or Services performed by their Friends afterwards whereby simple Souls must necessarily be entangled in the Snares of their Sins there being so great likelihood that Pardon being held forth upon such undue grounds the corruption of our Nature will take hold of and presume upon it when we have not wrought in our selves a true Repentance That in those things which they call Sacraments they will not suffer us to distinguish either in that Grace which the Ceremony signifieth or in the Force whereby they concur to the obtaining of it whereas our Christianity requires us to distinguish between Graces given to this or that particular effect and those that are given for the general and perpetual subsistence of Christianity and likewise between those Offices that are effective of Grace by virtue of a peculiar and special promise to those effects and others that are only used by the Church out of a hope that our Prayers shall be heard to those effects That they conceive Christ present in the Eucharist after such a manner as it does no way appear he promised his Presence therein that hereupon it is required that Adoration due to God alone be given to the Sacrament which if the Elements remain is by themselves confessed to be Idolatry and therefore may justisiably by us who know them to remain be so accounted That without warrant they make the Eucharist a Sacrifice as distinct from a Sacrament and of a greater virtue as a Sacrifice than when it is received as a Sacrament according to our Saviour's Institution That they warrant it propitiatory for those who use it not according to his Institution whereby they frustrate the End of his blessing Bread and Wine and commanding it to be received and likewise void the necessity of a Christian Life applying the Benefits of Christ's Sacrament to such as come not worthily to partake of it and pretending it efficacious to ease them of punishments which they are to suffer for sins after Death That whilst they with-hold the Cup from the Laity they void Christ's Institution who enjoyned and appointed both they likewise rob Christians of their Birthright and cannot warrant one part of this Sacrament beneficial to all those effects for which Christ was pleased to bless both Bread and Wine That whilst they plead for Traditions they thereby endeavour to obtrude upon us their own Corruptions and by these instead of interpreting pervert the Scriptures and by Traditions of men have indeed in many things made void the Comandments of God That by claiming an Authority for the Church above the Scriptures which they do to justifie what the Church of Rome has decreed against them they do indeed advance an Authority that may destroy our common Christianity That in pleading their Pope universal Bishop not to speak of their Ambition in this Aim they require us to submit to an Authority for the sake of Unity which is not only none of God's Ordinance but such as Experience has shewn to have almost wholly destroyed that Christianity which Unity should preserve Having shewn I say the danger of these Doctrines in particular and their inconsistence with Christianity when I reflect upon them all together and find that our Union with the Church of Rome requires submission to them all must conclude that whatever allowance might be made in some one of them provided that the rest of that Christian Truth which they hold did so prevail over the Error that it did not take effect in their practices to God's Dishonour or the subversion of a Christian Life yet to submit to them all as we must do if we will have peace with the Church of Rome is to redeem the Communion of the Church by transgressing that Christianity which the Church is appointed to maintain and absolutely to prostitute our own and the Souls committed to our Charge The Case is little otherwise in those other things which M. Condom lets alone as things of themselves not sufficient matter of Separation these if taken together though singly they may not be very considerable render the Means of Salvation very difficult since the Substance of Christianity being overwhelmed and choaked with a deal of Rubbish Opinions Customs Observations Ceremonies c. it is a thing very difficult for simple Christians to discern the Substance from the Shadow and almost impossible to pass through such a multitude of Observations Customs and Ceremonies which create so much business in the Practice of Religion and upon which so great Zeal is spent without Superstion and Will-Worship and a fond Opinion of those Services placing their hope of God's Favour upon these carnal Observations and humane Inventions which indeed are nothing to the Reality of Religion So that these at least must be allowed to add to that Mass of Corruption which they seek to obtrude upon us though of themselves they are not of such a poysonous Nature But though we cannot joyn with them without manifest prejudice to our Christianity yet it is most easie for them to come to us and would be for the great advantage of our Christian Religion as even themselves must and do acknowledge For first Those Doctrines which are established by the Church of England at least such as concern the Foundation of Faith have been in all Ages professed by the Church of Rome itself This M. Condom allows as to Fundamentals That the Church of Rome holds all which the Reformers do They further agree with us That we are to pray unto God through Christ That God may be worshipped in Spirit without an Image That we may have recourse to him in all our Necessities without seeking the Relicks of Saints That Jesus Christ is the meritorious cause of our Justification That men may do good Works and shall never fail of Salvation through not confiding in them That there be two Sacraments which have the Promise of Grace That Christ is really and spiritually received by some in the Lord's Supper That Christ made an Oblation of himself upon the Cross for the Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction of the whole World And where they with hold the Cup from the Laity and forbid the Administration of the Sacraments in the vulgar Tongue yet even in these they condescend to us for the Lawfulness of the Practice even in respect to the Law of God and oppose them only in regard of their necessity and conveniency and for that the Church of Rome hath otherwise ordained They acknowledge likewise the Authority of written word of God and the Design of Providence in their being written for our Learning They acknowledge the Church does and ought to act in deciding Controversies of Faith according to the Scripture committed to her and to tell us nothing from herself and invent nothing new in her Doctrine Again secondly The Truths we hold even by the judgment of several of the Learned Writers of the Church of Rome have been in all ages deemed sufficient to salvation so that we reject no
innovation seeing she not only submits herself to the Holy Scriptures but has obliged herself to interpret them in what relates to Faith and Manners according to the sense of the holy Fathers from which she promiseth never to depart declaring in all her Councils and in all the Professions of Faith she has published that she does not receive any Doctrine which is not conformable to the Tradition of all preceding ages If it be really so that she does in all things thus submit herself what need he have given us all this trouble to prove that she ought against his vain endeavours to exempt her from it Then all that we have depending is only Tryal of Matters of Fact whether she has really contained herself within the bounds she professes ought to limit her decisions and this claim of infallibility ought to be by them wholly laid aside otherwise the World will never believe she has confined herself to bounds that she endeavours to claim a power of exceeding as I cannot think this Gentleman in conscience knows her to have acted only within them when he takes so much pains to create her an authority above them But to what purpose does M. Condom tell us No one prudent man amongst us but if he found himself the only man of a perswasion though it appeared to him never so evident but would be ashamed of that singularity for is this the case of the Reformed part of the Christian