by their Princes as the fittest to serve their ends Now if the Divine Grant be to the whole Body it will not be easy to shew that even the most numerous of those Meetings that pass for General Councils were truly such Or if it is said that those few of remote Provinces come in the name of the rest and so represent them it must first appear whether such a thing as Infallibility can be deputed indeed where a Controversy is already known Churches may send men fully instructed in their Doctrine who may be thereby well impower'd to declare how the Doctrine and Tradition has been setled among them But if a Judgment is to be made upon the hearing of Parties and the discussing their Reasons on both sides which must be the case otherwise here is no Infallible Judge then in that case men at a distance who never heard the matter but very generally and partially cannot do this therefore such as come to a Council must have the full power of Judging We know that in Fact such Powers or Instructions are seldom given and in these latter Ages they will not at all be allow'd for the Bishops so instructed must be consider'd as the Proxies of their Principals and vote in their name which is contrary to the practice of all Councils exept that of Basile and can never be endured at Rome where every Italian Bishop tho his See is in some places but a small Parish is reckon'd in the Vote equal with any of those few that come from great Provinces Now these are all Difficulties of such weight that it will not be easy to settle them with any Divine Warrants the Scripture being silent as to all such matters Nor is it clear whether the whole Council must agree in the same Sentence or if a major number tho exceeding by one single voice is sufficient If the Council at Ierusalem is insisted on as the Precedent to other Councils we see that All agreed there And if this Infallibility is a power that Christ has left in his Church as necessary for her Peace and Preservation it may be reasonable enough to suppose that for giving their decisions the more Authority he should so order this matter by his Providence that they should all agree in their Judgments For after all when a thing is carri'd but by One vote tho according to the Rules of all Human Courts it must be good in Law yet it is not easy to think that God would lodge such an Authority and suffer it to turn upon so small and so despicable an Inequality In conclusion It does not appear from the Scriptures whether in such decisions the Bishops should expect a Divine Inspiration such as that which setled the Judgment in the Council of Ierusalem or not The meaning of those words It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to Vs seems to be this That as they of themselves were resolv'd on making that decision so an immediate Inspiration which was own'd by them all did finally determine them in their Resolution Or it may be suppos'd to relate to that Effusion of the Holy Ghost upon Cornelius and his Friends that being a solemn Declaration that men might be accepted of God while they were yet uncircumcised and that by consequence the Gentiles were not bound to the observance of those Precepts which did not oblige any but such as were circumcised So that what they then decreed was only a general Inference which they drew from that particular case And so they made a decision in favour of all the Gentiles from that which had happened to Cornelius This is the clearest account that can be given of these words which understood otherwise look as if they had added their decision as the giving a further weight to that made by the Holy Ghost or as a Vehicle to convey it which is too absurd to suppose Now if any build upon that Council they must make the parallel just and shew that the Holy Ghost interposes in their Conclusions To all these Considerations we must add this That the first Councils are to be supposed to have understood their own Authority or at least the sense of the Church at that time concerning it They considered the several Passages of Scripture and framed their Decisions out of them which were afterwards defended by some who had been of their Body not as if their Authority or Decision had put an end to the Controversy They urge indeed the great numbers of the Bishops that made those Decisions but use that rather as a strong Inducement to beget a prejudice in their favour than as an Authority that could not be contradicted In this strain does Athanasius defend the Council of Nice For indeed even that of Numbers was to be sparingly urged after the Council at Arimini where Numbers were on the other side The chief Writers of those times make their Appeals to the Scriptures they bring many Passages out of them and are very short and defective in making out the Doctrine of the Church from Tradition or Fathers Athanasius names not above four and these had lived very near that time two of them Origen and Dionysius were claimed by the other Side There are but few and very late Authorities alledged in the Council of Ephesus and those at Chalcedon made their definition chiefly upon the Authority and reguard to Pope Leo's Letter in which there are indeed very many Allegations from Scripture but not so much as one from any Father Thus it is plain both from the Practice of those Councils and the Disputes of those who writ in defence of their Decisions that it was not then believed that they had any Infallible Authority since that is never so much as once claimed by any of that time that I know of a great deal being said to the contrary by many of them It is true there are some high Expressions both in some of the Councils and in some of the Fathers of that time which import that they believed they were directed by God But this is no other than what may be said concerning any Body of Good and Learned men who use a great deal of pious caution in forming their Decisions Therefore great difference is to be made between a plain assuming an Infallible Authority and Rhetorical Hints of their being guided by the Holy Ghost the former does not appear and the latter shews that such as used those ways of speaking did not think them infallible but they believing that they had made good Decisions did upon that presume that they were guided by the Holy Ghost And thus it appears in a great variety of Considerations that we have no reason to believe that there is an Infallibility in a General Council and that we do not so much as know what is necessary to make one And to sum up all that belongs to this Head The Decisions of those Councils must have an Infallible Expounder as well as it
World in which they should be authoris'd to dissolve the Obligation of the Mosaical Laws and to confirm such parts of them as were Moral and perpetually binding which the Apostles should do with such visible Characters of a Divine Authority empowering and conducting them in it that it should be very evident that what they did on Earth was ratified in Heaven These words thus understood carry in them a plain sense which agrees well with the whole design of the Gospel but whatsoever may be their sense it is plain that there was nothing here peculiarly given to St. Peter As for our Saviour's praying for St. Peter that his faith might not fail and his restoring him to his Apostolate by a threefold charge feed my sheep or lambs it has such a visible relation to his fall and threefold denial that it is not worth the while to enlarge on or to shew that it is capable of no other signification and cannot be carried further And thus I have gone through all that is brought from the Scriptures for asserting the Infallibility of the Church and in particular of the Pope's and have I hope fully shew'd that they cannot bear that sense but that they must genuinely bear a plainly different sense which does no way differ from our Doctrine It was necessary to clear all this for tho as was before made out it is no proper way for them to resolve their Faith by passages out of Scripture yet these are very good objections to us who upon other Reasons do submit to their Authority There remains but one thing now to be clear'd which is this If the Church is not Infallible it does not easily appear what certainty we can have concerning the Scriptures since we believe them upon the Testimony of the Church and we have no other knowledge concerning them but what has been handed down to us by Tradition If therefore this is fallible we may be deceiv'd in our persuasion even concerning them But here a great difference is to be made between the carrying down a Book to us and the Oral Delivering of a Doctrine it being almost as hard to suppose how the one could sail as how the other should not fail The Books being in many hands spread over the whole Churches and read in all their Assemblies makes this to be a very different thing from discourses that are in the Air and to which every man that reports them is apt to give his own Cue A great difference is also to be made between the Testimony of a Witness and the Authority of a Judge If in any Age of the Church Councils