we must either hold certainty in Tradition or that we can have no assurance at all of any thing past or absent Yet transfer this discours to any other temporal matter and who can wish to be more sure of any thing than he is of many such which have to him only a general tradition for them As for example that there is such a City as Paris or was such a man as Henry the 8th But yet in divine things compared with other temporal matters that are of the same distance of time from us there seems to be much more certainty in that the providence of God hath appointed a selected company of men successively in all ages to be the Guardians Conservers Divulgers thereof to the world for ever 3. Lastly if this Tradition and the doctrines we acknowledge divine were to be delivered authoritatively from God to men not in all but some determinate time and place see Christ's Ben. p. 35. say how posterity can receive these from any other evidence unless perhaps we further require the voices from heaven Christ's preaching miracles death to be presented before us and that before every one of us excluding all relations from others because these may be fallible But such a ground of our faith destroys the nature of faith and it
revelasse or se hanc fidem Deum revelasse habere ex auxilio Spiritus Sancti and this a motive morally infallible namely consensum Ecclesiae or Universal Tradition concerning which he thus goes on Verum in ordine ad nos revelatio divina credibilis acceptabilis fit per extrinseca motiva inter quae unum ex praecipuis merito censetur authoritas consensus Ecclesiae tot saeculis tanto numero hominum clarissimorum florentis But then this evident or morally-infallible motive is not held always necessary neither for the humane inducement to divine faith For he goes on quamvis id non unicum neque simpliciter necessarium motivum est quandoquidem non omnes eodem modo sed alii aliter ad fidem Christi amplectendam moventur His adde Non tantum variis motivis homines ad fidem amplectendam moveri sed etiam alios aliis facilius partim propter majorem internam Spiritus sancti illustrationem impulsionem sicuti not avit Valentia q. 1. p. 4. arg 18. partim propter animi sui simplicitatem quia de opposito errore persuasionem nullam conceperunt Qua ratione pueri apud Catholicos cum ad usum rationis pervenerunt acceptant sidei mysteria tanquam divinitus revelata quia natu majores prudentes quos ipsi norunt ita credere animadvertunt So then if all saving faith must be sides divina infallible that which can rightly be produced to advance sides humana into it is not the authority of Scriptures or of the Church for Qui credit propter authoritatem hominum vel simile motivum humanum is fide solum humana credit but only auxilium Spiritus Sancti succurrentis intellectui c in the stating of this learned Casuist Thus you see by what is quoted here out of Estius Lugo and Layman that the moderate Catholick writers concede divine and salvifical faith where no infallibility of any outward evidence or motive And perhaps it might conduce much more to the prayed-for union of Christ's Church if so many Controvertists on all sides perhaps out of an opinion of necessary zeal to maintain their own cause to the uttermost did not embrace the extreamest opinions by which they give too much cause to their adversaries to remain unsatisfied and to make easie and specious replies being helped also by the more moderate writers of the other side As if they chiefly endeavoured to fright their enemies from any yeilding or hearkning to a peace whilst they hold it still upon higher terms than those the Church Catholick proposeth which hath redounded to the multiplication of many needles controversies From what hath bin said I think we may infer 1. First That it is not necessary to true and saving faith that all the mediums by which we attain to it be infallible That neither an infallible Judg nor a known-infallible argument from the Scriptures or writings of Fathers c. is absolutely necessary to it but that it is sufficient to believe the things revealed by God as revealed by him see § 1. holding whatever is his word to be infallible which is a principle to all men and needs no proof by what weak means soever we attain the knowledge of such revelations whether it be by Scriptures Catechisms read or Parents Pastors instructing yea tho these instructers did not know whether there were any Scriptures as the Eunuch believed without those of the New Testament and how unevident soever their confirmation thereof to us be only if we receive from them whether from the credit we give to their authority or to their argument so much light as together with the inward operation of the Spirit opening the heart to receive and accept of it of which Spirit yet we are not so certainly sensible as to know the proper movings thereof for then this were a motive all-sufficient without Scripture or Teacher doth sway and perswade the understanding and so produceth obedience Which faith tho it is not such for its immediate ground as cui non potest subesse falsum by reason of any humane evidence it hath yet many times it is such as cui non subest dubium of which we doubt no more than we do of a Demonstration by reason of the strong adherence we have to it either from the power of God's Spirit or probability of arguments c. See § 35. c. But neither is this actual non-doubting necessary for there is many times doubting in a true but weak faith see § 46. but this is enough if any thing be so far made probable as that it turns the ballance of our judgment so far as to win our assent nay nothing can be without sin disbelieved which seems generally including here also the argument from authority more probable than another thing tho it have no demonstration Which demonstration or also an infallible proponent that the faith of most men wants see the plain confession as it seems to me of Mr. Knot in his Answer to Mr. Chillingworth 4. cap p. 358. A man may exercise saith he an infallible act of faith tho his immediate instructer or proposer be not infallible because he believes upon a ground which both is believed by him to be infallible and is such indeed to wit the word of God who therefore will not deny his supernatural concourse necessary to every true act of divine faith Otherwise in the ordinary course there would be no means left for the faith and salvation of unlearned persons from whom God exacts no more but that they proceed prudently according to the measure of their several capacities and use such diligence as men ought in a matter of highest moment All Christians of the primitive Church were not present when the Apostles spoke or wrote yea it is not certain that every one of those thousands whom St. Peter converted did hear every sentence he spoke but might believe some by relation of others who stood near And 1. c. p. 64. the same Author saith that a Preacher or Pastor whose testimonies are humane and fallible when they declare to their hearers or subjects that some truth is witnessed by God's word are occasion that those people may produce a true infallible Act of Faith depending immediately upon divine Revelation applied by the said means And if you object saith he That perhaps that humane authority is false and proposes to my understanding Divine revelation when God doth not reveal therefore I cannot upon humane testimony representing or applying Divine revelation exercise an infallible Act of Faith. I answer it is one thing whether by a reflex act I am absolutely certain that I exercise an infallible act of Faith and another whether indeed and in actu exercito I produce such an act Of the former I have said nothing neither makes it to our present purpose Of the latter I affirm that when indeed humane testimony is true tho not certainly known by me to be so and so
but only on the word of God you say something if that word could never be mistaken in the sence nor alledged amiss See Mr. Hooker's Answer to Cartwright on this point Eccles. Pol. 2. l. 7. sect The force of Arguments drawn from Scripture c. So that now and then they ground themselves on humane authority even when they most pretend divine Even such as are readiest to cite for one thing 500 sentences of H. Scripture what warrant have they that any one of them doth mean the thing for which alledged c. But 4ly here you will reply That surely God's wisdom in matters concerning Salvation hath provided some way or other whereby we may certainly know the truth R. What truth mean we If necessary so he hath in this General Councils err not If all truths whatsoever there are many truths not only Natural but Theological for which all grant that there is no infallible Judge to be had If the truth of all those things which shall be proposed by a General Council Why so Why may not God order them in their fallibility in such things to use the same prudence for ending troublesom and violent contests that any other temporal Courts do And since in these from God as in the other from the King the people have an injunction unlimited in all things to hear them why may not they punish the rebellious 5. But yet lastly if such be fallible in any thing you may say there will be some error of which there can be no remedy because they are unappealable R. Not so For in such things as former Councils may err in none denies but that latter Councils may correct them Only such will be errors indeed that private men cannot remedy and what matters all this I pray if these errors be not committed in things necessary as t is shewed before they never can be Again why are such Councils willingly granted by all to be unappealable in other things wherein they may err i. e. in maters of fact Nay why if some make them infallible in judging all truths so may not some others think it fit they should be so in all causes that come before them all which are afterward remediles But also in those doctrinals where because no Anathema's are affixed Bellarmin saith Non est certum si sint de fide and so neither is it certain whether the Church in them may not err yet is not in these submission of judgment required For if we withdraw this how if it should happen that they are de fide The same may be said in general That if the Church being infallible only in things de fide hath made no clear distinction of these points from the rest t is plain she obligeth us to the same submission in points where she may be fallible 3. This having bin said from § 39. to remove such scruples and demurs as we ordinarily use to make for the not yeilding up and resigning in any thing of our own private judgment 3ly to shew you That the duty of submission of judgment to an Authority fallible in all things wherein we are not certain that it errs is no Paradox I will produce you therein the consentient doctrine both of Catholick and Protestant writers of no mean note 1. For Protestants see the quotations out of Bishop White Archbishop Laud Dr. Jackson in Church-Government 2. Part. § 36. Oblig of Judgment § 29. 30. t is too tedious to repete them here To which I will here add that eminent testimony of Mr. Hooker in his Preface the 6th Sect. throughout who writing against Puritans there speaks much of submission of private opinion to the determinations of Ecclesiastical Authority The place is well worth your reading as likewise the 2. l. 7. sect which Mr. Chillingworth produceth as a qualification of this passage in Hooker pressed by F. Knot But I can see no such matter in that Section which proves against Cartwright the validity of Humane Authority where is no infallible demonstration against it see especially the latter end of that Section To return to the former Mr. Hooker there quotes Deut. 17. 8. c. where he hath these words God was not ignorant that the Priests and Judges whose sentence in matters of controversy he ordain'd should stand both might and oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment Howbeit better it was in the eye of his understanding that sometimes an erroneous sentence definitive should prevail till the same Authority perceiving such oversight might afterwards correct or reverse it than that strifes should have respit to grow and not come speedily to some end And there he answers the Objection That men must do nothing against conscience saying Neither wish we that men should do any thing which in their hearts they are perswaded they ought not to do but we say this perswasion ought to be fully settled in their hearts that in litigious and controverted causes of such quality that is as I conceive where they have no infallible certainty but only probability see the end of 2. l. 7. sect the will of God is to have them to do whatsoever the sentence of Judicial and final Decision shall determin Now they are to do nothing but what they are perswaded in their hearts that they may do when the Judge in some cases determines the lawfulnes of a thing tho they may do many things which they may think still that they are unjustly obliged by the Judge to do as when the Judge determines something to be their duty which is not yea tho it seem in their private opinion i. e. according to their own reason and arguments drawn ex parte rei to swerve utterly from that which is right as no doubt many times the sentence amongst the Jews did unto one or other part contending and yet in this case God did then allow them to do that which in their private judgment it seemed yea and perhaps truly seemed that the law did disallow For if God be not the Author of confusion but of peace c. Where note that whatever Mr. Hooker means by that limitation controverted causes of such quality yet the Commission Deut. 17. extends to the Priests interpreting to the people and giving the sence of the law in whatever matters should be controverted as also it is more clearly expounded afterward in 2 Chron. 19. 5 8 10 11. where it runs What causes soever shall come to you of your Brethren between blood and blood between law and commandement statutes and judgments ye shall c. And Thou shalt do or practise according to whatever they shew thee requires not only a passive willingly paying the mulcts or undergoing the punishments but active obedience Again an active obedience not only in doing of something to which I think I am not in duty obliged as paying 100l to one upon their sentence to whom I never owed any thing which I may do without believing
their sentence therein to be true or just but in doing also of something where the lawfulnes of it is questioned which thing also here by the text I am to do if they command me as well as the former and yet which thing I may not do unless I believe either their sentence therein to be true and the thing in general lawful to be done or at least lawful for me rebus sic stantibus their sentence past to do it i. e. unless I believe that tho it be against God's law that they command me since they may err yet God excuseth or holdeth me guiltles in doing it in that he hath peremptorily obliged me to adhere to their sentence and judgment not my own So that in any thing they once determin lawful whatever my opinion was of it before yet now I am obliged to believe it lawful for me to do it since I am commanded by God to obey them in doing it and may do nothing at any time against my conscience and whilst I hold such thing unlawful to be done by me And again Not that I judge it a thing allowable for men to observe those laws which in their hearts they are stedfastly perswaded to be against the law of God but your perswasion in this case i. e. where Superiors have determined otherwise you are bound for the time i. e. till the same Authority reverse it to suspend c unless they have an infallible demonstration And there he shews against pretence in every thing of a Demonstration An Argument necessary and demonstrative is such as being proposed unto any man and understood the mind i. e. of him that heareth it cannot choose but inwardly assent Which tryal of a demonstration Archbishop Laud also allows § 32. n. 5. T is no demonstration then as long as those think notwithstanding it they have cause to dissent to whom I propose it But when you have read these things in Hooker look on Mr. Chillingworth's Answer 5. cap. 109 110. sect c. to me seeming very unsatisfactory First there Dr. Potter saying it is not fit for any private man to oppose his judgment to the publick Mr. Chillingworth defends him thus Dr. Potter by judgment means not his reason or Scripture as Mr. Knot imagines the sence of it for these he may oppose to the publick but his bare authority But search Dr. Potter p. 105. and you will see he speaks both of Reason and Scripture Then coming to Mr. Hooker Mr. Chillingworth expounds what he saith on Deut. 17. 8. not of yeilding assent to the judgment of the Judge or any active obedience which presupposeth assent but of obedience of suffering only the sentence of the Judge and paying the mulcts he tho unjustly lays upon them But 1. did no other sentences pass in the Sanedrim about the law but concerning satisfactions and punishments Did none of their judgments command the doing of such a thing the observing of such a fast the offering of such a Sacrifice marrying or forbearing to marry such a woman wherein those saith Mr. Hooker were to do as the Judge decided those who thought and perhaps truly that the law disallowed it that to the like purpose he might urge the Puritans to wear a Surplice c after the Ecclesiastical Magistrate had commanded it tho it seemed to their private opinion unlawful For that he speaketh of opinion and active not passive obediedience which passive obedience the Puritans willingly granted and was out of controversy t is plain in that he saith that such a sentence once passed was ground sufficient for any reasonable man's conscience to build the duty of obedience upon whatsoever his own opinion were as touching the matter before in question And in the close of the Section he saith God the Author of peace must needs be the Author of those mens peaceable resolutions who concerning these things i. e. where is no infallible demonstration to the contrary have determined with themselves to do and think as the Church they are of decreeth till they see necessary cause enforcing them to the contrary And this is plain also out of the places which he urgeth that place in the 17. Deut. and the injunction of the Council Act. 15. For Acts 15. speaks of active obedience abstaining from blood c. which always supposeth precedent opinion of the lawfulnes thereof And Deut. 17. runs thus If there arise a matter too hard for thee c. Thou shalt do according as they shall shew thee Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall inform thee according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee c. And the same is set down after the same manner 2 Chron. 19. 10. And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren between blood and blood between law and commandement statutes and judgments ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against the Lord c. Certainly these places may not be restrain'd only to the patient undergoing of the punishment sentenced by the Judge for the non-observance of his decrees or of that which he saith is Law. Another part of Mr. Chillingworth's Answer is that Mr. Hooker limits the matters wherein they were to yeild obedience to the injunctions of Authority namely to such matters as have plain Scripture or Reason neither for nor against them and wherein men go only upon their own probable collection which I grant But this plain Scripture and Reason as Mr. Hooker expresseth it is a really infallible argument or demonstration and not such pretended For the Puritans also pretended they had most plain reason and Scripture for the things wherein they were unconformable Now if Mr. Hooker here requires submission in all such points where there is no infallible argument to the contrary whether he intended it or no c in very few or no matters can such submission be denied especially to a General Council neither do we find in Mr. Hooker's proof Deut. 17. 8. any restrictions of obedience of submission only to certain points where they had not plain law or reason to the contrary Now in the last place to consider his main answer to those words of Mr. Hooker The will of God is to have them to do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determin yea tho it seem in their private opinion to swerve utterly from that which is right Here answereth Mr. Chillingworth he saith men are bound to do whatsoever c. but he says not they are bound to think that determination lawful and that sentence just giving an instance of a man cast wrongfully at law and sentenced to pay an 100l I answer in some sentences or judgments this which Mr. Chillingworth saith is true viz. where they enjoyn me a thing to which I think I am not oblig'd which I may cedere meo jure and do tho I do not think their determination right and just and
charity to other Churches i. e. with not condemning them to be no Churches so may his Considering these things may not such a one say Whether it is better to obey God than men judge ye 2. Again I ask If the power in the Church of Excommunication of private men binds them not to contradict her why doth not the same power in superior Councils to excommunicate Bishops and to annul the acts of inferior Councils bind such inferior Councils also to Non-contradiction 3. Again the obligation of Non-contradiction of private men to their Bishop or to his Synod in not-fundamentals will signifie little because an Episcopal or a National Synod may err in fundamentals and the judgment of this Synods erring in a fundamental is by the reformed left not to It which will never judg such a thing to be but to its subjects and they may misjudge a point not-fundamental to be fundamental and so may break their due silence neither can there be of this any remedy For none hitherto have contradicted the Church-decisions but they have made that which occasioned their contradicting to be a thing of great consequence Here therefore again in the yeilding of our obedience of Non-contradiction to a Provincial or National Church the Queries concerning Fundamentals will return Who is to determin what are such both for agends and credends which it is extream necessary to know that in such we may be sure to vindicate God's truth against that particular Church wherein we live Is not idolatry an error against a fundamental truth and doth not the Roman Church then err in fundamentals in worshipping bread as the Protestants think they do for Christ So that tenet of the Greek Church à Patre per filium is said to destroy the Trinity and so the Lutheran's Consubstantiation is said by consequence to destroy Christ's Humanity the Trinity and Christ's Humanity fundamental truths In such points and the like therefore none must be tied in obedience to their Bishop or Church-National to a Non-contradiction 2ly In respect of the Church in general the obedience of sole-Non-contradiction is limited by the reformed as we have said before to Non-fundamentals wherein the Church may err whereas in fundamentals wherein this Church cannot err here they also allow an obedience of assent But I ask again Who shall determin both in credends agends which are fundamental And why in these fundamentals especially are we wished in our judgment to conform to the Church'es since these are the points most clear in Scripture and such as without the Church'es direction we cannot mistake And methinks those places of Scripture concerning Tryal of Doctrines which we have learnt to turn against the injunctions of the Church hold as well or more for trying her Doctrines in Fundamentals than in any thing els because the rule by which we try is the most plain in these points Again I ask Are all the necessary consequences of fundamentals to be accounted fundamental If so then who knows how far these points may extend in which we are to consent to and not only not-to-contradict the Church'es decisions 3ly This obedience not of yeilding assent but solely of Non-contradicting is allowed and secured by the reformed only to those persons who upon examination of Scripture and Tradition are certain of the contrary surely then it must extend to very few persons and in very few things for how few are there that are able to compare the Scriptures or search Traditions Therefore the Scripture seems to make rules of our obedience to our present Spiritual Governors as if we were void of writings and not according to the extraordinary skill and learning of some few that are not rulers but according to the general capacity and knowledg of the flock of Christ. 1. Therefore it were well if these men who would not have their own knowledge restrained by authority would yet let the people know That only those who by long studying the Scriptures and Fathers have arrived to infallible certainty are tied only-to Non-contradiction to the Church-decisions but that all the rest to assenting For doth it not make our hearts yet to bleed to see so many thousands of the common people amongst us upon this mistaken priviledge even to disbelieve and not to yeild consent to the Church in fundamentals 2. When this is done how few are there of the learned that can say they are certain without some doubt that what the Church proposeth is false Are not all the rest then who are not infallibly certain to be taught that they must in Non-fundamentals subscribe to the Church-decisions Why labour we then more to free then subjugate mens judgments 3. But then for a private man's being infallibly certain upon which the reformed opinion seems to build much methinks this concession of the Scriptures which he reads to be the infallible word of God is not enough for his certainty almost in any point because there must be a comparing of Scriptures and a not interpreting of some places so that other places contradict and because the sence of the words may be diversly taken tho he were to judge only of one place by it self Besides there are many degrees of seeming certainty and t is hard to know when it is a presumption only and when a true certainty That men are ordinarily deceived in making this judgment is plain because two contradicting one another will often both affirm that they are infallibly certain The thinking ones self infallibly certain mostwhat ariseth from knowing no objections of any difficulty to the contrary which objections as one afterward discovers so his former certainty by degrees abates Hence we see the greatest Scholars many times dubious when the ignorant are either certain or strongly confident Four texts of Scripture that seem plainly to say a thing make one sure as it were and then two texts suggested to him that seem to say the contrary reduce him to doubt and make him begin to deliberate of the sense of the former I speak not this to affirm we are certain in nothing at all but that we have almost always reason to doubt where the same certainty that we have appears not to others But then if private men may be infallibly certain much more may the Church and so many Doctors be so they also all agreeing in their certainty So that all proofs of certainty to be had in divine truths rather strengthen the argument for obedience to the Church And she deals but with us in our own kind if she plead infallibility to require our submission to her even in Non-fundamentals as we do plead infallibility to avoid it As for those objections which the Reformed opinion makes 1. That possibly a National or Provincial Synod may or also hath broached some new mischievous tenet the contrary to which tenet neither the Creeds expresly nor former Councils have decreed into which error therefore my too secure obedience may betray me