World are they but as one man But since he wishes us to consult with prudence we may desire him to do the like and consider what prudence it is for a man blindly to give up his judgments to others and be of a Religion because he has many companions refusing out of idleness either to examine or come to a tryal of that Religion or fearing the event of such a tryal resolving before he enter upon it on a ground from which he will never be dispossessed such as I have too great cause to fear himself has resolved on that what he cannot by his skill make good from Scripture and Truth he will still believe upon the Authority of the Church And I think this reason if any thing may be grounded upon humane prudence concerning God's commands does more evidently shew that God has never required us to give up a blind obedience to any authority of man than that given by him that God has set up an authority to which every private man must subject his understanding in all truths though appearing never so evidently unto him SECT XIX Of the Sentiments of the Reformed about the Authority of the Church ALthough I need not concern my self with several Objections which M. Condom makes from several determinations of Synods in France about the Authority of the Church yet having shewn the Church to have no such absolute and infallible Authority as he claims for it I ought to set down the Church of England's Sentiments and consider whether any thing in them is liable to those Objections She then supposes that a Church may err even in matters of Faith and 1 Artic. 19. declares several to have thus erred nevertheless she claims 2 Art 20. for the Church Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies and even Authority in Matters of Faith though however it be not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word nor so to expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another nor inasmuch as she is a keeper of Holy Writ ought she to decree any thing against the same or besides the same to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation 3 Art 21. And even General Councils may err and have erred even in things pertaining to God wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture Now herein you see our Church claims a power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and even an authority in Matters of Faith but then she confines it so within the limits of God's Word that she can decree nothing against the same nor impose any thing besides the same to be believed of necessity to salvation And herein till it be proved that she has exceeded those limits which truth obliges her to own prescribed unto her by God's Word I see but two Objections that will lie against her The first How not claiming Infallibility she claims Authority in Matters of Faith To which I answer That God having left means in his Church when Matters of our common Faith shall become disputable to end and decide them she that has proceeded according to those means may well require submission to her Authority whilst she shews herself to all to have proceeded aright in the use of those means which God has left in his Church and there is no more necessity that she should be infallible upon this account to make her Authority received than that she should be able actually and immediately to forgive sins when she requires a subjection to her Ministry in working their cure The second That if she be not infallible in her decisions then they may be subject to the examination of every private man and being so any one may find fault with them and so away is open for the introducing as many Religions as men To which I answer first That it is one thing to clear the Truth another to answer an Objection and if I should not be able to give satisfaction to this Objection yet the Truth that I have cleared will stand firm till the contrary be proved by evident Principles of our Christianity To this I say then secondly That it 's an Objection of that absurdity that it can never rationally be used by any considering man View it but in other instances a Father may command a Son to do wickedness the Son certainly is not bound to obey him though he be to obey his Father any Son may under this pretence refuse obedience to commands just and good but to avoid this inconvenience shall it be made a necessary Truth that a Father cannot command an unlawful act Or go to a greater case All the World knows we have had a Leviathan that has pleaded that the Supream Magistrate ought to be obeyed in all his commands that the Scriptures are not Laws to a People till the Laws of the Land have made them so that the sense of them is to be interpreted by the Civil Magistrate that man may even deny Christ with his mouth so he believe in his heart at the command or compulsion of his Superior and all upon this ground because otherwise if men may pretend any Laws of God to exempt them from obedience to their King any man may use this pretence and so under a pretence of conscience all government may be destroyed unless the commands of the Supream Magistrate be allowed such as are absolutely to
Can. 14 Or that these satisfactory works are not the Worship of God but men's Traditions 4 Can. 15. Or that the Keys of the Church were not given to bind to this effect and therefore that the Priests who enjoyn these punishments use not the Keys to a right end and according to Christs institution or that it is a fiction that after the Remission of the Eternal punishment there most commonly does remain a Temporal the payment of which the Church in its exercise of the Keys ought to see to 5 Sess 6. Can. 30. Or that every fault and punishment is so wholly remitted to every Justified and Penitent man at the time of death that there remains no pain to be endured in Purgatory before an entrance is opened to him into Heaven All which Anathema's are denounced without the least warrant of Scripture rather in opposition to it And now in all this you see I have waved the charge of those abuses which are too apparent in each of these practices SECT IX Of the Sacraments COncerning Sacraments in general the Church of England Art 25. holds That they are more than badges of our Profession or than representative signs of Grace being sure witnesses and effectual signs of it by which God does invisibly work in us and seems to allow them Instruments of the Holy Ghost for it says of Baptism that thereby as by Art 27. an Instrument we are grafted into the Church of Christ Only as to that which renders them effectual to us we differ in two things for they seem to leave out that which we make absolutely necessary and on the other side make something of absolute necessity which we deny to be such The Church of England necessarily requires Faith in the receivers and the rest of those preparations which the Scriptures require in those that come unto them The Roman Church teaches that they confer Grace by vertue of the words which are pronounced and the exteriour action which is performed upon condition that we put not any impediment by not being rightly disposed But in that many of that Church have since explained themselves that when they say the Sacraments do confer Grace ex opere operato they do not mean to exclude the necessity of repentance faith and all other necessary qualifications in the receiver but only that the Sacraments have a virtue in them from Christ's institution which virtue is not barely the effect of faith in him that receives but also of the promise of Christ annext to that work this Controversie seems to be chiefly about words and their ill and offensive manner of expressing themselves for we as we require faith and other qualifications in the receiver do also in owning these Sacraments to be Christ's Institution acknowledge their virtue from that Institution though those qualifications are requisite in us to partake of their efficacy according to the Divine Promise What they on the other side require as absolutely necessary is the intention of the Priest to do what the Church intends without which the Sacrament is not effectual This is by us rejected in that since no man has assurance of securing the Priest's intention if this were absolutely necessary to produce the effect there could be no assurance of its ever coming to effect upon us We therefore say that the Sacraments being of Christ's Institution and taking effect by his promise all that preparedly come to wait on him in the Ordinances of his Church have warrant of their effect from that promise be the Minister's intention what it will As to the necessity of these Sacraments we that allow their virtue and efficacy from Christ's promise to work in us the graces of the Holy Ghost and communicate the benefits of our blessed Saviour's death cannot be thought to think them necessary or that the neglect of them in any is not the neglect of their salvation But then as to the number of them we find another difference The Church of Rome counts seven Baptism Eucharist Penance Confirmation Orders Matrimony and Extream Unction The Church of England acknowledges but two Baptism and the Eucharist Artic. 