Trinity was true and his false Then I demand would not this have been demonstration enough of the Faith which we call Catholick either to Socinus or Arrius And yet all those contradictory Arguments which either of them had once fanci'd Insoluble supposing them not answered in particular would remain against it and stand as they did before any such declaration and yet all this without giving him any comprehensive knowledg But as to the ground upon which he raises all this dust in p. 4. about the Procession of the Holy Ghost I can easily answer for the Church of England let the Church of Rome answer for her self if she can for her trampling upon the poor Greek Church as she lies in the dust and branding her with Haeresie for her doctrine of the Procession as cruelly as her Turkish Masters burn their Half-moons on the bodies of those whom they enslave But our Church is not so uncharitable as to define it a Haeresie for any to maintain that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father by the Son though we maintain also with good reason as a great truth that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son But this makes no breach of Communion between us and the Greeks the difference arising only from the Inadaequation of Languages which notwithstanding we agree in the main of this Article So that I may answer all this needless discourse as Demosthenes once answered the Oratour Aeschines who kept much ado about a word which the other had not used so properly But the Fortunes of Greece said he do not depend upon it But if in Divine matters we once give way to human deductions a cunning Sophister may soon lead a weak disputant into many Errors So I doubt some such one has misled this Author who whatever he be I dare say is not condemned by St. Paul for one of the disputers of this World but rather is one of those whom the same Apostle forbids us to admit to any doubtful disputations But is this Author serious against human deductions from Scripture as he calls them especially since he confesses p. 7 that Haeresies never appear at first in their own natural shape but disguised with specious pretences drawn from some obscure places of Scripture capable of various interpretations And thus having gotten footing by degrees they lay aside their disguises and march barefac'd Now after this observation would one think it possible for one that is but master of coherent thoughts for three minutes within the compass of three pages to tell us gravely Wherefore we have no other safe way to speak of divine matters but in Scripture language ipsissimus verbis with the very same words Admirable What way then is there to oppose those new arising Haeresies that draw their specious pretences from those obscure Scriptures and do not in express words contradict any plain Texts if there be no safe way to speak against them or to speak at all in Divine matters but in express words of Scripture Nay our Author as it happens is aware of this horrid consequence and admits it blaming for his imprudence that most prudent and most pious Constantine as he calls him the first and best of Christian Emperours that he did not pursue his own Intentions to suppress all Disputes and all new Questions of God the Son both Homoousian and and Homoiousian and command all to acquiesce in the very Scripture expressions without any addition and then he is confident the Arrian Haeresie had soon expir'd Why this was the very design of those Arrians themselves that which they drove at in the Court that which they urg'd in all their little Councils and Cabals that silence might be injoyn'd both Parties and the Nicene profession of Faith not impos'd upon them as if it had not been ground enough for the Church safely to declare and define one divine Essence in the Trinity when St. John had set it down There be three that bear witness in heaven the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and these three are One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What signifies â—â—â— but Unum that is Una Res or Una Essentia One Essence and what is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more than this Only the Church had a necessity of using that word directly to meet and encounter the opposite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Hereticks took up to speak their new Faith in a new Term and beside and against the Scripture But this Principle will mislead him farther yet for upon his measures and rules of Faith what will become of our Prime and most necessary Principles of Faith as he very truly calls them p. 4. the Trinity three Persons and one God Why do we find this Author p. 29. solemnly affirming this in the presence of God that he has known some pass for very good Preachers that could not give a good account of the Athanasian Creed I suppose this Author passes for a very good Preacher himself and firmly believes this Creed and professes his Faith by it openly in the Church yet what good account can he give of this Creed if we have no other safe way to speak of divine matters but in Scripture language and may not safely use deductions or inferences from Scripture How many Terms are there in the Athanasian which to seek for in the Apostles Creed or in the whole Bible were to as much purpose as it was