I answer That from this judgment of such a Church so often as it is suspected by me I will not retreat to my private judgment but I will appeal to a more general judgment of the present Church which judgment I can either have conjunctim or divisim as it was ordinarily procured in ancient time and by the reformed opinion I shall be secure if I part not from the present Church for in fundamentals she shall in no age err but hold forth to me visibly the truth and if this error be in Non-fundamentals it amounts not as the reformed say to a heresy therefore will I still cleave to her i. e. the present Church and the supremest Authority I can find therein neither will I embrace any sence put upon Scriptures or Fathers against her because she cannot be at least in points of great consequence opposit to them And if that religion as it might have bin had bin conveyed to our days by unwritten Tradition and only so as the Apostle directed in 2 Tim. 2. 2 and that we had had neither New testament-Testament-Scriptures nor writings of Fathers then I must have relied only on the guidance of the present Church neither needed she for this to have bin made more infallible than now she is and doubtles my faith should have bin nevertheles sufficiently grounded i. e. on the word of God still orally delivered by her neither could any have made an argument that my faith was not salvifical for this reason because fidei non potest subesse falsum for she must then in defect of all writings have bin confess'd the pillar and ground of truth and the dispenser or steward of the mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. the same then must she be still and Nations now as at the first before writings are still converted by her by her preaching before they come to peruse those Scriptures And so are we all also taught our faith first by her neither suffers she diminution in her authority from co-extant Scriptures and Fathers But yet besides that in these Scriptures is ascribed to her great authority any help that is from these writings enjoyed by any other is also by her that no body may boast over her in these advantages 2. It is objected That our faith to be salvifical must be grounded on something that is infallible and therefore only on God's word See this answered at large in the Treatise of Necessary faith § 43. c. Surely the Church groundeth her faith which she recommendeth to us on the Scriptures as well as private men think they do theirs when they leave hers to follow their own judgment And if the Church'es judgment is not neither is their own infallible for which they desert the Church'es But tho it is most true that true faith is always grounded on the word of God which word of God is infallible yet is it not necessary that every one who hath true faith do know that it is infallible or be infallibly certain of it For many have saving faith doubtles that learn this word of God only from a fallible man suppose from their Father or from their Pastor Neither is it necessary that this faith should be received from another person infallible besides God nor that it should be received from a writing at all There may be a strong adherence beyond evidence neither can it be unsufficient if it be so strong as to produce obedience to God's commands 3. T is said That one is for his salvation secure enough where ever these two are Unity of faith with the Church in fundamentals and then Charity toward the Church in the points not-fundamental wherein I disagree from her Charity i. e. not condemning her for them to be no Church c. I answer 1. First such a one must know well what are Fundamentals that perhaps he take not liberty to differ from the Church in any of them The Apostle reckons doctrines of Baptism and of laying on of hands among foundations Heb. 6. 2. if we will make unity in fundamentals so large as he doth I know not how many other points may be brought in And I am perswaded by reading the Catalogues of anciently-accounted Heresies that the Fathers and Primitive times would not have stuck to have pronounced some side highly heretical in those differences between the Reformed and the Catholic Church and even in those differences that are now in this Church of England about Baptism Bishops Ordination c. 2ly Without doubt there may be a larger unity of faith than only in fundamentals unles all points of faith be fundamental and if so then Churches that differ in any point of faith differ in fundamentals 3ly If there may be a larger unity then Spiritual Guides doubtles are set over us to build us up in the unity also of this faith and not only of fundamentals See Heb. 5. 11. c. 6. 1. And therefore why Eph. 4. 11. compared with 13. should be restrained only to fundamentals as it is by some it seems to me strange I cannot think that the Corinthians differed amongst themselves in fundamentals see 1 Cor. 1. 4. c and yet the Apostle is very angry with them for their divisions and exhorts them to be all of one judgment which union of judgment could not be by following the judgment each one of their private reason but of the Apostle and of their orthodox teachers appointed by him See 1 Cor. 1. 10. Rom. 12. 16 18. Rom. 15. 5 6. Phil. 1. 27. Phil. 2. 2 3. 1 Pet. 3. 8. where speaking the same thing and being joyned in the same judgment contending for the faith of the Gospel with one mind glorifying God with one mind and one mouth c. argue an unity required not only of charity but of opinion and judgment and that not only in fundamentals in which as I said all the factious Corinthians or most of them accorded but other beneficial truths which union how could so many judgments undependent of one another attain but by all of them retaining the same doctrine of their Pastor or Pastors 4ly If these points wherein the reformed recede from the authority of superior Councils be not very necessary tho not fundamental how can a separation for them be justified but if necessary why should we say that God requires not an unity of faith in them 5ly Again as faith and charity secure not our salvation if we be guilty of some other vice adultery c so they do not secure it if there be any denial of obedience where t is due especially to the Church disobedience towards whom is in a more special manner disobedience to Christ and to God himself and why may not this then endanger us if God hath provided teachers to keep us in the same judgment and we to the great hurt both of the Church and of our selves too by these divisions will every one follow his own judgment especially since
of his deductions and seldom examining the soundnes of some ground which he irrationally takes for granted becomes infallibly certain as he thinks of what is indeed an error and many times a gross one But it may be said again that where we can shew none of these differences in principles yet there have bin hereticks that have gone against tenets even in fundamentals of which tenets we must needs grant that any man may be infallibly certain as the Arrians Socinians Nestorians Eutychians c. To you I may speak my opinion In all these and many more which being chief foundations we usually also call most manifest truths yet the most of Christians E will not say all are very much beholden to the determinations of the Church from time to time by which they are kept fixed and not shaken in them And you see how the contrary tenets grow upon the sharpest men of reason where the authority of the Church is laid aside Certainly to name some of them the omnipresence of God not in his power but substance his certain foreknowledge of not only what may but also what shall be yet so as not to destroy mans free election Christ's non-inferiority as touching the God-head to the Father and all those particulars about the Trinity Person Natures and Wills of Christ can hardly be said to be so plain in Scripture to every one that grants it to be Scripture that all men without the Church'es guidance and education in such a faith c would have bin infallibly certain of them 2. But to let these pass and suppose in private men what infallible certainty you please of them or also of many other divine truths yet in the 3d. place I do not see how from the former instances we can proceed to make any use of this plea of infallible certainty against the judgment of the Church of many former ages for the controversies now on foot between the Reformed and the Catholic Church against whom this infallible certainty is chiefly made use of One of the most seemingly gross and unreasonable points on their side I suppose is Communion in one kind only which hath this prejudice also accompanying it that it was practised by the Church Catholick in the publick ordinary Church-communions only in some latter times before the Reformation Yet I think that none will offer to affirm that he is I say not much perswaded but infallibly certain of the unlawfulnes of such a practice when he hath seriously considered these things which I shall briefly name unto him * That many practices in Scripture are alterable by the Church and some precepts there only temporary not perpetual as Act. 15. 20. and Jam. 5. 14. as some will have it * That the Church hath altered many other things not only without our complaining thereof but with our imitating her Nay further * That some learned Protestants number the communicating the people in both kinds not amongst things strictly commanded in Scripture but amongst Apostolical Traditions only See Montag Origin Eccles. p. 396. Ubi jubentur in Scripturis Infantes baptizari aut in Coena Domini sub utraque specie communicantes participare And Bishop White on the Sabbath p. 97. Genuine Traditions derived from the Apostolical times are received and honoured by us Such as are these which follow The Historical Tradition concerning the number and dignity of Canonical Books of Scripture The Baptism of Infants Perpetual Virginity of the B. Virgin Observation of the Lord's Day The Service of the Church in a known tongue The delivering of the H. Communion to the people in both kinds When he hath considered * the practice of the primitive times even in the Eastern Churches also of giving it in one kind to sick men to Seamen to Travellers to the absents upon necessary occasions from church to those also who came to church to carry home with them that they might there reserve it in readines and communicate themselves therewith when they thought fit on those days when there was no publick communion or they hindred from it by distance danger as in times of persecution or necessary secular busines that which they carried home with them being only of one species viz. that of the bread And * these things tho so done to avoid some inconvenience I suppose the spilling and the not-keeping of the wine as also it is now yet so done without any absolute necessity for the sick can take wine sooner than bread and it might be conveyed from vessels without spilling and those vessels also be first consecrated and might also be possibly preserved in a close bottle for some long time When he hath considered * the ancient practice of giving the Communion sometimes to Infants newly born and baptized to whom this Sacrament was thought also necessary only in one kind namely that of the wine When one considers * the ancient custom likewise in time of Lent in the Greek Church for all days save Saterdays and Sundays because saith Balsamon Deo sacrificium offerre they accounted to be festum diem agere in the Latin Church for Good-Friday to communicate expraesanctisicatis i. e. on what was consecrated on another day and reserved till then which Symbol reserved was only that of the bread * The great cautiousnes of the former times against the too frequent casualties of spilling that precious blood which could not be gathered up again as the bread might in their receiving it in some places sucked up through a pipe in others by intinction and dipping only or sopping the bread in the wine a custom also used at this day in some of the Greek and Eastern Churches Again whereas one of our greatest complaints in this matter is an imperfect communion and robbing the people as it were of the chief part of their redemption yet when he hath considered * their never questioning the compleatnes of such Communions who thus received it in one kind which it most concerned people going out of the world and some of them perhaps then first communicated for their last viaticum to have most perfect Where note also †1. First * that the sufficiency of such a communion was so constantly believed that the use of the Cup also in publick communions was upon many abuses committed about it by little and litle in a manner generally laid aside in the ordinary practice some hundreds of years before any determination passed in any Council concerning it and * that that decree made first in the Conc. Constant. 13. sess was only to warrant and justify the Church'es former custom against those Petrus Dresdensis the Hussites and others who then began to inveigh against it saying hanc consuetudinem observare esse sacrilegum illicitum as likewise against that custom to communicate men fasting and hence began to change it and to communicate after Supper and in both kinds And 2ly †* That some of the Reformed also
reason or judgment may make use of the one for its guide as well as the other and when there seems contradiction against the other it seems much more easie by our private understandings to apprehend the Councils decision than to apprehend the sence of Scripture in such points as the Council decides and many may learn for example the orthodox tenets concerning the Trinity out of the Athanasian Creed that could not learn them out of Scripture without mistaking in some of them For tho it is true that a text of Scripture may be as plain as any decrees of a Council and that as we may judge what is the sence and meaning of such a decree so we may also of such a place of Scripture yet it may be presum'd that none of these plain Scriptures will ever be found opposite to the decree of such Council for if the place be so plain and intelligible to us surely so it would have bin to so learned and numerous a Council as well as to a private judgment Again what is said in Scripture concording with the decrees of Councils yet it may be presum'd is not there every way considering the counterpoise of other Scripture-texts so plainly said Else such Conciliary decisions are vain and we must likewise say that all expositions comments catechismes are no plainer than the text and to those who read Scriptures useles For words are only multiplied without necessity where what is said before is as plain as what is said after and the authority of the first infallible Thus if the Council remained as ambiguous as the Scripture supposing the Church infallible yet those who followed her sentence could receive no more satisfaction to their doubts than they had before and the sence of the Conciliary definitions might be disputed as much as of Scripture and both sides who subscribe to the Scriptures would also subscribe to them which we ordinarily see refused FINIS Concerning Obedience to ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNORS and Tryal of DOCTRINES CONTENTS SUfficient Truth always to be found in the Church § 1. Yet false Doctors must be And their followers not safe § 2. Doctors therefore may be tried § 3. Several ways of Trial § 4. 1. By the H. Scriptures § 5. Where 1. Concerning Trials of Doctrines and Commands wherein Scriptures are silent § 6. 2. Concerning Doctrines and Commands where the Scripture seems to us doubtful § 12. 3. Concerning Doctrines c. to which Scriptures seem to us contrary § 13. 1. Where we must proceed to use a second Trial of Doctrines by the Doctors of the Church § 14. And beware of depending on our own judgment made upon the Scriptures § 14. That there is always some external Communion of Christianity or other not erring in knowledge necessary § 18. We necessarily to follow the judgment of the Church'es teachers where universally agreeing § 19. n. 1. Where divided 1. We to follow either side rather than our own judgment opposite to both § 20. 2. Of the two to follow those whom the other acknowledge to have the judgment or practice of former times on their side § 21. Where this judgment or practice is pleaded by both we to search and to follow that which we find so by our experience § 22. That this thing is not hard to be found § 23. The Fathers being not for the main either repugnant to one another or ambiguous or impertinent Where Of certain Cautions in making judgment of the tenets of the Ancients § 23. And some Church also in all ages being like the former § 30. And Heresy still either going or being thrust out of this Church § 32. And its beginning discerned by its paucity So that discreet Trial cannot mistake § 33. Who can search no further They to adhere to the judgment of the Christian Church wherein they live rather than to their own judgment against it § 36. 3. Trial of Doctrine and Doctors by the Holines those produce and these practise § 37. Where more Truth more Holiness § 38. And where more Holiness more Truth § 39. Where more Error more Vice and è converso § 40. In Churches therefore we to compare 1. the strictness or liberty of their doctrines discipline c. § 41. 2. Their abounding or deficiency in doctrines tending to Perfection § 42. 3. Their writings of Devotion § 46. 4. The Lives of their Saints or Holy men § 47. 4. Trial of Doctrines by the Conversion of Nations § 49. Concerning Obedience to Ecclesiastical Governors and Trial of Doctrines THat God by his Great Apostle Jesus Christ sent the clear light of all the mystery of our salvation into the world and that Christ hath and will continue it so much as is sufficient to us by his Substitutes in the same office unto the end thereof so that we need not remain in darknes but by our own default hath bin shewed you elsewhere in Sav. Ben. p. 12. c. and Succession of Clergy p. 1. But yet 1. it seems that notwithstanding these Substitutes there shall be some false teachers and as we hitherto see not all his other enemies so neither all error put under our Saviours feet as not sin so neither ignorance yet quite vanquished 1 Cor. 13. 12. because it so seemed good unto him for whom are all things as to permit evil always to make good arise more gloriously out of it so to permit error always 2 Pet. 2. 1. the more to illustrate truth and to make the followers of truth as well as of righteousnes by these oppositions more approved for their adherence to God and capable of greater reward it being far more glorious more acceptable to have discerned held defended the truth where there was a possibility a facility a pattern an opposition of error See for this 1 Cor. 11. 19. Matt. 10. 34 35. 17. 15. Act. 20. 29. 1 Tim. 4. 1. 2 Tim. 2. 20. compared with 16. c. 1 Jo. 2. 18. Luk. 2. 34. Jo. 9. 39. Rom. 9. 32. This is shewed also by experience even when there were infallible teachers there were also false ones mingled a contending for the law at Antioch Nicolaitanisme at Ephesus Rev. 2. 15 Divisions about their teachers at Corinth Circumcision at Galatia opposers of the Resurrection deniers of Christ's true Incarnation Hymeneus Diotrephes c. Else could not God at the beginning have published his truth to all Nations as well as to Abraham or spread the Gospel at first over all the world Could not our Saviour have laid the chief foundation of the Gospel so firm and evident that the whole Nation of the Jews together with the chief Priests and Pharisees and Herod and Pilat should have bin convinced thereof by their own sences in shewing himself with his wounded side and pierced hands and feet publickly at that grand Festival as formerly he had done in the Temple and in the Streets in their Palaces and Courts and