25. i. e. as ordained of Christ in the Gospel and as generally necessary to salvation the other five she counts not Sacraments of the Gospel being such as have grown partly from the corrupt following of the Apostles partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures but yet have not like nature with the other two for that they have not any visible sign ordained by God There might indeed have been an easie end put to this dispute if both sides had but considered one anothers meaning and the Church of Rome had not put so great a bar to this consideration by denouncing Anathema against all that should say the Sacraments are more or less than Seven without sufficiently explaining the difference that is really between them For the word Sacrament in the general may says our Homily be attributed to Hom. of Common Prayer and Sacraments any thing whereby an holy thing is signified but in a strict acceptation or according to the exact signification of a Sacrament it means a visible sign expresly commanded in the New Testament whereto is annext the promise of free forgiveness of sins and of our union with Christ and in this sense our Church acknowledges but two and there acquaints us with the reasons why she does not receive the other Sacraments necessary to salvation and in what manner she does receive them Absolution she owns to have the promise of forgiveness of sins yet since this promise is not by any express words in the New Testament annext to the visible sign Imposition of hands used with it she counts it not a Sacrament as the other That though there be a grace by promise annext to the exercise of it yet there is no particular visible sign of necessity to be used in it to which that promise is confined as to Water in Baptism That though Order has both a visible sign and a promise of grace yet it has not the promise of forgiveness of sins i. e. it has a promise of grace only to a particular effect not to the general effect of the Gospel That Confirmation used in examining persons in the Christian faith and joyning thereto the Prayers of the Church for them also Matrimony Visitation of the Sick are still retained by the Order of the Church and ought to be though not as properly Sacraments yet either as states of life worthy to be set forth by publick action and by the Ministry or as such Ordinances as make for the instruction comfort and edification of Christ's Church Supposing hereby undoubtedly that they want not grace to their proper effects in what the general promise of God to hear the Prayers of his Church may give them leave to hope from those Prayers that are used with them And it is not without reason that our Church maintains this distinction
great advantages by his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Calvinists in this point I thought my self unconcerned with his Objections the Church of England not having tyed her Faith to Calvin or any other but grounded it on the Scriptures Only that no man may suspect them to be of any force against the Doctrine held by the Church of England I saw it necessary to set down and explain her Doctrine and see whether any thing here urged can conclude it to be in the least absurd or inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures or with itself The Church of England then teaches 1 Catech. That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Prayer 2 Exhortation at the Communion That we therein spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood we dwell in Christ and Christ in us we are one with Christ and he with us 3 Art 28. The Bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ and likewise the Cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ 4 Homily of the Sacrament That we must be sure to hold that there is no vain Ceremony no bare sign no untrue figure of a thing absent But as the Scripture saith the table of the Lord the bread and cup of the Lord the memory of Christ the annunciation of his death yea the Communion of the body and blood of the Lord in a marvellous Incorporation which by the operation of the Holy Ghost the very bond of our conjunction with Christ is through Faith wrought in the souls of the faithful whereby not only their souls live to eternal life but they trust also to win their bodies a resurrection to immortality Therefore 5 Prayer of Consecration she prays that in partaking of these his Creatures of bread and wine we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood 6 Catech. That the benefits that we receive by thus partaking of the body and blood of Christ are the strengthning and refreshing of our souls by these as our bodies are by the bread and wine 7 Homily of the Sacrament Ibid. That thus much the faithful see hear and know herein the favourable mercies of God sealed the satisfaction of Christ confirmed and the remission of sins established 8 Art 28. That nevertheless there is no Transubstantiation or Change of the substance of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper 9 Hom. Ib. Wherefore we are not to regard specially the earthly Creatures which remain but always to hold fast and cleave by Faith to Christ the Rock 10 Art 28. Whose body is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner 11 Hom. Ib. Wherefore it is well known the meat we seek is spiritual heavenly and not earthly invisible and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal 12 Art Ib. The means therefore whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith 13 Hom. Ib. So that to think that without Faith we may enjoy the eating his body or drinking his blood is but to dream a gross and carnal feeding basely binding our selves to the Elements and Creatures As for those then that hold it no more than a bare sign and the Celebration and Communion thereof barely the renewing our Profession or a remembrance only of Christ Crucified whom it representeth they are wide from the Church of England on the one side as the Church of Rome on the other Nor do those who only hold it a sign effective to apply the benefits of the death of Christ not supposing it to tender Christ as present to us and to be received by us before we partake in the benefits of his death express exactly in my judgment the sense of our Church Although there is so near a conjunction of Christ with his benefits that one cannot well be apprehended without the other I conceive therefore that in the sense of our Church not only the benefits of Christ but Christ himself is tendred to us in this Holy Sacrament and is to be eaten by us before we partake of his benefits not that we are bodily to partake of him for this end but in that it seems to be the intention of our blessed Savour under these Elements to give us himself and to put us in the actual possession of himself so that in the use of this ordinance as verily as a man does bodily receive the earthly Creatures so verily does he spiritually receive the body and blood of Christ For our better apprehension of which Mystery it will be necessary more particularly to consider what it is which we do hereby receive and in what manner we are made partakers of it Concerning the first the truth which we hold you see is this that we do not here receive only the benefits that flow from Christ but the very body and blood of Christ i. e. Christ himself Crucified for as the bread and wine avails not to our bodily sustenance unless the substance of those Creatures be first received so neither do we partake of the benefits of Christ to our spiritual relief except we have first a Communion with Christ himself This the words of our blessed Saviour Joh 6. 