for the old affected Ciceronian in Erasmus to labor and toil his brains to turn that Creed into Ciceronian Latin Yet these are the Terms in which the Catholick Church has thought she spoke safely in these Divine matters But it seems she has spoken al this while at the peril of her understanding In the mean while the old dormant Heresies may safely revive again as the Monothelites that affirmed that there was but one Will in Christ and the Nestorians that asserted there were two Persons in Christ c. Now their Ghosts may rise and walk and invade the Church again under this Authors shadow for though by immediate consequences they destroy the Faith and rob us of our Saviour yet these consequences are only Rational Deductions an human or Heathen way of Argumenting as he words it But there 's no safe way to speak of these Divine matters but in Scripture language Ipsissimis verbis with the very same words Then these and twenty other sorts of Heretiks are safe enough unless they lay aside their Disguises and turn such errant Mooncalves as to state their Heretical conclusions point blank contradictory to some expres propositions in the Bible But any thing to avoid the plague of School Divinity as he very feelingly calls it though I dare say he was never infected with it But alas poor St. Augustine had a touch of it and so had Athanasius before him And if we believe this Author Many of the primitive Doctors and Fathers being converted from heathenism and having by long and great
that will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen and a Publican spoken of private differences between man and man to be referr'd to the Determination of the Church that is the Congregation of the Faithful which they usually and by order should assemble in and refer this to the Church in General in matters of Faith not in the least pointed at there He will have much ado to make us believe that a man is not bound to tell his Brother of Heresie a matter of so great Consequence and to tell it to the Church if his Brother will not hear him and yet prove that he is bound to do this in matter of private difference or petty quarrel between them Wherefore to borrow his own Conclusion of this matter I pass this over as very Impertinent And so is that which follows I do not believe nor am I bound by Scripture to believe such Expositions as the Popish Church makes of this place That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church Who bids him believe the Popish Expositions But if that place be not spoken of the Roman Church therefore does it signifie nothing to prove the Visibility or Indefectibility of the Catholique Church But 't is plain he advances the notion of a Church Invisible a Church that shall be driven into the Wilderness where her Ninety nine Ceremonies are to be left to attend her scarce visible in the World whereas the Learned understand that place of the Churche's Persecutions the first three hundred years which made it the more illustriously visible and our nineteenth Article calls it the visible Church of Christ Now he proceeds to the business of General Councils whether they may Err in some points of Faith The Church of England acknowledges they may Err and have Err'd in things pertaining to God No doubt of it But this Author immediately flies higher with a why not in some points of Faith All the Evangelical Doctors grant says he that the later General Councils have Err'd if so why not the former what promise had the former from Christ more than the later True there is no more promise to a Council of the fourth Age or to that of Nice than to one that should be held in the seventeenth if it were as General and as free He asks concerning this promise The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church what 's this to a general Council which is not the thousandth part of the Clergy nor the thousand thousandth part of the Church We shall find him mistaken in this Account at long running Lastly he shews his charitable Divination in foretelling how much more mischief General Councils would have done if more of them had been conven'd But say you says he No General Council determin'd those errors Why because none was call'd about them had any been call'd who can doubt but they would have avow'd that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches This he says but his Yea's and Nay 's are no Oracles with us For why should they be when a General Council is not so with him Then presently he humbly craves pardon for his bold presumption viz. of these hard sayings against General Councils And I as humbly beg leave to speak for them in behalf of the Church of England and the Law of the Land both which I 'me sure I have on my side and both give much deference to General Councils The twentieth Article of our Church has these words The Church has Authority in matters of Faith And the Statute of the Land runs thus Eliz. 1. c. 1. That none however commissioned shall in any wise have authority or power to order or determine or adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been determined ordered or adjudged to be Heresie by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or any of them or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be ordered judged or determined to be Heresie by the Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Clergy in their Convocation But for all this we do not confess or acknowledge all or many of those for General Councils which they at Trent or which Bellarmine is pleas'd to account for such a parcel of eighteen of them But those very few we count for General which the Church Universal before the unhappy breach between East and West receiv'd for General But now to unravel the skein which is much entangled and ruffled in his confused way the diminutions he puts upon general Councils may be reduc'd to these three Heads 1. That General Councils may err in points of Faith because they have no promise to the contrary 2. Because they want Numbers even of the Clergy being not the thousandth part of them and therefore to put this Argument as far as ever it will go are not truly General 3. Because of the prejudices they that should sit in Council would bring along with them then who can doubt but they would avow that in the Council which they all taught in their Churches 1. In answer to his first Exception I premise these limitations If by erring in some points of Faith he means some points belonging to the Piety of Faith as Divines use to speak or to the Perfection of Faith or remotely belonging even to the essence or necessity of Faith and wounding it by far-fetcht Consequences I will not deny but even great Councils may possibly be circumvented for a time yet I may safely venture with our Learned Pious Dr. Hammond in his Paraenesis to reckon it among the pio credibilia or a thing piously credible as we say that God will not permit a Council truly General and Free to err in Fundamentals which thus far only I presume to explain that God will never permit them to deny and declare against any Fundamental Truth and much less to affirm and declare any Fundamental Errour to be a Truth and least of all to declare it a Fundamental Truth And if this Author asks which of God's Promises give us encouragement to hope and believe this I refer him to the Prophet Isaiah ch 30. v. 20. And though the Lord give you the bread of Adversity and the water of Affliction yet shall not thy Teachers be removed into a Corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers That this Chap. is Evangelical will not I suppose be denied and so is that Isai 54. 17. and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment shalt thou condemn If this be denied to be spoken of the Christian Church I prove it undeniably from our Saviour's application of the Context And all thy Children shall be taught of God It was then a Prerogative of the Christian Church that her Teachers should be driven into
industry acquir'd much knowledg in natural Philosophy Antiquity History and subtle Logick or Sophistry were very unwilling to abandon quite these their long studied and dearly beloved Sciences falsly so called and therefore translated them into Christianity applying their School-terms Distinctions Syllogisms c. to Divine matters intending perchance through indiscreet Zeal to illustrate and imbellish Christian knowledg with such Artificial forms and figures but rather defaced and spoiled it Kindly and learnedly spoken of Learning in general and Reverently spoken of the Primitive Doctors and Fathers Why he could hardly have declared himself with greater animosity and severity against Greg. de Valentia or Suarez or some other of the late Popish Schoolmen As for the Fathers that they were no defacers or spoilers of Christianity 't is defence enough for them if I alledge in their behalf the Testimony of One that was none of their greatest Champions even Mr. Dallé himself who in that very book which he was so many years collecting and writing on purpose to expose them for all their little failings yet he confesses and contends that they were guilty of no Errors amounting to Haeresies in their Controversies of Faith And by this Author 's good leave the Fathers were not the men that corrupted our Christianity through Philosophy but if any have done so it is rather that sort of men the Popish Schoolmen who pardon the expression Aristoteliz'd the Fathers As for the elder Schoolmen their design was noble to draw the whole Scheme of Divinity into such order and method that a Divine might sit and see as it were his whole world of Matter before him and to arm him at all points where he might possibly be attaqu'd they set themselves to go into the bowels of all Controversies herein they have often exceeded in beating matters too thin and I say not all their Armour was of Proof but that which is firm and good as a great deal of it is ought not to be thrown away because it is too heavy for some mens shoulders That unlucky Pantaenus sett up Disputing if you 'l take our Author's word for it in a School of Alexandria though others verily believe that one St. Paul before him disputed daily for the space of two years in the School of one Tyrannus And some differ from this Author's Opinion that the damnable Haeresie of the Arrians sprang from the School of Pantaenus they rather think and our Ecclesiastical Historians say that Arrius's spleen had never wrought so furiously against the Church but only for a disappointment he received in his aspiring expectations of some great Bishoprick But we must needs look back to the