§ 8. Reply § 9. 2. Or made to all the succeeding Church-Guides but conditional § 12. Reply That our Lords promise of Indeficiency in Necessaries made to the Clergy is absolute § 14. And this Indeficiency most rationally placed in the General Councils or other accord or consent of the Clergy equivalent to such Council § 15. Chap. 3. Some Protestant objections § 17. Answered § 18. Chap. 4. II. Other Protestant Divines granting the Clergy some or other of them alwayes unerring in Necessaries but this not necessarily the superior or Major part of them § 25. Reply That the subordinate Clergy can be no Guide to Christians when opposing the superiour nor a few opposing a much Major part § 30. Chap. 5. III. Other Expressions of Protestant Divines granting the Churches Prelatick Clergy as defining her doctrines or the General Councils of them to be unerrable in necessaries when these Councils accepted by the Church universal § 32. Expressions to this purpose * Of Dr. Potter § 33. * Of Bp. Bramhal § 34. Where Concerning what judgment of the Church sufficiently obligeth In respect 1. Of the Church Catholick diffusive § 36 n. 1. 2. Of Councils General § Ib. n. 8. Where Of the Freedome of the Council of Trent § Ib. n. 9. * Of Bp. Lawd § 37. Where Concerning what acceptation of Councils by the Church Diffusive is onely necessary § 38. * Of Dr Field § 40. Chap. 6. IV. Learned Protestants conceding the former Churches Clergy preceding the Reformation never so to have erred in defining Necessaries as that the Church Governed by them did not remain still True Holy and Catholick § 41. Chap. 7. V That according to this last Concession § 41. there seemes to be * a great security to those continuing still in the antient Communion § 48 As to avoiding Heresie or Schism Ibid. As to other gross Errors § 51. And * danger to those deserting it § 54. Where There Protestants Defence for it § 55. n. 1. And the Catholick Remonstrance Ib. n. 2. Chap. 8. VI. That according to the former Concession § 32. if so enlarged as ancient Church-practise and reason requires all or most of the Protestant Controversies are by former obliging Councils already decided § 56. n. 1. c. An Instance hereof in the Controversie of the Corporal presence of our Lord in the Eucharist or Transubstantiation § 57. THE SECOND DISCOURSE Proceeding upon the Concessions of Learned Protestants That the Pastors of the Church some or other in all Ages do infallibly guide their Subjects in Necessaries to search which in any Division of these Pastors are those to whom Christians ought to adhere and yield their Obedience The CONTENTS Chap. 1. PRotestants grant 1. That there is at this present an One Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church § 1. 2. That the present Pastors and Governours thereof have authority to decide Controversies § 2. 3. That these Governors some or other of them shall never err or miss-guide Christians at least in absolute Necessaries to salvation § 3. 4. That they and the Churches governed by them stand alwayes distinct from Heretical or Schismatical Congregations § 5. Chap. 2. Catholicks further affirm 5. That if these Pastors guide unerringly in Necessaries the people are to learn from them what or how many points are necessary so far as the knowledge thereof is necessary to them § 6. 6. Again That the Necessaries wherein these Ecclesiastical Governors are infallible Guides ought not to be confined to some few points absolutely necessary but extended to all such points of Faith as are very beneficial to Salvation § 9. 7. Concerning the exact distinguishing of necessaries from non-necessaries 1. That there seemes no necessity that the Church guides should be enabled exactly to distinguish them § 12. 2. That they may infallibly guide in them though not infallibly distinguish them § 14. 3. That they guiding infallibly in all necessaries and no distinction of these made ought to be believed in all points they propose except an infallible certainty can be shewed to the contrary § 15. 4. That these Governors do distinguish and do propose as such all those more necessary points which it is requisite for Christians with a more particular explicite Faith to believe § 17. 8 That Christians submitting their judgment to the present Church-Governors in deciding all necessary matters of Faith ought also to submit it to them in declaring the sence of the Fathers or of the Definitions of Councils and former Church concerning the same Matters § 19. 9. That supposing these Guides to err in some of their Decisions yet their Subjects by the concession of Learned Protestants ought to yeild the Obedience either of silence or also of assent to them in all such points whereof they cannot demonstratively prove the contrary § 20. 10. From whence it follows that none may adhere to any new Guides but only so many as can demonstrate the Errors of the former § 21. Chap. 3. 11. Granted by all that these Church Governors may teach diversly and some of them more or fewer may become erroneous in Necessaries and misguide Christians in them § 22. 12. In such dissenting therefore That there must be some Rule for Christians which Guides they ought to follow and that this is and rationally can be no other than in these Judges subordinate dissenting to adhere to the Superior in those of the same Order and Dignity dissenting to the major part § 23. Where Of the Major part concluding the Whole in the ancient Councils § 25. n. 2. And Of the Magnitude of the Defection of the Church-Prelacy in the time of Arrianism § 26. n. 2. 13. That accordingly both in Councils their defining Matters of Religion and in the Church's acceptation of their Decrees the much Major part must conclude the Whole and the opposing of their Definitions also be Heresie and separation from their Communion Schism if an Opposition or separation from the Whole be so § 27. n. 4. 14. As for the Protestant Marks whereby in any Division to know these true Guides viz. A right teaching of God's Word and a right Administration of the Sacraments that these are things to be learned from these true Guides first known § 28. Chap. 4. An Application of the former Propositions in a search which of the opposite present Churches or of the dissenting Ecclesiastical Governors thereof is our true Guide § 30. Motives perswading that the Roman and the other Western Churches united with it and with the Head thereof St. Peter's Successor are this true Guide 1. Their being the very same Body with that which Protestants grant was 150 years ago the Christian 's true Guide and the other Body confessing themselves in external Communion departed from it § 33. 2. Their being that Body to which if we follow the former Rule recited Prop. 12. we ought to submit § 35. 3. Their being that Body that owns and adheres to the Definitions and Decrees of all the
Extent of the Infallibility of this Church i. e. in defining p. 156. reacheth to all matters Essential and fundamental simply necessary for the Church to know and believe But not so to all her Doctrines and Definitions And p. 155. The Vniversal Church saith he hath not the like assurance from Christ that she shall not erre in unnecessary additions as she hath for her not erring in taking away from the Faith what is fundamental and necessary Where Defining Adding Taking away c. argue that he speaks here of the present Church Catholick which he affirms to be infallible in Fundamentals in relation to the main Body of her Governour 's being so § 34 Bishop Bramhall ‖ Vindic. 2 c. p. 9. speaks much what on the same manner If saith he of two particular Churches Of Bishop Bramhall the one retain a communion with the Vniversal Church and be ready to submit to the Determinations thereof the other renounce the communion of the Vniversal Church and contumaciously despise the Jurisdiction and Decrees thereof the former continues Catholick and the latter becomes Schismatical Or as he expresseth it in Schism-guarded p. 2. That Church which shall not outwardly acquiesce after a Legal Determination and cease to disturb the Christian Vnity though her Judgment may be sound yet her practice is schismatical And afterward We are most ready in all our differences to stand to the Judgment of the truly Catholick Church and its lawful Representative a free General Council Here the Bishops submitting and standing to the judgment and determinations of the Church Vniversal or a free General Council were it now called argues him to hold the present Church Catholick in such Councils as a Guide and Lawgiver infallible in Fundamentals or at least whose judgment in all points is finally to be stood to so far as not to contradict it and his pronouncing Schismaticks to be no Catholicks argues that this Church Universal may be also narrower than Christianity is Add to this what he saith below p. 26. That by disbelieving any Fundamental Article or necessary part of saving Faith in that sense in which it was evermore received and believed by the Vniversal Church a man renders himself guilty of Heresie Here he declares one an Heretick not only in his disbelieving a necessary point of Faith but in disbelieving in in that sense wherein the Church Catholick hath alwaies believed it which sense in the former quotation he holds is to be received and learned from her Councils Again In his Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon speaking of the Catholick Church in present Being he saith ‖ p. 279. I do from my heart submit to all things which the true Catholick Church diffused over the world doth believe and practise And afterward Though I have no reason in the world to suspect my present judgment I do farther profess my readiness to submit to the right Catholick Church in present bein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whensoever God shall be pleased to reveal it to me and Ibid. in the Preface I submit saith he my self and my poor endeavours first to the judgment of the Catholick Oecumenical Essential Church And if I should mistake the right Catholick Church out of humane frailty or ignorance which for my part I have no reason to suspect yet it is not impossible c. therefore Catholick doth not necessarily include all Sects professing Christianity I do implicitly and in the preparation of my mind submit my self to the true Catholick Church the Spouse of Christ the Mother of the Saints the pillar of Truth And after this he professeth That his adherence is firmer to the infallible Rule of Faith the holy Scriptures interpreted by this Catholick Church i. e. firmer to its interpretation than to his own private judgment So in his Reply to S. W. p. 43. We acknowledge saith he the Representative Church that is a General Council and the Essential Church that is the multitude or multitudes of Believers either of all ages which make the Symbolical Church or of this age which makes the present Catholick Church And Ib. We are ready to believe and practise whatsoever the Catholick Church even of this present Age doth universally believe and practise ‖ See Schism guarded p. 398. Surely from these Protestations it followes * that he supposeth that such a Church there is in this present age that may deliver her judgment Else his promise to believe and to submit to it is utterly unsignificant and * that he holds this Church not errable in Fundamentals else her judgment in them could not by him be safely followed And if you would know also §. 35. n. 1. what present Body he understandeth by this present Catholick Church to which he will yield his submission and beliefe he tells the Bishop of Chalcedon ‖ p. 279. That it is not the Church of Rome alone with all its Dependents but the Church of the whole world Roman Grecian Armenian Abyssine Russian Protestant which Churches i. e. Grecian c. are three times greater than the Roman is But if you think the present Church Catholick in this vast amplitude a Judge not likely to resolve his doubts He in the Preface to his Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon very conscientiously adds also I submit my self to the Representative Church a free General Council or so general as can be procured And in pursuance of the same Notion of General Schisme Guarded p. 350. he saith That the presence of the five Proto-Patriarchs and their Clergy either in their persons or by their Suffrages or in case of necessity the greater part of them do make a General Council And That we may well hope that God who hath promised that where two or three are gathered together in his Name there will he be in the midst of them will vouchsafe to give his assistance and his blessing to such a Council which is as general as may be although perhaps it be not so exactly general as hath been or might have been now if the Christian Empire had flourished still as it did anciently In summe That he shall ever be ready to acquiesce in the Determination of a Council so General as is possible to be had so it may be equal c. Naming several conditions thereof Equal Votes of Christian Nations Absents sending their Suffrages The place free wither all parties may have secure access and liberty to propose freely and define freely yet consenting ‖ p. 352. That none declared Hereticks by former true General Councils be admitted to any vote in them and ‖ p. 401. that all those be held for excluded from the communion of the Catholick Church whom undoubted General Councils have excluded He addes yet further reflecting on Dr. Hammond's words ‖ Answ to Catho Gentl. 3 c. §. 1. That Oecumenical or General Councils are now morally impossible to be had The Christian world being under so many Empires and
then at the time that she is not so we believe a falshood under the Article of the Christian Faith Of this more needs not be said § 44 3. Again If under such Governors the visible Church preceding the Reformation is allowed to have been Catholick and Holy from these it must needs be granted also not to have been Heretical or Schismatical Which Churches Protestants contra-distinguish to the Catholick Church and all the Members of it and in which Churches dividing from the Vnity of the Catholick no salvation can be had by those who if either knowing or culpably ignorant of these sins of such a Church do not actually desert such a Communion For this likewise see the Quotations out of the Archbishop before § 367. and out of Dr. Field before § 40. Bellarmine saith he is to be blamed for idle and needless busying himself in proving that the visible Church never falleth into Heresie which we most willingly grant And l. 1. c. 7. he saith That the name of Catholick Church distinguisheth men holding the Faith in Unity from Schismaticks whom as also Hereticks though he there affirms to be in some sort of the Church taken more generally as it distinguisheth men of the Christian Profession from Infidels yet not of the Church Catholick or fully and perfectly of the Church with hope of Salvation ‖ l. 1. c. 14. p. 21 c. 7 p. 13. The Common Prayers also used both in the Roman and Protestant Churches on Good Friday shew the same Oremus saith the one pro Haereticis Schismaticis ut Deus eos ad Sanctam Matrem Ecclesiam Catholicam atque Apostolicam revocare dignetur Have Mercy Lord saith the other upon all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks and so fetch them home to thy Flock that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one Fold under one Shepherd But in the trans-ferring these Good Friday Collects out of the former Missal into their new Common-Prayer-Book 't is observable that though the Reformed retained Hereticks yet they omitted Schismaticks and 2 ly changed the former Expression of revoca ad Sanctam Matrem Ecclesiam Catholicam Apostolicam into Fetch home to thy Flock c. As if the mention of our Holy Mother the Catholick Apostolick Church might occasion in the people some Mistakes See also Bishop Bramhal's Vindication of the Church of England c. 2. p. 9 27 28 before § 34. And thus Mr. Thorndike in his Letter concerning the present state of Religion ‖ 208. ' When we say we believe the Catholick Church as part of that faith whereby we hope to be saved we do not profess to believe that there is such a company of men as professing Christianity but that there is a Corporation of true Christians excluding Hereticks and Schismaticks and that we hope to be saved by this faith as being members of it of that Corporation And this is that which the stile of the Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church signifies as distinguishing the Body of true Christians to wit so far as Profession goes from the Conventicles of Hereticks and Schismaticks For this title of Catholick would signifie nothing if Hereticks and Schismaticks were not barred the Communion of the Church Thus he § 45 In the former passages you may observe that the Authors fore-quoted speak not of some or other in the Church before Luther to have bin Catholick and consequently holy c. but of the visible Church consisting of the ruling Clergy and the subject and conforming Laity according to the publick doctrines and Definitions thereof as these being not deficient in the Essentials of the Church Catholick either as to Faith or Holiness for such a Church Catholick they believe always to be whose doctrine and definitions discipline and external visible profession maintained by the Governors thereof is Catholick And if in any other sense we call it a Catholick-Church when we hold its Governours and Doctrines mean-while Heretical and Schismatical viz. by reason of some that may be found herein Catholickly perswaded we may as well call that an heretical Church the Doctrines and Doctors of which are Catholick if perhaps some only in it be heretically affected To go on Therefore Dr. Field proceeds also so far as to own the Western Church that was before Luther § 46 for the Protestants true Mother for indeed where could he find at that time a Church any whit better to call Mother and to confesse ‖ l. 3. c. 6. ' That she continued the true Church of God until our time And To those saith he that demand of us where our Church was before Luther began We answer it was the known and apparent Church in the world wherein all our Fathers lived and died wherein Luther and the rest were baptized and ‖ 3 Part p. 880. wherein a saving profession of the truth in Christ was found In order to which he so far justifies the publick service also of those dayes which our Fathers frequented even the Canon of the Mass it self as to say ‖ Append. 3 l. p. 224. ' That the using therof no other was used in those days than is now is no proof that the Church that then was was not a Protestant Church and that both the Liturgie it self and the profession of such as used it shew plainly that the Church that then was never allowed any Romish errour And again so far justifies he the doctrine of that Church which he owns as Catholick and the Protestants Mother as to affirm ‖ 3 l. p. 81. That none of those points of false doctrine and errour which the Roman Church now maintaineth and the Protestants condemn were the doctrines of that Church before Luther constantly delivered He must mean constantly for the present Age before Luther for in that Age he acknowledgeth it Catholick or generally received by all them that were of it but doubtfully broached and devised without all certain resolution or factiously defended by some certain only c. It seems therefore that look how many Doctrines of those now condemned by Protestants may appear to have bin in the Church §. 47. n. 1. I say not here the Catholick but the Latin Church for of this he speaks before Luther not doubtfully broached but in her Councils resolved in her publick Liturgies conformed to and generally received Generally not as including every single person for so perhaps were not the doctrine of the Trinity or of Christs Incarnation received but so generally received by the then Western Church-Governors as is necessary for the ratification of the Decrees of their Representatives met in Councils for more than this cannot rationally be required so many he will acknowledge for Catholick and in obedience thereto shew a filial Duty to this his Mother And therefore after this to defend the discession of the Reformed from and their present non-communion with the present Western Church he seeks to relieve