had examin'd controverted Writings and had upon that past Sentence this had been in deed a judging the matter but no such thing ever was The Codex of the Scriptures was setled some Ages before any Provincial Council gave out a Catalogue of the Books which they held as Canonical For no ancient General Council ever did it and tho the Canonical Epistles of which there not being such a certain Standard they not being addrest to any particular Body that had preserv'd the Originals were not so early nor so universally receiv'd as the others were yet the matter was setled without any Authoritative Judgment only by examining Originals and such other Methods by which all things of that nature can only be made out But this matter having been so fully consider'd and stated in another Discourse I shall dwell no longer on it in this As for the Authorities which are brought from some of the Ancients in favour of the Authority of the Church and of Tradition it is to be considered that though the word Tradition as it is now used in Books of Controversy imports a sense opposite to that which is written in the Scripture yet Tradition is of its own signification a general word that imports every thing which is delivered And in this sense the whole Christian Religion as well as the Books in which it is contained was naturally called the Tradition of the Apostles So that a great many things said by Ancients to magnify the Tradition of the Apostles and by way of Appeal to it have no relation to this matter Besides when men were so near the Apostolical Age that they could name the Persons from whom they had such or such hints who had received them from the Apostles or from Apostolical men Tradition was of another sort of Authority and might have been much more safely appealed to than at the distance of so many Ages Therefore if any thing is brought either from Irenaeus or Tertullian that sounds this way here is a plain difference to be observed between their Age and ours which does totally diversify it But to convince the World how early Tradition might either vary or misrepresent matters let the Tradition not only in but before St. Irenaeus's time concerning the observation of Easter be considered which goes up as high as St. Polycarps's time We find that as the several Churches adhered to the practices of those Apostles that founded them so they had quite forgot the grounds on which it seems these various Observations were founded Since though it is very probable that those who kept Easter on the Iewish day did it that by their condescendence to the Iews in that matter they might gain upon them and soften their Prejudices against Christianity yet it does not appear that their Successors thought of that at all for they vouched their Custome and resolved to adhere to it nor is there any thing mentioned on either side that give us the account of those early but different Observations If then Tradition failed so near its Fountain we may easily judge what account we ought to make of it at so great a distance Many things are brought with great pomp out of St. Austin's Writings magnifying the Authority of the Church in terms which after all the allowances that are to be made for his diffuse and African Eloquence can hardly be justified Yet when it is considered that he writ against the Donatists who had broke the Vnity of the Church upon the pretence of a matter of fact concerning the Ordainers of Cecilian which had been as to the point of fact often judged against them And yet as they had distracted the whole African Churches so they were men of fierce and implacable Tempers that broke out daily into acts of great fury and violence and had set up a principle that must for ever break the Peace and Union of the Church which was that the vertue of all the publick Acts of Worship of Sacraments and Ordinances depended upon the personal worth of him that officiated so that his Errors or Vices did make void all that past through his hands Now when so warm a man as St. Austin had so bad a Principle and so ill a disposition of mind in view it is no wonder if he brought out all that he could think on upon the subject so
is urged that the Books of the Scriptures cannot be of use to us if there is not in the Church a living speaking Iudge to declare their true sense Now this is rather more necessary with relation to the Decrees of Councils which as they are Writings as well as the Scriptures so they being much more Voluminous and more artificially contrived and couched need a Commentary much more than a few plain and simple Writings which make up the New Testament If then the Councils must be expounded there must be according to their main reasoning an Infallibility lodged somewere else to give their sense And the necessity of this has appeared evidently since the time of the Council of Trent for both upon the Article of Divine Grace and upon their Sacrament of Penance there have been and still are great debates among them concerning the meaning of the Decrees of that Council both Parties pretending that they are of their side Who then shall decide these Controversies and expound those Decrees This must not be laid over to the next General Council for then the Infallibility will be in an Abeyance and lost during that Interval So this Inference leads me to the last Hypothesis That the Infallibility is in the Pope and in him only And it must be confessed that this is the only Opinion that is consistent to it self in all its parts Here is a living and speaking Iudge and if he is not Infallible it is plain that they have no Infallibility at all among them And yet his Infallibility as it is a thing of which no man ever dreamt for the first nine or ten Ages so it has such violent presumptions against it that without very express proof it will not be reasonable to expect that any should believe it The Ignorance of most Popes the Secular Maxims by which they are governed the Political Methods in which they are elected the Forgeries chiefly of their Decretal Epistles by which their Authority was principally asserted and which are now as universally rejected as spurious as they were once owned to be genuine their aspiring to the same Authority in Temporals for many Ages which they have gained in Spirituals their having dissolved the whole Authority of the Primitive Constitutions and Ancient Canons of the Church and all that practice of Corruption that is in all their Courts by which the whole order of the Church is totally reversed All these are such lawful and violent Prejudices against them that they must needs fortify a man in opposition to any such Pretensions till it is very plainly proved These Characters agree so very ill with Infallibility that it is not easy to believe they can be together Since for above 800 years together the Papacy as it is represented by their own Writers was perhaps the worst Succession of men that can be found in any History And it will seem strange if God has lodged such wonderful Power with such a sort of men and yet has taken so little care of them to make them look like the proper Subjects of that Authority We do plainly see that the Primitive Church even when they enlarged their Papal Authority as to Government did it what out of a respect to St. Peter and St. Paul who they believed founded that Church and suffered Martyrdom in it and what or most chiefly out of their regard to the dignity of that City it being the Head of the Empire under which they lived and this appeared by their giving the same Priviledges to Constantinople when it became the Imperial City which was made second to the other and equal to it except only in order and rank But as for the Doctrine of the Church tho still the regard to St. Peter went far yet when Liberius subscribed to Semiarianism it was never pretended that his Authority had in any thing altered the case which must have been urged if he had been believed Infallible The Case of Honorius does fully discover the sense of the Church in the Sixth Century concerning their Infallibility He was condemned as a Monothelite by a General Council which was confirmed by several Popes who did by name condemn him Now we are not a whit concerned in his Cause and Condemnation whether it was just or not and whether it was upon a due examination or not It is enough for us that a General Council as well as several Popes in that Age had never dreamt of Infallibility otherwise they could not have condemned him or believe him capable of Heresy This might be brought down to many later Instances in which several Popes have been charged with Heresy one shall suffice They have pretended to an Authority from Christ to depose Kings and to transfer their Dominions to others This they have not only done by force and violence but by many solemn Decisions in which this Authority has been claimed as founded on several Passages of Scripture not forgetting those In the beginning not In the beginnings did God create and the great light that rules the day these with many more they have urged both from the Old and New Testament This