the days of his flesh Whatever therefore the Church believes or proposes to be believed must necessarily be founded upon such a Revelation and consequently that Doctrine if it be of Faith must Originally derive from Christ and his Apostles the Doctrine of Faith being nothing else but what He and They from Him have delivered and consequently one and the same yesterday to day and for ever That is in all Ages Now into the Unity of this Faith and wherein it consists I shall enquire in the next place which brings me to The second Proposition That the Unity of Faith only respects the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion In order to the clearing of which I will premise these two things 1. That there was a form of words containing a brief Summary of the Principles of the Christian Religion in the Apostles times This seems to be presupposed in the writings of the New Testament and most probably may be the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or form of sound words which St. Paul advises Timothy to hold fast 2 Epist. 1. 13. and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the good depositum or Doctrine committed to his trust which undoubtedly refers to the grounds and fundamentals of Christianity purely and abstractedly considered as the rule of Faith to which he was precisely to adhere against all the noise and clamours of vain and idly-curious talkers and the contradictions of the Gnosticks the Hereticks of that Age who not content with the express and plain Revelations of the Gospel pretended to higher and greater degrees and measures of Divine knowledge as is plain from 1 Tim. 6. 20. O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust avoiding profane and vain bablings and oppositions of Science falsly so called It being most agreeable in the nature of the thing if there were no places of Scripture to countenance and make out the supposition that the Apostles should for the use of the new Converts put the necessary Articles of Faith together into certain heads of Discourse and that to these they should refer as to a Rule Gal. 6. 16. Phil. 3. 16. as to a form of Doctrine Rom. 6. 17. as to the first Principles of the Oracles of God Heb. 5. 12. as to the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. 1. and as to the Faith once delivered to the Saints Jude v. 3. All which several circumlocutions are expressive of the same thing and suppose those Doctrines whatsoever they were universally taught and as universally acknowledged and received But whether this form be the same with that which bears the name of the Apostles Creed which undoubtedly in the main is very ancient and most probably as ancient as their time the Church in succeeding Ages indeed to serve and maintain the interests and necessities of Religion against the innovations and assaults of Heresie adding several clauses and expressions to it is not here to be disputed at large But however this is certain that long before the times of the Council at Nice there was a Confession of Faith in use among Christians as the Standard of Catholick verity as is demonstrable from the Testimonies of Irenoeus Tertullian and others which Creed though there might be some variation of expression in it that is might be more contracted or enlarged at different times yet agreeing in the main as to the sense and wording too of most of the Articles being of general usage and of great Authority deriving neither the one nor the other from the Canon or Decree of any Council it may more than probably be supposed from the spreading and universal reception of it in the Churches of the East and West and from the general silence of its first establishment that it was delivered down from the very first Ages as having the Apostles for its Authors Against this if it be objected that if such a Creed had been extant at that time the same respect and reverence would have been given to it as to their other writings and consequently that there would have been no addition nor alteration of it much less any new form as the Nicene may seem to be framed and introduced as if the other had been defective it may be fully and satisfactorily replyed that whosoever considers the estate of the Church in the Southern parts of the Empire that is in Egypt and Libya and Thebais under Constantine how it was rent and torn and the dissolution of its very Being threatned by the new and blasphemous Opinions of Arius and his numerous followers he will quickly find that the Fathers who were conven'd at Nice to put a stop to those Commotions and allay the fury of the Tempest which began to shake the foundations of the Government as well as of Religion lay under a necessity of fencing about the hitherto uncontradicted and established Doctrine of Christianity with a larger and more explicite form of Words retaining for the most part though with some little interpolation referring to the Arian controversies which they hoped to put an end to this way the old form which Eusebius Bishop of Coesarea in Palestine presented the Emperour and that Council as having received it from the Bishops his Predecessors and which himself and the Catechumeni were first taught and profest at their Baptism and by these means adding a Commentary and explication of what was more closely couch'd in the Apostolical form which they did not pretend to alter but to draw forth in its full meaning and consequence For it was not enough for the Arians to say which is the Plea of the Socinians at this day that they acknowledge the Apostles Creed and are willing to subscribe to it unless at the same time they will admit the full sense of the words with the several propositions that are necessarily included in them as they are and have been understood by the Catholick Church from the first times of Christianity For if they pretend to say they believe Christ to be the only begotten Son of God in a private sense of their own to the prejudice of his God-head that is if they will not for all this believe him to be God begotten of his Father before all Worlds but fancy there was a time when he was not and so make him a Creature though the most glorious and perfect of all the Creation and so deny him to be of the same substance with the Father what is this but to destroy the Faith of Christ which is built upon this Foundation to make a mock-profession of Faith to retain the Apostles words only and deny in the mean while the truth of the Doctrine which they were intended to establish And so afterward when the Heresie of Macedonius brake out threatning new troubles and distracting the minds of the People with their Blasphemous Novelties The Article concerning the Holy Ghost was enlarged by the Assessors of the first General Council held at