57 Encline me to believe where he says that he that eateth him shall live by him intimating that we must be partakers of him before we can have life from him So the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. 16 The bread which we break Is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ evidently imply that we are therein to partake of Christ himself This I take to be that great mystery of our union with Christ whereby we are made members of his body of his flesh and of his bones And this I look upon to be that 〈◊〉 the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God in the 6th of St. John But now if it be demanded how we can eat the flesh of Christ and partake of his body and blood to conceive this eating in a carnal sense is as gross an imagination as that of those Joh. 6 who asked within themselves How can this man give us his flesh to eat we must not think then that we cannot truly feed on Christ unless we receive his substance into our bellies but must consider that the eating and drinking our Saviour speaks of must be spiritual according to the nature of his Gospel and therefore we must enquire therein what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now then if we consider what appetites are in our souls and what those appetites crave or ought at least to long after we shall easily discern what it is to eat and drink spiritually Now we know that in the 5th of St. Matthew our Saviour intimates to us that we ought to have a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness which
appetites being necessarily required in us no man can hence have so gross an imagination as to conceive that we must take in the righteousness thus hungred and thirsted after at our mouths as we do our bodily food Consider then withal the words of our Lord Joh. 6. 35 36 I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst But I said unto you You have also seen me and believed not And compare it with Vers 63 64 It is the spirit that quickneth the flesh prositeth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life But there are some of you that believe not And judg from hence Whether our Lord does not propose himself as that food which can give satisfaction to the spiritual hunger and thirst of our souls and if so whether it can be thought that he is to be received any otherwise than spiritually for the satisfaction of those appetites that are spiritual And then withal consider Vers 27 Labour not for the meat that perisheth but that which shall endure to eternal life and Vers 28 What shall we do to work the works of God And 29 This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent And I suppose it will perfectly appear that our Saviour speaks not here of any eating but what is spiritual and that inasmuch as when the People questioned him What they should do to work the works of God upon his exhorting them to labour after the meat that endureth to life eternal he answers them that to do his works is to believe on him whom he hath sent and again tells us that he that cometh to him shall never hunger and he that believeth on him shall never thirst and again that his words are spirit and life but 〈◊〉 of them would not believe them Hereby he fully shews us thâ—… â—…at him is to believe and lay hold on him by Faith As for the Corporal eating we are expresly told that the flesh thus taken if it might be so taken prositeth nothing whereas taken after that manner that Christ recommendeth to us it is of such profit that it preserveth the eater from death and maketh him to live for ever It is not therefore such an eating with which every man that brings a bodily mouth can receive him but a spiritual uniting of us to Christ whereby he dwelleth in us and we in him Neither is it in the least necessary that Christ should be bodily present which were indeed necessary were our eating corporal or carnal but being altogether spiritual and supernatural there is no necessity of his local presence It is sufficient for a spiritual union with Christ that he and we though distant in place be knit together by that spiritual nexture which is intimated to us by St. John namely the quickning spirit derived from him our Head to us his Members and a lively faith wrought by the same spirit proceeding from us to lay hold on him That this operation of the spirit is that which constitutes our union with Christ cannot be doubted by any that will consider how the Scripture tells us on the one hand 1 1 Cor. 15. 45. That Christ is made unto us a quickning spirit 2 Joh. 5. 21. That he quickneth whom he will 3 Joh. 1. 16. That he having received the spirit without measure we all partake of his fulness And on the other side 1 1 Cor. 6. 17. That he that is joyned the Lord is one spirit 2 Eph. 4. That we are all partakers of the same spirit 3 1 Joh. 4. 13. That hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us by the spirit that he hath given us For what can give a more plain evidence than this that our union with Christ is wrought by the operation of this spirit of his descending from him upon us and working those graces in us that lift up our souls to take hold on and cleave unto him The same is also plain from hence that the Just are said to live by faith for are we not properly said to live by that whereby we receive our food Thus Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3. 17. That this is perfectly the sense of the Church of England is evident from what I have made appear already in that she teaches 1 Artic. 28. That the body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Lord's Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner and the means whereby it is received and eaten is faith And again 2. That this marvellous incorporation of Christ with us is wrought by the operaration of the holy Ghost the very bread of our conjunction with Christ through faith in the hearts of the faithful And having thus truly received the body and blood of Christ by faith and being hereby perfectly united to him we partake in all the benefits of his Death and Passion and are put in the possession of these benefits by our first possessing him But if still it be pleaded by M. Condom that we cannot thus distinguish between the participation of our blessed Saviour and our participation of the fruits of his Death unless we distinguish between the participation of his divine body and all spiritual participations by faith and that if we participate of both spiritually by faith we cannot participate of them as things distinct I may upon good reason deny his supposition and say that we do perfectly distinguish them and yet participate of both by faith spiritually for what should hinder but that a man may conceive he partakes of things distinct and yet partakes of both the same way as a man eats different meats in one way of eating but yet discovers them to be different If he should yet require me to explain what I mean by eating Christ spiritually by Faith he puts me upon a thing very difficult not because it is not easily conceived but because it is most obvious to our apprehensions for who can by plainer words express what our Saviour means by hungring and thirsting after righteousness whereas it is not any difficulty of apprehending his meaning that makes it thus difficult to be expressed otherways but that those words are so obvious to our understandings that nothing can better express it to our conception But however to give a more full satisfaction I shall endeavour if possible to be yet more plain For this purpose therefore I must suppose That God's tender of his Son Christ to us in the Sacrament does not greatly differ from his tender of him to the World when he became flesh and dwelt among us any further than a general tender to the whole World from a peculiar tender to this or that particular person and an offer of him as of one that was sent to be the Saviour of the World from the offer of him as he has saved