they did with the utmost pomp of solemn Declarations and upon this Head they filled the World with Wars Some few writ against these Pretensions but the Popes stood to them and carried them on in a course of five or six Centuries with all possible vigour And during those Ages this Doctrine grew to be universally received by the Learned and Unlearned by all the Universities all the Divines Canonists and Casuists not one single Person daring to oppose so strong a Current So that Cardinal Perron was in the right when he affirmed that this was the Doctrine universally received in the Church for the last six Centuries without contradiction before Calvin's days and those few that seemed to write against it durst only oppose the Pope's direct Power in Temporals as the Superior Lord to whom Kings were but Vassals but durst not contradict his Authority over them in case of Heresy This then being so publick and uncontested a Point as it shakes the Authority of Oral Tradition and shews how Doctrines even in points in which mens Interests did strongly oppose them could get into the Church though not derived down from the Apostles so it totally destroys the Pope's Pretensions to Infallibility in the Opinion of all such as think this to be simply unlawful and that it subverts the Order which God has setled in the World For there is not any one Fact in History that can be less contested than that the Popes have assumed this Authority and that they have vouched Divine Warrants for it To this also we may well add another train of Difficulties about the Right to chuse this Pope in whom it is vested what number is necessary for a Canonical Election and how far Simony voids it and who is the Competent Judge of the Simony or in the case of different Elections who shall judge which of
respects as bad as ever this indeed is so slight a thing that a greater disparagement cannot de offered to our Religion nor can a greater strengthning of sin be contrived than the giving any sort of encouragement to it for it is one of the greatest and the most mischievous of all those practical Errors which have corrupted Religion These are the most important parts of our whole Commission and therefore we ought to state them first aright in our own thoughts that so we our selves may be fully possessed with them that they may sink deep into our own minds and shew their efficacy in the reforming of our Natures and Lives and then we shall be able to open them to others with more clearness and with better advantages when our hearts are inflamed with an overcoming sense of the Love and Goodness of God If the Condition of this New Covenant were deeply impressed on our thoughts then we should publish them with more life and joy to others and we might then look for the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel on our selves and on our labours DISCOURSE III. Concerning the INFALLIBILITY AND AUTHORITY of the CHURCH AFTER we are well setled in the Belief of the Christian Religion our next enquiry must naturally be into the Way and Method of being rightly Instructed in the Doctrine and other parts of this Religion and that chiefly in one great Point Whether we ought to employ our own Faculties in searching into this and particularly into the meaning of those Books in which it is contain'd or Whether we must take it from Oral Tradition and submit to any man or body of men as the Infallible Depositaries and Declarers of this Tradition In this single point consists the Essence of the differences between us and the Church of Rome While we affirm that the Christian Doctrine is compleatly contain'd in the Scriptures and that every man ought to examine these with the best helps and all the skill and application of which he is capable and that he is bound to believe such Doctrines only as appear to him to be contain'd in the Scriptures but may reject all others that are not founded upon that Authority On the other hand The foundation upon which the Church of Rome builds is this That the Apostles deliver'd their Doctrine by word of mouth to the several Churches as the Sacred Depositum of the Faith That the Books of the New Testament were written occasionally not with intent that they should be the Standard of this Religion that we have these Books and believe them to be Divine only from the Church and upon her Testimony that the Church with the Books gives us likewise the Sense and Exposition of them they being dark in many places and that therefore the Traditional Conveyance and the Solemn Decisions of the Church must be Infallible and ought to be submitted to as such otherwise there can be no end of Controversies while every man takes upon him to expound the Scriptures which must needs fill mens Minds with Curiosity and Pride as well as the World with Heresies and Sects that are unavoidable unless there is a living speaking Judge This they also prove from some places of Scripture such as Christ's words to St. Peter Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and unto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Tell the Church I am with you alway even to the end of the World the Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth This is their Doctrine and these are their chief Arguments upon which it is founded There is no point in Divinity that we should more clearly understand than this for it is in it self of great Consequence and is that which determines all the rest if it is true it puts an end to all other Controversies and if it is false it leaves us at liberty to examine every thing and gives us the justest and highest prejudices possible against that Church that pretends to it without just grounds It is also that which of all others the Missionaries of that Church understand the best and manage the most dextrously they are much practised to it and they begin and end all their practice with this which has fair appearances and will bear a great deal both of popular Eloquence and plausible Logick so if men are not on the other hand as well fortifi'd and as ready on the other side of the Argument they will be much entangled as often as they have occasion to deal with any of that Church There is not indeed any one point that I know of that has been open'd and examin'd both with that Beauty and Force that is in Chillingworth's Unvaluable Book upon this Subject Few things of this nature have ever been handled so near a Mathematical Evidence as he has pursu'd this Argument and his Book is writ with such a thread of Wit and Reason that I am confident few can enter upon it without going through with it I shall now endeavour in as narrow a compass as is possible to set this matter in its true Light We must then begin with this That the freedom of a man's Thoughts and Understanding is the most Essential Piece of his Liberty and that in which naturally he can the least bear to be limited therefore any Restraints that are laid upon him in this must be well and fully proved otherwise it is to be suppos'd that God could never intend to bring us under the yoke in so sensible and so valuable a thing without giving clear and evident warrants for it And as every Invasion on the Liberties of the Human nature ought to be well made out so every Priviledge which any person claims against the common fate of Mankind ought to be also fully proved before others can be bound to submit to it We perceive in our selves and we see in all others such a feebleness of understanding such an easiness to go too quick and judge too fast and such a narrow compass of knowledge that as we see all Mankind is apt to mistake things so we have no reason to believe that any one is exempted from this but as there are evident Authorities to prove it Since then this is a Priviledge in those that have it as well as an Imposition on those that have it not it ought not to be offer'd at or obtruded on the world without a full Proof Probabilities forced Inferences or even disputable Proofs ought not to be made use of here since we have reason to conclude that if God had intended to put any such thing upon us he would have done it in so plain and uncontested a way that there should have been no room to have doubted of it Besides all such things as do naturally give jealousy and offer specious grounds of mistrust ought to be very clear Since