and the various apprehensions and prejudices of men not like ever to be fully and satisfactorily decided and which indeed are but niceties and trifling subtilties in comparison while they put a greater value upon them than the nature and matter of them will bear and whilst they Sacrifice Unity and the Peace of the Church and the grand and real concerns of Religion to Passion and Humour 3. Much less are doubtful Consequences and Philosophical Opinions to be admitted and reckoned in the number of Fundamentals At first certainly and for several Ages together there was no great subtilty required in order to be a good Christian. The Institutions of Christianity were not Laborious and perplext Nothing was required but a firm assent of the mind to a few Propositions whose matter indeed was Mysterious but what had the highest ground of Credibility to make the assent to them just and rational but when once a bold Curiosity and an unlawful and an over-affected subtilty made men depart from the simplicity of Faith and Religion instead of being the Rule of Life and Discipline became an Art of Disputing and Scripture and Antiquity no longer made the Judges of Controversies but every mans particular Reason though never so much byassed and perverted by the prepossessions of fancy and by the heat and influence of his Passions then Articles of Faith began to multiply and every nicety and far-fetch'd consequence was called by that name and Magisterially imposed and the Philosophy of Aristotle and Plato was brought in to their assistance till the substance of Christianity was even lost in the Quarrel and the very Foundations of it undermined and Faith swallowed up in wantonness of Wit and Peace shut out of the World by Faction and Schism The result was that they were the worse Christians more talkative and curious perhaps but less strict and Religious and Charitable nay less knowing than they were before they let loose the Reins to their fancy and leapt over those boundaries which God and the Church had set 4. Whatsoever was not Fundamental in the Apostles time cannot be so now If it be a true way of defining an Article of Faith that it was revealed by Christ to the Apostles and as such imposed by them upon their Proselytes without the embracing of which they could not be Christians and that it is to be found in the writings which they left behind them either expresly or by necessary consequence Then the contrary also that is whatsoever is not found in their writings either directly or by just and necessary consequence and was not proposed to the first Believers cannot be Fundamental and consequently no one is bound to believe any Doctrine but what was then revealed and afterward acknowledged by the Catholick Church and what-ever proposal is made by the Church is no farther to be believed than as it is consonant to the Scripture and the Doctrine of the Apostles this declaration not being of it self sufficient to make an Article of Faith but as it is founded upon Scripture and Apostolical Authority How had the Peace of Christendom been still preserved if these Rules had been followed and kept in after-ages That is if new Opinions whereof some are very dangerous to which the Christian Church was a stranger for several Centuries of Years and all uncertain at the best if meer fancies to which Superstition and Ignorance have given Birth and if the niceties and subtilties of the Schools and things impossible to be throughly known and matters of meer speculation that tend to the disservice of Religion and do not slow in the least from its Principles had not been adopted Articles and Points of Faith all which we justly object to the Church of Rome and made necessary conditions of Communion How might we have adorsed before the same Altars and gone together to the House of God as Friends and have been partakers of the Mysteries of the Body and blood of our Saviour if they had not determined the manner of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament and brought in a new Doctrine which contradicts the whole circle of Sciences and the sense and experience of all mankind and tyed all others to believe an unnatural sense of the words of the Institution making the differences irreconcileable by their Trent Canons and shutting out all possible hope of Peace till God shall open the eyes of the Christian Princes of that Communion to see the fallacies and cheats of the Court and the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome to call a free and truly General Council to debate the differences which are now on foot to the great scandal of Christianity upon the Principles of Scripture Primitive Antiquity and genuine Apostolical Tradition and which considerations of Worldly Interest and Grandeur keep up this being the only way left to restore Unity to the divided Catholick Church 'T is the glory as well as happiness of the Church of England that the Rites she uses in her Religious Worship are decent and Solemn and every way serving the purposes of Religion that her Goverment is Apostolical that her established Liturgy is according to the Primitive Standard and which no wise and good man can justly be offended at unless perchance he thinks this a just reason because it is a set form that she holds nothing as necessary and essential to Faith but what was held so in the first Ages of the Church and can be proved out of the Scriptures that she rejects no Tradition that can prove it self to be Apostolical that she receives the Articles of the Catholick Faith held Anciently for such in their received sense and as they are laid down in the three Creeds and admits all who receive them into her Communion that her determinations of Opinions in her Articles are modest and far from the high-flown pretence of Infallibility and designed as an Instrument of Union that she is willing to communicate with Christians of what denomination soever where the terms of the Communion are Lawful so as it may be done without sin without prejudice to truth and the Fundamentals of Church Government confirmed by universal Practise and Canons of Councils and without violating the Rights and Priviledges of the Catholick Church as well as her own in particular Let the Romanists single out any one of her professed Tenents which she holds as essential to Faith and necessary to Salvation which is not exactly agreeable to the first Antiquity They cannot deny that she holds nothing amiss herein only they pretend that she does not hold enough That is that we reject Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass Invocation of Saints and Angels Worshipping of Images that we do not admit the Pope to be the visible Head and Monarch of the Church and the Vicar of Christ and that it is necessary to Salvation to be Subject to him and the like All which are meer Fancies and Usurpations But if the Primitive Christians were