implicit faith is accepted whether in our defects or also errors in matters of faith implicit faith being then only serviceable to us where faith explicit considering due circumstances cannot be attained by us Now what is said hitherto concerning knowledge of the Scriptures may be applied to the knowledge of the Church our guide in the Scriptures and the obedience due to her For he who believes 1. Either that the Church is infallible in her proposals to him what is the word of God or 2. That tho fallible in some things yet she is appointed in those things to be his Judge and the final determiner of them 3. or at least that in the exposition of the sense of Scriptures her judgment is better than his own such a one is bound to believe any thing to be God's word if she affirm it to him to be so And he who doth not believe any of these things of the Church is not presently therefore unobliged to her proposals unless he hath unpartially examined this matter and so finds no just cause to believe any such thing of her wisdom or authority as is pressed upon him For when some argue thus There is no danger to me in so or so disobeying the Church where she ought to be obeyed if having used the uttermost examination I can both of the point and of my own dis-interest I can find no such obedience due to her t is well reasoned tho such obedience were indeed due to her if we grant the Supposition that he hath examined to the uttermost who yet after all remains mistaken for a mistaking examination where there is no further power to discover it is no more blameable than a true one and in this case invincible ignorance or incapacity excuseth And God doubtless imposeth nothing to be believed by us under the penalty of sinning but that he gives sufficient arguments to evidence it to all men endued with the use of reason and void of prejudice and passion But hence is our error that we take an imperfect trial and examination for a compleat and suddenly rest in the dictate of our conscience un or mis-informed which is virtually a going against it and to God must we answer both for such a blind conscience and all the acts of disobedience that flow from it Thus much concerning our obligation to seek after the knowledge of all divine truth and concerning sufficient proposal and that upon this whatever appears to be God's word is necessary to our salvation to be assented to and believed But this granted in the second place you are to observe that it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is God's word be known to us to be so or be known by us to be a Truth For of these parts of God's word which are proposed to us some there are which concern the business of our salvation and again some others which do not as some passages of history and perhaps some subtle consequences of some beneficial point of Faith c Hence therefore ariseth a twofold necessity of belief either only in respect of proposal because we know they are God's word or besides proposal in respect of our salvation because they are some way advantageous thereto Now concerning the first of these tho such things once evidently proposed are necessary to be assented to or rather not dissented from yet it is not necessary at all that they should be either proposed to us or known by us but we may be ignorant of or also err in them without any sin any danger Concerning the second Divine Truths necessary to be believed with relation to our salvation may be taken either in a more strict or in a more large sense Taken in the most strict sense they are such articles or points of faith as without which actually known and believed none at all can possibly enter into heaven and escape damnation and of which not only the denial or opposition but the pure nescience and ignorance is a defect of faith to all adulti absolutely irremissible And these must needs be very few since we must make them no more than the knowledge whereof may be attained by the most illiterate indocile and the lowest conditions of men And likely according to the several degrees of the proposal and revelation of the mysterys of salvation fewer of these are required in some times as those before the Gospel than in some others as those since it Yet that now also in the greatest illumination there are but few we may gather both * from the short abridgment of faith the Apostles proposed in their Sermons to the people commonly including the Articles of the Passion and Resurrection and Kingdom of Jesus the Son of God and of David and the remission of sins to the penitent thro his Name and * from the yet shorter Confessions of Faith which the Apostles accepted as sufficient for bestowing of Baptism i. e. for admitting men to salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven so that in that instant had they died as the good Thief also did doubtless upon such a small stock of faith they had entred into life eternal See Act. 8. 37. 16. 31 33. Act. 2. 38. 10. 43. Now these absolutely necessary points are either 1. of pure faith or also 2. of practice 1. Again those are either * such wherein we more expresly give honor and glory to God in acknowledging Him and his wisdom and his works such as they are and that is much better and more wonderful than any lye can make them or * such whereby we * nourish our hope concerning good things belonging to our selves obedient and * quicken our fear concerning evil things appertaining to the disobedient Yet are not those amongst them which are most speculative to be thought useless or unprofitable to us even in respect of our practice they all generally conducing to the advancing of our admiration love and affection to God and of our confidence and reliance upon him and so to the animating of our endeavours and obedience accordingly to his commands Nullum est dogma Christianum quod non sit quodammodo necessarium ad praxim So that an orthodox faith in Speculatives is a main ground of a right practice and a strong faith of a zealous practice 2ly Those points of faith which are also of practice are such wherein we learn our duty to God. To particularize something in both these 1. Pure faith absolutely necessary to all in general even to those under the law of nature perhaps * is that faith only Heb. 11. 6. made evident evident enough to all by the works of God. Again faith absolutely necessary to those within the Church before the times of the Gospel is perhaps besides the former faith * a general trust and hope in the Messias to come See Jo. 4. 25. 1. 21. Mat. 2. 5. Jo. 7. 42. Again absolutely necessary to those under the Gospel
believed by us to have bin heavenly inspired and the undoubted word of God and hence the settling of the Canon was no small sollicitude of the Primitive Church a point this of no small consequence for the attaining of Salvation to be believed yet not absolutely necessary since one may be saved without knowing the Scriptures and many were so before these writings * Nothing concerning Ecclesiastical Orders Ordinations Sacraments the Church'es absolving sinners inflicting censures prescribing publick Liturgies points fundamental and so called some of them at least Heb. 6. 2. in respect of the essence and government and unity of the Church tho not in respect of the Salvation of some member thereof Yet why not necessary to every person therein as having reference one way or other to their particular good * Nothing express concerning the obedience due to the Church and her Governours else why do so many deny it who confess the Creed and in it the Catholick Church and yet this a very necessary fundamental also in respect of Christian duties for ignorance whereof whilst especially they will not believe the Church in attesting her own authority how many deprive themselves of the help of her excellent rules not to name here the Evangelical Counsels of Celibacy and emptying our selves of our superfluous wealth recommended to us by her and her many injunctions sovereignly tending to the advancing of piety and bettering of manners which we will suppose here not to be contained in Scripture as frequent confession of sins to the Priest frequent Fasts hours of Prayer Communions which who knows not of how much moment they are for the abstaining from sin acquisition of Christian virtues and so consequently for our Salvation Now the obligation to know and believe these and such like Necessaries of this 2d sort varies according to several persons and conditions and according to the more or less evident proposal of them In this dispute as Dr. Potter acknowledgeth Char. mistak § 7. p. 242. of necessary and fundamental truths both truths and persons must be wisely distinguished The truth may be necessary in one sense that is not so in another and fundamental to some persons in certain respects which is not so to some others 1. * More points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as more are made manifest to one than another by the Scriptures by the decision of the Church or any other way Where note that before the Church's determination of some points of faith one may have an obligation to believe them when another hath not if before this they be evidenced to him when not to another what I mean by evidence see before § 3. by what means or author soever it be he receives this evidence And after such evidence he that opposeth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and heretical in God's sight even before that he happens to be declared so by the Church'es censure and is made yet more perversly erroneous after her definitions and such obstinate error again is more or less dangerous besides the sin of obstinacy as the matter of the error is of more influence toward our Salvation whilst mean-while others not having the like evidence of them are yet free to dissent or disbelieve them but then after the Church'es definition those also upon this stronger evidence shall I call it or authority will become obliged to assent to them Again * more points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as one hath more opportunity than another by studying the Scriptures the Church'es exposition thereof and her decrees to find out and discover such truths Art thou a Master in Israel saith our Saviour and knowest not these things See Heb. 5. 12. There are those who are not excused in acquiescing in the tenents of their particular education but who are bound to examine the general traditions and doctrines of the Church the ancient Fathers Ecclesiastical Histories c. Again others there are of another condition who are not so far obliged And in the former sort if they either depart from the foresaid doctrines themselves or continue a separation first made by others it will be a damnable Schism when perhaps the simplicity of the vulgar their followers will remain excused if the error be not in a point absolutely fundamental or will be much lightlier punished Luk. 12. 48. Which common people we must leave to God's secret mercies in the same manner as we do all those others who have not believed because they have not heard which Heathens also I charitably think shall not suffer for want of that Faith of which they had no Teacher as that Faith mentioned Jo. 3. 36. but for want of that the sound of which hath come to all the world in all times mentioned Heb. 11. 6. compared Rom. 1. 20 21. Thus many truths are necessary to be known by the Pastors and the Learned that are not so by the illiterate people And in respect of some vulgar I conceive that form Quisquis non confitetur or non credit Anathema sit concerning the Creeds drawn up against several hereticks by the four first General Councils is not to be understood to be of force against a pure nescience of some Articles thereof for there are many subtilties exceeding vulgar capacities and which they need not distinctly know but against an opposition of them or denial or non-confession of these points when they come to know the Church hath established them and condemned the contrary for thus to oppose the Church is not to be ignorant of them but heretical in them Tho t is not necessary to Salvation that either they should know the Church hath determined such a thing or that such a thing is a divine truth if such knowledg be beyond the compass of their moral endeavors sutable to their capacity and their vocation in the search of divine truth See this matter more largely discussed in the Disc. of Infallibility § 15. Nay if the Learned also should I say not be ignorant of but err in some point of such moment that by consequence such error destroys some chief principle of our faith yet this being supposed and granted possible that having used their just endeavor in the search of the truth they are by no sufficient proposal convinced of it and that mean-while they contend for the principle with the same or more pertinacity than for it with a resolution to desert it if once appearing to them any way repugnant to the other such an error will no way hazard Salvation Upon such Supposition Tho the Lutheran is conceived from his new fancied Ubiquity by consequence to destroy the verity of Christ's Humanity Again the Calvinist is conceived from God's eternal predetermination of all our actions c. by consequence to destroy God's Holiness and Justice in making him the Author of all sin points highly fundamental yet are not these holding
in which we may easily be deceived Ergo That it is true This for the Spirit In the next place to come to consider Whether all to have true and saving faith must be rationally assured thereof from the to-them-known Church-tradition And here we will grant as t is said before 1. That there is in Tradition sufficient ground for such assurance as is necessary and that it is a medium for necessary points of faith free from error 2. That the saith of very many hath this rational assurance and that any or most by some reasonable diligence may attain it for necessary points from the traditionary doctrine and practice which they may see and hear dispersed thro the Church for doubtles our careful Saviour hath provided a rational means sufficient for producing a full perswasion of faith in all sorts of men there where his Gospel is preached and this means all men for the ascertaining of their faith as much as may be are bound to seek after all their life according to their condition c. 3. That the Church-decrees may be certainly known and are easily understood and more easily in many things than the Scriptures namely where these happen to be doubtful to us and doubtful they are or should be where ever Church-tradition expounds them otherwise than we and hence that this point being supposed that the Church is infallible those who believing her to be so do rely upon her judgment have for the most part a stronger perswasion and those knowing her to be so have a more rational assurance of the truth of their faith in all other points than only relying on the perspicuity of Scriptures because the former persons faith rests on a double ground the saying of Scripture and the sense of the Church interpreting it And thus one adhering to the tradition and doctrines of the Church hath more warrant for his Faith than a single Scripturist 4. That those who hold Church-tradition fallible can have no other way an infallible evidence whereby they can demonstrate the truth of their faith But all these granted yet such a degree and measure of certainty or assurance as that of Tradition or Church-infallibility is seems not to be necessary to make faith salvifical or defect of such a motive sufficient to void it and render it no true divine and acceptable faith but an humane opinion and perswasion as some contend But saving faith may be begotten where the proponent of the word of God or of divine revelation mediate or immediate is not or at least is not known to be which is all one with the former to the believer's certainty infallible and it sufficeth to it that what one believes is the word of God and that he believe it in some degree or other predominant to unbelief to be so And this I think may be shewn in many instances and by many reasons 1. For first some at least of those primitive converts of the Apostles questionles endued with true faith yet believed before any certainty of the infallibity of their teachers or before or without seeing their miracles tho these also seen afforded to some no certainty who thought that such might be done by the Devil's power see Matt. 12. 24. Deut. 13. 1. meerly by the powerful operation of God's Spirit So the Eunuch to be a true believer needed no more than the bare exposition and relation of S. Philip So Cornelius and his friends some words of St. Peter The Jaylor and Lydia of S. Paul strangers and formerly altogether unknown to them the Holy Ghost presently unlocking their hearts and finishing the work For so the three thousand converted by S. Peter in one day supposing he at that time wraught miracles yet t is not probable that all these were spectators of them or yet auditors of his doctrine from his own mouth but believed only the relations of others persons fallible who stood near him The Bereans why examined they the Apostles doctrines if they knew or esteemed him infallible The Believers at Antioch zealous of the law why contested they with St. Paul and those of Jerusalem with S. Peter Act. 11. 2. if acknowledging them infallible Or the weaker brethren tho of the number of true Believers why doubted they long time of some meats unclean contrary to the Apostle's instruction T is true that whoever believes that which another relates must ipso facto believe the relater in that thing not to be deceived but yet he who in any other one thing doth not believe him doth not believe him to be infallible And granting that all the primitive Christians assented to the infallibility of the Hierosolymitan Council yet many points of their faith were learned not from the Council but private Doctors whom I have shewed that some of them accounted not infallible nor yet was their faith nullified thereby 2. Believers no way heretical or schismatical but submitting unto the Church in all things and believing her and her traditions to be infallible c and consequently whose faith is allowed by the most rigid exactors of certainty to be most safe and secure yet if things be well examined all of them cannot be said to have an infallible means or motive or proponent of their faith I mean so many as are neither able to search the H. Scriptures nor the Tradition of former times nor universal present Tradition nor yet the Catechisms and common writings of the Church neither for other points nor yet for this That the Church or the Tradition they rely upon is infallible But being young as many undoubtedly are made faithful Christians when children or illiterate necessitated to handy-labour quiescent in one place or perhaps inhabiting deserts and solitudes c do receive the doctrine of their faith believing and yeilding obedience thereto only from their Parents or the Curate of the place or from their bare reading or hearing read some portion of Scripture recommended to them for but not proved at all to them to be the word of God. Believing indeed what is truth and obeying it but having no more external argument or assurance thereof than another suppose educated in an erroneous Church and taking the false Tradition thereof for Apostolical hath of his error Now private teachers even within the Church may first possibly by their negligence be themselves ignorant or rationally uncertain of what they teach and a Catholic Priest be able to give no better account for his religion than the Protestant both inheriting their tenents from their next Ancestors For Error once begun is propagated afterward by Tradition as well as Truth Or 2ly being rationally certain of the truth yet may he wilfully for filthy lucre for fear for lasciviousnes c see 1 Thes. 2. 3 5 6. 2 Pet. 2. 14. misguide his disciples Or 3. lastly teaching only the truth which he perfectly knows yet is this his certainty tho something to the truth of the others faith nothing to their
certitude thereof as long as they are not certain that he is not deceived Neither doth any ones believing the Church to be infallible ascertain him of the truth of his faith if he believe this her infallibility only upon the relation of his Pastor for so he hath no more certainty of the Church'es infallibility than he hath of the truth of such a relation which we have shewed is liable to error And then again it is much to be noted that one believing only and not being certain of the Church'es infallibility tho he immediately received all his doctrines from her self yet this could produce no certainty of the truth of what he receives it being no good consequence I believe such a one is infallible therefore I am certain what he saith is true But lastly let one be certain of this one point That the Church or her tradition is infallible which how many are there that cannot clearly prove and then from this known let him have infallible certainty at once of all other points whatsoever that are delivered by her or it yet supposing any to learn what are these her doctrines not from her self but from his private Curate which doubtles many true believers within the Church'es communion do his faith cannot plead any certainty this way For there is some distance between my knowing the Churche's tradition to be infallible and knowing in every point what is her tradition That which is said by Mr. Knot against Chill p. 64 and 358. in this point That a fallible motive applying divine revelation by God's supernatural concours may produce an infallible act of faith is granted But then this act of faith is infallible not from the proponent but God's Spirit in respect of which as is shewed before all saving is also infallible faith but not therefore known always to the believer to be infallible See before § 38. Again that which is said by Dr. Holden Resol fidei 1. l. 2. ◠That their faith who depend on their Pastors instructions is tutissima ipsique in rebus fidei securi modo sint membra illius Ecclesiae quae veritatem omnem revelatam amplectitur docet cujusque pastores rectores medii istius quo sibi divina haec doctrina applicatur veram rationalem habuerint certitudinem is also granted but it seems to affirm only sufficient safety in their faith without their certainty of the truth thereof Now as those of one side cannot plead their faith certain and infallible from their hearing and believing their private Pastor so neither may those of another side from their reading and believing and resolving their faith into the Holy Scriptures For since not so much the Letter of Scripture as the Sense is the infallible word and revelation of God and the letter many times is capable not only when in expression ambiguous of divers senses but also when most seemingly-plain of another sense than they import because of the consonancy they are to have with some other Scriptures lest God's word be made to contradict Hence is one man's Bible where thus ambiguous as fallible a proponent to him in respect of the possibility of his mis-intepreting it as another man's Pastor in respect of his possibility of erring And indeed the former interpreting Scripture to himself seems to be less infallible in his faith than the other learning of his Pastor expounding it because he is more likely to mistake the sense thereof than the other els why is he appointed for his teacher whose faith he is to follow Heb. 13. 7 tho I affirm a sufficient and saving faith may be and is attained by either means hearing ones Pastor or reading the Scripture 3. Since all saving faith in us is the effect of the Spirit why may not our faith be so without any precedent rational certainty thereof According as it seems before granted That God's supernatural concours may advance an act of faith relying on a fallible motive into a belief infallible why may not this Spirit shew its strength then in the weaknes of external proposal But if we suppose it a partial cause and add to it for the production of faith not only some external proponent which that there is ordinarily is granted but this infallible and known also to be so Then to say nothing of the instances given before of the contrary nor to urge here why such an infallible proponent sometimes at least namely where the matter of our belief is as in many things it is most conformable to reason should not be a sufficient cause to beget saving faith without the supernatural concours of God's Spirit and what needs that to be also spiritually which is rationally discerned I ask what do we mean by a stronger and a weaker faith so often mentioned in Scripture Do we mean several degrees thereof the least of which is certain No. For we find doubt nay some degree of unbelief and that of the same thing sometime mixed with true faith See Mar. 9. 24. Mat. 14. 31. Which unbelief or doubt that it never happens in respect of the truth of the relation but always only in the supernaturalnes of the object I think none can rationally affirm See Luk. 24. 11. Only if there be not so much of assent as to turn the scale of our judgment then will it not be faith but either pure doubt or further unbelief Faith therefore as it comes both from the outward hearing of God's word and the several proofs thereof and also by the inward operation of the Spirit so is it capable of many degrees both from the several evidence of those proofs and also from the several influence of the Spirit God giving more external evidence to one than to another as to those who see miracles or who read and compare Scriptures and Councils than to those who only hearken to their Pastor and upon the same evidence made to many God giving a stronger adherence to such a truth to one than to another either * from the energy of the Spirit thro which many can die for Christ that cannot well dispute for him or also * from a natural more passionate temper or * from hiding from them contrary verisimilities and * from ignorance of the weapons of error c. So the unlearned many times believe and adhere to a truth more strongly thro ignorance of any arguments to the contrary than the learned do to the same thro reason assaulted with many doubts and a small argument to a weak understanding begets a more firm credence than a stronger to the learned So a true believer may be less confident thro a rational perswasion in his faith than another thro the violence of a misguiding lust in his falshood nay he may have less reason or proofs tho there be more for the one than this man hath for the other and yet his faith vivifical and acceptable and oftimes there is the greatest glory and merit in it when