of their Law or the Conveyers of their Traditions to them Must he set up his Skill and Reason above theirs Thus we see that if this Reasoning is true it being founded on Maxims that are equally true at all times then it was as true at that time as it is now It is of no force to say that the Miracles which our Saviour and his Apostles wrought gave them such Powers that the people were upon that account bound to believe them rather than their Teachers For one part of the Debate was both the truth of the Miracles and the Consequences that arose from them So the Appeal according to this way of Reasoning did still lie to their Sanhedrim In a word In such Matters every man must judge for himself and every man must answer to God for the Judgment that he has made he judges for no body else but for himself He and He only can be the Judge and if he uses a due degree of Industry and frees himself from every corrupt Biass from Pride Vain-glory and affectation of Singularity or the pursuing any ill ends under those appearances of searching for Truth and the adhering to it he is doing the best thing which according to that nature of which God has made him he can do and so he may reasenably believe that he shall succeed in it Nor is there any pride in this for a man to think according to his own Understanding no more than to see with his own Eyes His Humility ought to make him slow and cautious modest and fearful but no humility can oblige him to think otherwise than he feels he must needs think Among the Works of the flesh Heresies or Sects are reckon'd as one sort and species Now by Works of the flesh are to be understood the appetites of a vicious and depraved nature the meaning therefore of reckoning Heresies among these is this That when a man out of a bad disposition of mind and on ill designs chuses to to be of a party he then is a Heretick but he that in sincerity of Heart goes into persuasions from an overcoming sense of their Truth cannot be one because he does not chuse his persuasion out of a previous ill design but is of it not out of choice but necessity since his Understanding in which those matters may be variously represented offers them so to him that he must believe them to be true in the same manner in which he apprehends them If upon this Principle there happen to be many Sects and Divisions in the Church this is a part of that Wo that Christ left upon the World by reason of Offences and Scandals for he forsaw that they must needs come God has made this present Scene of Life to be neither regular nor secure The strange Follies and Corruptions of Mankind must have their Influence on Religion as well as they have on all other things God has reserv'd a fulness of Light and of unerring Knowledge to another State Here we are in the dark but have light enough if we have honest Minds to use and improve it aright to guide us thither and that is the utmost share that God seems to have design'd for us in this Life we must therefore be contented and make the most of it that we can I go next to shew That the same Difficulties if not greater ones he upon those who build on Infallibility for before they can arrive at the use of it they must have well examin'd and be fully assur'd of two things either of which has greater Difficulties in it than all those put together with which they press us First They must be convinced that there is an Infallibility in the Church and next they must know to which of those many Churches into which Christendom is divided this Infallibility is fastned Unless the design is to make all men take their Religion implicitely from their Forefathers these things must be well consider'd If men are oblig'd to adhere blindly to the Religion in which they were bred then Iews Heathans and Mahometans must continue still where they are If this had been the Maxim of all times Christianity had never got into the World If then men are allow'd to examine things they must have very good reason given them for it before they can believe that there is an Infallibility among men Their own Reason and Observation offers so much against it that without very clear grounds they ought not to receive it Now the reasons to persuade it must be drawn either from Scripture or from outward visible Characters that evidence it The Scriptures cannot be urg'd by these men because the Scriptures as they teach have their Authority from the Testimony of the Church Therefore the Authority of the Church must be first prov'd for the Church cannot give an Authority to a Book and then prove its own Authority by that Book This is plainly to prove the Church by her own Testimony which is manifestly absurd it being all one whether she affirms it immediately or if she affirms it by affirming a Book in which it is contain'd here a Circle is made to run for ever round in Why do you believe the Church because the Scriptures affirm it and why do you believe the Scriptures because the Church affirms them I do not deny but they may urge the Scriptures for this very pertinently against us who acknowledge their Authority but I am now considering upon what grounds a man is to be instructed in the stating the grounds of his own Faith and resolving it into Principles In this an Order must be fix'd and in the progress of it every step that is made must be prov'd without any relation to that which is afterwards to be proved out of that and therefore either the Church or the Scriptures must be first prov'd and then other things must be prov'd out of that which is once fix'd and made good But in the next place if we should suffer them to bring Proofs from Scripture how shall it he prov'd that the true sense of them is that which makes for infallibility Other senses may be given to them which may both agree to the Grammatical Construction of the words to the contexture of the Discourse and to the Phraseology of the Scriptures who shall then decide this Matter It were very unreasonable to prove what is their true Sense by the Exposition that any Church puts on those passages in her own favour that were to make her both Judge and Party in too gross a manner Therefore at least thâ—se passages and all that relates to them must fall under the private Judgment and in these Instances every man must be suffer'd to expound the Scriptures for himself for he cannot be bound to submit to any exposition of them but that which satisfies his own Reason and if this step is once admitted then it will appear as reasonable to leave a man all over to the use of his
was infallible without specifying which of these was the infallible one There are some things that look so extravagant that really it is an absurd thing to suppose them of which this seems to be evidently one That God should have left an Infallibility to his Church and not have declar'd with whom this the greatest of all Trusts to which probably many would pretend was lodged So that this which is the general Doctrine of the whole Roman Communion has an absurdity in it that cannot be reconcil'd to common sense and reason Many among them put it in the whole diffusive body of all Christians to which purpose the words of Vincentius Lirinensis are perpetually repeated but after all this is only to abuse people for if the sense of the Church in all Places and Ages must be sought for here come endless enquiries and some of them cannot possibly be made the History of many Ages and Churches being lost If this is made the Standard as the labour becomes Infinite so after all it resolves into private Judgment since every man must judge as he sees cause and must collect the sense of Ages and Churches from Authors which as they are often both dark and defective so he must understand them as well as he can by his own Judgment and Observation unless some Infallible Expounder or Declarer of their Sense is set up and then the Infallibility is translated from hence to the Expounder And indeed it is so hard to trace a great many points of Controversy thro even the first and best Ages that the Church must fall under great Difficulties if this Hypothesis is assum'd for maintaining the Infallibility And when all is done we see by the performances of the Writers of Controversy that both sides think they can justify themselves by the Ancient Fathers as well as by the Scriptures So that all these Absurdities that are urg'd against apealing to the Scriptures or arguing from them as that to which all Hereticks do fly and in which they shelter themselves will return here with the more force because these Writings are much more Voluminous and are writ in a much more entangl'd and darker Style so that these two Objections lie against this way That it is both vast if not impossible as to the performance of it and next that after all the pains that can be taken in it it is of no use for private Judgment will still remain so that Controversies cannot be ended in this way Others are for the diffusive Church of the present Age and put Infallibility there for they reckon thus That every Age of the Church believes as the former Age believ'd till this is carried up to the Apostles themselves This is to resolve all matters into Oral Tradition and to suppose It infallible and indeed if we can believe that the generality of Christians have in all Ages been wise honest and cautious and that the generality of the Clergy have in all Ages been faithful and inquisitive we may rely upon this and so believe an Infallibility But at the same time and upon this Supposition we shall have no occasion for it since if Mankind could be brought to such a pitch of Reformation there would be no Controversies and so no need of a Judge to decide them Infallibly But if we will admit that which we see to be true and know to have been true in all Ages that men are apt to be both ignorant and careless of Religion that they go