obedience to the will of God being agreed to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary to that end than such whereby man may know what the will of God is 2. Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the Being of God and his dependence upon him and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any principles of Natural Religion 3. All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means 4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation 5. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so 6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men must be Judged in the same way that the truth of a Divine Revelation is for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance and for that end to assure men what the will of God is the same means must be used for the trial of that as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men 7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen and whatever he hath done we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice Wisdome Goodness and Truth 8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us 9. There are several wayes conceivable by us how God may make known his Will to us either by immediate voice from Heaven or inward inspiration to every particular person or inspiring some to speak personally to others or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages 10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted the former is repugnant to common sense for words are equally capable of being understood spoken or written the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God 11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. 12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God that they were never intended for that end because of their obscurity or imperfection 13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation 14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole mind or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation 15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets 16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it 17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from
These things I shall largely prove if farther occasion be given at present I shall only insist on two things 1. That they did condemn all such kind of worship supposing their principle true 2. That they did not only condemn it in those Spirits which the Heathens worshipped but in good Angels themselves 1. They did condemn the worship supposing their principle true For this I shall produce now but few Authorities but such as are full as to the Heathens pretences and the Christians answers The first is of Origen in his answer to Celsus who objects against the Christians the unreasonableness of forsaking the worship of inferiour Deities because no man can serve two Masters which saith he is a seditious principle and arises from attributing our passions to God but he that honours them as Subjects to the Supream God cannot offend him who is the Lord of them To which Origen answers That the Scripture doth indeed stile God the God of Gods and Lord of Lords but withal saith that to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and one Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him which the Apostle speaks saith he of himself and all others whose minds were raised up to him who is the God of Gods and Lord of Lords and his mind ascends up to the Supream God who worships him inseparably and indivisibly by his Son who alone conducts us to the Father Therefore seeing there are many Gods and many Lords we endeavour by all means not only to carry our minds above those things on Earth which are worshipped by the Heathen for Gods but above those whom the Scripture calls Gods by which it is plain by the drift of his discourse he means the Angels And Celsus afterwards yielding That it is not lawful to give honour to any but to whom the Supream doth communicate it Origen desires proof from them That God hath communicated this honour to their Gods Heroes and Daemons and that it did not arise from the ignorance and folly of mankind who thereby fell off from him who ought properly to be worshipped But he proves from Miracles and Prophecies and Precepts than this honour was given to Christ that they who honour the Father should honour the Son also and that was all which Celsus had to object against the Christians That they did not keep to their own rule of worshipping God alone for they thought God was not dishonoured by the honour they gave to Christ and on the same account he thought they might give it to inferiour Deities If there had been then any suspicion of Religious worship given to Saints or Angels by the Christians when had there been a more proper season to object it No man of the meanest capacity would have omitted a matter so necessary to his business much less so inquisitive and malicious an enemy as Celsus was And the account Origen gives of the worship the Christians attribute to the Son of God is because it is said I and my Father are one and the Father in me and I in him which cannot be said of any created Beings It is true afterwards he saith That if Celsus had spoken of the true Ministers of God such as Gabriel Michael and all the Angels and Archangels he acknowledges that by explaining the notion of worship or respect and the actions of those who give it somewhat more might be said on that subject But he utterly denyes that our prayers are to be offered to any but Christ alone and that any word which is proper only to Religious worship is to be attributed to the Angels themselves For he saith elsewhere Although the Angels be called Gods in Scripture yet we are not to worship them with divine worship and lest any should think that offering up our Prayers or Invocations to them were not excluded by this he immediately explains himself For saith he all our supplications prayers intercessions and thanksgivings are to be offered only to God over all by that High Priest who is greater than all the Angels the living Word and God And afterwards saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we ought not to pray to them who pray for us for they would rather themselves send us to that God to whom they pray than have us pray to them or divide our supplications between God and them This he speaks indeed of the Sun and Moon and Stars but upon the supposition that they are intellectual Beings and do pray to God for us And again he saith We ought to pray only to the God over all and his only Son the first born of every creature who as our High Priest offers our prayers to his God and our God And because Celsus argues much for worship to be given to Daemans because to them is committed the care of terrestrial affairs to this Origen answers by denying those whom he calis Daemons to have any administration of the affairs of Christians but supposing we knew they were not Daemons but Angels which had the management of these things committed to them yet then we dare not give them that honour which is due to God for neither would God have it so nor they themselves but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we celebrate their praise and happiness to whom God hath entrusted such great things But Celsus yet further urges that according to the