a thing very greatly to be feared whilst the substance under it is the blood of Christ. Thirdly Many men cannot abide the taste nor smell of wine wherefore that that which was ordained for spiritual health might not prejudice the health of the Body it was very wisely enacted by the Church that all her faithhful Children should receive one kind alone To this may be added other reasons That in some Countries wine is scarce and cannot be gotten without long and tedious Journeys But that which is most of all to the purpose the Heresie of such was to be rooted out as declared whole Christ to be under both Species and said the Body only was contained in the bread and the blood in the wine But he further tells us That the Church has reserved to her self the re-establishment of both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity 'T is well she has kept to herself a Power of re-establishing that which she never had Power to dis-establish but how forward she has been to do any thing towards Peace and Unity all the World sees by her sirst occasioning so great a breach by this very thing And to me her last reason that she gives makes it evident that she still maintains and justifies her Sacriledg which robs Christians of their Birthright to the apparent prejudice of Peace yea to the rendring Unity impossible unless men will part with their Christianity But it 's most ridiculous when he comes to conclude from the concession of some Protestants That bread alone might be administred in case a man made protestation of a natural aversion to wine that therefore according to the Principles of the Reformed the matter in question regards not Faith and so is altogether in the Power of the Church For without determining whether their decision be right or wrong can it be argued from them that allow the Church may administer it only in one Species in case of such necessity that therefore the Church has authority to refuse administring it in both wheresoever she pleases to refuse it Can it be said that those who allow her a Power to dispense with some in case of absolute necessity do thereby allow her any Power to prohibit all People who are not comprehended in the case and being not comprehended look upon themselves greatly injured by being thus deprived of it And whereas he infers from hence that it regards not Faith his argument is as strong as if because the Jews were not circumcised in the Wilderness it should be said the Synagogue might have dispensed afterwards with that Law and said that Circumcision was not essentially necessary to a Jew because in a case of necessity where it could not be used Jews had lived without it SECT XVII Of the written and unwritten Word WHereas he says That the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this did not lose its Authority so that whatever was taught by the Apostles by Writing or Word of Mouth is to be received with equal veneration and that it is a sign that a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally received by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning I must not admit it but with these limitations First That nothing shall be imposed on us as a Doctrine coming from the Apostles but what shall evidently appear to have been universally received by all Christian Churches without beginning and that as fully to in all the parts of it that shall now be pleaded for For it is in vain to tell us that some things were delivered by the Apostles by Word of Mouth and those that have been from the beginning so received in the Christian Church universally throughout all Ages and Places ought to be looked upon as such unless what ever they would have us submit to as such be made appear so to be Secondly That these Traditions be not acknowledged of themselves sufficient to build any matter of Faith upon and this for two Reasons one because we cannot have that certainty of these as ought to be had to ground any thing as necessary to salvation of this all the Scriptures are an evident proof for undoubtedly the Apostles wrote not any thing to their Churches which they had not by preceding instructions gave them ability to understand notwithstanding which we see those instructions are now in great part lost though the Scriptures are preserved and they were so soon gone out of the Church that in a few Ages after the Apostles we find men giving them divers interpretations The other because we are told The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. 15. which though spoken of the Writings of the Old Testament yet since none can deny the Divine Providence to have had the same end in ordering and inspiring the Writers of both namely that the Scriptures should be written for our Learning is as undeniable a Truth with reference to the New as Old Testament so that whatsoever is necessary to salvation must be either contained in or deducible from them Whereupon the Church of England professes That Holy Scripture containeth Art 6. all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be requiredof any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation These exceptions which were necessary in respect of the premises laid down are altogether needless if we look to the Conclusion inferred viz. That we ought not to wonder if they being careful to gather all their Fathers left them should conserve the Deposition of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures Certainly no man ever blamed the Church of Rome for keeping the Tradition she received from the Apostles but for setting up Traditions that were never deposited with her much less with the whole Church The Council of Trent indeed in its first Decree is very reserved concerning Traditions and speaks cautiously thus The Holy Synod finding Christ's Truth and Holy Discipline partly in Scriptures and partly in unwritten Traditions which either were taken from Christ's Mouth by the Apostles or were Sess 4. delivered by the Apostles themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost and have passed as it were from hand to hand to us and following the example of the Orthodox Fathers doth with the like Religious affection receive all the Books of the New and Old Testament as also the Traditions themseves pertaining to Faith and Manners But under this fair pretence of receiving Traditions either taken from Christ's Mouth or delivered by the Apostles themselves and passed from hand to hand unto them they make their Decrees by Traditions of a quite different nature Traditions of yesterday such as appear neither always nor universally received abusing likewise their more ancient to justifie all the abuses time
the whole Church were submitted to upon the certain testimony of those parts of it wherein they had been kept those which had not so evident a testimony being laid aside and received only according to the evidence that appeared of their being Divine Inspirations Nevertheless when they come to be received from the hands of such particular Churches who knew themselves to have had them from Authors known to be divinely inspired there might be some expressions in them which might appear not altogether so agreeable with our common Christianity when they came first to know them which from the beginning they had not And this was certainly the case of Luther in refusing St. James's Epistle notwithstanding the scorns cast upon him for it as of Erasmus in questioning the Epistle to the Hebrews But yet there is always means of redressing such a mistake either in any part of the Church or in any particular member of it so long as there remains means to certifie them from what hand they have been received and how derived from persons in whom the Church was assured the holy Ghost spoke but to set up the Churches bare Authority for this is indeed what our Adversaries desire but what destroys all the nature of the holy Scriptures and makes them to be believed for another reason than this that they are the Dictates of the holy Ghost But in fine he tells us It can only be from this authority that we receive the whole body of the Scripture which all Christians accept as divine before their reading of it has made them sensible of the Spirit of God in it But that there is some little difference between those that are educated in the Christian Church and others that