applies a divine revelation which really exists in such case I may believe by a true infallible assent of Christian faith The reason of this seems clear because altho a truth which I know only by probable assent is not certain to me yet in it self it is most immoveable and certain in regard that while a thing is it cannot but be for that time for which it is c. Thus he The sum of which is That the infallibility of many mens faith is not from any external Proponent but only from God's concourse See Dr. Hold. 1. l. 2. c. p. 36 37. de resol fid saying the like 2. Again in the 2d place it may be inferred * That receiving of the Articles of his Creed from the Church'es proposal is not necessary to true faith or * That one may truly believe some who doth not believe all the points of faith which the Church proposeth or any for or upon her proposal or lastly * That one may truly and savingly believe an article of faith who is not certain of the divine revelation thereof I willingly grant here 1. first That he who believes aright any divine truth must believe that it is revealed by God or that God hath said it and That he that denies any one thing which he believes is revealed by God can believe no other thing at all as he ought that is as from divine revelation he must believe all such or none at all aright 2. Since a rational certain knowledge of divine revelation as of the Scriptures or also of the Sense thereof where doubtful is only receivedd from the Church and her Tradition I accord that none can rationally or so infallibly believe any things to be revealed by God but such as he knows to be proposed to him by the Church or Tradition to be such either immediately in her exposition of obscure Scriptures or mediately in her delivering to him the Canon of Scripture and therefore that who denies this authority in some points suppose in those points where this authority is granted by him to be of equal force hath no rational ground or certainty of his faith in any other of those points according to the Schools Qui inhaeret doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili regulae i. e. in omnibus quae proponit omnibus assentit quae Ecclesia docet i. e. quae scit Ecclesiam docere alioqui si de his quae Ecclesia docet tenet quae vult quae non vult non tenet non inhaeret infallibili doctrinae Ecclesiae sed propriae voluntati But note that every one who doth not inhaerere doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili may not therefore be said inhaerere propriae voluntati because he may hold such tenents not quia vult but * for some other reason abstract from the Church'es authority as Protestants do * for the evidence of Tradition in this point That Scripture is God's word So those who rejected some parts or books of Scripture because containing something opposite to their opinions could not ground any certainty of their faith upon the rest because that Scripture they refused came recommended to them by as much and the same authority as that they accepted But these Concessions destroy not the former proposition because for the former concession it is one thing to believe such a truth to be divine revelation another to be rationally assured thereof the first we grant is the second I think we have proved not to be necessary to all true faith For the second tho he who certainly knows not Church-tradition cannot have a rational or discursive certainty in his faith abstracting here from what internal certainty one may have from the Spirit nor upon that principle can believe one thing unless he believe all the rest that have the like Tradition with it yet he may without such a certainty or such a ground truly believe as I think is before-proved And hence it follows that one may truly believe some other points of faith who doth not believe this point in particular That the Church or Universal Tradition is infallible Thus much * of the non-necessity of infallible certainty in every believer to render his faith true divine and salvifical * and of the erring in some one article it s not necessarily destroying the true faith of all the rest But to conclude this Discourse Three things mean-while are acknowledged and confessed 1. First that he that truly and divinely believes all the rest of the Articles of our Faith and erreth only in one Article that is absolutely necessary to salvation such error may be said to destroy his whole faith in some sense that is in rendring his faith in other points tho not false yet non-salvifical to him 2. Again he that disbelieveth and opposeth the propositions of the Church known to him to be so in some point not absolutely necessary I mean to be explicitely believed for attaining salvation as some points there are so necessary tho this error doth not null the body of his beleife yet this opposition in that error is by the common doctrine of the Church accounted so great a crime as that unrepented of it renders his true faith being destitute of due obedience and charity unprofitable for his salvation which I thought fit here to mind you of that none may presume salvation from the truth of his faith in all necessaries as long as he stands tho in some as he accounts smaller points after sufficient proposal in opposition and disobedience to the Church i. e. to his supreme Governour and Guide in all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual matters See before § 50. 3. And lastly if this Article of Faith That the Church'es authority is either absolutely infallible in all things she proposeth to be believed or at least so supreme that none may in any wise dissent from her determination can be proved one of the points of faith absolutely necessary to salvation to be by every Christian believed then since there can be no disobedience and non-conformity to the Church but that it is grounded on the dissbelief of this Article it must follow That every one that opposeth the Church is also from his disbelief of this Article excluded from salvation FINIS OF INFALLIBILITY CONTENTS PART 1. COncerning the Infallibility of the Church how far this is to be allowed § 1 2. 1. Infallibility of the Church in necessaries granted both by Roman and Protestant writers § 3. Where How far points necessary are to be extended § 4. That the Church not private men is to define what points be necessary § 6. If these points be necessary at all to be defined and exactly distinguished from all other her Proposals § 7. 2. Infallibility of the Church in matters of Universal Tradition tho they were not necessary conceded likewise by all § 8. 3. Infallibility Universal in whatever the Church proposeth and delivereth is not affirmed by the Roman writers §
controversies not discussed or heard-of in precedent ages which the Church decides by the judgment and learning of her Bishops considering * texts of Scripture wherein such points seem to be included and * other doctrines of former and present times to which they seem to have some relation All which points I believe few Catholicks will agree * that they should be excluded from necessaries if not found to be of evident Tradition or * that in new controversies nothing ever is determined by the Church and that under Anathema but only what was formerly evident Tradition which new determinations if there were not sometimes then what need is there of the superassistance of the holy Spirit that the Church err not This * concerning the first Concession by both parties That the Church is infallible in her directions touching Necessaries and * concerning some consequents thereof 2. Secondly it must be and I think is granted by all that own Christianity That the Church is sufficiently infallible in all points that are of Universal Tradition or at least of Tradition so general as that is which we have of the Scriptures tho such points were not necessary at all els they must deny that we have certainty enough from Tradition that the Scriptures are God's word And this undeceivableness of general Tradition is the only or chief ground that some Catholick writers of late build the Church'es infallibility upon not that they deny her infallible in all necessaries too but that they make all Necessaries to be eminently and beyond all mistake traditional 3. Thirdly it is granted I think generally by those of the Catholick Church That the Church is not absolutely infallible in all things whatsoever that she shall say or propose but only in such things as she proposeth to her children tanquam de side or necessario credenda whether they concern speculatives or practicals and manners Concerning this matter I will give you the several limitations as I find them set down in some of their latest writers To begin with Bellarmin one who is thought sufficiently rigid in vindicating the Church'es infallibility Thus he de Concil authoritate 2. l. 12. c. Concilia Generalia non possunt errare nec in fide explicanda nec in tradendis praeceptis morum toti Ecclesiae communibus I may add out of another place de verbo Dei 4. l. 9. c. nec in ritu cultu divino for the present times of such Councils For saith he as Ecclesia universalis non potest errare in credendo so neither in operando recteque August Ep. 118. docet insolentissimae insaniae esse existimare non recte sieri quod ab universa Ecclesia sit tale est Baptisma parvulorm licet actu non credant c. But then he saith again in conciliis maxima pars actorum ad sidem non pertinent i. e. non proponitur ut necessario credatur non enim sunt de fide disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum illustrandum adferuntur nothing incidently spoken and without purpose to define it sed tantum ipsa nuda decreta ea non omnia sed tantum quae proponuntur tanquam de fide Interdum enim Concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile Vide Concil Viennense parvulis in Baptismo conferri gratiam He grants ibid. That Concilia in Judiciis particularibus i. e. ubi non affirmatur aliquid generale toti Ecclesiae commune errare possunt So he grants 2. l. 7. c. quoad aliqua praecepta morum Concilia plenaria priora emendari per posteriora sed non quoad dogmata fidei i. e. such as are once proposed by an Universal Council tanquam creditu necessaria Emendari saith he therefore they may err He goes on quod confirmatur ex verbis Augustini qui dicit tunc emendari Concilia quando experimento aliquo aperitur quod clausum erat clausum i. e. in the time of the former Council experimento enim aperiuntur saith the Cardinal quaestiones de facto vel de moribus non quaestiones Juris universalis And I suppose Bellarmin also will not deny the same of Speculative doctrines of which it appeareth not that in the former Councils they are peremptorily defined ut certa tanquam de fide necessaria for this well accords with what is but now recited out of him de Concil authoritate 2. l. 12. c. According to which c. 8. in his answer to the 10th Objection concerning a difference between two Councils about the number of Canonical Books of Scripture and so pertinens ad fidem he writes thus Concilium Carthaginense esse majoris authoritatis quam Laodicenum quia posterius And Concilium Laodicenum posuit in Canone eos libros de quibus Episcopi ejus Concilii certi erant alios autem omisit non quidem negans eos esse Canonicos sed nolens rem dubiam definire Concilium autem Carthaginense re magis discussa definivit id quod prius Concilium reliquerat sub dubio Where we see that latter Councils may discover something even in rebus pertinentibus ad fidem which former have not and may define the others doubtings Again tho he numbers amongst points of faith in which the Church cannot err not only quae expresse continentur in but also quae evidenter deducuntur ex Scripturis Prophetarum Apostolorum and so makes it the business of a Council as declarare quodnam sit verbum Dei scriptum vel traditum so praeterea ex eo per ratiocinationem deducere conclusiones which conclusions also he numbers amongst dogmata sidei yet he grants that in some deduction as he calls it and ratiocination the Council may err in saying neque rationes quae adduntur quoted before affixing the Church'es Inerrability only to those deductions quae deducuntur evidenter and to such deductions only as are her express decreta and as are proposed tanquam de fide See the former quotations out of him de Concil Authoritate 2. l. 12. c. Like things much-what you may read in our learned Country-man Stapleton See in his Principia fidei doctrinalia 4. controv and 2. quaest his septem notabilia where he saith first that Ecclesia non expectat doceri a Deo immediate solis Enthusiasmis novis afflatibus sreta sed utitur certis mediis ad dubii dogmatis determinationem quia docetur nunc non per Apostolos aut Prophetas quibus immediat a revelatio frequens erat sed per Pastores Doctores 2ly That Ecclesia in singulis mediis non habet infallibilem peculiarem Spiritus sancti directionem quae necessaria erat Apostolis omnia de novo docentibus fundament a ponentibus sed non succedenti Ecclesiae sed potest in illis adhibendis probabili interdum non semper necessaria collectione uti But 3ly That Ecclesia nihilominus
so it is in the instance he giveth But in some other sentences it is false viz. when they enjoyn me an action the lawfulnes whereof is questioned For since I may never do a thing believed unlawful for me to do therefore here I must either believe their determination for my doing it just and right or I must not do it Now as I said before this I may believe either by believing the thing in it self lawful which they judg so or at least that it is lawful for me to do it rebus sic stantibus tho the thing in general prohibited or unlawful to be done without such circumstances because God hath peremptorily obliged me to obey their sentence tho in some things errable As may be shewed in many instances which were decidable by such Judges For example a controversy ariseth between a bounden servant and his master whether he is to obey his Masters command in watering his cattel on the Sabbath day The Servant arguing from Exod. 20. 10. In it thou shalt not do any work c that it is by God prohibited Here upon the Judges sentence well weighing this text with other Scriptures I say the Servant is bound by them to water his Master's cattel and therefore bound to think it lawful to do so none being obliged to do what he thinks unlawful to do for Conscientia erronea obligat The same it is if any one upon Levit. 18. 16. refusing to marry the wife of his brother deceased without issue making some false gloss upon Deut. 25. 5. should receive a command from these Judges to marry her My last instance shall be in the very matter whereof Mr. Hooker discourseth tho Mr. Chillingworth avoided it The Church of England passeth a sentence in the supreme Ecclesiastical court That every Minister in celebrating Divine Service shall wear a Surplice Here I say a Puritan may not do what the judicial sentence hath determined c by no means unless he first think or believe the determination of the Council lawful i. e. That his doing this namely wearing the Surplice is not against the law of God. The reason is because here they enjoyn him the doing of that of which the question is whether to do it be lawful But had they enjoyned him to pay a mulct for not wearing a Surplice then the question is not whether he may lawfully pay this mulct for unusquisque potest cedere de suo jure and he who doth this thing is supposed to be satisfied in this point that he may cedere suo jure but only whether that court had a just and legal cause for which they enjoyned this mulct which as to the point of lawful concerns them but not him at all But had the law said or did such a one mulcted doubt whether the law had said no man shall submit to any mulct or punishment which he thinks the Judge unjustly sentenceth him to then must he not pay the mulct till he thought the determination lawful A sentence therefore may be conceived unjust two ways 1. Either in enjoyning men to do a thing which the law as they conceive hath prohibited to be done such a thing may never be done as long as the sentence is thought unjust i. e. Enjoyning them to do what the law prohibits to be done Or 2ly in enjoyning men to do what the law hath prohibited the Judge in such a case to enjoyn but not the others in any case to do tho to do such a thing in such a point ought not to have bin imposed Here the judged doubtles may obey the sentence whilst he thinks it unjust To make things plain I fear I am too tedious See more of this matter in Success Clergy Mr. Chillingworth goes on to shew an impossibility that such a yeilding to judgment against our private opinion can be His words are If you will draw Mr. Hooker's words to such a construction as if he had said they must think the sentence of a judicial and final decision just and right tho it seem in their private opinion to swerve utterly from what is right it is manifest you make him contradict himself and make him say in effect They must think thus tho at the same time they think the contrary Thus far he To this I have spoken more fully in the following Discours § 2. To make Contradictories the terms in both Propositions must be taken exactly in the same sence els they will be only verbally so As I will shew you this to be after I have first premised this That taking thinking in the latter Proposition for infallibile certainty but t is clear Mr. Hooker means no such thing the words imply a true contradiction for he who saith he believes for any authority whatsoever humane or per impossibile divine contrary to what he is infallibly certain of saith he believes what he believes not or what he cannot believe So that where there is infallible certainty it voids all argument from Authority neither can any one say I do or will submit my judgment to such or such in a point whereof he is sure But let thinking therefore or private opinion be taken in any degeee below absolute certainty and then I think that expression had it bin Mr. Hooker's as it is tho not totidem terminis is far from contradiction To shew which give me leave to change this word think in the latter proposition into some other words which yet are plainly what Mr. Hooker means by thinking and you shall see they will be very well consistent I think or believe from the argument of the authority prudence c of such persons their determination of such a point to be right tho all the arguments I have from seeming reason of the thing or from that sence which I conceive of Scripture incline me to think that such a determination is not right Now I suppose as the terms are here explained none will deny That one may think or believe a thing to be truth not against his belief or thinking but against all arguments which are drawn from his seeming natural reason or otherwise except that ab authoritate if these do not amount to infallible certainty or that a man may yeild an assent of belief in respect of authority contrary to his assent of evidence in respect of the thing so that evidence be in any degree below infallible certainty Els we must deny that we can believe any mystery of faith which seems to us contrary to natural reason see Rom. 4. 17 18. 2 Cor. 10. 5. and these two propositions will contradict also I believe or think such a thing a divine truth from divine authority delivering it tho my natural reason inclines me to think or believe the contrary Doth a man speak a contradiction if he say to a Scholar or a child Do not believe or give credit to your own reason meaning by it the reasons or arguments his brain suggests to him about
refuseth it only to consent to another judgment much more fallible i. e. his own Now that God hath granted such a power to the Church of excommunicating dissenters to some of her decisions at least is acknowledged by the Reformed * who allow the Church'es practice of it in her first 4. General Councils concerning the additions in the Nicene and other Creeds * who allow the Church'es practice in commanding something to be done or forborn by her subjects under the penalty of Excommunication but wherever the Church enjoyns any thing to be done she inclusively enjoyns assent or belief that such a thing is lawful to be done Lastly * who practise such excommunication themselves not only toward men for contradicting or for declaring their dissent but for dissenting from their decrees 1. †As appears in the closes of the 3. 4. and 5. Canons c of the English reformed Synod held under K. James 1603. where Can. 5. Whosoever doth affirm any of the 39. Articles to be in any part erroneous stands excommunicated not till he recants his publick contradicting the Church'es doctrines but till he repents of and publickly revokes such his wicked errors and †as appears in all those Canons wherein that Synod enjoyns any Agends upon pain of Excommunication which injunctions of Practicals as I said before involve also an injunction of Assent first that such practicals are lawful See Can. 9. 12. 59. of that Synod 2ly As appears in the English Synod under K. Charles 1640. * where in the 3. 4. and 5. Canons any accused of Popery Socinianism Anabaptism are to be excommunicated till they abjure such errors and that is till they assent to the contradictory of those errors and that is till they assent to the doctrine of the Church of England where it is contradictory to those errors and * where Can. 6. There is required an approbation and sincere acknowledgment which is no less than assent to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England as containing all things necessary to salvation and this confession required upon oath See this matter discoursed more at large in Church-government 3. part § 29. And hence a sober man may discern how that without submission of judgment in some things none that are learned and much studied in Theological controversies can enjoy the external communion of any Church For since for example the English Church excommunicates all that shall say that any of her Articles or Canons is erroneous or repugnant to Scripture see for this her 4. and 5. Can. set down before 2d part of Church-government untill they shall publickly revoke not such their saying but such their error and since the Rom. Church is said to require belief of so many Decrees of the Tridentine and other former Councils if any one Canon or Article tho of never so little moment of the Church of England or Canon of those other Councils allowed by the Church of Rome whereto assent is required doth appear mistaken to such a one's private reason hence he can be of neither of these external communions and sic de caeteris yet one of which certainly is the communion of the true Catholick Church of which we say Credo unam sanctam c. I may add Neither could he heretofore be of the external communion of the former Church Catholick for many ages wherein by reason of new rising heresies the Church'es determinations and those requiring assent have bin multiplied from some one or other of which a learned man is likely to vary in his private judgment being perhaps not every way so well informed as that of the Church was who made them So suppose one holding all the rest with the Council of Trent should differ from it in this one tenet That the Baptism of S. John Baptist and of Christ were not of the same efficacy or one holding all the rest with the Church of England should only differ from it in this point of her 28 and 29th Article That the Real Body of Christ is received in the Eucharist only by those who have a lively faith for which see Mr. Thorndike Epilogue to the Church of England 3. l. 2. c. or before the Reformation and Council of Trent one should in some thing hold differently from the Decrees of the 2d Nicean or Lateran Council he is thereby excluded from the external communion both of the Church of Rome and the Church of England and of all the former Church following the 2d Council of Nice unles he be in something content to mortify his rationale and make a submission of his judgment-Therefore the Schoolmen so subtil in their disputes and so various in their resolves yet laid aside their private reasons and bended their judgments to the yoke thereof where any controversible point was formerly stated by the Church taking liberty to expatiate and exercise their science only in those disputables wherein she had no way bounded them Now to come to your other Query Whether if in non-fundamentals the Church require our assent to something contrary to our private judgment we ought to yeild to it To this I answer We ought Because the Church'es power of punishing by Excommunication all that do not consent to all her decisions and determinations wherein she requires consent seems to be absolute and unlimited For to some of her decisions the reformed grant that he who assents not is justly excommunicated by her I ask therefore to which 1. Is it only to those decisions which she maketh according to the Scriptures that if any assent not to them he may be justly excommunicated by her See the 20. and 21 Article of the Church of England But then before she may justly exercise such Excommunication some body must judge when her decisions are made according to the Scriptures when not This Judge must either be her self or private men If she must judg this then t is all one as if there were no such limitation for we may be assured she will never make any such decision as her self will judge not to be according to or to be contrary to the Scriptures If private men must judge this then this her authority is null toward so many private men as shall judge her decisions to be contrary to Scriptures and to the rest that judge them according with Scripture she hath no use of this authority because they already consent T is null I say to the former because as the power of excommunicating those who do not consent to her decisions when made according to the Scriptures is committed to her so the power of judging when they are so made when not is here supposed to be left by God to private men Therefore these being judged by them not to be so her authority which was thus limited is now toward all such men voided And how will this consist with God's giving Pastors c for the unity of the faith and that men may not be