second and third pages to see how he justifies all this by alledging proving with a great deal ado from Reason and Scripture that No man should be forc't to Believe for No man can be forc'd to Believe As for example says he If you hold a clear printed book with a clear candle to a man of clear eyes and able to read he will certainly read But if the print be not clear or the candle or his sight not clear or he not learned to read Can your force make him read and just so it is with our Understanding which is the eye of our Soul and a Demonstration being as a Candle to give light If then your Demonstration or Deduction or his Understanding be not clear or he not Learned You may with a Club dash out his brains but never clear them It were easie to confound his Similitude by shewing the disproportion between the parts of it For he brings the sense of Seeing which is linkt and ty'd to the dull dimensions of a Body and the studied acquir'd faculty of Reading which is the other term on the one side I say he brings these into comparison with our Understanding which be calls the Eye of our Soul and a Demonstration which he makes the candle to give it light But if it be as he supposes here a demonstration indeed about things absolutely necessary for us to know it must of necessity so irresistibly dart its beams into the mind of any that is not born without any brains to let them in as there shall need no force to clear them But 't is more to my purpose to retort his Similitude thus Suppose you held a clear printed book with a clear candle to a man of clear eyes and suppose the man shuts his eyes and suppose all men that look upon him attentively see that he shuts his eyes as that 's a thing may be seen or which is all one that he stops his ears as some that will not so much as enter our Church-doors refusing to hear the voice of the Charmer charm he never so wisely and suppose this book thus held to him be the Word of God it self Then since the same Word tells us that some may be damn'd for shutting their eyes upon it Certainly the Magistrate may and ought to force him not to wink so hard but to open his eyes and sure all this may be done without dashing out his brains with a Club and then indeed it will follow that he will certainly read but not otherwise The Jews in Rome are constrain'd once a week to hear a Christian Sermon The Pope indeed cannot make the Jews Believe but he can make them hear unless they close up their Ears with wool or purposely send their Wits a wool-gathering as the Country phrase is which would be a fault in their Wills to be punish't if it could be prov'd Whereas this Author would ascribe all to mens want of common Understanding or want of Discerning ability in the matters now in question which are the great matters of Faith But God is wanting to no man in Necessaries and the Reason which helps every man to see these Truths at least when they are shew'd and pointed out to him is a vulgar a popular thing But sure this Author imagines there are a world of Idiots that he may not be forc'd to admit any mans hypocrisie wilfulness to be gross palpable Thus he concludes Our force may make him blinder but never see clearer may make him an hypocrite no true Convert No! by this Author's favour he that shuts his eyes yet pretends to see clearly is an hypocrite already and we that would oblige him to open his eyes whether he will or no do not go the way to make him an Hypocrite but a true Convert from his sinful Hypocrisie But he still eagerly pursues his ill-chosen Principle in mistaken charity If a man do not see a thing clearly contain'd there i. e. in Scripture you cannot force either his Sight or his Faith p. 4. He had said before p. 3 He then that believes the Scripture cannot but believe what you clearly demonstrate from Scripture if he hath clear brains if he have not your force may puzzle and puddle his brains more by the passion of Anger and Hatred c.
to the Church and the State is not that also Turbulent And if they were thus solicitous to preserve and establish as a sacred inviolable thing the Idolatrous worship of their false Gods what care of ours can be great enough to secure the Godly worship of the only True God when it is shaken by such Divisions But to return to St. Austin how did the Civil Magistrate proceed to punish the Donatists for their sedition even by laying his Commands upon them at that good Father's Request That they should come to Church A severe punishment and very likely indeed to be inflicted upon them as Traytors to the Imperial Crown But secondly says he to answer more particularly this story I suppose says he there is no man such a stranger to the world as to be ignorant that there are Hypocrites in it and such for ought we know these seeming converted Donatists might be who for love of this World more than for love of the Truth forsoâ—k their heretical Profession though not their Opinion c. Incomparable for ought he knows they were Hypocrites So for ought we know This Author is all this while a Jesuite and writes this Pamphlet only to embroyl us Protestants But he goes on unless it can be evidenc't that these Donatists hearts were changed as well as their Profession a thing impossible to prove all this proves nothing Very good So unless it can be evidenc't that