turn Christians at years of understanding he might even as well have said whether the Spirit of God be in it or not in it For if the authority of the Church be that which principally determines them to reverence as Divine Books and upon that authority a man be obliged to receive the whole body of Scripture before he know the Spirit of God to be in it he shall upon the same grounds be obliged still to hold the same whether he find it there or not I am sorry that he thinks all Christians so blind as himself that they build their belief of the Scriptures on no firmer a foundation than he seems to do and am therefore obliged to shew him the ground whereon I build my own belief concerning them When therefore I first seek whereon to ground this belief I enquire after the Testimony not the Authority of the Church i. e. of all those that make profession of Christianity whose consent I look after concerning the Scriptures and when I have found what Writings they agree upon and admit for such the next enquiry is upon what grounds they submit unto them as such and this I find to be their having received them from former Ages successively together with their Christianity then must I trace this successive reception of them from one time to another till I come to those who first received them and there I find the reason upon which they submitted to them to be the evident proofs which the Writers of them had given to shew themselves inspired by God and commissioned to teach his will to the obedience of which they ought to give up themselves whereupon they who had seen God bearing them witness with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost became obliged as to obey their Doctrine so to acknowledge their Writings for the Word of God they being Records of those miraculous Actions which they saw wrought and of those Truths which were taught and proved to be the Will of God And here the very same Motives cause my belief of the Scriptures which caused those first Christians to receive them and submit unto them so that the same reason that moves me to be a Christian resolves me to believe the Scripture But if a man shall ask me since I believe the Scriptures only upon the works done by those Holy Writers which testifie them to have had his Spirit how I am assured that those works were really done I am not afraid to confess my Belief of this to rely on the Credit of God's People all Ages of Christ's Church which have born testimony of it successively so that I submit not my Faith to any Authority that can command it but I see it reasonable to allow my Belief to the Credit of the Church as so many men of common Sense attesting the Truth of those Reasons which the Gospel tenders why they ought to believe Neither is my Faith in either of these Respects a humane Faith but the work of Gods Spirit for as it is that Spirit only which after I have seen the Motives to Christianity inclines me to believe and become a Christian so it is the same Spirit which having shewn me the Evidence that the Scriptures were written by the Messengers of God that works in me an acknowledgment of and submission to them as the Word of God He goes on Being inseparably bound as we are to the holy Authority of the Church by means of the Scriptures which we receive from her hands we learn Tradition also from her and by means of Tradition we learn the true Sense of the Scripture upon which account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrines she does nothing but declare the divine Revelation according to the interior direction of the Holy Ghost which is given to her as a Teacher I profess all the Skill I have cannot make this hang together If by his first words he means we are so inseparably bound to the Authority of the Church by receiving the Scriptures from her that we ought thereupon to receive all that shall be commanded by that Authority I that have shewn we do not believe the Scriptures upon her Authority as a Church but upon her Testimony witnessing the Motives of Faith as a number of men that would not conspire to testifie an Untruth can never own it to have an Authority of itself to command our Faith Indeed as we receive the Scriptures upon her Testimony we learn from the Scriptures that she has an Authority but such an Authority as perhaps will not content M. Condom which being derived from the Scriptures can never have power to act against them and being established only for the Maintenance of Christianity which was before it can never have power to make that a part of Christianity which was not so before the Church was in being Then again though we learn Tradition from her and that Tradition be useful to interpret the Sense of the Scriptures yet we receive not any Tradition upon her Authority as making them Traditions of the Apostles but upon her Testimony shewing that she has received them from them and again those Traditions she does deliver ought not certainly
them as there is if Tradition should lead us as it did the Jews to void the Commandments of God Nor does that Church run so great a hazard which owns the limits that God has set her and acts according to them as the Church that having acted against our common Christianity or at least being accused so to have done claims an absolute and infallible authority to justifie what she cannot defend by God's Word There are but two things wherein they possibly can object to us any hazard or danger that we incur One is That if the Church be not acknowledged Infallible and all obliged to an Absolute submission a way is open for men under this pretence to cast off her Authority and set up Religions according to their own fancies This I have shewn we labour to prevent so far as the Divine Providence has appointed means for its prevention and we think it not safe to set up others of our own invention which may be liable to equal or greater mischiefs another way Nor that it is as certainly probable on the other side That by advancing an absolute and unlimited Authority of the Church our common Christianity may be destroyed by Decrees that may be made which may subvert the foundations of Faith cannot be doubted but must needs be evident to all that know it possible for men to be led by their own Interests or Opinions and have also actually seen by what interests late Councils have been managed and swayed in their Determinations whereby men of good intentions have not been able to bring to pass what they intended and endeavoured for the good of Christianity being overruled by a greater number of men prejudiced and less considerate which has been confess'd even by sincere men of the Roman Communion If they tell us That according to our Principles the Churches Authority is insignificant it being in every man's power to reject it so that it is a very unsufficient means for Peace such as became not the Divine Wisdom to constitute because not certain to take effect Not to repeat what is said before Section 19. but only to shew them how unreasonable it is that they should require us to shew the Reasons of the Divine Providence in its Constitutions that are evident to us when the Reasons of them are not Let them resolve us if the Scriptures be not our Rule of Faith and Manners or if we cannot understand the sense of them without the Churches Authority why they were written or if the Churches Authority be absolute and unlimited why it had not been plainly and expresly told us by God that we must submit our selves in all things to this Authority or why we are bidden to search the Scriptures why God should have suffered the Scriptures to be written when he could not but foresee that the pretence of the Churches Authority clashing with that of the Scriptures is that which has and will disturb our Peace If they tell us of the many Heresies Schisms and Divisions that are seen to have faln out by mens expounding the Scripture for themselves They will give us leave I hope to tell them of the Idolatries Superstitions and other Irreligious Customs and Practices which we see to have fallen out through their exalting the Churches Decrees to the prejudice of Christianity And further that as to those Heresies and Divisions which we see and lament among our selves we are beholden to the Church of Rome and