greater necessity * that these Church-Governors should be enabled exactly to distinguish these Prop. 7. as to all particulars Or * that Catholicks should learn such distinction from their Governours than that Protestants should learn it from the Scriptures And the Answer which Protestant give for a non-necessity of this latter viz. Because who believes all the Scripture believes all Necessaries revealed in it they may take for a non-necessity of the other because who believeth all that the Church defineth believeth all Necessaries defined by it neither again can the Protestants justly require any certainty explicitness or distinction of faith concerning the Proposals of the Church which distinction c. themselves do not maintain or think necessary concerning the Proposals and sence of Scripture So if the Protestant Divines grant a sufficient certainty as they do ‖ See Mr. Chillingw p. 160. in a Christian's faith who believes all Fundamentals from the Authority of Scriptures * tho mean-while he knows not from the same Scriptures which or how many they are nor either the Protestant-Guides or their followers out of these Scriptures can make any certain catalogue of them and * though they also may in the sense of many Texts of Scripture err and mistake so that they only build a sufficiency of their faith upon this hypothetical certainty that if the point be necessary they using a due industry cannot err in the sense of such Scriptures because all necessaries God hath in these Scriptures clearly revealed Then they cannot deny the same sufficient certaînty of a Catholicks faith that believes all fundamentals from the Proposal of his Ecclesiastical Guides if these Guides be granted in these infallible tho' neither he nor these Guides should certainly know for all points which or how many these fundamentals be § 13 Very vain therefore seems that discourse of Mr. Chillingworth c. 3. § 57. so far as it is made use of to this purpose to shew upon the non-distinction of fundamentals or the supposed liability of Church-Guides to err in non-fundamentals the uncertainty or unsufficiency of a Catholicks faith As also ridiculous that arguing of his where when Catholicks say they are certain concerning every particular point proposed by the Church that if it be a fundamental she errs not in it i.e. errs not in what she determines concerning it or errs not in determining any thing against it He faith They say that they are certain that if it be a fundamental truth the Church doth not err in it i. e. in holding it which faith he is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary § 14 2ly Neither doth it follow from these Church-Guide's supposed inability exactly to distinguish Necessaries from non Necessaries that therefore they are or can be no infallible Guide in all Necessaries that is in teaching and prescribing them though they should not be so in distinguishing them and in their teaching nothing besides togesher with them Nor is that consequence of Mr. Chillingworth's ‖ p. 105 150 true That if there be a Society of men infallible in Fundamentals they must be so also in declaring what is Fundamental or necessary what not unlesse upon this supposition that the declaring thereof is also a thing Necessary as I suppose he meant it For I may be certainly by the divine goodness preserved from error in many truths which yet I do not certainly know that they are truths And again further may certainly know somthing to be a truth and teach it to others and yet not further know it to be a truth so absolutely necessary as perhaps it is To use Mr. Chillingworths simile ‖ p. 159. A Physicians in his using of a medicine consisting of twenty Ingredients of which medicine he is certain that the whole receit hath in it all things necessary to the cure of such a disease yet may not exactly know whether all the Ingredients thereof are absolutely necessary or only some of them necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse or some only necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtful As also the Protestants grant that the Church in delivering the Scriptures delivers all necessary truths therein yet without punctually knowing what or how many they are § 15 3ly It seems most reasonable that a Guide of whose not erring in Necessaries 3. I am secure But neither I nor it can exactly distinguish such from non-Necessaries should be believed by me in all it proposeth though in some Proposals it should be liable to error I must add one exception indeed If that in no particular which it proposeth I am infallibly certain of the contrary for then in such I am sure that the Tenent of this Guide can be no fundamental Truth because not truth But first this Exception is unserviceable to all those which are the most as can plead no such infallible certainty for so many stand obliged still to the former belief 2ly such exception can rationally be made use of by none in the matters we speak of for who can presume himself thus certain in a matter of faith or in his own sense of Scripture though the literal expression be never so clear where so many learned and his Superiors comparing other texts c. understand it otherwise and are of a contrary judgment For it is the same as if in a matter of sense a dim-sighted person should professe himself certain that an object is white when a multitude of others the most clear-sighted that can be found having all the same means with him of a right sensation pronounce it black or of another colour § 16 Now this case only excepted I say such Guide ought to be believed by me in all it proposeth And this upon a triple account 1st because otherwise I expose my self to error in something necessary to which error in not following this Guide I am very liable for though I have besides this Guide a Rule infallible yet my sence thereof is not so in points that are controverted 2ly because this is such a Guide as learned Protestants grant that Gods Command doth oblige me to obey its judgment where I have no certain evidence of the contrary of its decrees ‖ See below §. 20. And also common reason obligeth me to follow a better judgment than my own especially when I do it as with due humility so with sufficient safety because thus it must be only a non-Necessary that I can err in and as I am certain if a fundamental that it is true what it delivers so not certain if it be no fundamental that then it is not true 3ly because though somthing superfluous may possibly be determined by this Guide yet considering the former notion of Necessaries ‖ §. 9. to which there seems good cause that the infallibility of this Guide be extended who will undertake to exclude any particular Church-definition
for ever must be so infallible the Church-Catholick being ever so and never consisting of People only without Pastors It is necessarily devolved also upon the much major and more-dignified part of this united Body of the Clergy to be so Because else the Catholick Church would not be One in its Constitution but a Body divided in it self and so which could not stand if two several Parties in such Council without any just subordination to one another might both pretend themselves to be the unerring Guide 6ly For these Church-Guides being affirmed unerrable in Necessaries Catholicks here do understand Necessaries § 9 not in so strict a sence as to be restrained and limited only to those few points of Faith that are so indispensably required to be of all explicitly believed as that salvation is not possibly consistible with the disbelief or ignorance of any of them But affirm they ought to be understood in a sence more enlarged comprehending at least all such points as are very requisite and beneficial to salvation either in respect of Christian Faith or Manners either for the direction of particulars or Government of the whole Society of Christians Of which see what is spoken more largely in the 2d Disc § 9. § 10 7ly Concerning the particular Manner or Measure of these Church-Governors when assembled in a lawful General Council their being affirmed unerrable or infallible 1st As Catholicks do not hereby understand them absolutely unerrable in any matter whatever which they may attempt to determine but only in such matters as appear to them of necessary Faith taken in the sence before-mentioned ‖ §. 9. Disc 2. §. 9. So neither do they hold touching these necessary points * any inherent habitual infallibility residing either in the whole Council or some Members thereof whereby they perceive and know themselves infallibly inspired as to such points after the same manner as the Apostles or Prophets did but only * an actual non-erring in those things which they define * from the promised Divine Assistance and super-intendent Providence constantly directing their Consultations into the Truth by what several ways or means it matters not to know or also * from the clear Evidence of former Revelation and Tradition of the point defined from which Evidence Protestants also grant that those may be certain for some divine Truths who are not infallible in all 2ly Catholicks affirm These Guides in all ages since that of the Apostles equally infallible and that the present Church doth not or way not pretend to any infallibility or exercise any authority consequent thereof which the ancient Catholick Church did not claim and also practise in the four first or other General Councils But yet as this ancient Church also required Assent under Anathema to its Definitions and inserted some of them into the Creeds and some of these also points of great difficulty and subtle discussion that so may the present or the future Church do the like § 11 8ly Catholicks affirm That of the several Councils that have been assembled in former ages to know which or how many of them have been lawfully general or in their obligation equivalent thereto any Christian without going about to satisfie himself in all those curious Questions moved by Protestants several of which are considered below § 86. c. may securely relie on the acceptation and acknowledgement or non-opposition of them and their Decrees * by the Church-Catholick of that age wherein they were held and of the ages following i. e. by the Teachers and Writers therein unanimously maintaining or not gainsaying the Doctrines of such Councils and by the Church's practice conforming to their Injunctions Or where some persons or Churches dissent from the rest * by the Major part of these Churches accepting them when these are united also with St. Peter 's Successor the always Prime Patriarch and Supreme Bishop of the Christian world the Bishop of Rome As for Example Catholicks hold that a Christian may securely embrace and obey the Decrees of those Councils as Generall or in their obligation equivalent thereto the Decrees whereof were accepted by the whole Church-Catholick tacitly at least in their Liturgies Writings Practices being conformable thereto or not dissenting therefrom at the Appearance of Luther and are accepted still both by the much major part of the Christian world and also ratified by the Supreme Pastor of the Church-Catholick § 12 The Reason of this 1 Because if a Christian may not securely rely on such an Acceptation a few persons or Churches resisting or standing out perhaps those who are condemned also of Heresie and Schism by such Councils This will void the obligation of all Councils whatever And upon the same termes the Arrian Bishops and their Churches that dissented will void the Obligation of the first General Council of Nice and those dissenting Persons and Churches of the Nestorians and Eutychians or Dioscorites some of which continue in the Eastern or Southern parts of the world unto this day will void that of the third and fourth General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon See more of this Disc 2. § 25. c. And 2 Because considering the nature of a multitude such thing can hardly be but that some will dissent from the rest and therefore it seems as necessary to proceed according to the same Rule in the Church-Catholick's accepting the Council's Decrees as in the Council's making them viz. that the Vote of the much major part conclude the whole to render the actions of such great Bodies valid § 13 9ly Concerning the Acceptation of Councils by the whole or major part of the Church-Catholick this seems reasonable That though the representatives of some considerable part of the Church-Catholick should be wanting in some of these Councils especially when they are assembled for deciding some Controversies arising only in that of Christianity where the Council sits yet the certain concurrence of that absent part of the Church-Catholick in their doctrines with the decrees of such Councils should pass for a sufficient acceptation of them and such absence no way prejudice the obligation of such Decrees For it may well be presumed the members of such Churches if present would have voted in the Council what they hold out of it hold before it contradict not after it § 14 10ly Catholicks do hold all particular persons and Churches taken divisim as being only a part of and subordinatâ—â—â— to the whole ‖ See Disc 2. §. 23. as also all particular Bishops are only single members of the whole Body of them assembled in a Council to stand obliged in submission of their judgement and in obedience of assent to the Definitions and Decrees of the whole in these Supremests Courts thereof wherein it can give its judgement viz. it s lawful General Councils when these accepted also by the Church-Governors absent in the manner forementioned § 15 The Reason Because these Supreme Courts are secured for ever by our Lords
English Church in obliging her Subjects to believe these points Errors which the Roman Church doth hers to believe Truths hath in his as large a Creed as the other if the other hath Twelve new Articles so in her stating the contrary to them hath she and is equally tyrannical or more because the Articles of the other are the elder of the two the Subjects of the one having no liberty left to affirm them as of the other to deny them For Example A Subject of the Church of England supposing him obliged to believe her Articles true hath no more liberty left to hold Transubstantiation a Truth than a Romanist hath to hold it an Error Or to instance in the implyed affirmative that is maintained in opposition to Transubstantiation on the Church of Englands side a Subject of this Church hath no more liberty left to hold the remaining of the Substance of the Symbols in the Eucharist an Error than those of the Roman have to hold it a Truth This of the first sort those who as peremptorily deny a thing as the others affirm it But next you may observe that neither are the later sort who suspend their judgment because such point seems not proved to them in this always the most secure and safe If the proposers to them of that point be such persons as they are commanded to believe unless themselves can prove the contrary to it which is the case of all those who have Spiritual Superiors and if the knowledge of such a Truth be any way profitable to their Salvation which Truths I suppose these Superiors never define without foreseeing First such Doctrines defined beneficial to be known This from § 85. n. 2. is my 2d. Observation concerning the Church of Englands negative Articles 3ly You may observe §. 85. n. 4. that when these Protestant Writers say Obs 3 that these 39 Articles that is the most of them or the negatives see Observation 1. ‖ §. 85. n. 1. are not made by them Articles of their Faith they explain themselves to mean not made fundamental Articles of their Faith or such the belief of which is necessary ratione medii for attaining salvation and such as extra quas creditas non est salus ‖ § 84. n. 1. they meanwhile not denying that whatever is Scripture and a revealed Divine Truth is an Article of our Faith i. e. as Bp. Bramhall Necessary to be believed and assented to by us when it is known to be revealed Now as they do not make the most of their 39 Articles the rule or articles of their Faith in the forenamed sense so neither doth the Roman Church or Council of Trent her Canons whatever Protestants tell the World so often to the contrary Fundamental indeed they call sometimes all points defined by the Churches Councils and hold them necessary to be believed for attaining salvation but not necessary in such a sense as ratione medii necessary or absolutely extra quas creditas non est salus but onely necessary to be believed upon supposition of a sufficient proposal of them to any person that they have been so defined Again necessarily to be believed also for attaining Salvation not because that no person can be saved and that after the Churches definition of them in his not believing them But because if after such proposal and sufficient notice given him of their being defined he believe them not he now stands guilty in this his disobedience to his supreme spiritual Guides of a mortal sin unrepented of destructive of his Salvation A thing spoken plainly enough by the answerer of the Archbishops Book §. 