easily into such Opinions as are laid before them by men of Authority and Reputation and that they have a particular liking to superstitious Conceits to outward Pomp and to such Doctrines as make them easy in their ill practices then the supposition of every Age's believing nothing but that which it learn'd from the former falls quite to the ground If we can also imagine that the Clergy have been always careful to examine Matters and never apt to add explanations or enlargements even in their own favours or if on the contrary we see a gross Ignorance running through whole Ages if we find the Clergy to have been ambitious and quarrelsome full of Intrigues and Interests then all this general specious prejudice in favour of Oral Tradition vanishes to nothing All this will be easier to be conceiv'd if we state aright the difference between those times and our own Now Printing has made Learning cheap and easy the disposition of Posts the commerce of Letters the daily publication of Gazettes and Journals fill the World with the knowledge of such things as are now in agitation But when all was to be learn'd from Manuscripts Knowledge was both dear and difficult and the methods of communicating with the rest of the World were both slow and often broken so that this thread of Oral Tradition will not prove a sure Guide There is an humour in men to add to most things as they pass through their hands if it were but an Illustration which seems not only innocent but sometimes necessary Those Enlargements would very naturally be soon consider'd as parts of the Doctrine and to these in a constant gradation new Additions might still be made and Inferences from Illustrations would in conclusion become parts of their Doctrine If I did not limit my self in this Discourse it were easy to apply this both to the Doctrines of Redeeming out of Purgatory to those of praying for the dead or invocating Saints and the worship of Images It is confest by the Assertors of this Hypothesis that the whole face of the Latin Church is chang'd both in her Worship and Discipline tho these are more sensible things than points of meer Speculation which in dark Ages could not be much minded whereas the other are more visible and make a more powerful Impression besides that all those changes arise out of some new Opinions to which they related and on which they are founded A change then that is confess'd to be made in the one does very naturally carry us to believe that a change was also made in the other We do all plainly see that some Traditions that come very near the Age of the Apostles and that seem to be Expositions of some parts of the New Testament were chang'd in other Ages The belief of Christ's reigning a Thousand years on earth is one of these for which tho it is now laid aside in that Church there is another face of a Venerable Tradition than for most of their Doctrines We see a practice that was very Ancient and that continu'd very long which arose out of the Exposition of those words Except ye eat my Flesh and drink my Blood ye have no life in you by which Infants were made partakers of the Eucharist was afterwards chang'd in that Church tho it is much less easy to think how that should be done than almost how any other should be brought about for those words being understood of an Indispensible necessity of the
no wonder if he raises the Authority and the Priviledges of the Church to a vast height Yet after all these were not his setled thoughts for he goes off from them whensoever he has an eye on his Disputes against the Pelagians for the System which he had framed in those Points could not bear with any other Notion of the Church but that of the persons predestinated to whom all the Promises belonged And thus whatever he himself asserts in his zeal against the Donatists comes to be thrown down when the Pelagians are in his view so we see from hence how much deference is due to his Authority in this Point The last head relating to this whole matter is to explain in what the Authority of the Church does consist what it is both in matters of Faith and Discipline As to matters of Faith it is certain that every Body of men is bound to study to maintain its own Order and Quiet and must be authoris'd to preserve it otherwise it cannot long continue to be one Body This binds the Body of Christians yet much more who are strictly charged to love one another to worship God with one heart and mouth to be of the same mind and judgment to assemble themselves together and to withdraw from all such as cause divisions or corrupt the great Trust of the Faith committed to their keeping It must be therefore a great part of the duty of those that are bound to feed the flock to observe when any begin to broach new Opinions that they may confirm the weak and stop the mouths of gainsayers which as the Apostles themselves did during their own lives so by the charges that they gave to the Churches in their Epistles and more fully by those given to Timothy and Titus it appears that a main part of their Care and Authority was to be employ'd that way When therefore any new Doctrines are started or when there arise Disputes about any part of Religion the Pastors of the Church ought to consider whether or not it is in a matter of any great consequence in which the Faith or Lives of men may be concerned If the point is not of a great importance it is a piece of wisdom to connive at lesser matters and to leave men to a just freedom in things where that freedom is not like to do hurt only even there care is to be taken to keep men in temper that they become not too keen in the management of their Opinions and that they neither disturb the Peace of the Church nor State upon that account If the matters appear to be great either in themselves or in the consequences that are like to follow upon them then the Pastors of the Church ought to consider them with an equal and impartial mind they ought to here Parties fully and weigh their Arguments carefully they ought to examine the sense of the Scriptures and of the best times of the Church upon those Heads and finally to give Sentence In which two things are to be considered the one is That great regard is due to a Decision made by a Body of men who seem to have acted without prejudice or interest For I confess it will be very hard to maintain such a respect for a Company in which matters are carried with so much Artifice and Intrigue as even Cardinal Palavicini represents in the management of the Council of Trent where Bishops were caressed or threatned well paid or ill used as they gave their Voices Such a proceeding as this will rather inflame than allay the opposition but a fair and equitable a just and calm way of examining matters of dispute will naturally beget a respect even in such as cannot yield a submission to their Decrees After all it must be confessed That no Man can be bound to a blind Submission unless we suppose an Infallibility to be in the Church yet Private Men owe to Publick Decisions when decently made a due respect they ought to distrust their own judgments and examine the matter more accurately But if they are still convinc'd that the Decision is wrong they are bound to persist in their own thoughts only they ought to oppose modestly to consider well the Importance of Order and Peace and whether their Opinion even suppose it true is worth the Noise that may be made about it or the Disorders that may follow upon it After all If they are still convinced that their Opinions are true and that they relate to the indispensible Duties of Religion or the necessary Articles of Christianity they must go on as they will answer it to God upon the sincerity of their Hearts and the fulness of their Convictions So that the Definitions of the Church may have very good Effects even when it is not pretended that they are Infallible Another thing to be consider'd in those Decisions is That though they are not Infallible yet they may have Authority in this respect That they are the established Doctrine of such a Body of Christians who will have no other to be taught among them and will admit none to be of their Body or at least to be a Teacher among them who is not of the same mind In this it is certain great Tenderness and Prudence is to be used and the natural liberty of Mankind is not to be too much limited But yet as any Man may fix and declare his own Opinion so certainly by a much greater parity of reason any Society or Body of Men may declare their Opinions and so far fix them as to exclude all other Doctrines and the Favourers of them from being of their Body or from bearing any Office in it So that though such Decisions do not enter into Mens Consciences nor bind them further than as they are convinced by the Reasons and Authorities upon which they are founded yet they may have a vast influence on the Order and Peace of Churches and States As to Rituals it is certain that there are many little Circumstances and Decencies that belong to the Worship of God the Order of Religious Assemblies and their Administrations and that in these the Pastors of a Church by the Natural Right that all Societies have to keep themselves in order must have a Power to determine all things of this nature This becomes yet clearer in the Christian Societies from the Rules that the Apostles gave to the Churches To do all things in Order and for the ends of Edification and Peace There is not one of the Rules laid down in Scripture concerning the Sacraments or the Officers of the Church to which many Circumstances do not belong now either these must be all left to every Man's liberty which must needs create a jarring disagreement in the several parts of this Body that would both breed confusion and look very ridiculous and absurd or there must be an Authority in the Pastors of the Church to meet together and to settle these by mutual consent