doctrine of the Aegyptians every part of a man hath a particular Daemon or Ethereal God and every one of these being invocated heals the diseases of the parts proper to themselves Why then may they not justly invocate them if they love health better than sickness and happiness than misery If one of the Church of Rome had been to answer Celsus he must have told him that the thing was rational which he said only they were out in their names for instead of Chnumen Chnaachumen Cnat Sicat Biu Eru c. they should have chosen Raphael for travelling and against Diseases Apollonia against the Tooth-ach Sebastian and Roch against the Plague St. Nicholas against Tempests Michael and St. George against Enemies and others in like cases For so Serrarius tells us That experience and tradition hath discovered the particular help of these in such cases if they be particularly invocated But Origen gives a shorter answer That these things do arise from a distrust of the sufficiency of that incommunicable worship we give to God alone as though he were not able to protect every one that serves him from all snares and that far more effectual cures have been wrought by the name of Iesus than all their Daemons And how much better do those who are Christians who slight all these things and commit themselves to God over all through his son Iesus Christ and of him do desire the help and protection of his Holy Angels I shall conclude his Testimony with that excellent saying of his Our care ought
persons they have ten times more cause to fear than the common people And considering the advantage they once had by the horrible Ignorance of Priests and people it must be imputed only to the watchful eye of Divine Providence that the Scriptures being of so little use in the Roman Church have been preserved entire to our dayes There had been no such means in the world to have prevented a Reformation as this for they are not out when they take the Scripture so much for their enemy as appears by the force and restraint they put upon it and the fear and jealousie they are in about it continually If it had not been for this would any one have compared the Scriptures in the hands of the common people as my Adversary doth to a Sword in a mad mans hand Is it of so destructive a Nature and framed for no other use than a sword is which nothing but discretion keeps a man from doing mischief by and all the way a man hath though never so meek and humble to defend himself by it is by destroying his enemy with it if he continues his assault These expressions do not argue any kindness to the Scripture nor an apprehension of any great good comes to the world by it but that really men might have been more at ease and fewer differences in Religion had happened if all the Copies of the Bible had been lost assoon as the Pope had placed himself in his infallible Chair This design was once attempted as I shall shew afterwards but failed of success and I know not how far the principles of this prudence may carry them if ever such a season should fall into their hands again having found so much trouble to them from the Scriptures and so little benefit by them their Church being once owned as infallible For I would fain know whether the Scripture hath not done more mischief according to them in the hands of the Reformers than it can be supposed to do in the hands of the common people If it must be a sword in a mad mans hand whether the more strength and cunning such a one hath he be not capable of doing so much the more mischief by it And if it were possible to get it out of such a mans hands whether it were not the highest prudence and care of the publick safety to do it It can be then nothing but the impossibility of the thing which makes them suffer the Scripture to be in the hands of any who are capable of doing mischief by it and the more mischief they may do the more desirable and prudential it is to take it from them But all men see none are so capable of doing mischief thereby as men of the greatest wit and learning and that have the fairest appearance of piety to the world the consequence then of this doctrine is if pursued to the true design of it that the Scripture should be kept if possible out of the hands of the most subtle learned and pious men above all others if they be not true to the interests of the Roman Church It is but a meer shew to pretend only to keep the people in order for when are they otherwise but when cunning men have the managing of them the true meaning of this principle is that it will never be well with the World till the Books of Scripture are all burnt which are abroad and that only one Original be preserved in the Vatican to justifie the Popes title to Infallibility and that as the Sybilline Oracles of old never to be consulted but in cases of great extremity and that under the inspection of some very trusty officers nor to be interpreted but by the Pope himself If I were of the Church of Rome and owned the principles of it I must needs have condemned the great men of it in former times for want of Prudence in this matter That would have served their turn much better than forging so many decretal Epistles falsifying so many testimonies perverting so many Texts of Scripture to maintain the dignity of the Papal Chair There was only one small circumstance wanting their good will we have no cause to question and that was the possibility of it for although the Roman Church called it self Catholick they were wise enough to know there were many considerable Churches in the world besides theirs where the Scriptures were preserved and from whence copies might be procured by persons who would be so much the more inquisitive the more they were forbidden to get it Therefore they pitched upon an easier way and finding the people under a very competent degree of Ignorance they indulged them and soothed them up in it and told them they could never miss the way to Heaven though never so narrow in the dark Their only danger was too much light for then probably they might be in a great dispute whether the broad way was not the true for there they saw most of their Friends and Leaders And while they kept the people in this profound Ignorance and superstition they jogged on in their opinion as securely to Heaven as Ignatius Loyola's Mule did to Mount-serrat when he laid his Bridle on his neck to see whether he would take the way to pursue the Moor which was the more beaten track or the more craggy and untrodden way to that place of devotion and by a mighty providence and I suppose a little help of the Rider the Beast took the more narrow way But when persons began to be awakened by learning and thereby grew inquisitive in all matters and so by degrees in those of Religion they then espied their errour in letting such a Book lye abroad in so many hands from whence so many irresistible arguments were drawn against the Doctrine and practices of the Roman Church This I assure my self is the true ground of the quarrels against the Reading the Scriptures but that being now irremediable they betake themselves to smaller arts and endeavour to hinder any one particular person whom they have the least suspicion of from meddling with a Book so dangerous to their Church and Religion § 10. For if this were not it what makes them to be more jealous of the use of the Scriptures than ever the Christians were in former Ages Was there not much more danger of misunderstanding the Doctrine of the Gospel at first than ever after Nay were there not very many who were false Apostles and great and dangerous Hereticks presumptuous and arrogant if ever any were But did Christ or his Apostles for all this think it unfit to communicate the doctrine of the Gospel to the people or were the Books containing it written in Languages not to be understood by them no they chose the most popular languages of that time most largely spread and generally understood The Apostles never told their Disciples of the danger of reading the Divine Writings that were among them when they were