himself to have made his search of Scripture amiss so often as he thinks it to contradict them Such mediums are †Miracles and other mighty operations done by the power of the H. Ghost upon which our Saviour Jo. 5. 36 and elsewhere and S. Paul Rom. 15. 19. 2 Cor. 12. 12. 1 Cor. 2. 4. Mar. 16. 20. required belief and submission to their doctrine And †Universal Tradition upon which the Church also requireth belief to the Scriptures the same Tradition that delivered the Scriptures delivering also such doctrines and expositions of Scriptures as are found in the Church So that a Pharisee searching and not finding in Scriptures by reason indeed that he searched them not aright such testimony of Jesus his being the Messias as was pretended yet ought to have bin convinced and to have believed his doctrines from seeing his miracles and from hence also to have blamed his faulty search So a Berean searching and not finding in Scripture such evidence of S. Paul's doctrine suppose of the abrogation of the Judaical Law by Christ as was pretended yet ought to have believed it from the mighty works he saw done by S. Paul or from the authority he or the Council at Jerusalem received from Jesus working miracles and raised from the Dead as Universal Tradition testified And the same may be said for the Church'es doctrines And therefore as there are some Scriptures that bid us search the Scriptures because if we do this aright we shall never find them to disagree from the doctrines of the Church and because some doctrines of the Church are also in the Scriptures very evident so there are other Scriptures if those who are so ready to search them on other would search them also on this point that bid us Hear the Church because our searching of Scriptures is liable sometimes to be mistaken and because in some things the Scriptures may seem difficult in which case God having referred us to the judgment of those whom he hath appointed to be the expounders thereof Deut. 17. 8 9 10. Matt. 18. 17. Lu. 10. 16. cannot remit us again to the same Scriptures to try whether their expositions be right Therefore that text Gal. 1. 8 9. is far from any such meaning If the Church or Church-men shall teach you any thing contrary to the Scriptures as you understand them let these be Anathema to you But rather it saith this If an Angel or I apostatizing as some shall Act. 20. 30. shall teach any thing contrary to the doctrines ye have received i. e. from the Church let him c. which makes for the Church'es authority very much The Scriptures then recommending tryal do no way warrant to us a tryal of the publick doctrines of the Church by our private sence upon the Scriptures that so we should adhere to it against them but a tryal of the doctrines of private teachers by the Churches publick sence of the Scriptures that in adhering to it we may be always secure 5ly They question since there are many present divided Churches to the judgment of which of them they shall repair I answer Had this question bin asked an hundred years ago in Luther's time any one could have solved it What any one would have done then let him do now since all grant that the Church which was then Catholick is not changed since in its doctrines or practices only some men are since gone out of it and he may know by this that he is not to follow them because they are gone out if he resolve once to be a follower of the Church'es authority All or most of modern controversies either Councils which the present Church allows have decided or collectively the solution of them may be known by the agreeing tenets of particular Churches and their Bishops even before and without any General Councils Most of the decrees of the Council of Trent tho it should stand for nothing yet we must grant were the general tenets and practice of the present Church of that age and of many ages before that and many Councils also which must be granted at least Patriarchal or Provincial have decided the points now in controversy or many of the most considerable of them and we find no other superior Synod at all contradicting them in those or later times but the same things ratified by the general practice which followed If therefore there was a church Catholick in those days that had or exercised any authority and this I think we confess in our Creed surely such tenets were established by it neither can we acknowledge one Holy and Apostolick Church in those times save only that by whom such things were used and by whom also many of them decreed After that therefore we have once yeilded to conform in our judgment or in not-contradiction to the Church we need not demand and expect for these things a future General Council for we are judged already we learning what is the Church'es judgment sufficiently by the decrees of former Councils Provincial at least which with this universal practice following them are equivalent to General Els many ancient heresies as Pelagianism c remain yet uncondemned in the Church these having bin censured only by Councils Provincial whose judgments afterward were generally approved and by the general practice of that Church which Church we cannot deny to be the same with that which once was the total Catholick and which is also now if we look after the major part of the Church the greatest communion of Christians Such things as these are said and you must tell me what I must reply to them And indeed if Protestants saw no eminent Church to which if all her decisions were made authentical men would presently apply themselves their contention would not be so earnest against our ascribing too much to the Church'es authority But suppose say they that the church present determin things against Scripture and against the former Church Why may not I say I again as well suppose you who think thus of the present Church to mistake Scripture and the former Church your selves and why may I not say again to you suppose that she err in fundamentals where are you that in these do follow her judgment Yes but the fundamentals she directs me in are more plainly set down in Scripture Well then since you may not judg against her in the plain may you in other things less plain But say you our Saviour hath promised in these she shall not err Then you need not fear erring with her in the rest for were truth in the rest so necessary as you pretend God could and would here also have made her an infallible directer And we are to know this that the Church may be faulty in something that she enjoyns and yet he that assents to her judgment not be so but faulty he will be if he do not assent Els what shall we answer to Deut. 17. 11 unles we will say
therein clearly delivered as for example that Jesus is the Lord or that he died in some sence or other as hoc dato that he is the Lord he may be certain that he is the Lord or as he may be certain of identicals And as I think one may be certain of this so I do not think that ever there was any heretick that allowed the Scriptures i. e. as we have them that ever denied any such thing in general terms for this would be to affirm contradictories both true Again since the Ch. may be infallibly certain of something in the Scriptures from the evidence of revelation why a private man may not be so too I see no reason since the Church consisteth only of so many particular men and the reasons appearing to the Church may also be clear to him Tho here I must put some difference because as there is a certainty arising from clearnes of revelation so there is another from illumination of the H. Spirit see Jo. 16. 13. which illumination is promised to the Councils of the Church but not so to particulars and for this it is I think well said that the conclusions of such Councils may from the superintendence of God's Spirit over them be orthodox when the reasons upon which they are grounded may be fallible or not proving such conclusions A private man then in some things may be infallibly certain but since he also may be mistaken not only in * very plain Scriptures by †not comparing them with other places that say something contrary to the sence which they seem to him to bear †by education in such mis-interpretations and many other thousand ways as we have much experienced of late in the Socinians and our English Sectarists both great Scripturists but also * in thinking himself infallibly certain of something there when he is not which conceit many times ariseth not from the places incapability of any doubt but from his not being then acquainted with any objections against his sence of it The chiefest signs that I know by which any one may gather that he is infallibly certain indeed when it is in any point that is controverted are these two and they are such as will litle nurse him in his opinion of infallible certainty 1. The first is that no other man or at least not the major part of men having the use of reason understanding our terms and granting all the suppositions which we do doth contradict or frame any objections against our tenet The 2d That all having use of reason c or the most that were formerly of another perswasion to whom we propose all our grounds become certain of the same thing also I say the most because it is not here altogether as it is in Mathematicks the demonstrations whereof never any that see them contradict Now that you may not think these marks of certainty too rigid see the same proposed by the Reformed against the Puritans whom they think too rashly to pretend certainty in heterodox opinions See Hook. Eccl. Pol. preface 6. sect and Bishop Laud § 33. Consid. 5. n. 1. Therefore thinking one's self certain and his not having any doubt at all of the truth of the thing he holds is no sure note of certainty For potest non subesse dubium where yet subest falsum from the ignorance of those texts or arguments which prove the contrary of what he holds And tho there may be no doubt from contrary arguments yet is the greatest reason that can be to doubt from a publick contrary judgment where the much major part of such as I have opportunity to know their opinion these having all the same evidences as my self dissent from me Now against these indications of certainty proposed by us it may be and is said That passion self-conceit pride love of contention and especially contrary education and custom in error may blind some mens judgment so as not to discern the plainest things But mark first that this is said ordinarily by a man that is singular against the contrary judgment of the Church of God. Thou that judgest another judgest thou not thy self What can be a better argument for the Church than her former customs which thou accusest to mislead her present judgment Who are liker to be clear of passion those that submit to anothers judgment or those that adhere to their own Lastly from this it will follow that we also to be infallibly certain of a truth must be infallibly certain we are not misled by passion or education in an error as well as that others may be so and this surely is very hard to know In dissent from our Pastors saith Dr. Jackson we cannot but doubt whether we have learnt as we should the precepts of Christian modesty whether learnt to deny our selves and our affections to reverence him as God's Minister taking no offence at his person whether we have abandoned all such delights and desires as are the usual grounds of false perswasion And in another place he grants that to the disobedient and those who hate the light even plain Scriptures are difficult If we cannot be resolved in these then must we doubt whether we will or no whether our doubt and scruple be of faith and conscience or of humor What Dr. Jackson saith here of doubt I may say of certainty since many also are deceived in thinking themselves certain when they are not that till we are certain that we are void of such passion we cannot be certain that we are certain c. Again t is said That in points which we must needs grant to be most certainly plain to any rational man yet some hereticks have bin of a contrary judgment as t is instanced in the Manichees and in some frantick people of late acknowledging no obligation to the practice of Christian vertues c. I answer this comes about for the most part at least by their denying some principles which others argue upon The Manichees acknowledged divine Scriptures but not such as we have them but said that our Scriptures were miserably corrupted Our Sectarists of late acknowledge our Scriptures but say they were writ for and belong only to new beginners in Christianity not to the perfect c. So likewise those that vary in their conclusions t is notable to see how much they vary also in their suppositions Some in Scripture hold those to be counsels only which others take for absolute commands some suppose those precepts temporary as I think we must needs confess that Act. 15. to be which others will needs have to be eternal some will have the practices set down in Scripture to oblige as well as peremptory precepts others not c. And upon these various grounds which others grant not every one builds from those grounds most infallible conclusions which all the world if they yeilded to his principles would also with him assert Mean-while he looking at the plainnes
acknowledge totum Christum to be contained in and exhibited to us by any one species and by the least particle thereof See Confessio Wirtenberg Chamier de Eucharist 9. t. 8. c. our Saviour's boby and blood and soul and Deity suffering now no separation See a further proof of the things said above in the discours on this subject And lastly if he hath considered a case not much unlike i. e. the communicating of Infants wherein if the Protestants had retained a contrary custom to the rest of the present Church perhaps they might have accused the Church for changing it not with less evidence than they do in this For first the Scripture saith plainly as of Baptism he that is not born again of water so of the Eucharist he that eateth not my flesh c shall not inherit eternal life 2ly And then the Primitive times according to these precepts practised it 3ly No more knowledge and preparation is required to the Lord's Supper than to Baptism for examining ones self and repenting is required to Baptism as well as to the Eucharist therefore if such things are not required of children for the one so neither are they for the other And I could press the like in Extream Unction which suppose that we had retained and the Roman Church left off as it is contrary how easily could we have charged them for abrogating a plain Apostolical precept Jam. 5. 14 And the same may be urged concerning the great act of humility washing one anothers feet before the Communion for which after that our Saviour himself had first begun the practice thereof there seems to be a plain precept Jo. 13. 14. And so the Church'es changing the celebration of the Lord's Supper into a morning exercise and that it should be received fasting was not done without some mens scrupling it See Januarius his consulting S. Austin about this Epist. 118. c. But if we can alledge in this matter the desuetude of former Church to be a sufficient rule and warrant to us for omitting of it then why may not the same plea of the Church'es desuetude be as well by some others enlarged to some other points wherein Scripture is urged against them I say therefore if such cases as these be well considered together with the understanding and the holines of these men who after our reasons given them are not convinced by such an evidence as we pretend methinks for one to say notwithstanding all this not that he is much perswaded but that he is absolutely infallibly certain of the unlawfulnes of such a practice would not consist with that Christian humility which we ought to have and to which only God gives true knowledge nor with that charge of the Apostle not to be wise in our own conceits Whereas it is noted that the more eminent in sanctity any one hath bin the more eminent obeyer and defender not opposer hath he bin of the Church'es authority A like instance might be made in that mainly opposed doctrine of Transubstantiation where as long as a possibility thereof is granted as it is by many of the Reformed and such a declaration is found in Scripture as this Hoc est Corpus meum the most literal and proper sence whereof that can be tho the most heightning this mystery is Transubstantiation of the Elements See Treat of Euchar. § 28. n. 2. and as long as this Scripture is not found contradicted by any other Scriptures but that with less force the literal expression of them may be brought to comply with it than the literal expression of it to comply with them we also adding to these the final determination of the Church long before Protestancy thought on after so long and subtle disputes for about 300 years from the 2d Nicene Council till the days of Berengarius and after so curious an examination on all sides of Primitive Tradition by Paschasius Bertram and others 800 years ago I do not see where a man can ground an absolute infallible certainty against it T is a dangerous case to disobey where we see others of great judgment and integrity yeilding obedience with alacrity saith Dr. Jackson And indeed I cannot but approve of that constitution of Ignatius and think him a too much self-conceited man who when he hath I say not to the Church but suppose only to three or four whom he knew wise and learned and uninterested men shewed his reasons and they have weighed them and concluded against his former opinion would not quietly acquiesce in their contrary judgments supposing no superior judgment to have prejudiced them and this especially in a point not fundamental Tho I know not how it is that when we plead our security in our dissent from the Church'es judgment we presently say that the point we differ from her in is not fundamental and that unity of faith in those fundamentals is sufficient but again when we plead the necessity of using our own judgment and not trusting or relying on any other mans we presently represent the same Not-fundamental truths as of great consequence and say the blind meaning the Church which may perhaps err in such things leading the blind both may fall into the ditch and that that ditch also is damnation I cannot conceive therefore how any man can assure himself in any thing that is not of fact or sence but that is only a deduction from Scripture and Tradition contrary to the judgment I say not of his private Pastor but of the supremest Court of the present Church that he is infallibly certain of any thing small or great Small I say as well as great for from the Church'es being liable in some things to error doth not follow any likelihood of his being infallibly certain in those things of the contrary truth but rather otherwise because t is a sign that such things are not clearly revealed and that they being dark to her will be so much more to him To confirm which add these two 1. That in Fundamentals this thing is granted That none can be certain of the contrary to what the Church defines and then that how many points are fundamental is to him uncertain 2. That amongst many tenets of the Church this is one That private men are bound in all things to yeild their consent to the Church'es decisions where they are required so to do This tenet is plain in the practice of General Councils which Councils as well for Non-fundamentals as Fundamentals and for things of practice as well as of belief have anathematized the not only contradicters but Dissenters and Non-conformists Now then unles any one be infallibly certain of the contrary to what the Church determins and that this is no fundamental point also his judgment against hers cannot be infallible in any point whatsoever where she requires submission of his judgment In prosecution of which submission of our judgment in Non-fundamentals also it is to be noted that if our submission
to the Church in fundamentals were performed from any such obedience as we confess is by the command of God's word due to her determinations then the texts which may be urged to oblige us to obedience in these points would oblige us also in others for these texts are without any limitation of our obedience to fundamentals only But indeed our not so much assenting to her as consenting with her in fundamentals seems to proceed from other motives than obedience as from this that our Saviour hath promised that the Church for fundamentals at least shall not err and from a second that all fundamentals are most plain in Scripture and therefore as they cannot be hid to us so neither can they to her and therefore in fundamentals we must necessarily both agree in which agreeing we obey not her but together with her the Scriptures Mr. Chillingworth well saw this And hence those who withdraw one of these motives as those amongst the reformed who say Christ's promise before-mentioned is only conditional i. e. if the Clergy shall do their duty or who say that Christ's promise is more general i. e. made to Christianity but not to the Clergy thereof or to any General Council those I say make nothing to dissent from any Council or any Church that can authoritatively declare her opinion To conclude this Query I do not see then how any man can be or at least can know that he is infallibly certain of any point wherein the Church'es judgment is contrary to his 4. Now next if you be not infallibly certain then tho you have never so great probability that is short of certainty for your private opinion yet I think and I think the Reformed Divines conclude that you are notwithstanding to consent to the contrary determination of the Church or Council Els if only probabilities may serve to counterpoise the Church'es or Council's authority when or where will these be wanting You have seen Mr. Hookers and Bishop Laud's and Bishop White 's opinion in Church-gov 2. part § 36. Infallib § 45. And Dr. Jackson on the Creed 2. l. 1. § 6. c. I find saying thus Our disobedience is unwarrantable unles we can truly derive some formal contradiction or opposition between the injunction of Superiors and express law of the most high And elsewhere he saith Every doubt or scruple that the Church'es edicts are directly or formally contrary to God's law is not sufficient to deny obedience And again In doubts saith he and I say all is but more or less doubt until we be certain it will abundantly suffice to make sincere protestation in the sight of God or before the Magistrate if need require that we undertake not such actions upon any private liking of the things enjoyned but only upon sincere respect of performing obedience to Superiors c. And elsewhere We may not put the Superior to prove what he commands but he is to be obeyed till we can prove the contrary Again We can no more obey than love God whom we have not seen but by obeying our Superiors whom we have seen True Spiritual obedience will bind us rather to like well of the things commanded for Authorities sake than to disobey Authority for the private dislike of the things commanded Again If Pastors are only to be obeyed when bringing evidence out of Scripture what obedience perform we to them more than to any other man whomsoever for whosoever shews the express undoubted command of God it must be obeyed of all If we thus only bound to obey then I am not more bound to obey any other man than he bound to obey or believe me the flock no more bound to obey the Pastor than the Pastor them and so the donation of Spiritual Authority when Christ ascended on high were a donation of meer titles You see how we plead for obedience against our own Non-conformists yet for the former Church we support our selves against her authority with having infallible certainty But the Non-conformists cease not to plead this certainty also against us But indeed this he saith here is most reasonable For if you do not submit to the Church'es judgment when you have greater probability to the contrary you never submit to her judgment at all for when ever you have not greater probability to the contrary you have either greater probability of what she saith or are in a pure equilibration and in either of these you do nothing with or for which you would not and may not also do without her Well then we may not exact of the Church that she should prove nor may not only then yeild obedience i. e consent and conformity when she doth prove to us that that is truth which she commands us to believe and that that is lawful which she commands us to do But it is our duty to obey if our selves have not infallible certainty and proof that such things are untrue or unlawful It is not enough to license us to withdraw our obedience or assent to her that she may possibly err in what she commands us unless also we know that we cannot err our selves for the power of giving our assent requires not infallible knowledge that the thing we assent to first is true but only a not knowing infallibly that it is false It is not enough that we are not certain that she erreth not not enough that we have some scruples some reasons and arguments whereby it seems to us that she erreth but only certain infallibility that she doth err this indeed excuseth our non-obedience Els our Spiritual Superiors are in the place of God and of Christ to us and we are to shew to them whom we do see and hear the humble obedience we are ready in all things to render to God whom we do not see nor hear and as we are to shew our love to God in our Neighbour so are we to shew our obedience to him in his Substitutes 1 Thes. 4. 8. compared with 2. And it is not only lawful but a great virtue in us since the contrary is most-what an effect of self-conceit and arrogancy of wisdom and knowledge as to suppress the seeming suggestions of reason and sence about natural things which suggestions are against the revelations of God and divine truths so to captivate our understandings also and crush the suggestions of any singular interpretations and sences about these divine revelations which are against I say not every private teacher but the common exposition of the Church Were then all those which are the Church's decrees acknowledged and 2ly our infallible certainty so much pretended by us so strictly examined that weak probabilities be not accepted by us in stead thereof how few would the points be in which upon our concessions we could oppose the H. Church But again were all those people that had not in these few points that infallible certainty which the others learned have as one may be certain of a thing