All the greater Bodies of those who divide from our Constitutions have some Rituals of their own so the Dispute in this must only be concerning the degrees and extent of this Power For if any Authority is allowed it will not be easy to fix any other Bounds to it but this that it must not invade the Divine Authority nor do any thing beyond the Rules and Limits set in the Scriptures for if there is the least degree of Authority in the Church the grounds upon which it is founded must carry it to every thing that cannot be proved to be unlawful Bare unfitness though it ought to be a Consideration of great weight when such things are deliberated about yet when they are once concluded can be no reason for disobeying them since the fitness of Order and the decency of Unity and Obedience is certainly of much more value than any special unfitness that can be supposed to be in any particular Instance So that one of these two must be admitted either that the Pastors of the Church have no sort of Authority even in the smallest Circumstances but are limited by the Rules of the Scripture and can only execute them strictly and not go beyond them in a title or this Authority must go to every thing that is lawful On that I will dwell no longer here the fuller discussion of this matter belonging to another Discourse It is a natural Consequence of the Authority given to the Pastors of the Church That they having declared and fixed their Doctrine and having setled Rules for their Rituals may excommunicate such as either do not live according to the Rules of their Religion which are a main part of their Doctrine or do not obey the Constitutions of their Society Excommunication in the Strictness of things is only the Churches refusing to receive a person into her Communion now as every Private man is the Master of his own Actions it is clear that every Body of Men must also be the Masters of theirs And thus though Excommunication in some respects is declaratory it being a solemn denunciation of the Judgments of God according to the tenor of the Gospel against persons who live in an open violation of some one or more of its Laws so it is also an authoritative Act by which a Church refuses to communicate with such a Person In this it is true Churches ought to make the terms of Communion with them as large and extensive as may consist with the Rules of Religion and of Order but after all they having a Power over themselves and their own Actions must be supposed to be likewise cloathed with a Power to communicate with other Persons or not to do it as they shall see cause in which great difference is to be made between this Power in it self and the use and management of it for any Abuses whether true or only pretended though they may well be urged to procure a proper Reformation of them yet cannot be alledged against the Power it self which is both just and necessary It is not so very clear to state the Subordination in which the Church is to be put under the Civil Power and how far all Acts of Church Power are subject to the Laws and Policies of those States to which the several Churches do belong It is certain that the Magistrate's being a Christian or not does not at all alter the Case that has only a relation to his own salvation for his Authority is the same whatever his Belief may be in matters of Religion His design to protect or to destroy Religion alters the Case more sensibly for the regards to that Protection and to the Peace and Order that follow upon it together with the Breaches and Disorders that might follow upon an ill understanding between Church and State are matters of Such Consequence that it is not only meer Prudence which may give perhaps too strong a Bias to carnal Fears and Policies but the Rules of Religion which oblige the Church to study to preserve that Order and Protection which is one of the chief Blessings of the Society and a main Instrument of doing much good Great difference is to be made between an Authority that acts with a visible design to destroy Religion and another that intends to protect it but that errs in its conduct and does often restrain the Rules of Order and impose hard and uneasy things Certainly in the latter much is to be born with that may be otherwise uneasy because the main is stil safe and private slips when endured and submitted to can never be compared to those publick disorders that a rigid maintaining of that which is perhaps in it self good must occasion But when the design is plain and that the Conduct of the Civil Powers goes against the Truth of Religion either in whole or in any main Article of it then the Body of the Christians of that State ought to fortify themselves by maintaining their Order and their other Rules in so far as they are necessary to their preservation Upon the whole matter it does not appear that the Church has any Authority to act in opposition to the State but meerly in those things in which the Religion that she professes is plain and positive so that the Question comes to be really this Whether is it better to obey God than Man There the Rule is clear and the Decision is soon made So when the Church acts meerly in obedience to Rules and Laws laid down in Scripture such as in declaring the Doctrine in administring the Sacraments and maintaining the setled Officers of the Church she is upon a sure Bottom and must cast her self upon the Providence of God whatever may happen and still obey God but in all things that have arisen out of ancient Customs and Canons in every thing where she has not a Law of God to support her I do not see any Power she has to act in opposition to Law and to the Supreme Civil Authority In this the constant practice of the Iews is no small Argument whos 's Sanhedrin that was a Civil Court and the Head of their State did give Rules and Orders which their Priests were bound to obey when not contrary to the Law of God We are sure this was the Rule in our Saviour's time and it was never censured nor reproved by him nor by the Apostles The Argument is also strong that is drawn from the constant practice of the Church from the time that she first had the protection of the Civil Authority till the times of the Papal Domination in which we find the Emperours all along making Laws concerning all the Administrations of the Church we find them receiving Appeals in all Church matters which they appointed such Bishops as hapned to be about their Courts to examine This was like our Court of Delegates for the Bishops who judged those matters did not act according to Canon or by the Ecclesiastical
next to examine the Pretences for disjointing this Union among our selves and see whether the main Body among us I mean our Church has imposed unlawful terms of Communion on her Members for if that is true we by so doing have broke this Union or whether any who have separated from us have not done it upon less binding Considerations for then they have broken the Union This I will manage with all possible fairness and without the least reflection on Persons and Parties I will state their grounds and put their Arguments with the utmost force that I can apprehend belongs to them and when I have weighed them I will leave the whole matter to an Impartial consideration The first point in which every man must fix his thoughts is that it is not free to him to chuse to which Body he will join himself as it is free to him to chuse in which Parish he will settle himself for since all Parishes make but one Communion and Church the one cannot be compared to the other And if all that was said before is true then certainly it is not lawful for any man to break the Union of the Body unless he is persuaded that it cannot be maintained but upon unlawful terms Therefore except a man is under this persuasion he sins if he departs from the Union of the Body But since Conscience is a word that may be used in the following part of this Discourse its true notion ought to be well setled which is according to the natural signification of the word in all Languages an inward persuasion founded upon some reason apprehended to be true concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a thing By this it will appear that a bare aversion or dislike to a thing without any reason on