85. n. 5. and yet misrepresented by the Replier ‖ p 48 49. who imposeth these propositions as maintained by the Roman Church That what the Church determines as matter of Faith is as necessary to be believed in order to Salvation as that which is necessary from the matter i. e. necessary ratione medii And that an equal explicit faith is required to the definitions of the Church as to the Articles of the Creed and that there is an equal necessity in order to Salvation of believing both of them Whenas he might easily have informed himself that there is not an equal necessity required by the Roman Church of the very Articles of the Creed in order to Salvation and whenas not onely this one condition of the Churche's having defined them for none are obliged necessarily to believe explicitly whatsoever the Church hath defined but a second also of a sufficient proposal to us of what the Church hath defined renders her Definitions necessary to be believed and then necessary to be believed indeed as to the doing of our duty in order to our Salvation but not all of them necessary to be believed as if the knowledg of them were so necessary to our Salvation as that without this it could not be had as that of some of the Articles of the Creed is Neither is the Greek Church one ground of this authors mistake by F. Fisher or others of the Roman Church charged as guilty of Heresie in any other manner save this that supposing a lawful General Council accepted by the Church Catholick to have defined The procession of the H. Ghost à Filio so many of the Greek Church as have received a sufficient proposal that such a Council hath so defined it if they continue to deny or disbelieve it are guilty of Heresie leaving the rest free unless it can be proved that à Filio is a Fundamental in the other sense i. e. ratione medii free I say so many amongst them as happen to be either by natural defect and incapacity or external want of instruction invincibly and inculpably ignorant either of the just authority of such a Council or of its Divinely assisted inerrability in all necessaries or of such its Decree or of the true sense thereof which persons indeed by reason of the evidence of all these things cannot be the most or the learned but yet may be some for all in an Heretical Church are not affirmed Hereticks though the Churches censures according to the reasonable grounds of conviction concerning any such point generally published are passed upon all that are involved in such a Society whilst God who knows all capacities absolves from them whom he seeth innocent and preserves his Wheat from the fire though by the Church bound in the same bundle with the Tares As for the other ground of the Replyers mistake ‖ Stillin p 48. That famous passage of Pius Hanc veram Catholicam Fidem extra quam c. he might have learn'd to have made a more moderate and qualified construction of it from his own descant on the like clause in the Athanasian Creed Haec est Fides Catholica quam nisi quisque c. where he ‖ p. 70 71. could well discover a conditional necessity as to some of the Articles thereof viz. A necessity
vanish those fancies ◠Of every General Council's receiving a Commission to make its meeting authentick from some formal act or tacit consent of the Church diffusive of the assistance of infallibility if any had to be made over to it by assignment from the Church diffusive of its acting not by any divine right but only humane delegation and of the several parts of the Church being obliged to its decrees by their choice and consent only not upon necessity 3ly Again It is asked how such an Ecclesiastical infallibility as is placed in a General Council Q. 3. can be said to be serviceable or at least necessary to the Church which subsisted § 98 for the first 300. years without any such infallible Guide And it is asked also by what infallible Guide in the long intervals of these Councils Christians are secured § 99 To the first I answer That this infallibility is to be supposed to accompany this Body of the Clergy taken collectively not only when met in a General Council but out of it whenever and however they shall manifest a concurrence in their judgment and agreement in their doctrines whether by several Provincial Councils assembled or some one Provincial Council assembled confirmed by the See Apostolick and allowed by other co-ordinate Churches or by communicatory letters of Churches to one another in the intervals of greater meetings and thus was infallibility resident and preserved in the Guides of the Church for the first 300. years Of this matter thus Mr. Thorndike †Epilog 1 l c. 8 p. 54. speaking of the times before Constantine The daily intercourse intelligence and correspondence between Churches without those Assemblies of Representatives we call Councils was a thing so visibly practised by the Catholick Church from the beginning that thereupon I conceive it may be called a standing Council in regard of the continual setling of troubles arising in some part and tending to question the peace of the whole by the consent of other Churches concerned which setlement was had and obtained by means of this mutual intelligence and correspondence The holding of Councils being a way of far greater dispatch but the express consent of Churches obtained upon the place being a more certain foundation of peace c. Thus he And see what is said before Disc 1. § 18. To the second That in the intervals of Councils if any new error dangerous to the faith and condemned by no former General Council doth molest the Church she by some of the forenamed wayes wherein she is unerrable if there be no convenience of assembling a General Council suppresseth it but if an error formerly condemned and crushed by a general Council begin to exalt it self and grow again that there needeth no more to quiet it than that the present Church Governours do put in execution the former unerring decrees of those Councils 4ly Again it is asked Q. 4. How lawful General Councils can be maintained all unerring § 100 which Councils experience hath shewed to have contradicted one another To which I answer That he who saith so either takes some Council to be a lawful General one that is not so in the judgment of the present Church Catholick as stated before § 11 12. 2. Disc § 23. c. Or takes some of their definitions to contradict which do not so in the judgment of the present Church Catholick Or urgeth things in some ages commonly received or practised in which there is a great latitude as things then defined But if the judgment of the Church in these ought to be preferred before some private members thereof she denies such contradiction in matters of faith to be in any of the General Councils that she receives 5ly Again it is asked Q. 5. If a General Council should err in the defining of something not necessary and again § 101 if it can be proved that no exact distinction can be made of such from necessaries how any Christian can be secure for any particular point of his faith that both such Council and himself do not err in it I answer 1st That if what is supposed should be granted yet still is such Christian as believes all the Council proposeth secure that his faith is deficient in nothing necessary And that Protestants think the like security sufficient in their own faith For they holding the sence of Scripture clear even to the unlearned in all necessaries and believing all the Scripture saith though they cannot exactly distinguish necessary points therein from others yet affirm their faith to be secure because actually not erring in any point clear and so also not in any point necessary 2ly That as to the Principal points of faith called necessary they are both by Councils sufficiently discerned from non-necessaries and proposed as necessaries and so by Christians believed as such In these particulars therefore they are certain of their not erring and as to other points of their faith that it is sufficient for Christians to know that if necesiary they do not err in them though which in particular are necessary and so certainly not erred in they know not But meanwhile do those who urge thus an uncertainty in the faith of Catholicks in attaching their judgment to Councils which in not necessaries are supyosed liable to error make themselves any better provision for the Protestants faith in remitting them from Councils unto their own judgments which in necessaries also they grant are liable to error at least upon their not using due industry their being swayed by passion interest c. which every humble man surely will suspect himself of sooner than a Council 6ly Again It is much pressed That upon the pretence Q. 6. that a General Council is infallible § 102 no error of such Council can ever be corrected or remedied neither by a particular person or Church or yet by another Council General I answer If the Council be as it is pretended infallible no need of correcting an error where is none If it be fallible yet if so only in non-necessaries no great harm if Christians in such a point be misled but great if private men throwing off the Guide upon such pretence they should so come in some necessary point to miscarry But indeed for General Councils to be fallible in necessaries also this I grant would be a thing most mischeivous to the Church but that they shall never thus err see what is said before § 6. Disc 1. § 7.14 And indeed the objection here i. e. the ruine which such error would bring upon Christianity considering the obedience commanded to these Councils is a sufficient Argument that thus they never err nor consequently need reformation § 103 But meanwhile those who urge this that the error of a General Council in an universal obligation of belief to it can never be rectified or reformed consider not That on the other side in admitting a reformation of any its supposed errors no truth
notitiam fidei sicut fidem ipsam certitudinem habet ex lumine divinae scientiae quae decipi non potest And Biel †In 3. sent 23 d. q. 2. A. 1. Hoc autem ita intelligendum est ut scientia certior sit certitudine evidentiae Fides verò certior firmitate adhaesionis Majus lumen in scientiâ majus robur in fide Et hoc quia in fide ad fidem Actus imperatus voluntatis concurrit Credere enim est actus intellectus vero assentientis productus ex voluntatis imperio Again p. 86. Faith saith he is an evidence as well as knowledge and the belief is firmer than any knowledge can be because it rests upon divine authority which cannot deceive whereas knowledge or at least he that thinks he knows is not ever certain in deductions from Principles And if there be any that should deny such a Divine or infused faith wrought in Christians by God's Spirit besides and beyond the evidence which a moral certainty rationally affords let them declare how a Christians faith is necessarily a Grace of the Holy Spirit where there is no effect in it that is ascribed to the Spirit but all that they attribute to it is necessarily consequent to another humane and rational evidence and no other ground of their faith of the Divine truths alledged by them than of the being of a Julius Caesar viz. a credible and morally-certain Tradition § 125 4ly Therefore concerning any certainty or assurance that Christians are necessarily to have of this their faith that it is true and infallible which certitude all true believers have not alike †Mat. 14.31 S. Thom. 22. q. 5 a. 4. Here also I think all are agreed That such a certainty one may have from the inward light and operation of God's Holy Spirit though he should have neither any internal scientifical demonstration thereof which if he hath it is not faith nor extrinsecal infallible motive testimony or proponent thereof whatever but though only he hath that which is in it self truly a Divine Revelation for the object thereof § 126 5ly Since the Church may be considered either * as a Society already manifested by divine Testimony and Revelation whether this written the Scriptures or unwritten Apostolical Tradition to be by the holy Ghost for ever assisted and guided in all necessary truths Or before any such divine Testimony known * as a multitude of men famous in wisdom innocency of life sufferings c. things prudentially moving us to credit all their Traditions Both Churches here agree That humane Testimony or Church-Tradition taken in the later sence in its making known to us what are these Divine Revelations or this Word of God is only introductive to this divine faith which relies on and adheres to the Revelations hemselves as its formal object Scripture is the ground of our faith Tradition the Key that lets us in saith Arch-Bp Lawd †p. 86. Divine Revelation written or unwritten is the formal Object or ultimate divine motive into which we resolve our faith and the Churches Tradition testifying or manifesting to us these matters revealed is a condition and prerequisite or introductive for the application of our faith unto those Divine Revelations on which we exercise it say the Catholicks § 127 6ly Catholicks further affirm That as the Church is considered in the former of the two acceptions formentioned the infallible authority and testimony thereof is not only an introductive into but one of the Articles of this divine faith as being grounded on Divine Revelation and that so many as believe the Church's infallibility in this sence may safely resolve their divine Faith of other Articles of their belief into its delivering them as such But then they hold That the Church's infallibility thus believed is not necessarily the ultimate Principle into which this divine Faith of other Articles is resolved but that Word of God written or unwritten by which this Church-infallibility is manifested to them And again That whatever this infallible authority of the Church be it is not necessary that every one for attaining a divine authority and saving faith be infallibly certain of this infallible Church-authority Or it is not necessary That for attaining a divine faith of the Articles of the Christian belief he have some extrinsecal motive or proponent whether it be of the Church or any other save the prime verity of which he is infallibly certain that it is infallible Which thing is copiously proved by many learned Catholicks a few of whose testimonies I have here inserted which the Reader may pass over if in this matter satisfied § 128 Concerning this thus Cardinal Lugo a Spanish Jesuit speaking of divine faith †Tom. de virtute fideidisp 1. §. 12. p. 247. Probatur facilè quia hoc ipsum Ecclesiam habere authoritatem infallibilem ex assistentia Spiritus sancti creditur fid◠divinâ quae docet in Ecclesiâ esse hujusmodi authoritatem ergo ante ipsius fidei assensum non potest requiri cognitio hujus infallibilis authoritatis Et experientia docet non omnes pueros vel adultos qui de novo ad fidem accedunt concipere muchless infallibiliter scire in Ecclesiâ hanc infallibilem authoritatem assistentiam Spiritus sancti antequam ullum alium articulum credant Credunt enim Articulos in ordine quo proponuntur Hunc autem Articulum authoritatis Ecclesiasticae contingit credi postquam alios plures crediderunt Solum ergo potest ad summum praerequiri cognoscere res fidei proponi ab Ecclesia concipiendo in Ecclesiâ secundum se authoritatem maximam humanam quae reperitur in universâ fidelium congregatione n. 252. In lege naturae plures credebant ex solâ doctrinâ parentum fine aliâ Ecclesiae propositione Deinde in lege scriptô plures crediderunt Moysi aliis Prophetis antequam eorum Prophetiae ab Ecclesia reciperentur I add or before they saw their miracles or the fulfilling of their Prophecies § 129 Thus Estius †In. 3. sent 23. d. 13. §. speaking also of this divine and salvifical faith Fidei impertinens est quo medio Deus utatur ad conferendum homini donum fidei i. e. divinae quamvis enim nunc ordinarium medium sit Ecclesiae testificatio doctrina constat tamen aliis viis seu mediis fidem collatam fuisse aliquando adhuc conferri c. Nam antiqui multi ut Abraham Melchizedech Job ex speciali revelatione Apostoli ex Christi miraculis sermone yet these having no other formal or ultimate motive of their faith than we have rursus ex Apostolorum praedicatione miraculis I add and some without and before seeing their miracles and others by a credible relation only not sight of their miracles yet all these mens faith of the same nature and efficiency alii fidem conceperunt alii denique aliis modis crediderant cùm nondùm de