then before all the people have ascended into Heaven to God and so have sealed for ever to that whole Nation the Confession of his being the Messias and thus with a great access to his Glory on earth have prevented their so great and long Apostacy What meaned he then to appear so sparingly and in corners the doors being shut and not to all the people saith the Apostle but to some few chosen to be witnesses tho he was not here defective in what was sufficient Again could not his Spirit that hath led some have led all into all truth if he had pleased to give it to them in a greater measure How easie had it bin for our Saviour who foresaw that sharp controversie concerning observance of the Ceremonial law by Christians the maintainers of which ceremonies contended only for them because they thought Christ had not abrogated them to have declared himself openly in that point when he was here on earth How easie for him foreseeing the controversies ever since even those so many about his own person those now between the Reformed and the Roman Church to have caused instead of an occasionally-written Epistle such a Creed as the Athanasian or such Articles as those of Trent or of the Augustan Confession or such a methodical clear Catechisme as now several Sects draw up for the instruction of their followers in the principles of their religion to have bin written by his Apostles Will any one say that had such writings bin H. Scripture yet these controversies had not bin prevented or at least not in some greater measure prevented than now they are Or would not brieflier all controversies have bin prevented had our Saviour as plainly said that the Roman Bishop should regulate the faith of his Church for ever as it may be said and is said by others There must be heresies then and therefore it seemed good to the wisdom of the Father that all things should not be done that might but only so much that was sufficient whereby they should be prevented Neither is it a good reasoning This was the best way for taking away all controversy and error in the Church that the Scriptures should plainly so as none may mistake set down all truths necessary to salvation or that there should be a known infallible Judge therefore they do so or therefore there is so because this seemed not best to God for the reasons fore-mentioned and for many other perhaps not known which made the Apostle cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 11 33. to take away all controversie and error c no more than it did to prohibit in the world the being of evil I know not whether Tertullian's saying in praescript cont haer concerning this matter be not too bold Ipsas quoque Scripturas sic esse ex Dei voluntate dispositas ut haereticis materiam subministrarent And haereses sine aliquibus occasionibus Scripturarum accidere non poterant But we may make good use of it in being less rash and more circumspect in interpreting especially when we are singular where we may be so easily mistaken 2ly It seems since there is supposed sufficient means for all those who are in the Church to attain to the knowledge of all necessary truth for God and our Saviour have not bin wanting to his Church in necessaries that those who blindly obey such false guides as shall be in the world shall not be free from punishment tho they offend thro ignorance See Matt. 15. 14. Ezek. 33. 8. 3. 18. 3ly There being some doctrines false and danger in being misled by them it seems all doctrines may be tried and that by all persons See Jo. 5. 39 our Saviour bidding them try his Act. 17. 11. the Bereans and Act. 15. 2. the Antiochians trying S. Paul's See to this purpose 1 Jo. 4. 1. 1 Thes. 5. 21. Rev. 2. 2. 1 Cor. 10. 15. 11. 13. And the more trial the better so it be rightly performed whereby we may discover false doctrines and teachers that we may not be seduced by them whereby we may know more of God may confirm our belief of which there are many degrees in what we are taught and may be able to give better account to others of our faith 1 Pet. 3. 15. Col. 3. 16. and whereby truth will always have a great advantage of error For verum vero consonat 4. Now seeing that all Spiritual knowledge cometh first by Revelation from God the trial of any doctrine we doubt of is to be made either by the holy Scriptures written from the beginning by men inspired by the Holy Ghost or by the Interpreters of these Scriptures and those who were ordained by these men that were inspired and who had the form of sound doctrine committed unto them viz. by the Doctors and Pastors of the Church where also the doctrines of some Doctors whose tenets we doubt of are to be tried by the rest of the Doctors of the present times or the doctrines of all the present Doctors to be tried by the writings of the Doctors of former times Trials by the Scriptures were those Act. 17. 11. Jo. 5. 39. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Trials by the Doctors of the Church those Act. 15. 2. Gal. 1. 9. Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. 1 Cor. 14. 32. c. 2 Jo. 10. Now these H. Scriptures and Holy Doctors collectively taken to the not-yet-so-far-grounded and illuminated are capable of being tried too The first Scriptures and Teachers by those who lived in the same times were tried by Miracles by those who lived afterward are tried by Tradition the second Scriptures are tried by their accord with the first as also by Miracles the 2d Teachers are tried by their Ordination from the first which Teachers if we find all agreeing in one judgment we need try no further our Saviour having promised his perpetual presence with them and that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the truth taught by them 5. Now first concerning trial of our Superiors commands and doctrines by Scriptures of which there are many several ways As trying 1. Whether such doctrines or commands be contained or commanded in Scripture 2. Whether the contrary to them be contained or commanded in Scripture Again if the contrary of them be contained there 1. whether as fact only 2 or also as precept 1. Now the first of these trials seems not necessary to be used 1. For it doth not follow that it is unlawful to do or to believe a thing because H. Scripture doth not say or command it Angumentum ab authoritate non valet negative Some things both in doctrine and discipline may possibly descend from the Apostles that are not set down by them in writing and these tho not absolutely necessary which very few points are yet very useful to Salvation Timothy might hear some things from S. Paul more than are set down in his Epistle see 2 Tim. 1. 13.
and Timothy might also commit these things again to other faithful men for them again to teach others and not perhaps write them or not all See 2. Tim. 2. 2. So when he was sent to Corinth 1 Cor. 4. 17. he might acquaint them with more of S. Paul's doctrines and ways in Christ than St. Paul writ to them See 1 Cor. 11. 34. where the Apostle possibly might order somewhat more concerning the receiving of the Sacrament which is not mentioned in the Scripture As S. August thinks he ordered receiving of it fasting See Epist. 118. ad Januarium near the end See 2 Thess. 2. 15. 2ly As we may not argue things unlawful in themselves or untrue so neither useles or superstitious and will-worship because we do not find them in the Scriptures For there are many things which may be enjoyned by Ecclesiastical authority which are not only not unlawful or which are required only for the preservation of order and unity in the Church for God's publick Service but which are very useful and much helping us for our Salvation for the advancing of holines suppressing of lusts c and granted to be so even by those who think them not all commanded in Scripture As Confession of sins to the Priest observing certain times of Fast frequent hours of Prayer several Penances See Common-prayer-book Preface to Commination c. And there are also many other customs received from a constant tradition which those who think them not to be set down in Scripture yet do not therefore deny them to be true and Apostolical or affirm them unlawful to be observed as Episcopacy Baptizing of Infants the Eucharist administred only by the Priest the observation of the Lord's day c. Nay some precepts in Scripture there are quietly acknowledged to be temporary and antiquated as that of observing that day of the week on which God rested and that Act. 15. 29. and some other things not in precept willingly admitted to oblige for no reason but only because the first were anciently laid aside and the second practised by our Mother the Church And by the same reason as some admit these tho not contained in Scripture they must admit many more 3ly But were some of these things enjoyned needless yet as long as they are not by God's word forbidden and are by the Church commanded if S. Paul would abstain from flesh whilst he lived not to offend his brother how much more should we obey in these not to offend our governors or rather to perform the divine command of yeilding obedience to our Governors which submission to them is due I suppose in all things not contrary to the Scriptures In which our Superiors may offend many times in their injunctions when we do not in our obedience the preservation of so reverend an authority which cannot in all things be menaged for the best and of the unity of the Church being more benefit to any member thereof than the observance of a command which is fruitles yet no way contrary to the Scriptures can be inconvenience Our Superiors may offend I say in enjoyning when not others in obeying Because injunctions and laws become unjust and unlawful not one but many ways as in respect of the matter when contrary to God's word so where the matter is not a thing evil in respect of the end author or other circumstances As when such injunctions are no way conducing to the publick good when enjoyned as God's command or as to be preferred before something that is so or as something necessary to Salvation when not enjoyned by a lawful authority c. Now the matter of the command being not faulty the thing may be done provided that no unlawful end be expressed in the injunctions for thus it becomes part of the matter and substance of the command because the end by them that obey may be changed and as concerning the Legislator t is no fault to obey another who ever he be in that which we may impose upon our selves Lastly for the matter tho it is everlastingly granted that I may do nothing that is contrary to God's commands yet I have no reason to refuse obedience to my Superiors unles it be a thing which not I think but I am sure is so as the Apostles were sure in their refusing Act. 4. 19. for where there is reason to doubt concerning the matter whether it be contrary to God's command or no and so I think there is always where the Church's judgment is opposed to mine there t is a duty to obey my Superiors But here what if that which is not commanded in the Scripture be enjoyned by the Church to be obeyed as a thing commanded there or as commanded by God Which thing our Saviour blamed in the Pharisees and justified his Disciples in not observing their commands In which if we may conform to authority it seems that there will scarce be any superstition or will-worship at all but only in the imposers of laws Answ. 1. T is to be noted that the Pharisees traditions in which the instance is made were many of them other than those here supposed some being contrary to the Scripture as that tradition mentioned Matt. 15. 5. some recommended before the commands in Scripture and whilst those done these omitted in which respect such service became most odious see Mark 7. 8. Matt. 23. 23. 15. 9. others required to be done as necessary which were not only needles but upon a false ground recommended as that of washing hands because they held that unwashen hands defiled But 2ly this shall be granted that that which is commanded tho it be not contrary to Scripture yet when it is pretended by the imposers to be in it self necessary as when it is pretended either to be Scripture or to be reverenced and equalled to the Scriptures and God to be as much worshipped in it when as men only and not God require it as in what himself hath commanded and that rather to be omitted than it and when it is by others obeyed and reverenced as such is superstition and will-worship both in him that commands and in him who obeys whenever he hath sufficient evidence for conviction And this I suppose was the fault of those who sat in Moses's chair not that they required obedience to their decrees such as were not contrary to God's word but an equal reverence and belief of them in this obedience as of the written law nay placed the substance of holines and of God's honor in these wherein it did not consist more than in the other and so required the omitting of the other rather than of these as should one now impute the power of prayer to the posture or place he makes it in or to the number of times he doth it and not to the devotion and purity of the Suppliant the mercy and promises of God c this would be Superstition and will-worship i. e. a worship
which himself deviseth put in the place of that which God requireth So not only mens traditions but divine commands from a mistaken end and use of them become will-worship too as * Sacrifice See Psal. 50. 8. Isa. 1. 12 13. compared with 16. and see Jer. 7. 21 22. compared with 23. the chief service not consisting in the offering but in the devotion of the offerer And * Fasting Is. 58. 3 4 5. compared with the 6th Zech. 7. 5. compared with the 9th See the like Matt. 23. 23. Therefore God calleth those lower duties himself hath commanded when done with an omission of the higher duty and service of him to which they were ordained will-worship See Isa. 1. 12. compared with 11 13. who hath required c because tho he commanded the thing done yet the doing of it was not according to his command 3ly Were therefore any one certain that something not commanded in the Scriptures or by God were enjoyned by the Church to be obeyed as commanded by God or also were preferred to something commanded by God he ought to refuse to obey what the Church commands in such a manner or with such an intention as she is here supposed to command it But 4ly there may be an obedience performed to such ordinances so long as we think them not also contrary to the Scriptures but if we think them contrary then see the course we are to take § 13. without being guilty of the Superstition for we may do them tho not in that way as they are commanded when we certainly know the contrary concerning them yet as things in themselves indifferent and commanded by the Church As doubtles the Disciples upon an injunction from the consistory might have washed their hands before meat in obedience to such order so that they had no opinion that they were defiled in not washing them So the Feast of Dedication kept by our Saviour of Lots Esther 9. 20. their Fasts mentioned in the Prophets Zech. 7. 5. Joel 2. 15. c. Zech. 8. 19. and ceremonies in burial of the dead in which the Priests were dispensed with Lev. 21. 1. c and many other practices mentioned in the Old Testament were no where commanded in the Law but acts passed by the Consistory which yet were not neglected to be observed Which doing of them avoids offence and sufficiently preserves the peace of the Church and doing them not as God's commands satisfies our own conscience All this is said supposing that we certainly know these things not to be God's commands which the Church enjoyns as such But 5ly we being secure upon our Saviour's promise that the Supreme Guides of the Church cannot mis-guide us in necessaries to Salvation and again not being infallibly certain that that is not commanded by the Scriptures or by God which they say is so so long we ought to yeild obedience to such injunctions in the same manner as it is required and if we err herein we are excusable tho the Church-Guides should therein be faulty For it is not so easie a matter with the same infallibility to discover the Superstition of the traditions of the Church as our Saviour did of the Pharisees especially since all sides in some things besides Scripture must and do allow of useful Traditions And therefore let it be well considered by every private man when the Church pretends Scripture or Tradition for their Articles whether he or they are more likely to be mistaken and then whether he should not yeild obedience to this command of theirs of which it is doubted whether it be God's also as well as he doth to their commands in matters which are of themselves indifferent Thus much of the trial of Commands the contrary of which is not contained in Scripture 2. Next of the trial of our Superiors doctrines or commands whether the contrary of such commands be contained in the Scripture Where 1. first if it be contained there as fact only and not precept here also seems no opposition ought to be made to the Church's authority For we find * both the Apostles themselves according to change of times and circumstances to have changed something also of their former institutions and practices See 1 Tim. 5. 9. compared with Act. 6. 1. Widows being formerly admitted without limitation of age 1 Cor. 8. 7. c. and 1 Cor. 10. 25 29. compared with Act. 15. 29 -16 3. and-18 18. and-21 24. and 1 Cor. 9. 20. comp with Act. 15. 1 -and Gal. 4. 9 10 -5 2. and Gal. 2. 3 4 14. circumstances altering the practice And the Church to have changed others since with general approbation as abrogating Love-feasts receiving the Lord's Supper in the morning and by the same reasons that these have bin altered others may be 2. In the Second place then to come to the trial and search by Scripture Whether the contrary to what the Church commands be not contained therein by way of precept And here this is certain that we are to obey no commands whatsoever that we are certain to be contrary to the precepts of Holy Scriptures But it happens that in many controversies the Scriptures are not clear for we may not call that a clear truth in Scripture that some one that reads it is confident of whilst others as intelligent think contrary for so that is many times clear to the ignorant not comparing places diligently together for qui ad pauca respicit de facili pronunciat which remains doubtful to the more learned and there we must either look after some other trial of such controversies or leave them undecided Now to say here with some that Scriptures are clear to all in all necessary credends and for all things not necessary that we need not be inquisitive of truth satisfies not for tho Scripture be so perspicuous in things absolutely necessary to salvation which are very few yet that it is not so in many truths very useful and of great importance to be known the differences between the Reformed and the Roman Churches plainly shew the Scriptures being so ambiguous that whole Nations both using them are of contrary opinions and the points of difference so considerable that both doubt of or deny one anothers salvation in a mis-credence of them In this case therefore 1. First where our spiritual Guides determin a thing on one side wherein the Scripture seems to us doubtful and this doubt is in aequilibrio and as I may so say on both sides equal and indifferent as much Scripture seeming for as against it here the authority of such Guides pro or con ought to sway us as it doth in things in their own nature indifferent 2. But if the Scripture seem clear to us on one side and the determination of authority be on the other that is the contrary seems clear from Scripture to others then we are to use the 2d trial by the rest of the Doctors and
