in Pag. 71 72. reality they partake not any way of the grace of Redemption and so dying in Adam they have no part in Jesus Christ The onely pronouncing of this sentence against the Infants of Believers causes a kind of horrour mingled with a tender and just compassion for these poor Innocents for they are looked on as such though they are tainted with Original sin and the Church of Rome calls them Innocents and Martyrs which Herod caused to be slain and celebrates a Feast unto their memory Now this very sense of horrour and pity which such condemnation it self excites in our spirits being natural and reasonable it is a sign there is no condemnation You condemn them because they cannot supply the want of Baptism by acts of Faith as do the adult persons whom you save without Baptism but it is for that very reason that you ought not to condemn them The Roman Church is well contented that the Faith of Godfathers and Godmothers and of the Church should supply the want of Faith in Infants even then when they receive Baptism It is the Godfather that speaking for the Child saith that he demands to be baptised that he renounces the Devil that he Believes in God and in a word that makes the whole Confession of Faith which we make in the Creed Wherefore then will she not yield that this same Faith of the Godfathers and of the Church may supply the place to Infants of those desires or vows which adult persons have for Baptism or of those acts of Faith which are in stead of Baptism There is no more reason for one than for the other if the Fathers or Godfathers speaking for the Infant may say I believe in God the Father Almighty c. they may as well say for him too I do promise and vow to be baptised if death or want of means do not hinder Dying in Adam they have no part in Jesus Christ But why will you have these Children to dy in Adam seeing they are born of Christian Parents that they dy in their arms in the midst of vows and prayers which are made to God for them Gen. 17.7 God is the Father of Abraham and of his posterity our Father and the Father of our Children And the Children of Believers are holy 1 Cor. 7.14 that is to say they are Children of the Promise as the Scripture speaks or they are born in the Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by consequence they should not be excluded from the benefit of his Death which is common to them with their Fathers under a pretence that they are not of age to declare that they accept of this benefit as in the World the Children that are born in Cities or in Countries have a share in the Rights and Priviledges of the Cities and Countries which they are born and in the benefits of Treaties of Peace and Friendship which are made betwixt the Princes though the Children be not in a condition of ability to testifie that they do submit unto those Treaties You have a veneration for the Relicks of Saints because they are parts of the living members of Jesus Christ this is the reason which the Council gives as it hath elsewhere been said But after all these are onely of the bones dead parts of those living members yet without scruple you condemn these poor little Infants which are as much parts of Saints and living and animated parts And further do you believe that all Infants departed since Adam before the institution of Baptism or of Circumcision which was the Figure of Baptism for example the Children of Abel or of Noah under the Law of Nature do you believe I say that as it may be said they dyed truly in Adam so that they had no part in Jesus Christ Or that God who substituted some other meanes of Salvation for those Infants in the place of Baptism or of Circumcision cannot and will not also even yet at this day supply the necessitated default of Baptism by his grace How is it that those of the Church of Rome who find so much difficulty to comprehend the eternal Decree of God according unto which though we are all children of Adam God hath chosen some and passed by others without as we can conceive any other reasons but his good pleasure how is it I say that these Gentlemen find no difficulty to believe that the Infants of the Faithful should be so intirely excluded from the common Redemption without any other reason save that they are children of Adam as the Fathers themselves also were whom God called unto Salvation To conclude what can there be more convincing against this absolute necessity of Baptism than this other necessity of the intention of the Priest who administers the Sacrament For if on the one hand there can be no Salvation without Baptism and on the other the effect of Baptism depend on the intention of him who baptiseth not onely the Salvation of Infants who have not been baptised but the Salvation even of those who dye soon after Baptism before they come to age depends then absolutely on the Priest which is equally inconsistent with the Justice the Power the Wisedom and the Goodnesse of God The onely or the principal authority that the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome do alledge for the belief of a Doctrine so dangerous as is this absolute necessity of Baptism is a passage of our Saviours in St. John's Gospel speaking to Nicodemus Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God This passage is like another of our Saviours near the same place Joh. 6 53. If you eat not the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud you have no life in you and it is true that upon these two passages taken according to the letter some of the fathers have grounded themselves as well for the necessity of administring the Eucharist unto Infants as for the necessity of Baptism But if the Church of Rome hath in process of time justly acknowledged that the necessity of the Eucharist unto Infants was a gross errour that this Sacrament ought not to be given unto Infants wherefore is it that she doth not also acknowledge that this necessity of Baptism may be as much an errour If they believe that this last passage ought not to be understood of the Eucharist or at least that it ought not to be understood according to the letter of all sorts of persons indifferently but onely of such as have age and meanes necessary to partake of the Eucharist why do they pass a judgment so contrary touching the other Why will they not also admit it ought to be understood likewise of regeneration or of a spiritual washing under the figure or expression of water and of the Spirit which is joyned unto the water As that place which saith Ye shall be baptized