her Emissaries in great part for them who have endeavoured to ruin our common Christianity by another extream only because we would not yield to those things which they have first done to the prejudice of it Besides I am apt to think that even such will have a great Plea at the day of Judgment from the rigorousness of the Church of Rome extending the Churches Authority beyond all bounds that our common Christianity will allow and necessitating well-disposed Christians to refuse submission to it whereby it becoming visible that Christianity is not in all things maintained by the Church necessarily and it not being evidently visible to common sense what bounds being kept her Authority does by God's Law claim submission they have presumed upon their own understandings for the sense of the Scriptures and framed their Religion according to them This I only urge that they may look about them lest they become guilty of the many souls that may miscarry in both extreams whilst they have rendred the means of salvation difficult among themselves and have by pretending to justifie that occasioned others to oversee the due means they should betake themselves to and run as dangerous a way in the other extream So then we are altogether as safe yea much more secure than the Church of Rome for we take that way to confute Heresies and to preserve the purity of Faith which the Divine Providence has appointed appealing to the Scriptures and using the best means for the understanding them and declaring the Authority of the Church acting within the limits set her by God's Word and for the maintenance of that Christianity she is established to preserve They on the contrary pretending to maintain their Church in what she has decreed to the prejudice of Christianity seek to establish a Power that has already prejudiced even in the foundations of Faith and may in probability utterly subvert our Christianity and have thereby given occasion to others to place their Reformation of the Church in the utter renouncing her Authority Nor are they ever the nearer putting an end to Heresies hereby for all their pretences to Infallibility will never end the differences of those that disown it and yet it 's apparent that in the mean time they prejudice our common Christianity by those Laws which make the means of salvation very difficult if not altogether ineffectual by denying hitherto those helps to salvation which those Laws intercept The other danger which they pretend we run is that of Schism a great crime questionless and that which all Christians ought not only to lament but seek to remedy and if it be possible and as much as in them lies to follow after Peace which by so many obligations the Christian Church is bound to preserve But we know that both Parties are liable to be charged with the breach till it appear which is guilty and the guilt of it will certainly fall on those who have made the separation necessary so that if a Church requires such conditions of Communion which are inconsistent with Christianity and subvert the Faith it ought to preserve they certainly are to be charged with the Crime who will not suffer us to hold our Christianity together with the Churches Communion Besides there is nothing of this Charge can lye against the Church of England 'till they prove her either to have rejected any Authority to which she was legally subject or to have departed from the Faith by her Reformation But the Church of Rome if she
to be one It 's evident therefore that St Cyprian did not hereby intend to acknowledg St. Peter to be the Head of the rest of the Apostles or that they derived their Authority from him since he says That they had an equal Power and Authority given them by Christ His meaning then can be only this that to evidence the necessity of Unity in the Church our Saviour gave that Authority first to Peter single which he afterwards gave to all together to shew them that they ought in their several functions to aim all at the same thing the Vnity of his Church He says indeed that Episcopacy is one but he adds what M. Meaux thought best for his Cujus à singulis in solidum Pars tenetur Ibid. purpose to leave out Whereof every one holds a part with full and ample Power He says likewise Adulterari non potest sponsa Christi incorrupta est Pudica but he does not say it for any such reason as this Gentleman pretends lest we should imagine some cases might happen in which it might be lawful to separate from the Church or reform her Doctrine as thought it were impossible for a Church to fall into error or to have need of being reformed The coherence of the Discourse makes them bear a different meaning viz. That the true Spouse of Christ cannot admit this Vnity to be interrupted will not be corrupted to division This Father further says That he that separates himself from the Church has no part in Christs promises c. We readily affirm the same of such as do it without a cause But no advantage can be hence taken against us 'till M. Meaux has first proved that the Church of Rome is this only true Church of Christ He would have gained a great point indeed if we were obliged to take it for granted that the Roman is this only true Church of Christ and if the true Church was not to be sought and known by an examination of her Doctrines and their consistency with the Faith But he grosly abuses this good Father when he would persuade us that St. Cyprian would not suffer men to enquire after the true Church by examining her Doctrine but to know her first and then believe we cannot have salvation out of her For so far as I can observe he does not give the least intimation of any such thing in his Book De unitate Ecclesiae And if he should I see no reason that any have to subscribe to him when indeed the Church being a Society professing the Faith of Christ and subsisting for the maintenance of it there can be no means of knowing which is that Church but by knowing first the Faith of Christ and also that this Church professes and holds the same But I need not dispute about that for which he falsly pretends this Authority It 's true in this Book De Vnitate St. Cyprian only urges the Unity of the Church and the Crime of those that break it but there would be no reason to look upon his Arguments so strong if the Church he defends had done any thing to the prejudice of the Faith and therefore in other places he defends the cause of the Church in this case by the righteousness of it by proofs from Scripture of the innocency and lawfulness of that which was imputed to her as a Crime And therefore I most of all admire that he could have the face to abuse those other words of St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Antonian to so false an intent as if he had used them to forbid an enquiry after mens Doctrine and to oblige us to submit to that which the Church holds without enquiry Whereas not only the case St. Cyprian writes upon is utterly different but even the method he takes in this very Epistle to satisfie Antonian and the connection of his Discourse shew his sense to be as different from what M. Meaux would impose on us as possibly can be For in the beginning of the Epistle he tells him That his careful and Epist 51. ad Anton. solicitous enquiry after the truth was not to be blamed tho' he was in part blamable in that he wavered in the Resolution he had first taken and certified him and Cornelius of that he would not communicate with Novatian After which he proceeds to give him an account of the cause of the Church upon what account they admitted lapsed persons to the Communion which was charged as a crime on the Church by Novatian relating the matter of fact the reasons of it and its consistency with Christian Discipline proving it out of the holy Scriptures Then he further gives account of the Election of Cornelius to the Bishoprick of Rome of his Manners and Life and purges him from the scandal his Adversaries had thrown upon him And then indeed he says As for that which concerns the person of Novatian since you desire to be informed what Heresie he has introduced you must know before all things that we need not curiously enquire what he has taught since he hath taught out of the Church who or what soever he be he can be no