Teachers of the Church present and past by whom we may learn what is the constant tradition of the Church which Church hath always preserved and perused the Scriptures and against which the gates of hell shall never prevail 2. To conform our minds the better to the expositions of which Doctors of the Church we are advised not to rely much on our own reason and judgment See Rom. 12. 16. Prov. 3. 5. 28. 26. Is. 5. 21. Prov. 12. 15. 11. 14. And to be the more perfectly convinced by experience also how easily our reason is misguided by Reason I mean reasoning upon not its own but Scripture-principles after having recollected how many times our selves have changed our opinion in Theological matters the same holy writings guiding us at all times being as confident in our former then as now in our present tenet 1. Consider that whilst in every Nation doubtles there are many of excellent judgments turning the same Gospel reading the same books of controversie which they both mutually answer yet in a manner all those of one Kingdom or Government do so espouse one opinion and all of another a contrary that they will both lay down their lives in defence thereof and so their posterity after them And this happens partly because there is no tenet but that there is some verisimility in it and some reason for it that seems to many hard to be answered which reason according to our party we lay for a foundation and then fit all other contrary arguments by distinctions how absurd soever unto it being certain that no truths contradict one another and hence do both sides especially in answoring objections accuse the other of going against their conscience But this happens more from not equality of arguments for every side but opposite interests of the controvertists which interests commonly prevent the access to or just force of those arguments upon the understanding where the truth if it should prove contrary to those interests will undo them Therefore they make either none or a very negligent search into their adversaries tenets and reasons as delivered in their own writings or into the doctrines of Antiquity when quoted against them Notwithstanding which interest being rather hereditary than by themselves contracted they mistake themselves to be indifferent and any way unbiassed 2. Consider how those who have the Scriptures most common yet when free from the yoke of Ecclesiastical authority do run into most diversity of opinions and those not slight or void of danger to their salvation In particular the Socinian abstracting from all church-Church-authority and committing himself only to Scripture and his reason yet who more than he opposeth things which seem most clear in Scripture For what more plain there than that this world was created by the Word the Son of God Jo. 1. 1. Heb. 1. And therefore also the Reformed more than the Romanist tho in both there are many differences is censured for diversity of opinions Nisi adsit spiritus prudentiae nihil proderit verbum Dei saith Calvin witness those of Munster And worthy here of serious consideration is the reason why Timothy and Titus are advised to avoid i. e. not to interest much or practise themselves in or meddle with vain curiosities and questions of science falsly so called because they will increase still unto more ungodliness and eat further as doth a Canker or gangrene and strife gender strife and questions minister more questions See 2 Tim. 2. 16 17 23. 1 Tim. 1. 4. 2 Tim. 3. 7. Tit. 3. 9. compared with 10. which argues he was forbid much disputing with such perverse men And t is likely Hymeneus c at their first differing from doctrines delivered attempted not the denial of the Resurrection Which continually greater intanglings of Reason left to it self do extremely prove the weaknes of it and the unreasonablenes of trusting to it 3. Consider that as the Pharisee that was so blind Matt. 23. 16. thought he only saw Jo. 9. 41. and that others were blind Jo. 7. 49. so whilst we think others misled with passion we are no less misled therewith than they and so they also think of us only we do less discern it And in thus standing upon and preferring our own judgment before others that search the Scriptures as well as we we presume either that we have better naturals than they or else more integrity and honesty than they and what root can this proceed from but pride and uncharitablenes no good pre-dispositions for the discovery of truth see 1 Tim. 6. 4. 1 Cor. 8. 2. 4. Consider that for ordinary readers over the New Testament is spread a veil as was over the Law for the Jews 2 Cor. 3. 14. and the knowledge thereof is attained not thro the strength of Reason but illumination of the Spirit and the like entertainment as the word preached then found with several persons the same now doth the word written Now self-conceitednes of their own wisdom was then the greatest impediment that could be to the understanding of the mystery of the Gospel for that which was truth was some way or other to them foolishnes And no where were there so few converted as at self-conceited Athens See 1 Cor. 1. 17. c. 1 Cor. 2. 6. c. 3. 18. c. Rom. 1. 22. Lu. 10. 21. Why so because knowledge or a great stock of falsly so called reason maketh proud 1 Cor. 8. 1. and pride hinders the Spirit by which Spirit only is had true knowledge the way to which is humility mortification and abnegation of that which of all things is most our self the rational part of man and extremely addicting our selves unto holines that so we may discern truth see Psal. 25. 12 14. Ps. 111. 10. Jo. 7. 17. 14. 21. 8. 12. see below § 39. And he that is so disposed is more inclined to obedience of others than reliance on himself and then Qui didicit obedire nescit judicare And if we prove this way also betrayed to error yet is this error more excusable before God accompanied with these qualities than truth can be acceptable to him possessed with pride There is great reason then that we should not depend only on our own judgment or on the Scriptures as we interpret them but diligently search also the former practice and tenets of the Churches of God and consult the present judgment of those * who have the promise of not erring at least in knowledge necessary to salvation nor in other things so far as that any may therefore lawfully reject their external communion for which see Church-gov 2. part § 31. 3d. part § 62. * who are the Successors of the Apostles 2 Tim. 2. 2. the Apostles of the Churches and the glory of Christ 2 Cor. 8. 23 * who are appointed by Christ for the building up of the Church and perfecting of the Saints and especially that
consider whether a Church be not in such profitable helps of an holy life deficient For example If a Church should impose no affirmative credends nor enjoyn no practices but what all the Christian world will subscribe to and yet should hold That to abstain from any thing which it is lawful by God's word to enjoy is fruitless will-worship and superstition should disallow professedly or tacitly i. e. by suffering any such good custom to be diswonted for want of being recommended the confessing of sin to the Priest whether it be for more shame and humiliation of our selves for it or for their advice against it or their ministerial absolution from it or for their prayers and intercession against it c. should affirm confession to God or the Priest sufficient for remission without reformation of life or being sorry for them sufficient repentance without any further penances humiliations or punishing of our selves for them or without those of the body at least yet which still pampered no way consists with a soul afflicted or that these are necessary only when they are imposed to satisfie the scandal of the Church not to appease the wrath of God or that they are remitted by money or indulgence which is not preceded by penitence should not teach her children * the distinction of greater and lesser sins that so they may be more extraordinarily cautious of those which more provoke the wrath of God and * the several degrees of penitence required according to the several measure of their faults that so they may practise greater humiliations upon the commission of more grievous offences should hold that good works are not necessary to salvation or necessary only out of gratitude or as fruits that will necessarily spring out of true faith or that promises of reward are not made to good works but only to faith should require for our salvation faith only in our Saviour's merits i. e. his good works so as to avoid inherent righteousnes or faith in Christ's satisfaction i. e. his sufferings so as to avoid all our self-afflictions mortifications and conformity to his death should teach our inability tho we be in the state of grace to keep all God's commandements and fulfil his law as touching all greater sins and offences against any part thereof and to please him in our works should hold no degrees of perfection in obedience nor any latitude of goodnes beyond that of being void only of sin making none better than him that sins not or him whoever is not most good an offender and the falling-short of the highest degree of prayer charity c guilty of sin to the taking away of all confidence in God from our good deeds and emulation of being perfect and pre-eminence of Saints should make the heavenly reward equal to all so that who is more holy than the least that enters in thither suppose S. Paul than the Publican in the over-plus of his mortifications c serves God for nought should extol predestination election grace certainty of salvation c i. e. the mercies of God so far as to remit and weaken all humane endeavors should deny the continuance of God's miraculous works now as hath bin in former times to holy men to the great weakening of prayer and faith and making use of the intercessions of holy men should make an equal facility of attaining heaven to all conditions of life not noting to the people those which have more temptations or hindrances in them than some others as marriage wealth honors should disallow or discourage Vows and other prefortifications against those things which have bin former-occasions of sinning should not exact of her children frequent hours of prayer in the day but discommend rather frequent repetitions i. e. importunity of prayers not exact frequent days of solemn worship in the year frequent celebrations of the Eucharist frequent fasts and macerations of the body or should not require some of these more especially from her Clergy at least Should use no publick or at least private Sacerdotal censures and penitences upon greater sins and should remit the reins of the obedience that is due unto her authority making her self uncapable to restrain except where her children are first perswaded she judgeth right i. e. according to Scripture as they understand it Should by her doctrines That such and such christian duties are not required with such and such a quatenus in such and such a sence or respect as not good works i. e. to justifie or to merit or to obtain remission of sin by them not penance i. e. to satisfie God's justice not confession i. e. as jure divino not such and such ceremonies set times of fast hours of prayer c i. e. as divine commands or essential parts of worship not poverty celibacy c i. e. as counsels to all but only contend that they are necessary duties to some whilst none know to whom in particular they are so which thing quite voids the duty Should I say by teaching much more vehemently how such duties are not required than how they are to be understood especially to one considering both the peoples and the teachers practice as if they argued that they were not required at all or by teaching that such and such practices are not absolutely necessary should be conceived to say they are no way beneficial or no way useful at all because they are not useful alone as is true of all manner of mortifications and castigations of the body If any Church I say should hold or is ordinarily by the people understood to hold such tenets as these who sees not that in such a Church tho commanding nothing unlawful yet omitting only the contrary doctrines to these before-named the people must needs desert many good duties grow cold in devotion and left to their most grateful liberty use it to their destruction But were it not so and that such a Church were free from blame yet were that Ecclesiastical Economy more to be preferred and would have a reward and something to glory of beyond the rest as S. Paul beyond other teachers 1 Cor. 9. that should thro these restraints of lawful liberty aspire to the more perfection That Church therefore seems more safely to be preferred and adhered unto which is more accused of excesses in religion than which is blamed of defects as that which is said to attribute too much to good works to extoll too much the vertue of self-mortifications and penances to superadd to God's commands a great deal of spontaneous and free-will-worship to abound too much in religious rites and ceremonies too much in corporal bowings and gestures too much in fasting-days to use too many vain repetitions in their prayers to reverence holy places and things and persons in excess to give too much authority and require too strict a submission to the governors and laws of the Church excessively to practise and recommend religious vows to make too great a
God hath visited the people that sat in darkness in China in the East and West Indies we cannot be ignorant One Religion granted muchwhat the same as at the present for the last 1000 years in its Liturgies and Publick Service in its Altars and quotidian Sacrifice in its high veneration of the celestial Favorites and daily communication by a commemoration of the Saints in glory with the Church triumphant as likewise in its unbounded charity even to the Souls of its supposed-necessitous brethren of the next world in its variety of Religious Orders Fraternities and Votaries in its holy love to chastity silence solitudes and poverty in its unarguing and miscalled blind obedience to the laws of its Superiors in its glorying thro all the past ages of miracles and prophecy One religion I say appearing in all these for so many ages much-what the same and very reverend for its antiquity yet still going on resistless flourishing and spreading its armes abroad further and further toward the East and toward the West with continued and unwearied missions And another religion every day varying from its self and subdividing into smaller Sects after the 70th or 80th year of its age beginning to decline and wither and loose ground in many places where it was formerly well rooted and whilst it promiseth its self still to destroy Antichrist growing each day feebler and He that it names so stronger To summe up all the surest trial of the doctrines of any Church after that by Scripture which is pretended for all sides is First by their conformity with Antiquity i. e. by the doctrines of the former Church 2. By the holines which these doctrines produce in the members of such a Church For the first we are to search the Fathers or some of them or if it be but one of those who are more voluminous concerning such points as are now controverted not as such Fathers are quoted by others but in their own writings For the 2d to read the books of Devotion and the Lives of Holy men of either party Which two who carefully examines notwithstanding the commonly used objections of disagreement ambiguity or impertinency in the first the Fathers of forgery in the second the Lives of Saints he shall be abundantly satisfied concerning truth and error And the grand causes of the continued distractions of opinions I conceive are either the not perusing of the Fathers writings themselves but quotations of them in others where many times a sentence taken by it self may be without any forcing capable of a sence contradictory to the context or the not casting of the search upon the Fathers but Scriptures only or the searching of the Scriptures also not only in an affirmative but negative way taking all that for false or unlawful or unuseful not only what is against them but what is not in them Again in the searching of the Fathers Councils c the reasons why we assent not to them when found contrary to our former opinions are 1. The being bred-up in doctrines repugnant unto their decrees and in places persecuting such tenets which makes us averse from truth that will destroy us averse not by denying it when we know it but by preventing to our power the apprehension of arguments perswasive to it and by a willing entertaining reasons which are never wanting against it Now that this conformity to opinions happens by education and interest rather than argument is plain in that all other things remaining the like i. e. as much judgment and diligence and books c and our education or interest being only changed contrary opinions are as readily the one as the other entertained See before § 14. 2. A general inclination in our nature to opinions that give more liberty and that more throw off yokes 3. A conceit false that Antichrist is to be a Christian in profession and a ruler in the Church Which with the texts of S. John 1 Ep. 2. 18. 4. 3. at one blow cuts off the head of all church-Church-authority Tradition Fathers Councils how ancient soever farther than we find them to agree with Scripture and that is with our fancies upon Scripture or sometimes upon one uncompared text thereof According to what hath bin considered in this Treatise methinks some of those passages urged long since by Sr. Edwin Sandys in his Relation of the Western relig p. 30. c. as the ordinary plea of the Ch. of Rome and her adherent Churches have something in them not easily to be answered if we joyn with them the notion of Catholick Ch. as explained by Mr. Thorndyke in his printed letter to his brother and the experiences of our times since Sr. Ed. Sandys's decease Mr. Thorndyke's words are these Christians when they profess to believe i. e. in the Creed the Catholick Ch. do not believe that there is in the world a number of men that profess to be Christians c but that there is a Corporation of true Christians founded by our Lord and his Apostles which hereticks and schismaticks cannot have communion with and this is that which the stile Catholick and Apostolick Church signifies as distinguishing the body of true Christians to wit so far as profession goeth from the conventicles of hereticks and schismaticks For this title of Catholick would signifie nothing if hereticks and schismaticks were not barred the communion of the Ch. Thus far he Where his interpreting the believing of the Catholick Ch. to be the believing of a distinction of the profession of Catholicks from the conventicles of Hereticks must needs infer that the Church Catholick which soever it is is a Church or Churches distinguished not only in its internal communion with Christ its head but in its external profession and communion of its members amongst themselves from the external communion and profession of hereticks Sr. Edw. Sandys's discourse by way of objection is this If all other Churches besides the Roman and those united with her have had either their end and decay long since or their beginning but of late if this being founded by the Prince of the Apostles with promise to him by Christ that hell-gates should not prevail against it but that himself will be assisting to it till the consummation of the world hath continued on now till the end of 1600 years with an honourable and certain line of near 240 Popes Successors of Peter both tyrants and traitors pagans and hereticks in vain wresting raging and undermining If all the lawful General Councils that ever were in the world have from time to time approved and honoured it if God hath so miraculously blessed it from above as that so many sage Doctors should enrich it with their writings such armies of Saints with their holines of Martyrs with their blood of Virgins with their purity should sanctify and embellish it If even at this day in such difficulties of unjust rebellions and unnatural revolts of her nearest children yet she stretcheth out her armes
or God's word §. 21. Concessions 1. Concerning the object of Faith that this is only God's Word §. 22. 2. Concerning the act of faith and the certainty which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church Tradition §. 23. That the authority of Scriptures and Church is learn'd from universal Tradition §. 24. §. 25. Concessions concerning Tradition 1. That there is sufficient assurance in Tradition whether â—â—fallible or no to ground a firm faith upon §. 26. §. 27. §. 28. 2. That Tradition may have a sufficient certainty tho notabsolutely un versal §. 29. 3. That no one age of the Ch. is mistaken in delivering any eminent Tradition §. 30. 4. Thaâ— the testimony of the present age is sufficient to inform us therein §. 31. 5. That Tradition of the Ch. is easier to be understood in some things expounded by her than the Scriptures §. 32. 6. That the Ch. is a sufficiently certain Guide to us in doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary §. 33. Digression That all traditions carry not equal certainty §. 34. Where concerning the Church'es and the Heathen and Mahometan Traditions §. 35. 3 Concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the inward operation of God's Spirit Concessions concerning the Spirit 1. That it is always required besides outward mean. §. 36. 1. That all Faith wrought by the Spâ—rit is infallible §. 37. 3. That sometimes the Spirit produceth evidence beyond science c. §. 38. 4. Thâ—t from these concessions it follows not that all who sâ—vingly believe have or must have aninfallible or such sufficient certainty as may possibly be had of what they believe §. 39. Nâ—iâ—ther from the evidences * of Scriptures §. 40. Nor * of the Spirit §. 41. Nor * of Church-Tradition §. 42. §. 43. For these following Reasons §. 44. §. 45. §. 46. §. 47. §. 48. §. 49. §. 50. §. 51. Necessary Inferences upon the former reasons §. 52. §. 53. §. 54. §. ◠§. 2. Concerning the Infallibility of the Church how far this is to be allowed §. 3. 1 Infallibility of the Church in Necessaries granted both by Catholic and Protestant writers §. 4. Where How for Points necessary are to be extended §. 5. §. 6. That the Church not private men is to define what Points be necessary §. 7. If these points be necessary at all to be defin'd and exactly distinguished from all other her proposals §. 8. 2. Infallibility of the Ch. in matters of universal tradition tho they were not necessary conceded likewise by all §. 9. 3. Infallibility universal in whatever the Ch. proposeth delivereth is not affirmed by Catholic writers §. 10. But only in those points which she proposeth tanquam de side or creditu necessaria §. 11. Where conc the several sences wherein points are affirmed or dâ—nied to be de fide §. 12. That as only so all divine revelations or necessary deductions from them are de Fide. i. e. the oâ—jects and matâ—ters of Faith. And that the Ch. can make nothing to be de Fide i. e. to be divine Revelation c. which was not so always from the Apostolick times §. 13. §. 15. That all divine revelation or necessary deductions therefrom are not de Fide i. e. creditu necessaria §. 16. And that the Church lawfully may and hath a necessity to make de novo upon rising errors such points de fide i. e. creditu necessaria which formerly were not so §. 17. §. 18. Or as some other of the Catholick writers usually express iâ— only in points clearly traditional §. 19. §. 20. §. 21. §. 22. §. 23. §. 24. §. 25. §. 26. §. 27. Whether and by what marks those points which are proposed by the Church tanquam de side or creditu necessaria or which are proposed as constantly traditional are clearly distinguished by her from her other proposal §. 28. §. 29. Anathema no certain Index thereof PART II. §. 30. Concerning obedience and submission of private judgment whether due to the Ch. supposed not in all her decisions infallible §. 31. §. 32. §. 33. â—â— That no submission of Our judgment is due to the proposal of the Church where we are infailibly certain of the contrary §. 34. 2. That no submission is due to an inferior person or court in matters whereof I have doubt when I have a Superior to repair to for resolution §. 35. 3. That submission of judgment is due to the supreme Ecclesiastical Court in any doubting whatever short of infallible certainty §. 36. §. 37. Submission of judgment proved 1. From Scripture §. 38. 2. From Reason §. 39. Several objections and scruples resolved §. 40. §. 41. §. 42. §. 43. §. 44. 3. From the testimony of learned Protestants § 45. §. 46. §. 47. §. 48. §. 49. §. 50. §. 51. 4. From the testimony of learned Catholicks §. 52. §. 53. §. 54. Conclusion §. 55. §. 56. §. 57. §. 58. §. 59. §. 60. §. 1. §. 2. n. 1. In what sence it may be lawful to believe or do a thing against our own judgment §. 2. n. 2. §. 2. n. 3. §. 4. 11. 2. §. 3. §. 4. Concerning the church'es lawful authority to excommunicate dissenters in non fundamentals §. 5. §. 6. §. 7. As likewise to decide which points are fundamental which not §. 8. 2 Tim. 4â— 1 Cor. 12. 7 8. §. 9. Several exceptions against obedience of non-contradiction only for non-fundamentals §. 10. §. 11. And that all at least not infallibly certain of the contrary are bound in non fundamentals to anobedience of assent Therefore the most are so bound §. 12. Replies to several Objections 1. Concerning an inferior Council's decreeing some new dangerous error which no former Council superior hath condemned §. 13. 2. Concerning faith salvifical that it is to be infallible §. 14. 3. Concerning union of Charity sufficient §. 15. 4. Concerning tryal of Doctrines necessary §. 16. 5. Concerning what Churches determinations when several contradict one another we are to adhere to §. 17 §. 18. Conclusion §. 19. Concerning infallible certainty §. 201 1. Infallible certainty excusing all submission of judgment to anyother §. 21. Infallible certainty to be had in some things §. 22. Of the difficulty of knowing when one is infallibly certain §. 23. §. 24. §. 25. §. 26. 3. The plea of infallible certainty at least not usable against any general contrary judgment of the Church §. 27. An instance in the controversy about giving the Communion in one kind only AEn Sylv bâ—st Bohem 35. c. §. 28. §. 29. 4. The greatest probability short of infallible cer tainty not excusing one dissenting from the judgment of the Church §. 30. §. 31. An explication of Rom. 14. 23. §. 1. Sufficient truth alway to be found in the Church Yet false Doctors must be 1 Cor. 11. 19. §.