authority which must be proposed to us as the rule of our Faith because the Council is formally contrary to the Bishop of Condom's Doctrine Sess 1â— cap. 6. de Sâ—cram Poenâ—â— The Council speaking of Works and of Penances the things here in question doth not onely call them satisfactory in proper terms as also sometimes doth the Bishop of Condom himself but the Council doth declare that it suits not with the justice and goodness of God to forgive us our sins without some satisfaction on our parts and yet more expresly that these pennances whâ—â—â— the Church of Rome doth impose are not onely a precaution for our amendment and a remedy for the time to come which the Bishop of Condom calls the bands of justice and duty but a punishment or a revenge and a chastisement for our past sins requiring in proper termes that the Curates have always this maxime before their eyes and that they be very exact in examining the quality of the crimes and the abilities of the penitents and to impose upon them pennances proportionable to their sins This is so clear and express that nothing can be more In very deed this Doctrine of the Council is the common and constant Doctrine of the Church of Rome upon this point Lib. 1. de Purg. ca. 14. insomuch that Bellarmine by a subtilty contrary to that of the Bishop of Condoms doth teach that it is we who properly satisfy for our sins and that the satisfaction of Jesus Christ onely puts a value upon ours The Bishop of Condom therefore ought either to make all those of his communion to relinquish this Doctrin of the Council which is the common and constant Doctrine of their Church or to come to an accord that even by his own judgment we have right to charge them with the two things that have been touch'd The one that the Doctrine of the Church of Rome doth contradict it self and the other that they believe to satisfie at least in part for their sinns that by consequence they do injury unto the infinite satisfaction of Jesus Christ The Bishop of Condom did not judge it for his purpose to speak more openly what those painful and laborious works and those satisfactory pains are whereof here is question it might be said that these are verily of the number of those things which must be little explained and which are much better when they are lightly passed or wrapped up in general terms It would indeed seem that the Bishop of Condom hath introduced this term of painful and laborious works in the room of what the Roman Church directly calls penal works or pennances and satisfactions There is much difference betwixt the one and the other the one imports only difficult works the other punishments and it may plainly be seen by what hath been said that this alteration in the expressions doth onely proceed from the alteration which the Bishop of Condom hath made in the common Doctrine of the Church of Rome But to conclude by what name soever they are called we know they are such kind of works whereof we have already spoken Vows Pilgrimages Visits of Churches Abstinences Prayers by set-number Hair shirts Sack-clothes going without Shirts lying hard and such other Mortifications in this life and at last the paines of Purgatory in the other Now if it be here demanded whether there be not some authority for all these Doctrines the Council of Trent produces not any It only saith that in the Old Testament there are some examples of persons whom God hath punished with temporal paines though he had forgiven them their sin and that it seems to suit with the justice of God that it should be one kind of Grace which he shewes unto those who have sinned before Baptism and another which he shews to those who have sinned after Baptism The Bishop of Condom saith the same that this is just that this is a certain Order established as when God doth forgive us the sin of Adam and yet for all that not free us from the maladies which are the consequent of that sin This is the onely ground and sole authority that they give us for so considerable a Doctrine as is that of Satisfactions that is to say an argument meerly humane without any command or precept in Scripture as if the evils and corrections which God sends us to exercise our faith and patience were not at all effects of his love rather than punishments or as if this were a title or reason for us to give our selves discipline as they speak or to torment our selves and attempt in some sort upon our own lives As to us who have onely the will and Word of God for the rule of our manners and actions as well as of our Faith we are perswaded that all these Works which God hath not commanded being very far from pleasing do offend him that all this appearance of devotion is nothing else but an imitation of the Sect of the Pharisees which corrupted the Law by their Traditions fasting formally twice aweek The abstinence from meats in particular is an imitation of the Sect of the Pythagoraeans which fed on nothing but Herbs Whippings and Macerations an imitation of the Priest of Baal and of those of Cybele which whipped themselves and tore their skin even till the bloud gushed out and to conclude all these pretended Satisfactions are nothing else but commandments of men which as it hath been said do manifestly derogate from the infinite Satisfaction of Jesus Christ Purgatory Joh. Roffen Nav. l. 3. com de Jub Ind. De purgatorio apud priscos illos nulla vel quam rarissima fiebat mentio c. Nulla de purgatorio cura c. Cajetan in Tract de Indulg cap. 2. Nulla Sacrae Scripturae nulla priscorum Doctâ—â—rum Graecorum aut Latinorum authoritas scripta hac ad nostram deduxit no itiam sed hoc solum à 〈◊〉 annis Scripturae commendatem est de uerâ—stis â—â—â—bâ—s quod B. Gregor stat Indulg instituit Gab Biel lect 〈◊〉 57. upon the Can. of the Mass Ante tempora Greg. medicus vel nullus suit usus Inâ—l nunc autem crebrescit c. We have the same things to say against Purgatory as against Satisfactions it is also a Doctrine which derogates from the merit of the death of Jesus Christ as if the expiation which he made of our sins were imperfect that there were need that we should compleat it There is no track of Purgatory to be found in the Scripture whether of the Old or New Testament without forced interpretations and consequences whereof our Doctours have sufficiently shew'd the vanity Many also of themselves of the Church of Rome accord that for this Doctrine they have nothing but Tradition since the time of Gregory the first who wrote in the end of the Sixth Age and that the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences are not onely not in Scripture but also