which that dislike is grounded cannot be called Conscience since things with which we are not acquainted or that are uncouth to us which we have often heard spoken against are disliked by us through a habit or prejudice conceived against them but unless this is founded upon some reason that appears to us true drawn either from the nature of things or from the Scriptures it is not Conscience I do not say that every man under these Convictions must be able to maintain those his Reasons to others to be just and good for then a better Arguer who can silence him should be able to alter his Conscience But though he cannot answer Objections yet as long as his Persuasion appears to be well grounded to himself such a man is still under the bonds of his Conscience I am not now to examine how far an erring Conscience obliges or at least excuses it is enough to have stated in general the true Notion of Conscience by which every man that does not intend to deceive himself may certainly know whether he is really under the persuasions of Conscience or if he is only guided by Humour Conceit or the power of Education and Prejudice The main Foundation out of which most of the Objections against some of the Terms of our Communion are rais'd is this That the Church is only empower'd to execute those Rules and Orders that are set Christians in the Scriptures That the pretending to add to these is to accuse the Scripture as defective That all Additions to those Rules set us in Scripture are Superstitious Usages That they impose a yoke upon us and so deprive us of our Christian Liberty That if some Rites may be added others upon the like reasons may be also added to these and so on without bounds as in Fact it appears That when the Church went once off from the first simplicity in which the Apostles deliver'd the Christian Religion to the World and that new Rites were invented to beautify the Worship these Additions did at last swell up to that intolerable height in which they are now in the Church of Rome In Religious Matters it is not enough according to St. Paul's Rule that a thing is lawful it must also be expedient But for that pretended expediency which is alledged for some Rites that they are expressive and significant it is rather an Argument against them for a significant Ceremony is of the nature of a Sacrament the common definition of which that it is a visible sign of an invisible Grace agreeing to it and certainly the appointing Sacraments is above the power of the Church and can belong only to Iesus Christ who is its Head and Founder But all this is in appearance the stronger if Rites so enjoin'd have been abus'd to Idolatry and are parts of an Idolatrous Worship To retain these is to conform our selves to it tho the Scriptures command us to come out from among all such and not to be conformable to them Hezekiâ— broke the Brazen Serpent tho a Memorial of a signal Miracle in which it had been in some sort an Instrument yet when even that was abus'd to Idolatry a good King broke it to pieces This will hold stronger against things that are but of human Institution That they ought to be taken away how innocent soever they may be in themselves after they are grosly abus'd To keep up the use of such things is to scandalize and offend the weaker Christians tho St. Paul lays great weight upon this and charges all Christians not to lay a stumbling-block in one anothers way he calls the doing otherwise the destroying a weak Brother and in conclusion since St. Paul said whatsoever is not of faith is sin these Rites therefore not being warranted from Scripture cannot be of Faith the Object of which is a Divine Revelation they must therefore be sinful And thus I have set down all the Branches of the Plea against Ceremonies with as much advantage as I can imagine belongs to them I go therefore in the next place to take it to pieces and to examine the strength of the whole and of every part of this Reasoning that as must be acknowledg'd wants not fair and specious colours The main stress lies upon this Whether the Church in her Rituals is so limited to the Scriptures that she has no power to add any thing to what is prescribed in them Great difference is to be made between matters of Doctrine Rules of Life Foederal Acts together with the other Acts of Worship which are parts of the New Covenant or conditions of it and some Ritual Appointments such as the Circumstances of those Instituted Acts the forms for the Solemn Acts of Worship together with some other Institutions which are helps to Devotion and do fix or raise the attention For the former sort it is confess'd That Christ and his Apostles having deliver'd this Religion to the World it must continue in the same state in which they setled it without additions or variations but since all instituted Actions must be determined by the Circumstances of persons places times words and postures these must be all manag'd with such
one another in such cases The one is not to set a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in another man's way that is not to use our liberty in such instances or on such occasions as may draw other men to act in imitation of us against their own Consciences This is the true notion of giving scandal or the laying a trap in the way of another by which he may fall or be catched And this every man is to avoid when it is free for him to act or not as he pleases for in that case only he is under this obligation and caution since otherwise if he is determined by any Law Divine or Humane he must go on and do his duty without considering what consequences may happen upon it for which he is not accountable since he is not at liberty to dispose of himself but is concluded by a higher Authority The other Rule is That we ought as much as may be to avoid doing any thing that may grieve other Christians which is said to be walking uncharitably since we ought to have such regard even to the tenderness and weakness of our Brethren as not to do such things as may wound or trouble them still under the former supposition that we are fully at our own liberty and under no law nor obligation to the contrary These are the Rules laid down by St. Paul which when well considered and rightly understood will give a great light into this whole Controversy By these it will appear that even the Apostles themselves who might have assumed a higher strain of Authority yet had great regards to the frailties of those they governed And although most of these Positions and Rules do suppose men to be in a state of an unrestrained liberty so that they do not belong to our case in which Laws and Constitutions have already determined us yet they ought still to have great weight with those that are not concluded by Laws and all such as may have the making or reviewing of Laws under their care and deliberation But I have opened this matter more fully than was perhaps necessary to my present purpose which only required that I should clear some Passages in St. Paul's Epistles that are applied to the Points now under examination though they do not at all belong to them since all that is in St. Paul relates only to such things as were entirely left to mens own liberty and in which it was free to them to act which way soever they pleased which are not at all applicable to established rules setled by Law and recommended by Ancient practice It is true that no Age of the Church since the Apostles days can make Laws for succeeding Ages since the Pastors of every Age have the same Authority that the Pastors of any precedent Age had after the times of Inspiration Whatever was done in a former Age may be altered in a subsequent one And therefore all those Rules of the subordination of Churches one to another being taken from the disposition of the Roman Empire Europe being now totally moulded into another frame are now at the discretion of Princes to cotinue or change them at their pleasure And all the Rituals of the Church are in the power of every Age to alter or continue them as they shall see cause but till they are altered they bind not by reason of any Authority that former Ages had over the present but because the present Age by not repealing former Rules and Canons does tacitly and interpretatively confirm and renew them For if the Pastors of the present Age in concurrence with and a due subordination to the Civil Powers have an Authority to make Laws or Canons in such matters they have likewise a power to continue such as were made in any former Age and they are presumed and in Law taken to do that till they repeal them I have now gone through the general Plea that is brought against our Constitutions from general Topicks and have I hope shewed that there is no force in any part of it I come next to consider such things as are objected more specially to several particulars in our Constitution They except to the Government of the Church because of the different Ranks of Bishop Priest and Deacon whereas the Scriptures use Bishop and Priest so promiscuously that from thence it seems reasonable to infer