infallibilitate doctrinae Ecclesiasticae quicquam eis esset annunciatum Sic ergo fieri potest ut aliquis non adhaerens doctrinae Ecclesiasticae tanquam regulae infallibili quaedam ad fidem pertinentia pro Dei verbo recipiat quia vel nunc vel olim miraculis confirmata sunt vel etiam quia veterem Ecclesiam sic docuisse manifestè videt vel aliâ quacunque ratione inductus licet alia quaedam credere recuset § 130 Thus Paul Layman a Jesuit †Theol. moral 2. l. tract 1.5 c. Fierisaepè solet ut alii Articuli fidei nostrae puta quae sunt de Deo uno trino explicitè credantur ante hunc quae est de infallibili Ecclesiae authoritate Quinimò haec Ecclesiae infallibilitas Spiritus sancti promissione nititur ergo prius oportet credere spiritum sanctum adeoque Trinitatem in divinis esse Praeterea constat primos Christianos fide divinâ credidisse non ob authoritatem Ecclesiae quae vel fundata non erat v. g. cum Sanctus Petrus credidit Christum esse Filium Dei vivi Mat. 16. vel nondum fidei dogmata definierat Again His adde non tantùm variis motivis homines ad fidem amplectendam moveri sed etiam alios aliis facilius partim propter majorem internam Spiritus sancti illustrationem impulsionem sicuti notavit Valentia q. 1. part 4. arg 8. partìm pro animi sui simplicitate quia de opposito errore persuasionem nullam conceperunt quâ ratione pueri apud Catholicos cum ad usum rationis pervenerunt acceptant fidei mysteria tanquam divinitus revelata quia natu majores prudentes quos ipsi norunt it a credere animadvertunt Again Formale assentiendi principium seu motivum non est Ecclesiae authoritas Si enim ex te quaeram cur credas Deum esse incarnatum Respondeasque Quia Ecclesia Catholica quae errare non potest ob sancti spiritus assistentiam ita testatur iterum ex se quaeram unde id scias vel cur credas Ecclesiam errare non posse vel sanctum spiritum ei assistere Quare recte dixit Canus †Loc. Theol. l. 2. c. 8. Si generaliter quaeratur unde fideli constet ea quae fide tenet esse à Deo revelata non poterit infallibilem Ecclesiae authoritatem adducere quia unum ex revelatis est quòd Ecclesia errare non possit Interim non negamus saith he quin resolutio fidei in authoritatem Ecclesiae quatenus spiritu sancto regitur fieri possit communiter soleat à fidelibus ipsis qui infallibilem spiritus sancti assistentiam ac directionem Ecclesiae promissam certâ fidei tenent his enim ejus testimonium ac definitio certa regula est ad alios articulos amplectendos Thus he of the Church as it is a Society manifested by Divine Revelation to be infallibly assisted in all necessaries by the holy Ghost But then as it appears to us before such revelation only as an illustris congregatio tot hominum excellentium c. he speaks of it on this manner Fidei divinae assensus in hanc authoritatem Ecclesiae non resolvitur tanquam in principium sed tanquam in extrinsecum adjumentum conditionem sine qua non Etenim authoritas illa Ecclesia non quatenus consideratur ut organum Spiritus sancti sed ut illustris congregatio hominum prudentum c. est quidem formale principtum credendi fide humanâ sed non fide divina Quia fides divina est quâ Deo dicenti credimus ob authoritatem veritatem ejus consequenter qui credit propter authoritatem hominum vel simile motivum humanum is fide solum humanâ credit Accedit quòd sicuti ipsimet Scotus Gabriel argumentantur assensus cognoscitivus non possit excedere certitudinem principii quo nititâ—r assensus autem fidei divinae certitudinem infallibilem habet quo fieri non potest ut assensus fidei divinae tanquam principio nitatur authoritati hominum vel simili motivo humano quippe quod secundum se absolute fallibile est § 131 Thus Fa. Knott †p. 358. in his Reply to Mr. Chillingworth affirming Christians may have a true infallible divine faith of which faith they have only a fallible proponent nor are infallibly certain thereof i. e. as to the proponent From the unlearned saith he God exacts no more but that they proceed prudently according to the measure of their several capacities and use such diligence as men ought in a matter of highest moment All Christians of the primitive Church were not present when the Apostles spoke or wrote yea it is not certain that every one of those thousands whom S. Peter converted did hear every sentence he spake but might believe some by relation of others who stood near And c. 1. p. 64. the same author saith That a Preacher or Pastor whose testimonies are humane and fallible when they declare to their hearers or subjects that some truth is witnessed by God's Word are an occasion that those people may produce a true infallible act of faith depending immediately upon Divine Revelation applyed by the said means And If you object saith he that perhaps that humane authority is false and proposeth to my understanding divine Revelation when God doth not reveal therefore I cannot upon humane testimony representing or applying Divine Revelation exercise an infallible act of faith I answer it is one thing whether by a reflex act I am absolutely certain that I exercise an infallible act of faith and another whether indeed and in actu exercito I produce such an act Of the former I have said nothing neither makes it to our present purpose Of the latter I affirm that when indeed humane testimony is true though not certainly known to me to be so and so applies a Divine Revelation which really exists in such a case I may believe by a true infallible assent of Christian faith viz. from the divine supernatural concourse which he affirms †p. 358. necessary to every act of divine faith § 132 Therefore here it is much to be noted that divine faith quatenus divine which is therefore so called because we believe God that saith it for his own authority and veracity whose certainty or infallibility or unliableness to deceive infinitely exceeds all created certainties moral or natural all which are liable to a possibility of deception even that of our senses cannot be resolved into any thing further than 1st As to any external motive ground reason or principle thereof that is of equal certainty into that particular Divine Revelation which is first made known to me or from which in building of my faith I proceed to the rest which revelation is not to all alwayes the same but to some Christians one to some another in which ultimate Revelation this divine faith terminates 2ly As to the inward efficient thereof
Tradition namely that both of Christians and Mahometans than this that the Bible is God's Word and yet this later carries with it a sufficient evidence and Protestants themselves †See Disc 2. §. 40. n. 2. do both allow and practise several Traditions as Apostolical which yet have not the same fulness of Tradition as the Scriptures nor indeed more than several of those points have whereof yet they deny a sufficient Tradition 2. Again the Tradition of a smaller number of persons if eminent in sanctity and miracles and other forenamed †§. 121. motives of credit may be as or more credible than that of a greater number not so qualified Of several other Traditions then what or how many in particular carry a sufficient fulness and evidence in them though all do not the same to beget a rational belief this after the Church's authority once established by Scripture and Tradition private men may safely learn from the same Church § 140 But 8ly This certainty of Tradition allowed by Protestants for Scripture's being God's Word and whatever is contained in it infallible seeming unsufficient to assure to Christians their faith in several Articles thereof because wherever the sence of these Scriptures is ambiguous it will still be uncertain whether such Articles of our faith be grounded on the true sence which only is God's Word or on the mistaken sence which is not so Next therefore Catholicks proceed farther yet And both from the same Scriptures thus established and from other constant Tradition descending from the Apostles for which see the proofs given before Disc 1. § 7. Disc 2. § 17. Disc 3. § 7. 87. c. do also gather and firmly believe an infallibility in the Church or its Governours for all necessaries from a promised perpetual assistance of the holy Ghost And this Article of the infallibility of the Church thus established becomes to them a new ground of their faith from which they do most firmly believe and adhere to all the rest of those Articles of their faith wherein the Divine Revelation either of Scriptures or Tradition is not so perspicuous and clear to them as it is in this other of the Churches infallibility And from this infallibility of the Church believed all the definitions of the same Church that are made in points where the true-sence of Scriptures is in controversie and that are delivered by her as infallible and Divine Revelations are straight believed as such and among others these points also when the Church defines them in any doubtful case what belongs to the Canon of Scriptures or what are Traditions Apostolical § 141 Thus if I first receive and believe the Church-infallibility from a clear Apostolical Tradition afterward from this Church-infallibility defining it I may become straight assured of the Canon of Scripture Or 2ly If I receive and believe some part of the Canon of Scripture from clear Apostolical Tradition and out of this received Canon become assured of Church-infallibility afterward from this infallibility defining it I may certainly come to know other parts of the same Canon that are more questioned Again when I have already learned the Church-infallibility from the Scriptures afterward I may become from its definitions setled in the belief of all those Articles of faith wherein the expressions of the same Scriptures though believed by me before the Churches infallibility yet being ambiguous in their sence which sence properly and not the words is the Divine Revelation can beget no certain and firm faith in me until they are expounded by the Church infallibly relating from God's Spirit assisting it the traditive sence of them to me So that though I believe the infallibility of Scripture's as well as the Church yet in so many points wherein the meaning of the Scriptures is not clear to me I receive the firmness of my faith in them not from the infallibility of the Scriptures expression of that which is God's Word but of the Church expounding them If then the Scripture or Tradition-Apostolick be clearer for this of Church-infallibility than for some other points of faith that person must necessarily be conceded to have a firmer ground of his faith for so many points who believes the Church infallible than another who believes only Scripture so and such person also is preserved in a right faith in these points when the other not only may err in his Faith but become heretical in his error by opposing the definition of the Church So had the Arrians and Nestorians believed the Church infallible this Article of their faith firm and stedfast had preserved them from Heresie in some others § 142 Here then appears a great firmness and stability of the Catholicks Faith by reason of this Church-infallibility for many points wherein the Protestants faith fluctuates and varies For whilst the Protestant only extends and makes use of the certitude of the Church Tradition as to one of these points the delivery of the Scriptures and acknowledgeth no further certitude of the same Church-Tradition written in the Scriptures or unwritten for the other point the infallibility of the Church divinely assisted in the exposition of the same Scriptures and in the discerning of true Traditions And again while the sence of these Scriptures in many weighty points as experience shews hath been and is controverted the Protestant here for so many of these points as are upon such misinterpretation of Scripture defined by the Church in the definition of which Church assisted as he believes by the holy Ghost the Catholick remains secure hath no rational Anchor nor ground of confidence in his faith but that which rests upon the certainty of his own judgment concerning the sence of God's Word and truth of Tradition and that judgment of his too for several points of his faith going against the judgment and exposition of the major part of the present Church and against his Superiors Where the last refuge Protestants betake themselves to ordinarily is this that they say In all things necessary the sence of Scripture is not ambiguous but clear enough to the unlearned and that in points not necessary there is no necessity of a right faith or of any decision of controversies and so no need of an infallible Church or any unerring Guide save Scripture which defence hath been examined in Disc 2. § 38. c. § 143 The sum of what hath been said here is this 1st I take it as a principle agreed on That a divine is such a faith as quatenus divine ultimately resolves it self into Divine Revelation § 144 2ly There must be some particular ultimate Divine Revelation assigned by every Christian which may be not to all the same but to some one to some another beyond which he can resolve his divine faith no further and for proving or confirming which Revelation he can produce no other divine Revelation but there must end unless a process be made in infinitum or a running
divine evidence I adhere to it I answer from the internal operation and testimony of the Holy Spirit which Spirit causeth a most firm fiducial assent in me that these Scriptures were delivered to the Church as God's Word by Apostolical Tradition for the Church pretends no new Revelation concerning the Canon of Scripture i. e. were delivered by those divinely preserved from any fallibility therein Neither doth here again in the matter of divine faith appear any Circle at all And if it be further asked what rational ground I have to think this is a perswasion of God's and not of some evil spirit or this indeed an Apostolical Tradition which I am told is so here I urge for these the prudential motives § 151 Again Suppose I be asked concerning some other Article of faith that is defined by the Church though the same Article doth not appear to me clearly delivered in the Scriptures why with a divine faith I do believe it to be divine Revelation I answer because the Church which is revealed by the Scriptures to be perpetually assisted by the holy Ghost and to be infallible for ever in matters of faith defined by her hath delivered it to me as such If again why with a divine faith I believe these Scriptures in general or such a sence of those Texts in particular which are pretended to reveal the Churches infallibility to be divine Revelation I answer as before because Apostolical Tradition hath delivered them to be so which Apostolical Tradition related or conveyed to me by the Church I believe with a divine faith by the internal operation of the Holy Spirit without having at all any further Divine Revelation from which I should believe this Revelation to be divine Or if any will go one step further and prove this Apostolical Tradition also divine from the divine works the Apostles did Miracles yet here he must conclude neither have we any further divine word or work to confirm to us their doing such divine works But then if I be asked further whether I do not believe with a divine faith the Church's relation concerning such Apostolical Tradition or Miracles to be infallible I excluding now this supposition which in the order of these questions is in this place to be excluded viz. that Scriptures are the Word of God and so excluding this answer that I believe the Churches relation infallible with a divine faith from the testimony which the Scriptures give to the Church Here I answer No I do not believe with divine faith this relation of the Church to be infallible for divine faith builds upon nothing but Divine Revelation and if I were to bring another Divine Revelation still to support my faith of the former so must I also bring yet a further Divine Revelation for this my believing the Church and here must needs be a process in infinitum But in this place I answer That I believe the Churches Tradition or testimony being taken here in the latter sence mentioned before § 126 infallible only with an humane and acquisite faith builded on the forenamed prudential motives and the ultimate resolution here of my divine faith is into Apostolical Tradition or their Miracles not the Church-Tradition or her Relation that conveys to me the Apostolical With a divine faith I do believe the Apostolical Tradition related by the Church but I do believe the Church her truly or infallibly I mean not as infallibly here relates to the divine Promise but to the prudential Motives relating this Apostolical Tradition with an acquired or rational faith § 152 The natural order of a Christians belief then seems to be this 1st The Divine Revelations are communicated to the world by certain persons chosen by God and for the confirmation of their mission from him doing Miracles which persons also are commanded by God to ordain others to divulge and perpetuate the knowledge of the same Revelations to mankind to the end of the world the chief body of which these persons also draw up and deliver in writing Of which Divine Revelations delivered by them this is one That these their Successors shall for ever be so far assisted by God's holy Spirit as never to err in teaching all truths or if you will in truly relating all Divine Revelations any way necessary to mens salvation which Divine Revelation also concerning themselves is as it ought to be delivered among the rest to all posterity by these very Successors of whom it is spoken These things thus conveyed those to whom these Revelations are made do 1. with a rational and acquisite faith believe the Tradition of these Successors of the Apostles who are rendred most credible to them by all those prudential motives mentioned before § 121. their multitude their sanctity their Martyrdoms in testimony thereof c. 2. But then applying themselves to the things related which are said to have been revealed and delivered first by God to persons assisted with most infallible Miracles they do believe these things related after the manner expressed before § 134. with yet an higher and a divine faith wrought in them by the holy Spirit and resting it self not on the veracity of these secondary Relators but on the veracity of God himself from whom these Revelations are said originally to come yet the rational introductive to all this faith being the veracity of those who immediately convey the Tradition of these things to them 3. Then further one of the Divine Revelations which the Church or these Successors do deliver to Christians as I said being this That these Successors of the Apostles who deliver their doctrine to us shall be for ever infallible in delivering all necessaries from this Revelation I say delivered by them Christians also believe the infallibility of this Church or of these Successors not by a rational faith only grounded on the former motives of credibility but by a divine faith because grounded on a divine Revelation and consequently believe also all things delivered by these persons as necessaries with a divine faith on the same account § 153 After all this to reflect now a little on the objection We see 1st That no Circle is made in a Catholicks ground or resolution of faith divine or acquisite but that there is an ultimate Revelation divine though this not necessary to be alwayes the same whereon divine faith resteth and into which and no humane motives it resolveth it self and an inward operation of God's Spirit whereby the firmness of adherence of this faith to such Revelation in particular as divine is effected And again that these are motives from humane authority sufficiently credible or also morally infallible or as some of late express themselves not-possibly-fallible which if they can prove whenas it is in the natural power of all men even taken collectively abstracting here from any divine superintendencies to tell a lye none have reason to envy any advancing of the evidences of Christian Religion or any part thereof