received in the Gospel and in Baptism Now the manner in which he is received in Baptism and in the Gospel is by Faith Therefore it must needs be that there should be a real manner of receiving the body and bloud of our Lord in the Sacrament which is not by Faith By any the least Attention to his Argument it will at first sight be found faulty In summe it is certain there is in it a kind of sophism Of a thing which is onely true in some regards he draws consequences as if it were absolutely true and in all râ—gards He changes the terms of the Propositions as we speak in the Schools and he puts more in the conclusion than there is in the propositions whence the conclusion should be formed It is almost as if a man should say the manner of a mans going is upright and different from that of beasts the beast goeth upon his feet therefore men do not go upon their feet Or to make all more plainly to be understood by an example which hath nearer relation unto the subject here in question The Argument of the Bishop of Condom is much like unto this The Sun at Noon-day communicates to us objects or the sight of objects in a full manner and different from that in which he communicates them unto us at his rising or if you will in a different manner from that wherein Torches communicate them unto us in the night Now the Sun at his rising and Torches in the night do communicate objects onely by the light therefore the Sun at Noon-day doth not communicate the objects unto us by the light Or to form a conclusion upon the Bishop of Condom's very terms therefore it needs must be that there is something in the Sun at Noon-day which causeth a manner of communicating objects which is not by the light The Sophism lies herein that the difference of the manner whereby the Sun communicates the objects at Noonday from that whereby it communicates them at his rising or that whereby Torches communicate them in the night is in truth onely in the more or less of the light a difference in degree as we speak and not in kind in the means it self rather than in the effect because these divers manners fail not to communicate the same objects though with more or less clearness whereas it is plain that this argument concludes that there is in the Sun at Noonday something else than the light which makes this difference But leaving the form of the Argument to follow the thing it self if the Bishop of Condom would have pleased to have taken the sense of the Article of the Catechism intirely as it had been just he would have seen that he had not the least pretext to play with words as he doth Sunday 52. The Catechism having laid down that the communion which we have with Jesus Christ is not onely in the Sacrament but also in preaching the Word of God the Minister demands What is it that the Lords Supper adds unto the VVord or what have we more in the Lords Supper and what is its use This saith the Child that in the Lords Supper our communion is more fully confirmed and as it were ratified after which it immediately adds that though Jesus Christ be truly communicated unto us by Baptism and by the Gospel it is but in part and not fully These words taken together do most clearly give to understand that what the Sacrament of the Lords Supper adds unto the Word is not another manner of communion with Jesus Christ more real in substance or different in kind from that which we have with him by the Ministry of the Word or by Baptism for Jesus Christ being truly communicated by these three divers means as the Catechism it self layes down it cannot in any manner be understood that Jesus Christ can be as it were divided and more or less communicated Or that there is more union with him by the Lords Supper than by Baptism and by the preaching of the Word but onely that in the Lords Supper we have yet a new and more ample confirmation of our union with Jesus Christ and as it were a final ratification which are the words of the Catechism Baptism properly is instituted onely to shew our entrance into the Church and to let us understand that as the water doth cleanse our bodies so the bloud of Jesus Christ doth wash us from our sins and particularly from our Original sin without representing more expresly either the death of Jesus Christ or our spiritual union with him though upon the whole the operation of the Holy Ghost doth nevertheless thereby produce this spiritual union of the Faithful with Jesus Christ and the eternal happiness of them which are baptised The word doth very well represent unto us the promise of Salvation and all that depends thereon it is a very effectual means to work Faith and to unite us unto Jesus Christ when God is pleased to accompany it with his grace Rom. 10.17 for Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the VVord of God But whereas the Word onely works upon one of our senses the Eucharist speaks unto all our senses in general and we know that the sight in particular makes a greater impression upon our spirits than the hearing and whereas Baptism onely sets forth our entrance into the Church and onely applyes or communicates unto us the bloud of Jesus Christ by the form of washing the Eucharist doth yet more expresly represent unto us that the body of Jesus Christ was broken for us and that his bloud was poured out for the remission of our sins communicating both one and the other unto us by the form of meat and of drink In a word the Sacrament of the Eucharist gives us to understand that as bread and wine nourish our bodies so the body and bloud of Jesus Christ nourish and vivifie our souls and lastly that the bread and the wine are not more truly and really united unto our bodies then Faith doth really and spiritually unite us unto the body of our Saviour This is it as every one may see for which our Catechism saith that in the Lords Supper our communion with Jesus Christ is more amply confirmed and ratified unto us than in Baptism and in the preaching of the Gospel or that in Baptism and in the Gospel Jesus Christ is communicated in part unto us and in the Lords Supper fully for it is but one and the same thing in the sense of the Catechism The manner in which Baptism communicates Jesus Christ unto us in admitting of us into the Church may be compared if we please unto that wherein it was said that the Sun communicates the sight of objects at his rising the manner in which the Word also communicates Jesus Christ to us in declaring unto us the promises of the Gospel unto that of Torches communicating the same objects in the night and Lastly the manner wherein