he writes all this Pamphlet from his Heart which is impossible to be prov'd it all signifies just nothing But thirdly says he put the case their hearts were really chang'd as to matter of belief 't is evident their hearts were very worldly still groveling on the earth not one step nearer Heaven A horrible charitable saying we may forgive him any thing after this as his supposing in this next sentence that the pruning of the Tree by the Magistrate's Sword is doing evil As for his putting the Case Malchus had been converted by St. Peter 's cutting off his ear and saying this would not have excus'd St. Peter 's act which our Saviour so sharply reprov'd and threatned by perishing with the sword In the first place I humbly conceive St. Peter was no Civil Magistrate unless he that will not allow him to draw oâ—e Sword here as a private Person will admit the fine Monkish conceit of Ecce duo Gladii behold here are two Swords the Spiritual and the Temporal for St. Peter and his Successors And secondly for his cutting of Malchus's ear I suppose there is some difference between the Magistrat's giving one an ear to hear with or compelling one to hearken and listen to reason and cutting off ones ear or setting one in the Pillory But all this he says in reference to compelling men to believe or conform still reserving to the Magistrate power according to Scripture to punish evil doers not evil believers not who think but do publish or do practise something to subvert the Fundamentals of Religion or disturb the Peace of the State or injure their Neighbour God the only searcher of hearts reserves to himself the punishment of evil thoughts of evil belief which man can never have a right cognizance of And does he take all this pains only to put a fallacy upon us and only to prove the truth of an old Adage that Thought is free And that no body can be punisht in this world for his Thoughts only or that it is all one for a thing not to be and not to appear to be But for all this evil believers if they profess their evil belief plainly appear evil doers and are to be treated accordingly Though I speak nothing more against them or their greatest Speakers than that they may be brought to our Churches and give us a fair hearing Animadversions upon his Appendix to the former Subject HIS Appendix to the former Subject begins with censuring the modesty of our first Reformers for their deference to the Ancient Fathers and Councils We thank him for this reproach Hereby says he they were reduc't to great straits in their Disputations He shall find himself reduc't into much greater before we have done with him for thus aspersing and deserting both the Ancients and the Modern Fathers as I may style them of this Church and the Reformation His reason for thus rejecting Antiquity is because some Popish Errors were crept very early into the Church The Superstition of the Cross and Chrism were in use in the second Century They were in use but none were then allowed in any superstitious abuse of them As for the Millenary Error and the Necessity of Infants receiving the Blessed Sacrament Errors indeed but no Heresies and common Errors but by no means to be charged on the Church Universal of those Ages which is but a Vulgar Error since the Papists he confesses reject them both I hope these do not prove the Fathers Papists nor yet Heretiques that the Reformers should balk them on these Surmises However this Reformer urges them where he thinks they serve his turn St. Cyprian tells us that every Praepositus which we call Bishop is to be guided by his own Reason and Conscience and is responsible to God only for his Doctrine St. Cyprian only says in the place which he means though he is not pleas'd to quote it that a Bishop was Praepositus and responsible to no other that is to no other Bishop and particularly not responsible to the Bishop of Rome But St. Cyprian never says that a Bishop is not responsible to the Church or a Council of Bishops which without any usurpation have always taken to themselves the authority of calling even Patriarchs to an account for their Doctrine as that General Council held at Constantinople by the Emperour Constantinus Pogonatus judg'd and condemn'd five Patriarchs at once and Honorius the Pope of Rome for one of them But St. Augustine believed it a direct Heresie to hold there were any Antipodes 'T is true he held there were none and rally'd those that held there was any such thing This was for want of understanding the System of the World which in those Ages few understood before the late Discoveries But St. Augustine is so little guilty of believing it either a Direct or an Indirect Heresie that he scarce makes Religion at all concern'd in it And if he touch it only as a point of Philosophy then his Reputation of Wit is as safe as that of Herodotus and Lucretius and many of the greatest Wits that made as fine Burlesques as he upon this opinion of Antipodes But if so great a Divine as St. Augustine and so great a Scholar as Lactantius were liable to such mistakes for want of skill in the Mathematiques Then why does this Author inveigh against that part of Learning for a Divine in his preaching Chapter p. 27. 28 He can't but wonder that men of any brains or modesty should so grosly abuse this saying of our Saviour He