and either these evidences remain still unsatisfied Or these satisfied yet some other new ones appear to call for a new consideration Soc. †Stillingf ib. Because it may also err it follows not it must err and it is probable that it shall not err when the former error is thus discovered and if the Council proceed lawfully be not over-awed c. †Idem p. 526 But however if I ought upon this review to be restrained to silence yet I not convinced of the truth of its decree this silence is the uttermost that any future Council after its rejecting my reasons can justly exact of me and not belief or assent at all it may not oblige me that I should relinquish that you call Socinianism at all but that not divulge it whereas now by the Acts of former Councils I would gladly know upon what rational ground an Anathema is pronounced against me if I do not believe the contrary and I am declared to stand guilty of Heresie meerly for retaining this opinion which retaining it is called obstinacy and contumacy in me after the Councils contrary Definition CONFERENCE IV. 4. His Plea for not being guilty of Heresie § 23 4 PRot. You know that all Hereticks are most justly anathematized and cut off from being any longer members of the Catholick Church and so do remain excluded also from salvation Now this Tenent of yours hath alwayes been esteemed by the Church of God a most pernicious Heresie Soc. I confess Heresie a most grievous crime dread and abhor it and trust I am most free from such a guilt and from this I have many wayes of clearing my self For Heresie as Mr. Chillingworth defines it †p. 271. being not an erring but an obstinate defence of an error not of any error but of one against a necessary or fundamental Article of the Christian faith 1st Though this which I hold should be an error and that against a Fundamental yet my silence practiced therein can never be called an obstinate defence thereof and therefore not my tenent an Heresie 2ly Since Fundamentals vary according to particular persons and as Mr. Chillingworth saith †No Catalogue thereof p. 134. that can be given can universally serve for all men God requiring more of them to whom he gives more and less of them to whom he gives less And that may be sufficiently declared to one all things considered which all things considered is not to another sufficiently declared and variety of circumstances makes it as impossible to set down an exact Catalogue of Fundamentals as to make a Coat to fit the Moon in all her changes And as Mr. Stillingfleet follows him †p. 98 99 since the measure of Fundamentals depends on the sufficiency of the proposition and none can assigne what number of things are sufficiently propounded to the belief of all persons or set down the exact bounds as to all individuals when their ignorance is inexcusable and when not or tell what is the measure of their capacity what allowance God makes for the prejudices of Education c. Hence I conceive my self free from Heresie in this my opinion on this score also because though the contrary be to some others a Fundamental truth and to be explicitly believed by them yet to me as not having any sufficient proposal or conviction thereof but rather of the contrary it is no Fundamental and consequently my tenent opposing it if an error yet no Heresie Prot. Do not deceive your self for though according to different revelations § 24 to those that were without Law or those under the Law or those under the Gospel Fundamentals generally spoken of might be more to some than others yet to all those who know and embrace the Gospel we say †Chillingw p. 92. all Fundamentals are therein clearly proposed to all reasonable men even the unlearned and therefore the erring therein to all such cannot but be obstinate and Heretical Soc. Unless you mean onely this That all Fundamentals i. e. so many as are required of any one are clear to him in Scripture but not all the same Fundamentals there clear to every one but to some more of them to some fewer I see not how this last said accords with that said before by the same person But if you mean thus then consubstantiality the point we talk of may be a Fundamental to you and clear in Scripture but also not clear to me in Scripture and so no Fundamental and hence I think my self safe For †I believing all that is clear to me in Scripture must needs believe all fundamentals I cannot incur Heresie which is opposit to some fundamental †Chilling p. 367. The Scripture sufficiently informing me what is the Faith must of necessity also teach me what is Heresie That which is streight will plainly teach us what is crooked * Id. p. 101 and one contrary cannot but manifest the other Prot. I pray you consider a little better what you said last for since Heresie as you grant it is an obstinate defence of error only against some necessary point of Faith and all truth delivered in Scripture is not such unless you can also distinguish in Scripture these points of necessary Faith from others you can have no certain knowledge of Heresie and the believing all that is delivered in Scripture though it may preserve you from incurring Heresie yet cannot direct you at all for knowing or discerning Heresie or an error against a fundamentall or a necessary point of Faith from other simple and less dangerous errors that are not so nor by this can you ever know what errors are Heresies what not and so after all your confidence if by your neglect you happen not to believe some Scriptures in their true sence you can have no security in your Fundamentall or necessary Faith or of your not incurring Heresie Neither Secondly according to your discourse hath the Church any means to know any one to be an Heretick because she can never know the just latitude of his fundamentals And so Heresie will be a grievous sin indeed but walking under such a vizard of non-sufficient proposal as the Ecclesiastical Superiors cannot discover or punish it Therefore to avoid such confusion in the Christian Faith there hath been alwaies acknowledged in the Church some authority for declaring Heresie and it may seem conviction enough to you that her most general Councils have defined the contrary position to what you maintain and received it for a fundamentall Of which Ecclesiastical Authority for declaring Heresie thus Dr. Potter †p. 97 The Catholick Church is careful to ground all her declarations in matters of Faith upon the divine authority of Gods written word And therefore whosoever wilfully opposeth a judgement so well grounded is justly esteemed an Heretick not properly because he disobeyes the Church but because he yeilds not to Scripture sufficiently propounded or cleared unto him i. e. by the
for his being absolved from mortal sin but also to seek a release from excommunication incurred for his reinjoying the Churches Communion Thus you see a rigor in this Church towards what it once accounted Heresie much different from the more mild Spirit and moderate temper of the reformed § 41 To conclude For the enjoying the Protestant Communion I conceive that as to any necessary approbation of her Doctrines it is sufficient for me to hold with Mr. Chillingworth as I do †Chillingw Preface § 39. That the doctrine of Protestants though not that of all of them absolutely true yet is free from all impiety and from all Error destructive to salvation or in it self damnable And †Ib § 28. whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation by the consent of Protestants or even of the Church of England which indeed hath given no certain Catalogue at all of such necessaries that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace And which is still the same †Ib. § 39. I am perswaded that the constant doctrine of the Church of England is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved For if all truths necessary to Salvation be held in it then so is no error opposite or destructive to Salvation held by it and so living according to the truths it holds I may be saved Again †Ib. I believe that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it For though I believe Antisocinianism an error Yet if I hold it not such as that for it any man may disturb the peace or ought to renounce the Communion of this Church I may profess all this and yet hold Socinianism Lastly as he †Chill p. 376 so I Propose me any thing out of the Bible seem it never so incomprehensible I will subscribe it with hand and heart In other things that I think not contained in this Book I will take no mans liberty of jud gment from him neither shall any man take mine from me for I am fully assured that God doth not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods Word to indeavor to find the true sence of it and to live according to it Without pertinacy I can be no Heretick And †Ib. §. 57. indeavouring to find the true sence of Scripture I cannot but hold my error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sence shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary truth and in doing so my life being answerable to my faith how is it possible I should fail of Salvation Thus Mr. Chillingworth speaks perfectly my sence Prot. I see no other cure for you but that you learn humility and mortification of your understanding in which lies the most subtle and perilous of all Prides And It will reduce you to Obedience and this to Truth That with all the Church of God you may give glory to God the only begotten Son and the Holy Ghost coessential with God the Father To which Trinity in Vnity as it hath been from the beginning and is now so shall all Honour and Glory be given throughout all future ages Amen FINIS Addenda PAge 30. line 31. After Turky Add. Brerewood Brerw Enquir p. 84. 88. computing the whole Body of Christians in Asia including also those united with Rome not to amount to a twentieth part of its inhabitants and all the Turks Dominions in Europe not to exceed the magnitude of Spain Ib. p. 67. Throughout whose Dominions also the chief c. Page 30. line penult After Field p. 63. Add. And Brerewood's inquire c. 19. p. 147. Page 31 line 17 After reside Add. To which in the last place may be added that great Body of the same Communion that hath long flourished and daily enlargeth it self throughout the West-Indies Page 51 line 4. After practice Add. To all these may be further added the early Condemnation that is found in Antiquity of those modern tenents of several Protestants in opposition to a subordination of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to the utility of Prayer for the Dead of Invocation of the Saints Veneration of Saints Reliques set Fasting-dayes Festivals Vigils Abstinence from certain meats Monastick vows especially that of Virginity and Celibacy Hermitages Disparity of the Coelestial Rewards and degrees of Glory The maintainers of which long ago Arrius Vid. Epiphan Haer. 75. August Haer. 53. Jovinian Vid. Hieron contra Jovin Austin Haer. 82. Vigilantius Vid. Hieronym contra Vigilant were condemned as Hereticks i. e. as opposers of those points that the general Church practice received and allowed as lawful by the Fathers of those times and being crushed by their Censures were prevented from receiving any further sentence from a Council Lastly why was there made a departure from the Church at least for many of these points c. Page 66 line 19. After Himself Add. And so this Person supposed by Protestants to have been raised up by God to vindicate his Truth yet was permitted by him to dy in their conceit a Desertor of it i. e. reconciled to the doctrin of the Church Page 93 line ult After exordium unitatis Add. The Ecclesiasticalunity in which Bishop Grotius conceiveth so necessary as that he saith Rivet Apol. discussio p. 255. Non posse Protestantes inter se jungi nisi simul jung antur cum iis qui sedi Romanae cohaerent sine qua saith he nullum sperari potest in Ecclesia commune regimen Again Inter causas divulsionis Ecclesiae non esse primatum Episcopi Romani secundùm Canones favente Melancthone qui eum primatum etiam necessarium putat ad retinendam unitatem Neque enim hoc esse Ecclesiam subjicere Pontificis libidini sed reponere ordinem sapienter institutum Thus moderate Protestants of the Churches unity founded Supremely as to single persons in the Bishop of Rome Page 96 line 15. After Coeteris Add. And accordingly in all those instances gathered out of Antiquity by Arch-Bishop Lawd § 24. n. 5. where inferior Synods have reformed abuses in manners or made Decrees in causes of Faith as it is willingly granted many have done it cannot be shewed that any of them hath done either of these in matters stated before contrarily by a Superior Authority a thing with which Protestants are charged Somthing was then stated or reformed by Inferiors without nothing against their Superiors Page 103 line 36. After times Add. Baron saith A. D. 358. That In tantâ errorum offusâ caligine qui substantiae Filii Dei assertores essent a nostris in pretio habebantur ut pote quod ut soepius est dictum nullâ aliâ re viderentur a Catholicis differre nisi quod vocem Consubstantialitatis non admitterent Page 104 line 8 After mentioned Add. So but that the words are well capable of an Orthodox sence So that the seventeenth and twenty sixth Articles in the first Sirmian Confession as they are understood by Sozomen in the Semi-Arrian l. 5. c. so are they compared with the antecedents expounded by St. Hillary De Synodis in a Catholick sence The Semi-Arrian Bishops it seems c. Page 125 line ult After errores Add. And Ib. q. 5. a. 3. Omnibus articulis fidei inhaeret fidei propter unum medium sci propter veritatem primam propositam a nobis in Scripturis secundùm doctrinam Ecclesiae sane intelligendis See several Authorities to this purpose collected by Fr. a S. Clara in System Fid. c. 7. Page 206 line 3. After Accesserunt Add. Concerning 1 the corruption of humane nature and bondage under sin 2 Justification gratuital and 3 Christs Sacerdotal Office thus he censures ancient Church-Tradition Resp ad Cassand offic Pii viri in Cassand oper p. 802. Verum si quid in controversiam vocetur quia flexibile est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy Scriptures inter nasi cerei si absque Traditionis subsidio quicquam definire fas non sit quid jam fiet praeciputs Fidei nostrae capitibus Tria solum exempli causa proferam 1. Naturae nostrae corruptio misera animae servitus sub peccati Tyrannide 2. Gratuita justificatio 3. Et Christi Sacerdotium apud vetustissimos Scriptores ita obscurè attingitur ut nulla inde certitudo possit elici Si ex eorum Traditione haurienda sit cognitio salutis nostrae jacebit omuis Fiducia quia ex illis nunquam discemus quomodo Deo reconciliemur quomodo illuminemur a Spiritu sancto formemur in obsequium justitiae quomodo gratis accepta nobis feratur Christi obedientia quid valeat sacrificium mortis ejus continua pro nobis intercessio quarum rerum luculenta explicatio in Scripturâ passim occurrit Itaque novo hoc Magistro Cassandr Authore quaecunque ad salutem apprimè cognitu necessaria sunt non tantùm manebunt semi-sepulta sed quia nulla Traditio suffragatur i. e. in Antiquity certitudine carebunt Thus he And it is very true that of such a Doctrin as many Protestants deliver in these matters no footsteps will be found in antiquity and that nulla Traditio suffragabitur Page 230 line 35. After censetur Add. And Ib. q. 5. ar 3. Si quis non pertinaciter discredit articulum Fidei paratus sequi in omnibus doctrinam Ecclesiae jam non est haereticus sed solùm errans Page 342 line 28. After Prot. Add. No person that is appointed by our Lord to be a Judge in any Controversie as those Bishops you have mentioned were in the cause of Arrius can rightly or properly be said to be on that side for which he gives sentence a Party Nor doth their giving sentence once against any side prejudice them as enemies or opposites or interessed from sitting on the Bench as oft as need requires to passe it again alone or with others But if every one may be afterward called an Anti-Party who once declareth himself of a contrary Judgment I perceive c. FINIS
An obedience which themselves though subjects do deny to the decree of all those preceding Councils wherein the judgment of all the Bishops and Metropolitans of the then western world concurred and amongst the rest those of these two Provinces also yet doth their Synod require it § 61 And their requiring this thought to be rationally thus defended Because Though it is not impossible but that such Synod may err yet it may be certain that in somthing it doth not err ‖ Mr. Stilling-fleet p 542. And so to such point may enjoyn assent becaus the thing determined is so evident in Scripture as that all denying of it must be wilful ‖ Mr. Whitby p. 100. But mean-while you see all these Councils have denied what this Synod of twenty six Bishops is certain of and certain from evidence of Scripture an evidence the perusal of which all those Councils had as well as these Here let a sober Christian judge if assent be held due to this London-Synod upon such a pretended certainty of theirs is it not to those other much rather to those others I say incomparably more numerous accepted by the whole West for many Ages and adhered-to still by the greatest part thereof having before them the Scriptures and the traditive Exposition of them weighing the Arguments that are still on foot meeting so often and concluding still in the same Judgment But if these other Councils are justified by the practice of this English Synod either in their requiring assent or at least silence thus is the Reformation rendred unlawful as likewise their appeal to future Councils which can afford us no more just satisfaction than the forepast As for that refuge usually sought in flying to the contrary judgment or non-acceptance of the Eastern Churches in this point it helps not For 1st besides a considerable presence of Grecian Bishops that there was in some of these Councils as to a tacit-approbation or non-opposition in this point the Greek Churches have never bin found to have made the least anti-declaration And 2ly You may see below Disc 3. § 158. the Testimonies both of their own Writers and also of several Protestants shewing their accord herein with the Western Churches § 62 As for the Appeal that is made by many to our sences that they may be consulted rather than the Church or the Fathers who yet had as perfect an information from their sences as we from ours for the decision of this point and as for the many contradictions that are mustered up by them ‖ See Mr. Tillorsons Rule of faith p. 271. Dr. Tailor Real price p. 207 c. 251. c. Stillingf Rat. account p. 117 567. out of Philosophy and from natural reason against it 1st I think all are here agreed that the contrary testimony of sence or the seeming contradictions of Reason are not to be regarded where Divine Revelation declares any thing to be Truth That which I am now upon saith Mr. Stillingfleet ‖ p. 567. in the place where he urgeth such contradictions of sence and reason to Transubstantiation is not how far reason I add or sence is to be submitted to divine Authority in case of certainty that there is a divine Revelation for what I am to believe This saith enough But give me leave to add the judgment of two or three Protestants more in this matter here a little to check the forwardnesse of those who so peremptorily admit the arbitrement of sence and natural reason in mysteries of Religion The 1st is that submission of Dr. Tailours in Real Presence p. 240. after he had numbred up many