plenary Tradition or undeniable deduction therefrom it being agreed that all her proposals or decrees are not such A Quaere very necessary to be resolved for those if any such there be who affix obedience of assent only to infallibility and this infallibility again only to such decrees but a Quaere for all others me-thinks not of so much concernment I find the marks of such distinction set down in Bell. de Conc. 2. l. 12. c. thus Quando autem decretum proponatur tanquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilii semper enim dicere solent 1. Se explicare fidem Catholicam 2. vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt Anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt What then what if it be only Anathema iis qui contrarium dicunt aut docent Quando autem nihil horum dicunt non est certum rem esse de side Thus Bellarmin But note here that Bellarmin tells us not plainly whether something in Councils is proposed tanquam de side without any Anathema set to it only he doubtingly saith non est certum and those others again who build the Church'es inerrability on Tradition and the evident Consequences thereof tel us not whether some of those Decisions that are enjoyned with Anathema's are not sometimes some of those secondary consequences more doubtful ad quas colligendas studium aliquod scientia requiritur or which are made by the judgment and learning of the Bishops considering texts of Scripture the doctrines of ancient Fathers and modern Doctors c. As indeed t is likely some of them are Anathema's being added so frequently even in smaller matters and in the newest controversies And perhaps it can hardly be shewn by these writers that every Proposition in a General Council that hath an Anathema affixed to it is traditional to such a degree of evidence since some Traditions are much more universal and evident than some others that it amounts to infallibility not from the assistance of the holy Spirit but from the clearnes of Tradition In this distinction therefore of points de fide or necessary credends wherein the Church is infallible exactly from others I think these Authors cannot speak out so clearly because tho some points are of much more certainty and also of much higher concernment than others yet Councils seem not so punctual in severing them by a diversity of expression unless in very few perhaps a thing not possible to be done by them see § 3. See Dr. Holden 1. l. 8. c. acknowledging some such thing In tradenda doctrina Christiana nunquam audivimus Ecclesiam articulorum revelatorum divinarum institutionum catalogum exhibuisse vel composuisse quo separatim cognosci possint hujusmodi sidei divinae dogmata ab omnibus aliis quae vel Ecclesiasticae sint institutionis vel quae centae revelationi divinae haud immediate innitantur atque ideo omnia simul confuse indistincte semper docuisse tradidisse Yet the same Councils may and do require subscription and obedience to all their definitions as they being the supreme and unappealable Judge * authorized by Christ for the peace and unity of the Church to give the law to all men * abundantly assisted by the Spirit of Truth for all Necessaries even the obscurest and most unacquainted doctrines if you can once prove them necessary and besides this if in some other matters of less concernment they be liable to error yet how much less they than private men And therefore their submission of judgment to these remains still most rational as well as obligatory The chief note which I find for the distinction of these points de fide wherein the Church is infallible from other determinations or proposals is the affixing of Anathema's which are the same with Excommunication But 1. first several of these Anathema's if we do rely on their form may require not internal assent as looking meerly at faith but non-contradiction as looking perhaps in some points more at peace many running only si quis dixerit c Anathema sit But if it be said that the Anathema's only that are set upon a Si quis sentiat or credat are the Index of such points de fide for necessary credends then will very few decrees of Councils pass for such for example not above four or five of all those made in the Council of Trent I mean as to this particular Index of Credends viz. Anathema and doubtles many more of the decisions of Councils are contended to be such credends than those that can shew this mark of Anathema fixed expresly to dissentients of which see more in Church-Government 4. Part. § 79. Again this injunction of Non-contradiction or of keeping silence tho it be * such as opposeth the saying that the contrary to the Church'es determination is a truth or that the Church erreth in any such decision much more an open departing for such unnecessary matter for the Church errs in no necessaries from her communion yet perhaps it is not * such as opposeth the making or humbly proposing of any doubt thereof at least in a second convening of the same Authority See I pray you in the denouncing of her Anathema's the great warines of the Council of Trent in 24. sess 7. c. Si quis dixerit Ecclesiam errare cum docuit propter adulterium c Anathema sit noted by Soave in his History of it p. 755. Engl. Ed. to be done because she would not censure * some of the Greek Church who held the contrary opinion as likewise * some of the Fathers as S. Ambrose And surely this Council's affixing Anathema's sometimes to so many Lutheran errors some doubtles of smaller moment as they were gather'd here and there by some persons appointed to that purpose out of Luther's writings because they were opposite to the common doctrines of the Church shews that her Anathema sometimes eyed more the petulancy and contradicting spirit of the Author than the importance of the Tenet and was sent forth more to secure her peace than her faith What should hinder I pray since some questions possibly may arise in the Church undecidable clearly by Tradition and since no doubt of all questions now agitated among the Schoolmen or other Catholicks one side is not traditional for then how could so many Catholicks oppose a thing of such evidence again since it is the Church'es duty to provide for peace and unity among her children as well as faith and truth and lastly since sharp and vehement contests may arise in such new controversies to the great disturbance thereof what should hinder I say that the Church in such cases may not impose silence on both parties or secondly using her best search and going upon such Scriptures and reasons as perhaps some side urgeth declare her judgment and that under some penalty on the opposers and gainsayers
thereof or require submission of their judgment also to her not as she declares her judgment infallible but only as it is definitive and unappealable else her orders are no more than good counsel On the gainsayers c. not as subverters of some necessary faith but as troublers for an unnecessary if truth of the Church'es peace and rebels to her authority whom Christ hath commanded to hear not only how far they list or in their private judgment see cause And if she may impose some penalty then why not anathematize or excommunicate This Anathematizing even Protestants do not so far charge as a trespass of charity or a sign of rigor upon the Church of Rome or her Councils but that they allow that those who turbulently or pertinaciously speak against the Doctrines of the Church in smaller points may be anathematized for it See Dr. Fern in his Preface to Consider of present Concernment c. We acknowledge that he who shall pertinaciously turbulently speak and teach against the doctrines of the Church in points of less moment may deserve to be anathematized or put out of the Church for such a one tho he denies not the faith yet makes a breach of charity whereby he goes out of the Church against which he so sets himself Thus he of pertinacious and turbulent contradiction but then modest contradiction he allows Was Luther's and Calvin's modest Are not Anathema's used by her against Schismatical as well as Heretical spirits May not she excommunicate as well disturbers of her peace as subverters of her faith How come Schismaticks then thrown out of the Church Doth she not use Anathema's or Excommunications in matters of Fact wherein she is confest to be liable to error If in decisions not traditional c we are bound to yeild obedience as I shall shew anon what reason have we why the Church may not anathematize for these points those who contradict and disobey But if she may then Anathema for any thing we know is joyned to some point not traditional nor in which the Church is infallible 2. To put this matter more out of doubt why have Provincial Councils granted fallible used anathematizing than which nothing more frequent toward those under their Jurisdiction If any say they use Anathema's indeed but not to be in force I say not after they be contradicted which we grant but till they be confirmed by a General Council then why may they and have they bin put in practice before they were by any such Council confirmed Nay to what purpose such Council convened since it hath no power of excommunicating the resisters and since when a General Council sits that sufficiently obligeth before it sits the other obligeth not 3. Again many Heresies as the Pelagian c. by Provincial Councils have bin censured and supprest but who may judg heresies i. e. errors against points of faith may pronounce Anathema's Judicium non infallibile tamen sufficit ad excommunicandum debent privati homines acquiescere ejusmodijudicio donec non judicaverit aliter Apostolica Sedes vel Concilium Universale si secus egerint merito excommunicantur saith Bell. de Concil 2. l. 10. c. Judicio in points of Doctrine too for as for matter of fact he will allow the same liability to error may be in particular which in General Councils Thus much touching your first Quaere concerning the Infallibility of the Church Now I come to your second concerning Obedience due to the Church and submission of private judgment Where I think this will be made clear unto you That to what point soever the Church'es infallibility be enlarged yet this the Universal-Infallibility of this Supreme Judge of Controversies is not a necessary ground or the only rule of the duty of obedience thereto neither of the obedience of Non-contradiction nor yet that of Assent but that there may be and is just obligation of obedience I mean that of submission of judgment i. e. to believe what it delivereth to a fallible Authority i. e. one that may command us perhaps to believe sometimes what is an untruth And if this be a truth I conceive it may be of some good consequence For first so those also may be rationally induced to yeild obedience to the Church who now think themselves to be clearly freed from it unles it can first be shewed them that the Church is infallible in all her Propositions neither will they then suppose themselves so easily discharged by shewing the contradictions of General Councils in some few matters perhaps from their obedience in all other points wherein these agree or which some defining none other have reversed and the Church hath received in her general practice or also wherein they find even a later Council contradicting a former For if as St. Austin saith later Synods may amend and correct the former they ought also in what they amend them to be submitted-to non obstante the contradiction of the former Secondly so those who have not opportunity of consulting the highest Tribunal may not think their duty cancell'd excepting where they are certain to other their Superiors and Spiritual Guides because fallible or suborordinate nor will oppose so frequently to them not the Dictates of an higher Court but of their private judgment When-as certainly this submission of our judgment and reason to a Superior tho fallible authority is a duty most acceptable to God and which tho much unpractised by and I am afraid quite unknown to many Sectaries amongst Protestants yet hath bin always most religiously observed elsewhere in the Church of God by those who have bin most eminent in piety nothing conducing more to the preservation of truth unity of minds peace security and serenity of a man's conscience and lastly to true humility mortification and self-denial there being no mortification nor self-denial like this and therefore perhaps so many refuse it because there is nothing so much our self as our judgment And again the contrary thereof as it is the fruit of pride and self-conceit so having bin always the promoter of error and mother of distraction and confusion I cannot here but set down two or three words of Mr. Hooker 2. l. 7. sect This opinion saith he which T. Cartwright maintain'd against Councils c that an argument of authority of Man is in matters divine nothing worth being once inserted into the minds of the vulgar sort what it may grow into * God knoweth I may add * we have seen Now to shew this Truth 1. first I must grant to you That God hath obliged no man to believe a known-to-him error or to believe an error quatenus error for this I think is a contradiction in terminis to believe that to be a truth which he knows I do not say which he thinks or doubts is not a truth the same may be said of obligation to the doing or practice of any thing certainly known to one to be
than those of his own conscience One therefore that in a doubt cannot have the solution of a Superior court infallible aswho can have it in every matter of faith or practice he scruples at it either not sitting or too remote or not at leisure to satisfie all Queries ought to acquiesce in the judgment of an inferior guide Doth not a child offend against his duty if he should say to his Father or a plebeian to his learned Pastor Since you are fallible I will not follow yours but my own judgment Doth not natural prudence guide him in two liable to error to follow him who all circumstances considered is likely to be the less fallible or is He further from fallibility if he guide himself But if you will acknowledge a submission and obedience to their judgment in some only not in all things since they may in something guide you amiss I ask then in what things it is that you think fit to obey them In what you approve and like of But this is primarily not obeying their but your own judgment Therefore in things also which you do not approve But this for any thing I know is obeying in all things But if you say that you would have men also yeild in some things not altogether approved by them yet not in things whereof they have much doubt or wherein they think themselves as it were sure of the contrary for if they be absolutely sure I yeild to you Still thus you open a gap large enough to let all out of the fence of obedience and the more ignorant soonest for they knowing little or nothing to the contrary think themselves sure of every thing they say 2. But secondly you will ask if I ought to obey in things I approve not Am not I thus obliged to go against my conscience which was said but now tho erroneous to oblige me This is answered I think sufficiently in a discours concerning what obligation we have to follow our own judgment § 2. n. 3. to which I I refer you and is spoken to below § 46. Again you will say Do not we thus take away all use of our own judgment in things wherein our Superiors lay their injunctions upon us R. Yes the use of our judgment against the Supreme Again all use of our judgment not for reasoning or proposing difficulties perhaps in some things to that supreme Judgment to be further confirmed in truth but at least all judgment from such difficulties pronouncing and defining against such Authority But neither is this restraint of our judgments which see more fully discoursed of in Church-Govern 3. part § 39. by the Determinations of Councils if these observed to the uttermost so great as to some it seems if they well consider how few and cautelous and sparing their decisions are in comparison of the voluminous Theological questions agitated amongst Christians even before the sitting of such Councils For how few and how laxe and general do we find the decisions of the last Council of Trent not thought to be the most impartial in comparison of the many questions proposed in the Schools and hotly agitated in those times about Grace and Free-will Justification Merit without mention at all of such terms as de congruo or de condigno about Purgatory Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation c not to name here the present point of Infallibility Therefore are those even accused by Protestants to swarm with opposition and diversity of opinions all whom they yet do grant to yeild a captiv'd judgment and undisputing obedience to all the Canons of Councils But if as when Councils define nothing in points controverted we argue their ignorance and want of divine assistance to discern the truth so when they define any thing we complain of their tyranny in restraining our judgments How shall they please us Our judgment hath a field of matter large enough to exercise it self-in without practising and trying its skill upon the determinations of Councils and if it were yet more directed and regulated by them had no reason to complain since those who have bin more prone by it to call all things into question and to examin both the foundations and superstructures of the received Christian faith have shew'd us sad examples of the most miserable failings thereof and frequent falls from most evident truths Qui amat periculum peribit in illo But as here is objected the taking away of our judgment so consider whether something worse follows not on the other side namely the taking away of all obedience to Superiors not only in submission of our judgment but actions which must follow the judgment For as I said before and have shewed more fully elsewhere that can be no obedience or submission to them when we yeild to their judgments because they agree with ours or because they have with clear arguments convinced ours for so we yeild to a Counsellor a companion and cannot do otherwise As long as this proposition stands firm That General Councils have greater light and evidence of truth than particular men how can it be less than duty to submit to them tho not altogether infallible But since in the necessary and chief points infallible and these points no way perfectly distinguishable by us from the rest how much more reason yet have we The same thing as dictated by common prudence we see practised in temporal courts where in controversies arising to know what is the law of the Kingdom or the intent thereof or what is not the people are referred to submit to the judgment of some others experienced in those laws tho not infallible and sometimes contradicting one another Why should the children of this world be wiser than the children of light But 3ly you will reply to this that in such a busines at least concerning your eternal salvation you dare not rely upon others nor trust any but your self and that it is safest for you to depend on God's word and not on any human authority R. I answer first that the breach of God's express command such is that of your obedience in these things to your Spiritual Superiors see § 37. can be no good way to secure your Salvation 2ly This is just as if in a difficult passage wherein mistaking you may incur some danger of your life such are the Scriptures in several things 2 Pet. 3. 16. having Guides appointed well experienced in the way to direct you and of whom you are assured that they cannot misguide you into any dangerous precipice you should say I do not think fit to make use of a Guide save in a way where there is no danger But why so because you are more faithful to your self than others may be But then so much reason as you have to trust to your self as the most faithful so little have you to trust to your self as not being the most able guide As for your not depending on human authority