Constantinople under Theodosius the Emperor by which enlargement all good Christian People were to be establish'd in the belief of the Catholick Doctrine declared so to be according to Scripture and Universal Tradition By these mighty Arguments they convinced the Hereticks and justly subjected them to the Punishment which their refractoriness and guilt deserved They settled the Peace of the Church and secured the Faith from the like assaults in after-times Their Creed was the Test by which they discerned Truth from Heresie and it was received and acknowledged as such by all the Orthodox Christians in the Churches of Greece the lesser Asia Syria and Egypt and taught the Catechumeni as a necessary qualification of their admission into the number of the Faithful which is the true reason that the other short form which had been in use hitherto the sum and substance of it with all its necessary deductions being transfused into this began to be dis-used and in process of time wholly omitted and left out of their Liturgies Whereas at Rome and in the other Churches of the West where those Controversies about matters of Faith which had exercised the Wits and Curiosities of the Orientals whose prying and restless Genius drove them upon those subtilties never were admitted or made no considerable progress among them they continued constant and steddy in the profession of the Ancient Faith and therefore stuck to and retained the old form of words as they are summ'd up in the Creed which we call the Apostles with some little addition and needed not a larger explication 2. It follows from this that the Doctrine of Faith must necessarily be one and the same every where according to the assertion of the Text It was the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. not appropriated to any particular Sect but it lay in common and open to all The whole Faith that is so much as was necessary to denominate them true Believers was received by all without any difference in the main points of it For how could it be otherwise while they adhered so close to the Doctrine of the Apostles who all Preach'd the same Faith in the most distant parts of the World between which there could not possibly be as the times stood then that is before the Polarity or directive vertue of the Load-stone was known any communication or intercourse There was a perfect agreement and harmony of Confessions among all who had embraced the Doctrine of Christianity The Christians here in Britain believed no otherwise than those at Jerusalem and those in India whom St. Thomas Converted and all who lived in the intermediate spaces between those two vastly distant extreams which were the boundaries of the then known World exactly agreeing with both Though they differed in Language Customs Laws Behaviour and way of Living and were under different Governments yet they all held the same thing Which Argument is excellently handled by Irenoeus in his 1st Book 3d. Chap. adv Hoereses There cannot be a more convictive Argument of the truth of the sense of the Articles of Faith which the Hereticks reject than the profession of them in all Churches of the World For how came this universal Consent establish'd but from the soundness of the Doctrine and the Authority of its first Publishers Among that great variety of Opinions which prevailed every where there were certain essential points of Faith wherein they were all unanimous and so long as they were held and maintained a liberty of Judgment and Opinion was allowed in lesser matters witness those Ancient forms before-mentioned long before the Civil Power took the Christian Religion into its protection which whosoever admitted and processed was received into their Communion So that from this Unity of Faith which was received every where by the whole number of Christians except some obstinate Heretical Dissenters who were a small and inconsiderable Party at first in comparison of the rest the Christian Church was styled Catholick or Universal just as the great Ocean is one and the same though it receives particular denominations from the several shores which it washes as the Brittish Cantabrian Atlantick and the like and not from any pretended subjection to one Sovereign Pastor And the word Catholick became another name for Orthodox and the Bishops afterwards subscribed themselves Bishops of the Catholick Church of such a place as founded on the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Universally received throughout the World and by vertue of the same Faith in Communion with all Christians Upon these two Suppositions I shall lay down these following Propositions That 1. Diversity of Opinions in matters of Religion of less moment does not interrupt and dissolve the Unity of Faith Opinions arise either from want of Evidence in the things themselves which causes a fluctuation and unsettlement in the mind as not knowing where to fix and rest to which we yield a wavering kind of assent more or less according to greater or lesser degrees of Probabilities or else from the weakness of the understanding which not being able to take a comprehensive view of things and resolve them into their first Principles and Original Causes or for want of a sure Foundation whether of Nature or Reason or Authority or Revelation takes up with Arguments and motives of assent which fall short of certainty and which cannot quiet the mind and secure it from all suspicion and fear of the contrary And indeed considering the great variety of mens tempers and complexions Education and Interests and the greater or lesser degrees of Knowledge Industry Curiosity and the like there is a Moral impossibility that Opinions should be one and the same And where God has left a liberty no Power upon Earth can oblige the Conscience and Understanding to admit them any otherwise than as Opinions That is either as true in their kind but far from the Infallibility of Divine Revelations or as piè credibilia Or as means and instruments of Agreement and Uniformity in Judgment to prevent Schism and Confusion so as yet no one particular Church shall prescribe to another but leave each to its liberty of securing their peace and quiet by what Confessions they judge best for that end and nothing be imposed as a matter of Doctrine which thwarts the Ancient Christian Doctrine and the Catholick Tradition of the Church 2. All truths are not fundamental and necessary to be believed with the same firmness of assent For several Propositions may be true and useful and yet not necessary and essential to the Faith the ignorance or dis-belief of which does not throw a man out of the Communion of the Church The neglect of this distinction has been one great cause of the troubles and turmoils of Christendom whilst fierce and eager Disputants have been engaged in the defence of several tenents which have no necessary dependance on the Doctrine of Faith and which are not determined in the Scriptures and by reason of their difficulty