apparent contradictions not only in respect of a natural but as he saith of an absolute possibility of Transubstantiation from p. 207. to 237. Yet saith he Let it appear that God hath affirmed Transubstantiation and I for my part will burn all my Arguments against it and make publick amends All my Arguments i. of apparent contradictions and absolute impossibilities And p. 237. To this objection that we believe the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Incarnation of our Saviours being born of a pure Virgin c. clauso utero and of the Resurrection with identity of bodies in which the Socinians find absurdities and contradictions notwithstanding seeming impossibilities and therfore why not Transubstantiation He answers That if there were as plain Revelation of Transubstantiation as of the other then this Argument were good and if it were possible for a thousand times more Arguments to be brought against Transubstantiation yet saith he we are to believe the Revelation in despight of them all Now I pray you observe that none can believe a thing true upon what motive soever which he first knows certainly to be false or which is all one certainly to contradict or to be not naturally but absolutely impossible which therefore it is strange that Dr. Tailour affirms himself to know concerning Transubstantiation ‖ p 107 236. For these we say are not verifiable by a divine power and therefore here I may say should divine power declare a Truth it would transcend it self Again in Liberty of Prophecy § 20. n. 16. he saith ' Those who believe the Trinity in all those Niceties of Explications which are in the School and which now adays pass for the Doctrine of the Church believe them with as much violence to the Principles of Natural and Supernatural Philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of Transubstantiation Yet I suppose himself denies no doctrine about the Trinity that is commonly delivered in the Schools The next is that grave admonition of that learned and moderate Prelate Bishop Forbes Admodum periculosè saith he nimis audacter negant multi Protestantes Deum posse panem substantialiter in Corpus Domini convertere Multa enim potest Deus omnipotens facere supra captum omnium hominum imo Angelorum Id quidem quod implicat contradictionem non posse fieri concedunt omnes sed quia in particulari nemini evidenter constat quae sit uniuscujusque rei essentia ac perinde quid implicet quid non implicet contradictionem magnae profectò temeritatis est propter caecae mentis nostrae imbecillitatem Deo limites praescribere praefractè negare omnipotentia sua illum hoc vel illud facere posse And p 395. Certè haud pauca saith he credimus omnes quae si ratio humana consulatur non minus impossibilia esse contradictionem manifestam implicare videntur quam ipsa Transubstantiatio instancing there in the doctrine of the Resurrection of the same numerical Body And he goes on p. 388. ' Placet nobis judicium Theologorum Wirtembergicorum in confessione suâ Anno 1552. Consilio Tridentino proposita Vid. Harmonia Confess cap. de Eucharistiâ Credimus inquiunt Omnipotentiam Dei tantam esse ut possit in Eucharistiâ substantiam panis vini vel annihilare vel in Corpus
23. in the which the pure Word of God is preached preached I suppose by its Ministers in all those things that of Necessity are requisite to the same Church or Congregation of the faithful And indeed otherwise either the first Proposition a part of our Creed would be false because since the people are obliged to the faith of these their Governors Heb. 13.7 Eph. 4.11 compared 14. the whole Church would thus err in Necessaries and so would cease to be Catholick Or at least the Catholick Church in such deficiency of the Clergy would be constituted wholly of Laicks and of Christs Sheep without Pastors save those whose Sacraments and Communion as falling away from the Catholick Church in Fundamentals are unlawful which seems very absurd and contrary to the Promises of our Lord. Concerning this visible Church or Society of Orthodox-Guides thereof never deficient See the Concessions of Dr. Field ‖ See 1 Disc §. 3. Dr. Ferne Mr. Hooker and other learned Protestants in 1. Disc § 25 c. And Mr. Chillingworth though by reason of the plainnesse of Scripture in all Necessaries he acknowledgeth no need of any such Guide and therefore denies it ‖ p. 59. yet thus he freely speaks of the necessity of the Infallibility of such Guide supposed ' In Civil Controversies saith he we are obliged only to external passive obedience and not to an internal and active We are bound to obey the sentence of the Judge or not to resist it but not always to believe it just But in matters of Religion such a Judge is required whom we should be obliged to believe to have judged right So that in Civil Controversies every honest understanding man is fit to be a Judge But in Religion none but he that is infallible Thus he And the reason seems plain because these are Guides of our souls and consciences in matters of belief for attaining our salvation but not so the secular whether our natural or civil Governors so that the usual arguing of some Protestants from the fallible authority of the one its being sufficient to that of the other seems very faulty since we have to these no obligation as concerning divine matters either to assent to what they propose or to practise what they command further than we believe the thing true they propose and lawful they command but are in case of any doubt in these matters to repair to these our spiritual Guides to be directed what is truth and error lawful and unlawful The judgment and decision of which things so often as the true meaning and sense of the divine law falls into controversie those who do not give to these Church-Guides do much more dangerously both for their own souls and the state they live in take to themselves for neither do these give the decision of such things to the Civil Magistrates § 5 4. Again It follows likewise from the present being of the Catholick Church of every age Prop. 4. supposed to consist as well of Clergy as People That the present Governors or Guides thereof who or where-ever they be cannot in any age be Heretical or Schismatical for all Heretical or Schismatical Congregations are contra-distinct both to Holy Church and Catholick Charch mentioned in our Creed This is a thing conceded by Archbishop Lawd Dr Field Bishop Bramhall and others See Disc 1. § 37 44. CHAP. II. 4. Catholicks further affirming 5. That these Pastors being infallible in Necessaries the people are to learn from them what is necessary § 6. 6. That this their Infallibility in Necessaries must extend not only to some few points absolutely necessary but all others very beneficial to Salvation § 9. 7. That it is no way requisite That these Church-Guides should exactly distinguish all such Necessaries from other points not so § 12. Which they may infallibly guide in though not infallibly separate § 14. And no distinct on being made ought to be believed in all they propose § 15. Yet thae they do both distinguish and propose as such all those more necessary points which it is requisite for all Christians more particularly and explicitly to believe § 17. 8. That Christians submitting to their Judgment in deciding Necessaries ought also to submit to the same in their declaring the sence of Fathers Definitions of Councils c. touching the same matters § 19. 9. That supposing these Guides tr err in some of their Decisions yet their Subjects by the Concession of Learned Protestants ought to yield Obedience either of Silence or also of Assent to them in all such points whereof they cannot demonstratively prove the contrary § 20. 10. Whence it follows That none may adhere to any new Guides save only those who can demonstrase the Errors of the former § 21. § 6 THese things agreed on 5 ly Catholicks proceed That if there shall be alwaies such ae Body of Church-Governors Prop. 5. as shall direct the people unerringly in Necessaries it is meet also that Christians learn from them what or how many points they be that are necessary if this thing be at all necessary to be known § 7 The Reason 1. Because if the Church-Guides be infallible in Necessaries and the distinct knowledge of Necessaries be held also a Point necessary then the Church-Guides must also be infallible in this point the discerning of Necessaries 2 ly Because though Divine assistance be set aside these Guides from their Learning are fitter Judges of Necessaries than the People 3 ly Because the People in their judging of Necessaries if they should ignorantly or passionately mistake somthing that is necessary not to be so and so withdraw their Obedience or assent may thus become deficient in necessary Faith and so miscarry in their Salvation Whereas on the other side in their reliance for these points on the judgment of their Guides that are infallible in necessaries in necessaries they cannot miscarry and in their believing somthing more as necessary which is not their miscarriage is no way dangerous For as Dr. Potter well observes ‖ p. 155. There is not so much danger in adding superfluities as in detracting Necessaries and though these Church-Guides should be supposed liable to miscarry somtimes in the first yet Christians are secured that they cannot in the second § 8 Of the Duty of the Christian's learning from their Guides supposed infallible in Necessaries what points are necessary thus Mr. Chillingworth ‖ p. 150. If the Church be an infallible director in Fundamentals then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is Fundamental i. e. if this be a thing necessary to be learn'd and take all for fundamental which she delivers to be such i. e. lest in doing otherwise we should mistake and miscarry in some Fundamental And p. 105. To say the Church is an infallible Guide en Fundamentals were to oblige our selves to find some certain Society of men of whom we might be certain
to be true and we be convinced of it in some other sort than by the bare determination of the Council only But it sufficeth that we be ready expresly to believe it if it shall be made to appear unto us See Dr. Hammond of Heresie p. 96. ' It is hence manifest also what is the ground of that reverence that is by all sober Christians deemed due and paid to the first four General Councils Because 1st They set down and convinced the Truth of their Doctrine out of the Scripture 2ly Because they were so near the Apostles times when the sence of the Apostles might more easily be fetched from those Men and Churches to whom they had committed it Thus he though besides that the first of these Councils was almost at 300. years distance the reason of obedience to Church Governors given by Doctor Hammond elsewhere ‖ Of Fundamentals p. 903. viz. ' Because Christ speaks to us in those Governors as his immediate successors in the Prophetick Pastoral Episcopal office infers that the Churches authority in all ages is equally valid and so voids this reason He goes on 3dly Because the great Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity were the matter of their definitions yet he saith see Disc 1. § 6. that General Councils are no infallible Guide in Fundamentals and ‖ Of Heresy p. 115. that it is the matter of the Decrees and the Apostolicalness of them and the force of the testification whereby they are approved and acknowledged to be such which gives the authority to the Council and nothing else is sufficient where that is not to be found See Mr. Chillingw p. 118. Dr. Potter §. 41. n. 2. together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion an authority of determining Controversies of faith according to plain and evident Scripture and universal Tradition and infallibility whilst they proceed according to this Rule And p. 200. The Fathers of the Church saith he in after-times i. e. after the Apostles might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sence of some General Article of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their Declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgement of a Council though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publick peace sake See Mr. Whitby p. 92. We do appeal to the four first General Councils not because we believe them infallible but because we conceive them to agree with Scripture which is infallible so that we make them secondary not primary Guides we resolve not our belief of their decrees into their authority but into their agreement with Scripture we do not say we must believe this or that because any one of the first four General Councils hath defined it but because what the Council hath defined is evident in Scripture therefore do we believe it And if we should finde that in any Article they dissented from Scripture we should in that as much oppose them as we do you and p. 451. I answer with Dr Taylor that either these Councils are tyed to the Rule of Gods Word or not if the first then are they to be examined by it and to be followed no further than they adhere to this vnerring rule examined He means by those persons whom yet these Councils are to teach the sence of Scripture and p. 15. We generally acknowledge that no authority on earth obligeth to internal Assent This the firm ground i. e. his own judgement what Conciliary Decrees agree or disagree with Scripture that this young man builds on for the confuting of Mr. Cressies book See Mr. Stillingfleet p. 58. 59 133 154 252. and 375.517 compared There he saith on one side p. 375. That the Church of England looks on it as her duty to keep to the Decrees of the four General Councils And We profess saith he to be guided by the sence of Scripture as interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils And p. 56. he saith That the Church of England admits not any thing to be delivered as the sence of Scripture which is contrary to the consent of the Catholick Church in the four first ages Here he seems to acknowledge a submission of Protestants to the consent of the Catholick Church in the four first ages and to the four first General Councils as their Guide for what is the sence of Scripture which seems to me no way to consist with a profession of submitting to the same Church or her Councils only when or as far as they agree in their Decrees with the sence of Scripture which last implies that I learn the sence of Scripture not from them but another and assent to them where they conform to that judgement of which I learn it Ibid He hath these two Propositions 2 That it is a sufficient prescription against any thing that can be alledged out of Scripture that it ought not to be looked on as the true meaning of the Scripture if it appears contrary to the sence of the Catholick Church from the beginning And this 2 That such Doctrines may well be judged destructive to the Rule of Faith which were so unanimously condemned by the Catholick Church within that time Where he allows not Christians to try and so assent to or dissent from the Decrees of Councils by what appears to them the sence of Scripture but refers them to learn the sence of Scripture from the Decrees of these first Councils But yet on the other side he contends how consistently I leave to the Readers judgement That the sence of the Catholick Church is not pretended to be any infallible Rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith And p. 17. concerning the necessity of believing the Articles of the Athanasian Creed he saith It is very unreasonable to imagine that the Chcurch of England doth own that necessity purely on the account of the Church's Definition of those things therein which are not Fundamental it being Directly contrary to her sence in her 19th and 20th Articles And that hence the supposed necessity of the belief of the Articles of this Creed must acccording to the sence of the Church of England be resolved either into the necessity of the matters or into that necessity which supposeth clear convictions that the things therein contained are of Divine Revelation And p. 133. He describes the Catholick Church a society of such persons who all