Christian being out of the Church of Christ. But in the following words he gives the reason of it because he had broke the Vnity of the Church by ambitiously aspiring to the Bishoprick and getting himself made Bishop by some deserters and to make a greater party setting up several other salse Bishops in those Provinces and Cities wherein were already seated Bishops of an approved Faith and tried Constancy Whereupon he indeed says It was no matter whether Novatian introduced any Heresie or not solong as he was the Author of so great a Schism Whereby it appears that he is far from supposing what M. Meaux pretends he only telling Antonian That it was no matter what Doctrine Novatian taught because he had shewn himself unchristian by breaking the Vnity of the Church and making a Schism without cause So that the case supposed is that of man breaking the Unity of the Church be his Doctrine what it will tho' the same which the Church teaches not a case wherein the Church needs a Reformation and the adverse party has Truth and Scripture of his side as it must have been to be applicable to the Church of Rome and the Reformed It 's true St. Cyprian likewise says The promise of our blessed Saviour to be in the midst where two or three are gathered together supposes them assembled in Christ which he thinks they cannot be whilst they are seperate from the Church of Christ But this is begging the Question to use this against us till it appears that the Church of Rome is the only True Church of Christ But M. Meanx says The Church of which this holy Martyr speaks is that which acknowledges at Rome the head of her Communion and in the Place of Peter the eminent degree of the Sacerdotal Chair which there acknowledges the Chair
to be received for the Word of God if not confirmed by the Scripture because the Motives upon which they were received cannot be as evident as those of the Scriptures Questionless no man can deny the Traditions of the Jews to be as useful for the understanding the Old Testament as any now for that of the New but then it was they perverted the Use of Traditions when they taught them for God's Commandments But that which he infers from this that has given us both so much trouble is just nothing Upon this account the Church professes she tells us nothing from herself and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine Whoever thought that their Church ever professed the contrary or can conceive that any Church will profess otherwise the question then is not what she professes but what she has done and let me tell him that his own words are as great an argument against the Church's absolute and Infallible Authority as any can be given For if upon the account of her being established by God to be the Guardian of the Scripture and Tradition and the deliverer of them to her Children she be obliged to profess suppose what may reasonably be supposed that she be but obliged to act as she does profess that she delivers nothing new nothing from herself nothing but by the interior direction of the Holy Ghost Shall not her Authority be confined within these limits Shall she have any power to act beyond them or if she be accused as having acted against that Christianity that she ought to have maintained Shall it not be shewn de facto that she has not or if that seem too apparent Shall it be pleaded that she is infallible and cannot have acted against it though it 's visible to all but them that plead so that she has But he further tells us That there being a dispute raised in the times of the Apostles the Holy Ghost put an end to it by the Church and the method then taken by the Apostles to decide it has taught succeeding Ages by what authority all other differences are to be ended so that as often as any divisions shall happen the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles It seemeth good unto the Holy Ghost and to us What they will say I know not I am sure this gives them no warrant to say the like It 's true this practice of the Apostles has directed the Church upon differences that have hapned to assemble its Pastors for the ending them but I see no promise here that they shall have the like assistance with the Apostles who not only had the Spirit of God at all times in a measure which no man can pretend to have now at any time but had likewise frequently immediate inspirations And if a man should think they had an immediate inspiration upon the place signifying how they should order the matter he might have grounds for his opinion very considerable inspirations being then so frequent even at the common Assemblies of Christians and St. Paul being so cautions as to difference things of his own from the Commands of the Lord although he thought himself at the same time to have the Spirit of God But whether so or not no Councils can from hence presume that the Holy Ghost will lead them into all Truth in whatsoever they take a humour to determine because Christ promised to send his Spirit to his Apostles to lead them into all Truth for the teaching and establishing our common Christianity Father Paul tells us of a Proverb which perhaps this Gentleman may have known to pass in France That the modern Council had more Authority than that of the Apostles because their own pleasure only was sufficient ground for the Decrees without admitting the Holy Ghost whether verified in this of Trent I shall not say but the ground of it is certainly possible and God that has promised to lead men by his Spirit into all Truth has not said he will lead them whether they will or no. Whereas then he says further That when the Church has spoken her Children will be taught that they ought not to examine again the Articles so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her decisions and that they are resolved to follow the example of Paul and Silas not permitting them to be again discussed but teaching all to observe the ordinances of the Apostles He would have done well to have shewn us that the Decrees of the Trent Council are as much the acts of the Holy Ghost as that of the Apostles before he had required us to think them act as justifiably in teaching them as Paul and Silas did But by the way if he speaks this as the fix'd resolution of all their Church not to admit a new discussion of what has been decided but to require all to observe it he lets us know an excellent Resolution of his Church and how much it is for her turn that differences in Religion be everlasting But thus it is he tells us the Children of God acquiesce in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her mouth they hear the Oracle of the holy Ghost This he should have forborn to have said till he had shewn by something more than he has hitherto that God has bid his children to hear his Word from the mouth of any Church speaking without the Scripture that contains it but especially methinks he should not have presumed to say this is the ground why in our Creed having said I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The holy Catholick Church if we had no other ground to believe the Holy Catholick Church than he has hitherto shewn I am sure we should have but very little for so great an Article of Faith But no wonder he builds his faith on no better grounds since he has framed a new sense of the Article of which if I convince him by the Catechism of his own Church I suppose he may be inclinable to hear it even that then teaches him That the word Cat. Trid. sub Titulo Ecclesia quibus siguris Church in this Article does chiefly denote the whole number of Believers including both good and bad not the Rulers only but those likewise who are to obey and if so I know not how a man is obliged by believing this Article to acknowledge any Infallibility in the governours of any Church or to think that if they err this Article of our Creed should become false or that he has ever the less faith in God if he apprehend or fear least the Rulers of the Church should abuse their power Whereas after this he endeavours to perswade us That the Catholick Church meaning that of Rome is so far from making herself Mistress of our Faith as she is accused that on the contrary she has done what she could to limit and deprive herself of all the means of