first spread abroad and never so proper a season to give them caution as then But instead of that they advise them to take heed to the sure word of Prophecy and that they did well therein that the Scriptures were written for their instruction and comfort that being divinely inspired they were able to make them wise unto salvation What did the Apostles never imagine all this while the ill use that might be made of them by men of perverse minds yes they knew it as well as any and did foretell Schismes and Heresies that should be in the Church and saw them in their own dayes and yet poor men wanted that exquisite prudence of the Roman Church to prevent them by so happy an expedient as when they had written Epistles to several Churches to forbid the promiscuous reading of them But it may be it was the awe of the Apostles and their infallible Spirit in interpreting Scripture made this prohibition not so necessary in their own time did the Church then find it necessary to restrain the people after their Decease We have an occasion soon after given wherein to see the opinion of the Church at that time the Church of Corinth fell into a grievous Schisme and opposition to their spiritual Governours upon this Clemens writes his Epistle to them wherein he is so far from forbidding the use of Scripture to them to preserve unity that he bidds them look diligently into the Scriptures which are the true Oracles of the Holy Ghost and afterwards take St. Pauls Epistle into your hands and consider what he saith and commends them very much for being skilled in the Scriptures Beloved saith he ye have known and very well known the holy Scriptures and ye have throughly looked into the Oracles of God therefore call them to mind Which language is as far different from that of the Roman Church as the Church of that Age is from theirs Nay the counterfeit Clemens whom they can make use of upon other occasions is as express in this matter as the true For he perswades private Christians to continual meditation in the Scriptures which he calls the Oracles of Christ and that this is the best imployment of their retirements But we need not use his testimony in this matter nor the old Edition of Ignatius wherein Parents are bid to instruct their Children in the Holy Scriptures nor that saying of Polycarp to the Philippians out of the old Latin Edition I am confident you are well studied in the Scriptures for in the Greek yet preserved he exhorts them to the reading of St. Pauls Epistles that they might be built up in the faith So little did these holy men dream of such a prudent dispensing the Scriptures among them for fear of mischief they might do themselves or others by them Clemens Alexandrinus mentions the reading the Scriptures among Christians before their Meales and Psalmes and Hymns at them and Tertullian mentions the same custome Origen in the Greek Commentaries lately published perswades Christians by all means by attending to Reading Prayer Teaching Meditation therein day and night to lay up in their hearts not only the new Oracles of the Gospell Apostles and Apocalypse but the old ones too of the Law and the Prophets And elsewhere tells his hearers they ought not to be discouraged if they met with difficulties in reading the Scriptures for there was great benefit to be had by them But lest it should be thought he speaks here only of publick reading the Scriptures in his Homilies on Leviticus he speaks plainly that he would not only have them hear the Word of God in publick but to be exercised and meditate therein in their houses night and day For Christ is every where present and therefore they are commanded in the Law to meditate therein upon their journeys and when they sit in their houses and when they lye down and rise up But had not the Church yet experience enough of the mischief of permitting the Scriptures to the people Were there ever greater and more notorious heresies than in those first ages of the Church and those arising from perverting the words and designes of the Scriptures But did the Church yet afterwards grow wiser in the sense of the Roman Church In the time of the four General Councils they had tryal enough of the mischief of Heresies but did the Fathers of the Church forbid the reading the Scriptures on that account No but instead of that they commend the Scriptures to all as the best remedy for all passions of the mind so St. Basil and St. Hierome call it and this latter commends nothing more to the Women he instructed in devotion than constant reading the Scriptures and withall they say that infinite evils do arise from ignorance of the Scriptures from hence most part of Heresies have come from hence a negligent and careless life and unfruitful labours Nay so frequent so earnest and vehement is St. Chrysostome in this matter of recommending the reading of Scriptures that those of the Roman Church have no other way to answer him but by saying he speaks hyperbolically which in plain English is he speaks too much of it But how far different were the opinions of the wise men of the Church in those times from what those have thought who understood the interest of the Roman Church best We may see what the opinion of the latter is by the counsel given to Iulius 3. by the Bishops met at Bononia for that end to give the best advice they could for restoring the dignity of the Roman See that which was the greatest and weightiest of all they said they reserved to the last which was that by all means as little of the Gospel as might be especially in the vulgar tongue be read in the Cities under his jurisdiction and that little which was in the Mass ought to be sufficient neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more For as long as men were contented with that little all things went well with them but quite otherwise since more was commonly read For this in short is that Book say they which above all others hath raised those Tempests and Whirlewinds which we are almost carryed away with And in truth if any one diligently considers it and compares it with what is done in our Churches will find them very contrary to each other and our very doctrine not only to be different from it but repugnant to it A very fair and ingenuos confession and if self-condemned persons be Hereticks there can be none greater than those of the Roman Church especially the prudential men in it such as these certainly were whom the Pope singled out to give advice in these matters But how different is the wisdom of the Children of this world from that of the Children of Light We have already seen what another kind of judgement