the present Roman Church where Christian Religion now as anciently enjoys its freedom to see which of them resembles the constitution aspect and manners of the ancient Catholick Church we find them of a very different temper proportion and pretentions One of them by much the greatest and through the Universe most dilated Body and Communion that is in Christianity I mean such as is united in the same Government Laws Faith and Discipline with a certain subordination of all the Members and Officers thereof one under Ecclesiasticall Head So that if we suppose the Church-Catholick where are many divided Christian Societies or confederacies separated from one another in their Communion to be but one unanimous Body of them concerning which see 2 Disc § 26. n. 1. § 27. n. 3. and it again to be for universality the greatest of those bodies this must be it And again if we suppose a General Council assembled of all these its votes would have the predominancy over any of the rest taken a part and in any conjunction of them all in such a meeting it may reasonably be imagined from the agreement which the most considerable of the other Churches have with it in most of the Western Controversies that in voting them its party would be increased sooner than any other § 73 Again This great Body also we find hath continued to this day united to and joyned with the See Apostolick and Chair of S. Peter like that Church-Catholick in the Primitive times And we find it using its authority still after the same manner as then did the true Catholick Church still pretending it self upon our Saviours promises in its supreme Councils joyned with the authority of the same Chair a certain and infallible Guide in the determination of all necessary Faith to whom all its Subjects owe not only silence but submission of judgement and belief We find it from time to time as the ancient Church when any new Controversies Opinions and Sects arise any way dangerous making new definitions and more explications of the Catholick Faith and enlarging from age to age for which also its adversaries complain of it the particular and explicite knowledge and profession thereof amongst her Children as the Heterodox grow more particular and multiplicious in those errors that would any way undermine it as also anciently the Nicene Creed was thought a necessary supply to the Apostolick and again the larger Athanasian to the Nicene Creed And these her definitions now as then she passeth under Anathema to opposers or dissenters declares Hereticks still as they were esteemed anciently such as oppose them because such after them judged to be now wilfully and contumaciously erring and Schismaticks such as depart on what cause soever from her Communion as vindicating to her self compounded in her supreme representative of all those particular Churches that remain undivided from S. Peters Chair the true Title and right of the Catholick Church § 74 Again upon the same grounds and as authorized immediately by our Lord we find her holding her self obliged and taking upon her to give and promulgate her Laws in matters clearly Spiritual and Divine secular powers whether favouring or frowning to all her Subjects however dispersed in several temporal Dominions presuming still and thinking great reason for it to use as much spiritual authority in their States when Princes a e become Christian and her Sons as all grant her lawfully to have done when they were yet heathen and her Enemies We find her also pressing this obedience to her Decrees on her Children not * from promising as S. Austin ‖ De utilit Credendi c. 1. saith the Manichees anciently did which was the occasion of his writing his book De utilitate Credendi Ecclesiae before that the things we believe are proved to us evident proofs or demonstrations though these are not wanting but * from her authority and commission received from our Lord to decide all controversies she thinks necessary and * from the traditive sence of holy Scripture delivered to her from her Fore-fathers And so also it is in this Church that her subjects as soon as any thing is cleared to them to be the Church's doctrine dispute it no farther but presently resign their judgment thereto And §. 75. n. 1. as we find it publishing with great authority its Laws to all its Subjects and Members where ever residing So also by our Lords order Mat 28.19 diligently sending forth its Missions into all quarters of the world amongst strangers and those out of its fold whether Infidels or Hereticks for converting or reducing them to the Christian and Catholick Faith And to this Body and that since the time of Gregory the First when also it was much-what the same as it is now do most of the Northern Nations owe their Conversion to Christianity and at that time our Ancestors among the rest under Ethelbert and his Successors received that Roman Profession of Religion which 900. years after under Edward the Sixth they cast off And by the same indefatigable Zeal Labours and Sufferings of its Missioners are still those great conversions of Mahometans and Heathens made both in the West and East-Indies and Southern parts of Affrick not to insist here on the late reduction of some of the Christian Sects also of the Northern and Eastern parts to the Roman Communion Where in calling to mind Gods gracious promises of the Gospel to be preached to all Nations ‖ Mat. 24.14 Mark 13.10 and the fulness of the Gentiles to be brought into his Fold †Rom. 11. which we see both heretofore and at the present to be effected solely or principally by this Body through great hazards and much expence of its blood I desire all sober persons to consider whether the good God having thus promised to the Nations Bread * would give them instead thereof but a Stone and having promised them the Revelation of his Truth yet * would not send it to them but abased and mixed with a manifold Idolatry as Protestants imagine the worshiping of dead men and of a breaden God and these brought in amongst them by Antichrist himself if the Head of these Missioners the Pope be so thus only Satan fighting against Satan and Popery against Heathenism * would not I say communicate unto them these waters of life to drink of unless mortified as it were 1 st with several errors as the Protestants say gross damnable and perilous to their Salvation and from which the external Communion of all true Believers ought to separate And again the end of the world and as the Protestants say of the reign of Antichrist whom they count now above 1000. years old his full age being foretold to be 1260. being now not far off I desire him next to consider * whether that which is said to be instead of the Roman the most pure and Orthodox Religion recovered by Luther and to which therfore these Nations if not already must be
their more moderate Doctors In which tenents if the Greek Churches may be saâ—d to agree with the Protestant so also may these Doctors in the Roman Concerning some of which I will set you down the late candid concession of Mr. Baxter no great friend of the Church of Rome in his Key for Catholicks part 1. c. 5. I am satified saith he that in many dâ—ctrinal points the difference between us and the Papists is not so great as commonly it is taken to be by many if not by most on both sides as in the points of certainty of salvation of pardon of justification of works of faith and in almost all the Cont oversies about Predestination and Redemption Free will the work of Grace c. The Dominicans in sense agree wiâ—h the Calvinists as they call them and the Jesuits with the Lutherans and Arminians and so in divers other points How near doth Dr. Holden come to us in the fundamental points of the Resolution of our faith How near come the Scotists to us in sense about thâ— point of merit And Waâ—densis and others yet nearer How near comes Contarenus to us in the point of Justification How near comes Gâ—rson in the point of venial and mortal sinâ— perhaps 〈◊〉 near â—us we are to our selves How near come the Dominicans and Jâ—nseâ— us 〈◊〉 us in the points of Predestination Grace and Freewill For my own part I scarce know a Protestant that my thoughts in these do more concur with than they do with Jansenius Thus Baxter concerning some of the Roman Doctors yet who own the Council of Trent agreeing with Protestants in those points wherein Sandys and Field suppose the main difference to be between the Reformed and the Roman Churches § 169 To this of Sandys may be added the latter collection made by Alexander Ross †View of Relig p. 476 480. out of Boterus Chytraeus Brerewood Possevine Thomas a Jesu Hieremias Patriarch Chapl. Resp ad German Concil Florent The Greeks saith he place much of their devotion in the worship of the blessed Virgin Mary and of painted but not carved Images in the intercession prayers help and merits of the Saints which they invocate in their temples The Scarifice of the Mass is used for the quick and the dead and they use to buy Masses They do not hold a Purgatory fire yet they believe there is a third place between that of the Blessed and the damned where they remain who have deferred repentance till the end of their life But if this place be not Purgatory I know not what it is saith he nor what the souls do there Priests among them may marry once but not oftner but p. 496. he faith that Protestants herein differ from the Greek Church that the Protestants permit Priests after Ordination to marry But the Greeks permit not this but only that a married man may be admitted into Holy Orders so he abstain from his wife when he officiates They use leavened bread in the Sacrament and administer in both kinds § 170 But note that what he saith of the Moscovian p. 485. is also true of the Greek Church that they give to the people at once both the Body and Blood of our Lord mingled in the Chalice with a spoon and so to the sick only the Symbol of the bread consecrated on Maunday Thursday for all the year following and then on that day besprinkled with the other Symbol of the wine and softned again for the sick with common wine when they administer it as hath been already said § 163. See Goars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 153. which receiving both species together in a spoon as it is testified by many Travellors who have been spectators thereof so it may be collected out of S. Chrysostom's Liturgy as it is now used by the modern Greeks where before communicating the people it is said Tunc accipiens Diaconus sanctum Discum super sanctum calicem sanctâ spongiâ diligenter abstergit so putting the particle of the Symbol of the bread into the Chalice adorans semel where also observe adoration sumit sanctum Calicem cum veneratione procedit ad ostium attollens sanctum Calicem ostendit illum populo dicens cum timore Dei fide accedite and so with a little spoon called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you may see described in Goars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Rituale Graecurum p. 152. takes out a very small particle thereof and puts it into the mouth of the Communicant § 171 He goes on They have four Lents in the year They will not have neither the blessed souls in heaven to enjoy Gods presence or the wicked in hell to be tormented till the day of Judgement They esteem equal with the Scriptures the acts of the seven Greek Synods and the writings of Basil Chrysostom Damascen and their Traditions They believe that the souls of the dead are bettered by the prayers of the living They are no less for the Churches authority and for Traditions than the Roman Catholicks be When the Sacrament is carried through the Temple the people by bowing themselves adore it and falling on their knees kiss the earth They have their Monks who are all of S. Basil's Order these have their Archimandrites or abbots The Patriarch Metropolitans Bishops are of this Order and abstain from flesh but in Lent and other fasting dayes they forbear fish milk and eggs The Greeks celebrate their Liturgies in the old Greek tongue which they scarce understand On the Festival dayes they use the Liturgy of Basil on other dayes that of S. Chrysostom They have no other translation of the Bible than that of the 70. Lastly For auricular or Sacramental Confession to the Priest though he omits it in the Greek yet he †p. 485. mentions it as used in the Russian Churches which follows herein the practice of the Greek Meanwhile their chief differences from the Church of Rome he makes to be these Their denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son their denying the Pope's Supremacy their not using either Confirmation or extreme Unction But in the first of these they differ not more from the Roman than from the Protestant Churches In the second not so much from the Roman as do the Protestant Churches of which see below § 181 186. As for the two last Alexander Ross might have found in one of the chief Authors Jeremiah the C. P. Patriarch †Resp 1. c. 7 both these Sacraments to be acknowledged by and used in the Greek as well as Latine Church Confirmation being conferred by them alwayes immediately after Baptism Ad quod illud dicimus saith he in eâ ipsâ orthodoxâ Catholicâ Ecclesiâ septem divina Sacramenta esse 1 Baptismum sci 2 Sacri unguenti Vnctionem or as he stiles it afterward sacrum Chrysma sive Confirmationem 3 Sacram Communionem 4 Ordinem 5 Matrimonium 6
Grecian opinions are since but what they were when first the Reformation was made Now Jeremias his declaration was not long after the beginning of the Reformation and Cyril's above 50. years after his 2ly Concerning the newness of Cyril's opinions the words of Knowles ibid are considerable who there saith That he was a reverent and learned man and that he desired to reform many errors and to enlighten much of the blindness of his Church So that it seems he was a Reformer in the Greek Church as these others were in the Western which also appears from the complaints and persecution against him more than against his Predecessors by the Agents of the Roman Church upon this pretence Knowles ibid. And he is said †Spondan A. D. 1638. Franc. à S. Clarâ system fidei p. 528. at last for certain crimes objected to him and among others charged with innovations in Religion by the Greeks to have been imprisoned and shortly after executed and another Cyril ab Iberia formerly rejected to have been repossessed of his Chair But 3ly How contrary soever Cyril's opinions are to those of Jeremias yet the same testimonies above-named †§. 158. n 2. 165 162. that shew Jeremias's to be the doctrines of the Greek Church shew Cyril's whoever had new reformed him not to be so But 4ly Indeed his declaration though it seems purposely moulded according to the Calvinists expressions is very short and sparing general and unclear extending to few points and waving the rest and forbearing there to mention any one point save that of the procession of the holy Gho t wherein the Greeks differ from the reformed as surely in some they do and again those points therein in which Cyril seems more clearly to contradict both Jeremias's and the Roman tenents namely the denying of Purgatory and of Transubstantiation if therein he intend to deny all sorts of Purgatory though not by five and all transmutation of the Elements in the Eucharist are unquestionably singular and not owned by the Greeks as is shewed before and as is witnessed also by some reformed †§. 167 169. c. out of the common relations of the Grecian opinions and practâ—ces 5ly If Cyril or any other Patriarch of Constantinople should entertain any reformed and new opinions diverse from his predecessors whilst such a one is not followed in them by the rest of the Church These are to be stiled not its doctrines but his own and it is not denied that Patriarchs as well as others may be heretical for in several ages some have been so But 6ly If the rest of the Greek Church should also have concurred with Cyril in such innovation then will this only follow that it is true of the Greek Church as of the Protestant that they also have reformed from the whole Catholick Church 1. from the former as well Greek Church as Latine and so this fact of theirs will prove no just plea for the Protestant practice if a departure from the Church Catholick bâ— Schism but only the enlargment of the same guilt to another Church THE FOURTH DISCOURSE Containing the SOCINIANS Apology for the believing and teaching his Doctrine against former Church-Definitions and present Church-Authority upon the Protestant's Grounds Divided into Five CONFERENCES The I. CONFERENCE The Socinian's Protestant-Plea for his not holding any thing contrary to the Holy Scriptures § 2. 1st THat he believes all contained in the Scriptures to be God's Word and therefore implicitely believes those truths against which he errs Ib. 2. That also he useth his best indeavours to find the true sence of Scriptures and that more is not required of him from God for his faith or salvation than doing his best endeavours for attaining it § 3. 3. That as for an explicite faith required of some points necessary he is sufficiently assured that this point concerning the Sons consubstantiality with the Father as to the affirmative is not so from the Protestant's affirming all necessaries to be clear in Scripture even to the unlearned which this in the affirmative is not to him § 4. 4. That several express and plain Scriptures do perswade him that the negative if either is necessary to be believed and that from the clearness of Scriptures he hath as much certainty in this point as Protestants can have from them in some other held against the common expressions of the former times of the Church § 6 8. 5. That for the right understanding of Scriptures either he may be certain of a just industry used or else that Protestants in asserting that the Scriptures are plain only to the industrious and then that none are certain when they have used a just industry thus must still remain also uncertain in their faith as not knowing whether some defect in this their industry causeth them not to mistake the Scriptures 6. Lastly That none have used more diligence in the search of Scripture than the Socinians as appears by their writings addicting themselves wholly to this Word of God and not suffering themselves to be any way by ass'd by any other humane either modern or ancient authority § 5. Digress Where the Protestant's and Socinian's pretended certainty of the sence of Scripture apprehended by them and made the ground of their faith against the sence of the same Scripture declared by the major part of the Church is examined § 9. The II. CONFERENCE His Plea for his not holding any thing contrary to the unanimous sence of the Catholick Church so far as this can justly oblige § 13. 1st THat an unanimous consent of the whole Catholick Church in all ages such as the Protestants require for the proving of a point of faith to be necessary can never be shewed concerning this point of Consubstantiality § 13. And that the consent to such a doctrine of the major part is no argument sufficient since the Protestants deny the like consent valid for several other points § 14. 2. That supposing an unanimous consent of the Church Catholick of all ages in this point yet from hence a Christian hath no security of the truth thereof according to Protestant Principles if this point whether way soever held be a non-necessary for that in such it is said the whole Church may err § 15. 3. That this Article's being in the affirmative put in the Creed proves it not as to the affirmative a necessary § 16. 1st Because not originally in the Creed but added by a Council to which Creed if one Council may add so may another of equal authority in any age and whatever restrain the made by a former Council 2. Because several Articles of the later Creeds are affirmed by Protestants not necessary to be believed but upon a previous conviction that they are divine revelation § 16. 4. Lastly That though the whole Church delivers for truth in any point the contrary to that he holds he is not obliged to resign his judgment to hers except conditionally and