that they are one and the same Function and that there ought to be but two Ranks Bishop and Diacon in the Church But those who object this have really among them but one Function and Order since they have no Diacons in the sense of St. Paul's Epistles who are a Degree of Men dedicated to the Service of God out of which as any served well in it they were advanced to a superior Degree and were ever esteemed a Sacred Order of Men. There are none such among those who urge this Matter against us The Promiscuous use of Names does not prove the Offices the same The Apostles are called sometimes Deacons or Ministers and so are their Companions in Labour for the term Diacon signifying any one that Ministred It was not then appropriated to the lowest Order no more than Presbyter was to the second for the Apostles call themselves sometimes Deacons so that from hence an Argument might be drawn as well to prove that Deacons are equal in Rank to the highest Order of Bishops We plainly see That God setled three Orders of Officers in the Iewish Temple We see also in their Synagogues that there were three different Ranks taken probably from the Model of the Temple We see our Saviour chose twelve Apostles and afterwards Seventy Disciples having in that no doubt a regard both to the numbers of their Tribes and of their Sanhedrin We plainly see that during the Apostles lives the governing and ordering of the Church was in them yet they constituted some in their Name to govern a large extent of Churches and by their Epistles to these it is plain That the Power of governing those Churches and of ordaining new Officers in them belonged to them they being the Persons to whom that trust was committed with solemn Charges given them for it by the Apostles We plainly see two distinct Orders of Bishop and Deacon as two Sacred Functions that were to labour in the work of the Gospel and we find by the short Epistles in the beginnings of the Revelation that there was one Man who had the Immediate Charge of those Churches to whom every thing relating to them is addressed as to a Person that was accountable for the rest and that by consequence must be suppos'd to have an Authority over them We see immediately after the days of the Apostles that all the Churches were cast into one Mould of Bishop Priest and Diacon This taking place every where and that at a time when no Meetings of the Clergy could be held to establish any such Form and that no
Laws of Princes were made to Enact it and no Men of Authority could so early and so universally have brought such a change into the Order of the Church when there was nothing to tempt any to affect Preheminence Labour and Sufferings being all that then follow'd this Superiour Rank and yet within less than one Century after the days of the Apostles we do plainly see that this was the Constitution even of those Churches that had been gathered and setled by the Apostles themselves Among whom so visible a thing as the Order in which they had put the Church could not possibly be soon forgotten and this was not complain'd of by the Sects of those days particularly the Montanists that had so fair an appearance by their praying and fasting so much that not only Tertullian was drawn away by it but even the Church seems to have taken a Tincture from some of their Methods whether in imitation of them or on design to out-do them is not so easy to determine yet nothing of this kind was ever objected as if the Church had by the Authority given to Bishops departed from the Apostolical Customs Now I will acknowledge that a bare practice tho very Ancient such as the giving the Eucharist to Infants without a colour for it in Scripture ought not to conclude us but when there is a great deal in Scripture that looks favourably to a thing tho the proof from the words alone should not seem full and positive and when the first Writings and clearest Practices of the Ages that immediately follow'd confirms such an Exposition then we have all that is possible for us to pretend to for giving a fixed and determinate sense to such passages From all this then it is clear that we are now upon the same Constitution as to the main on which the Apostles setled the Churches and that we have all the reason that a thing of this nature is capable of to conclude That the distinction of Bishop Priest and Deacon was setled by the Apostles themselves and is related to by many places in the New Testament The division of the World into Diocesses larger or narrower as well as of Parishes some being excessively large and others as unreasonably small does not a whit alter the nature of the thing in it self since tho' it were to be desir'd that Parishes were nearer an equality in point of Labour and Cure yet this is an Inconvenience that we must bear and not disturb the Church by seeking undue Remedies for it So such Disorders as a length of time a corruption of Manners a change of Governments and Civil Policies has brought into a Constitution may put it out of our Power to procure the Redress of many things that yet will as little warrant a renting the Body or dividing the Church upon any such account as it would justify the lazy Sloth of such as may bring things to a better State and yet do not set about it nor do heartily endeavour it Another head of Objections is to set-forms of Prayer in general as a stinting of the Spirit of Prayer of which mention is often made in the New Testament and which ought to have scope given to it since it is a mean to rouze up and quicken heavy minds which become flat when accustom'd to a constant form of Words that render both the Clergy lazy and the People Dead But when it is consider'd that every Man's words become a form to which all the rest of the Assembly is limited the question then lies naturally between the sudden conceptions of one Man who is often young rash without Judgment and who always speaks on the sudden and between a form well digested and prepared by a Body of wise and good Men Since then the People must be under a Form it may seem much more reasonable that they should be under such a form than under the other and that the rather since we see Moses David and the Prophets of old gave the Jewish Church so many forms both for Prayers and Praises We know that in our Saviour's time the Iews had a stated Liturgy of their own which our Saviour was so far from blaming that he himself prescribed his Disciples a Form and compos'd it out of theirs laying together so many Petitions drawn out of their Prayers as answer'd his end in appointing his own And Praises seeming to be the sublimest Acts of Worship in which the Soul ought to arise to its highest Elevation it is not easily accountable why so much excitation should be required in Prayer while Men are left to be still flat and formal in their Praises It is not to be deni'd but that among the extraordinary Gifts that follow'd the wonderful Effusion of the Holy Ghost one was That Men were Inspir'd to offer up such Prayers to God as comprehended the necessities of whole Congregations it appearing in those Prayers that the Spirit in him that pray'd searched all their Hearts and so did prompt him with groanings that were unutterable and it thus appearing that the Spirit or Inspiration which moved any to pray in this sort searched all things every Man finding the sense of his own Heart thus open'd together with suitable Intercessions it was from thence evident that this was the Spirit of God making Intercession for the Saints in the mouth and words of the Inspir'd Person This being a plain account of those words of Praying in or by the Spirit and well agreeing with every thing said concerning it in the New Testament it is a great mistake if we in these days should expect any such Assistances from God So that now a readiness of new or tender Expressions in Prayer is an effect of a quickness of Thought a liveliness of Imagination together with a good Memory much conversant in Scripture-Phrases and long practised in that way All things by a long use grow flat to minds that are not seriously awaken'd but extemporary Prayers do rather kill than feed true Devotion since they must be hearkened to as Discourses which is a distraction to him that Prays after them whereas those accustom'd to set-forms have only the things themselves that their Devotion relate to in their view so they are certainly less tempted to distraction than they must be who follow the other way Those sudden starts that are given to the mind by soft Words and melting Images of things may be according to the different Compositions of Men more or less useful to them in their secret Exercises but they ought not to be let in upon publick Assemblies which being made up of a great variety of Tempers must be entertain'd only with such Devotions that suit with all their Conditions and do equally quadrate to all their necessities and thus it is not only natural but necessary for all Men who will maintain Order in their Worship and will frame it in so diffus'd an extent as to take all equally within it that they have