my faith § 2 Prot. But this secures you not unless you believe according to this Rule which in this point you do not Soc. However I believe in this point truly or falsly I am secure that my faith is entire as to all necessary points of faith Prot. How so Soc Because as Mr. Chillingworth saith †p. 23. p. 159 367. He that believes all that is in the Bible all that is in the Scriptures as I do believes all that is necessary there Prot. This must needs be true but meanwhile if there be either some part of Scripture not known at all by you or the true sence of some part of that you know for the Scripture as that Author notes †Chill p. 87. is not so much the words as the sence be mistaken by you how can you say you believe all the Scriptures For when you say you believe all the Scripture you mean only this that you believe that whatsoever is the true sence thereof that is God's Word and most certainly true which belief of yours doth very well consist with your not believing or also your believing the contrary to the true sence thereof and then you not believing the true sence of some part of it at least may also not believe the true sence of something necessary there which is quite contrary to your conclusion here § 3 Soc. †Chill p. 18. I believe that that sence of them which God intendeth whatsoever it is is certainly true And thus I believe implicitely even those very truths against which I err Next †Chill Ib. I do my best indeavour to believe Scripture in the true sence thereof By my best indeavour I mean †Chill p. 19. such a measure of industry as humane prudence and ordinary discretion my abilities and opportunities my distractions and hinderances and all other things considered shall advise me unto in a matter of such consequence Of using which endeavour also I conceive I may be sufficiently certain for otherwise I can have no certainty of any thing I believe from this compleat Rule of Scriptures this due indeavour being the condition which Protestants require that I shall not be as to all necessaries deceived in the sence of Scripture Now being conscious to my self of such a right endeavour used †Chillingw p. 102. For me to believe further this or that to be the true sence of some Scriptures or to believe the true sence of them and to avoid the false is not necessary either to my faith or salvation For if God would have had his meaning in these places certainly known how could it stand with his wisdom to be so wanting to his own will and end as to speak obscurely Or how can it consist with his justice to require of men to know certainly the meaning of those words which he himself hath not revealed †Chill p. 18.92 For my error or ignorance in what is not plainly contained in Scripture after my best endeavour used to say that God will damn me for such errors who am a lover of him and lover of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodness is to make man desperate and God a tyrant § 4 Prot. But this defence will no way serve your turn for all points of faith revealed in Scripture for you ought to have of some points an express and explicite faith Soc. Of what points Prot. Of all those that are fundamental and necessary Soc. Then if this point of Consubstantiality of the Son with God the Father be none of the Fundamentals and necessaries wherein I am to have a right and an explicite faith the account I have given you already I hope is satisfactory § 5 â— But next I am secure that this point which is the subject of our discourse at least in the affirmative thereof is no fundamental for according to the Protestant principles †Chill p. 92. The Scripture is a Rule as sufficiently perfect so sufficiently intelligible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether learned or unlearned Neither is any thing necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed for to say that when a place of Scripture by reason of ambiguous terms lies indifferent between divers senses whereof one is true and the other false that God obligeth men under pain of damnation not to mistake through error and humane frailty is to make God a tyrant and to say that he requires of us certainty to attain that end for the attaining whereof we have no certain means In fine †Chill p. 59 where Scriptures are plain as they are in necessaries they need no infallible Interpretor no further explanation to me and where they are not plain there if I using diligence to find the truth do yet miss of it and fall into error there is no danger in it Prot. True Such necessary points are clear to the unlearned using a due industry void of a contrary interest c. Soc. And in such industry I may be assured I have not been deficient having bestowed much study on this matter read the controversie on both sides compared Texts c. as also appears in the diligent writings of others of my perswasion and after all this the sence of Scripture also which I embrace a sence you know decried and persecuted by most Christians is very contrary to all my secular relations interest and profit Now after all this search I have used I am so far satisfied that this point on the affirmative side is not clear and evident in Scripture and therefore no Fundamental that I can produce most clear and evident places out of the Scriptures if a man can be certain of any thing from the perspicuity of its expressions that the contrary of it is so See Crellius in the preface to his book de uno Deo Patre Haec de uno Deo Patre sententia plurimis ac clarissimis sacrarum literâ—ram testimoniis nititur Evidens sententiae veritas rationum firmâ—ssimarum è sacris literis spontè subnascentium multitudo ingenii nostritenuitatem sublevat c Argumenta quae ex sacris literis deprompsimus per se plana sunt ac facilia adeo quidem ut eorum vim deâ—linare aliâ ratione non possint adversarii quam ut à verborum simplicitate tum ipsi deflectant tum nos abducere conentur And see the particular places of Scripture which they urge where as to the expression other texts being laid aside that seems to be said as it were totidem verbis which the Socinians maintain Joh. 14.28 17.3 Ep. 1 Cor. 8.6 Col. 1.15 Rev. 3.14 I set not down this to countenance their cause but to shew their confidence § 7 Prot. O strange presumption And is not your judgment then liable to mistake in the true sence of these Scriptures because you strongly perswade your self they are most evident on your side Soc. 'T is
not neglecting some means which he knows will certainly keep him from error § 11 2. But notwithstanding these This seems also necessary to be granted on the other side and is so by learned Protestants That in what kind of knowledge soever it be whether of our sence or reason in whatever Art or Science one can never rightly assure himself concerning his own knowledge that he is certain of any thing for a truth which all or most others of the same or better abilities for their cognoscitive faculties in all the same external means or grounds of the knowledge thereof do pronounce an error Not as if truth were not so though all the world oppose it nor had certain grounds to be proved so though all the world should deny them but because the true knowledge of it and them cannot possibly appear to one mans intellect and omnibus paribus not to others Now for any disparity as to defect whether in the instrument or in the means of knowledge there where all or most differ from me it seems a strange pride not to imagine this defect in my self rather than them especially * whenas all the grounds of my Science are communicated to them and * whenas for my own mistakes I cannot know exactly the extent of supernatural delusions I say be this in what knowledge we please in that of sence seeing hearing numbring or in any of Mr. Chillingworth's former instances mentioned § 7. So I can never rationally assure my self of what I see when men as well or better sighted and all external circumstances for any thing I know being the same see no such matter And this is the Rule also proposed by learned Protestants to keep every Phanatick from pleading certainty in his own conceit See Arch-Bp Lawd 〈◊〉 33. Consid 5. n. 1. and Hooker Preface § 6. their defining of a clear evidence or demonstrative argument viz. Such as proposed to any man and understood the mind cannot chuse but inwardly assent to it and therefore surely proposed to many men the mind of the most cannot dissent from it § 12 Consequently in the Scripture abstracting from the inward operations of God's holy Spirit and any external infallible Guide which infallible Guide Scripture it self cannot be to two men differing in the sence thereof I see not from whence any certainty can arise to particular persons for so many Texts or places thereof concerning the sence of which the most or the most learned or their Superiors to whom also all their motives or arguments are represented do differ from them From the plainness of the expression or Grammatical construction of the words such certainty cannot arise unless no term thereof can possibly be distinguished or taken in a diverse or unliteral sence but if it cannot be so taken then all Expositors must needs agree in one and the same sence For example For the literal and Grammatical sence what Text plainer than Hoc est corpus meum and yet Protestants understand it otherwise Very deficient therefore seemeth that answer of Mr. Chillingwoith's to Fr. Knot †Chill p. 307 urging That the first Reformers ought to have doubted whether their opinions were certain Which is to say answers he that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formal and express terms contains many of their opinions whenas the greater world of Catholicks sees no such matter Besides as these is no term almost in any sentence but that is capable of several acceptions so since no falshood no discord is in the Scriptures there is no senrence in it however sounding for the expression but must be reconciled in its sence to all the rest and for this a diligent comparing of Texts is necessary to attain the true meaning of many places that seem at the first sight most clear in what they say but that there are also other places as clear that seem to say the contrary And some such places it was and that in very necessary points too of which S. Peter saith That some wrested them to their own damnation wrested them because they wanted not industry but learning which the unlearned saith he wrest And indeed commonly the most ignorant have the strongliest-conceited certainty for what they apprehend or believe †2 Pet. 3.16 because they know fewest reasons against it whilst by much study and comparing several Revelations one with another those come at last to doubt or deny that sence of some of them which at the first they took for most certainly and evidently true Pardon this long Parenthesis CONFERENCE II. 2. The Socinians Protestant-Plea For his not holding any thing contrary to the unanimous sence of the Catholick Church so far as this can justly oblige § 13 Now to resume the Conference The Protestant better thinking on it will not leave the Socinian thus at rest in this plerophory of his own sence of Scripture but thus proceeds Prot. Scriptures indeed are not so clear and perspicuous to every one †Stillingf p. 58 59. as that Art and subtilty may not be used to pervert the Catholick doctrine and to wrest the plain places of Scripture which deliver it so far from their proper meaning that very few ordinary capacities may be able to clear themselves of such mists as are cast before their eyes even in the great Articles of the Christian faith Therefore why do not you submit your judgment and assent to the sence of Scripture in this point unanimously delivered by the consent of the Catholick Church which also is believed alwayes unerrable in any necessary point of faith as this is Soc. First If you can shew me an unanimous consent of the Church Catholick of all ages in this point and that as held necessary I will willingly submit to it But this you can * never do according to such a proof thereof as is required viz †Stillingf p. 57. That all Catholick Writers agree in the belief of it and none of them oppose it and agree also in the belief of the necessity of it to all Christians * That no later Writers and Fathers in opposition of Hereticks or heats of contention judged then the Article so epposed to be more necessary than it was judged before the contention * That all Writers that give an account of the faith of Christians deliver it And deliver it not as necessary to be believed by such as might be convinced that it is of divine Revelation but with a necessiity of its being explicitely believed by all See before Disc 3. § 52. Now no such unanimous consent can be pretended for Consubstantiality For not to speak of the times next following the Council of Nice nor yet of several expressions in the ancients Justin Martyr Iraeneus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen that seem to favour our opinion †See Petavius in Epiphan Haer. 69 Nor of those Bastern Bishops which Arrius in his letter to Eusebius Nicomed ‖ Apud
judgment I am conscious to my self of no disobedience as to either of these for an actual conviction I am sure I have not and supposing that I have had a sufficient proposal and do not know it my obedience upon the Protestant principles can possibly advance no further than it now doth The Apostles Creed I totally imbrace and would have it the standing bound of a Christian Faith For other Creeds I suppose no more belief is necessary to the Articles of the Nicen Creed than is required to those of the Athanasian And of what kind the necessity is of believing those Mr. Stillingfleet states on this manner †p. 70.71 That the belief of a thing may be supposed necessary either as to the matter because the matter to believed is in it self necessary or because of the clear conviction of mens understandingâ— that though the matters be not in themselves neâ—â—ssary yet being revealed by God they must be explicitly believed but then the necessity of this belief doth extend no further than the clearness of the conviction doth Again that the necessity of believing any thing arising from the Churches definition upon which motive you seem to press the belief of the Article of Consubstantiality doth depend up on the Conviction that whatever the Church defines is necessary to be believed And where that is not received as an antecedent principle the other cannot be supposed Now this principle neither I nor yet Protestants accept Then he concludes That as to the Athanasian Creed and the same it is for the Nicen It is unreasonable to imagin that the Church of England doth own this necessity purely on the account of the Churches definition of those things which are not fundamental it being directly contrary to to her sence in her 19th and 20th Articles Now which Articles of this Creed are not Fundamental she defines nothing nor do the 19 20. or 21. Articles own a necessity of believing the Churches Definitions even as to Fundamentals And hence that the supposed necessity of the belief of the Articles of the Athanasian Creed must according to the sence of the Church of England be resolved either into the necessity of the matters or into that necessity which supposeth clear conviction that the things therein contained are of divine Revelation Thus he Now for so many Articles as I am either convinced of the matter to be believed that it is in it self necessary or that they are divine Revelations I do most readily yield my faith and assent thereto Now to make some Reply to the other things you have objected § 38 The Act 1º Eliz. allows no Definitions of the 1st General Councils in declaring Heresie but with this limitation that in such Councils such things be declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the Canonical Scripture On which terms I also accept them § 39 Dr. Hammond affirming That all additions settled by the Vniversal Church if he means General Councils are in all reason without disputing to be received as Apostolical Truths that the Holy Ghost speaking to us by the Governors of the Christian Churches Christ's Successors may receive all uniform submission from us suits not with the Protestant Principles often formerly mentioned †See before §. 26. For thus if I rightly understand him all the definitions of General Councils and of the Christian Governors in all ages as these being still Christs Successors are to be without disputing embraced as truths Apostolical § 40 If the words of the fourth Canon of the English Synod 1640. signifie any more than this That any person convicted of Socinianism i. e. by publishing his opinion shall upon such conviction be excommunicated and if it be understood adequate to this Qui non crediderit filium esse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deo Patri Anathema sit and that the Church of England for allowing her Communion is not content with silence in respect of Socinianism but obligeth men also to assent to the contrary then I see not upon what good grounds such exclamation is made against the like Anathema's or exactions of assent required by that of Trent or other late Councils or by Pius his Bull. If it be said here the reason of such faulting them is because these require assent not being lawful General Councils such reason will not pass 1st Because neither the English Synod exacting assent in this point is a General Council 2ly Because it is the Protestant tenent that neither may lawful General Councils require assent to all their Definitions Or if it be affirmed either of General or Provincial Councils that they may require assent under Anathema to some of their decrees Viz. Those evidently true and divine Revelation such as Consubstantiality is but may not to others Viz. Those not manifested by them to be such then before we can censure any Council for its Anathema's or its requiring of assent we must know whether the point to which assent is required is or is not evident divine Revelation And then by whom or how shall this thing touching the evidence of the Divine Revelation be judged or decided for those that judge this who ever they be do sit now upon the trial of the rightness or mistake of the judgment of a General Council Or when think we will those who judge this i. e. every person for himself agree in their sentence Again If on the other side the former Church in her language Si quis non crediderit c. Anathema sit be affirmed to which purpose the fore-mentioned Axioms are urged by you to mean nothing more than Si quis Haresin suam palam profiteatur hujus professionis convictis fuerit Anathema sit Thus the Protestants former quarrel with her passing such Anathema's will be concluded causeless and unjust But indeed though according to the former sentences her Anathema is not extended to the internal act of holding such an opinion if wholly concealed so far as to render such person for it to stand excommunicated and lie actually under this censure of the Church because hitherto no contempt of her authority appears nor is any dammage inferred to any other member of her Society thereby Yet her Anathema also extends even to the internal act or tenet after the Churches contrary definition known which tenet also then is not held without a disobedience and contempt of her authority so far as to render the delinquent therein guilty of a very great mortal sin and so at the same time internally cut off from being a true member of Christs Body though externally he is not as yet so cut off And the Casuists further state him ipso facto to be excommunicated before and without conviction if externally he doth or speaketh any thng whereby he is convincible and not if there be any thing proved against him but if any thing at least provable and such a one upon this to be obliged in conscience not only to confess his heretical opinion