ever Christs flesh is eaten and his blood is drunk which is most signally done in the Sacrament there eternal life must accompany it and so these words must be understood even in relation to the Sacrament only of the spiritual Communicating by Faith As when it is said a man is a reasonable Creature though this is said of the whole man Body and Soul yet when we see that upon the dissolution of Soul and Body no reason or life remains in the body we from thence positively conclude the reason is seated only in the Soul though the body has organs that are necessary for its operations So when it is said we eat Christs flesh and drink his blood in the Sacrament which gives eternal life there being two things in it the bodily eating and the spiritual Communicating though the eating of Christs flesh is said to be done in the worthy receiving which consists of these two yet since we may clearly see the bodily receiving may be without any such effects we must conclude that the eating of Christs flesh is only done by the inward Communicating though the other that is the bodily part be a divine Organ and conveyance of it And as reason is seated only in the Soul so the eating of Christs flesh must be only inward and spiritual and so the mean by which we receive Christ in the Supper is faith All this is made much clearer by the words that follow my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed Now Christs flesh is so eaten as it is meat which I suppose none will question it being a prosecution of the same discourse Now it is not meat as taken by the body for they cannot be so gross as to say Christs flesh is the meat of our body therefore since his flesh is only the meat of the Soul and spiritual nourishment it is only eaten by the Soul and so received by faith Christ also says He that eateth my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in him and he in him This is the definition of that eating and drinking he had been speaking of so that such as is the dwelling in him such also must be the eating of him the one therefore being spiritual inward and by faith the other must be such also And thus it is as plain as can be from the words of Christ that he spake not of a carnal or corporal but of a spiritual eating of his flesh by faith All this is more confirmed by the Key our Saviour gives of his whole Discourse when the Iews were offended for the hardness of his sayings It is the spirit that quickneth or giveth the life he had been speaking of the flesh profiteth nothing the words I speak unto you are spirit and they are life From which it is plain he tells them to understand his words of a spiritual life and in a spiritual manner But now I shall examine N.N. his reasons to the contrary His chief Argument is that when eternal life is promised upon the giving of Alms or other good Works we must necessarily understand it with this proviso that they were given with a good intention and from a good principle therefore we must understand these words of our Saviour to have some such proviso in them All this concludes nothing It is indeed certain when any promise is past upon an external action such a reserve must be understood And so S. Paul tells us if he bestowed all his goods to feed the poor and had no Charity it profited him nothing And if it were clear our Saviour were here speaking of an external action I should acknowledge such a proviso must be understood but that is the thing in question and I hope I have made it appear Our Saviour is speaking of an internal action and therefore no such proviso is to be supposed For he is speaking of that eating of his flesh which must necessarily and certainly be worthily done and so that objection is of no force He must therefore prove that the eating his flesh is primarily and simply meant of the bodily eating in the Sacrament and not only by a denomination from a relation to it as the whole man is called reasonable though the reason is seated in the soul only What he says to shew that by faith only we are not the Sons of God since by Baptism also we are the Sons of God is not to the purpose for the design of the argument was to prove that by Faith only we are the Sons of God so as to be the Heirs of eternal life Now the baptism of the adult for our debate runs upon those of ripe years and understanding makes them only externally and Sacramentally the Sons of God for the inward and vital sonship follows only upon Faith And this Faith must be understood of such a lively and operative faith as includes both repentance and amendment of life So that when our Saviour says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved that believing is a complex of all evangelical graces from which it appears that none of his reasons are of force enough to conclude that the universality of these words of Christ ought to be so limited and restricted For what remains of that which he desired might be taken notice of that we ought to prove that Christs body and blood was present in the Sacrament only spiritually and not corporally by express Scriptures or by arguments whereof the Major and Minor were either express words of Scripture or equivalent to them it has no force at all in it I have in a full discourse examined all that is in the plea concerning the express words of Scripture and therefore shall say nothing upon that head referring the Reader to what he will meet with on that subject afterwards But here I only desire the Reader may consider our contest in this particular is concerning the true meaning of our Saviours words This is my body in which it is very absurd to ask for express words of Scripture to prove that meaning by For if that be'setled on as a necessary method of proof then when other Scriptures are brought to prove that to be the meaning of these words it may be asked how can we prove the true meaning of that place we bring to prove the meaning of this by and so by a progress for ever we must contend about the true meaning of every place Therefore when we enquire into the sense of any controverted place we must judge of it by the rules of common sense and reason of Religion and Piety and if a meaning be affixed to any place contrary to these we have good reason to reject it For we knowing all external things only by our senses by which only the miracles resurrection of Christ could be proved which are the means God has given us to converse with and enjoy his whole creation and the evidence our senses give being such as naturally determines our
the burden of an heavy surcharge and that it might not go to the digestion but that it might feed his soul with spiritual nourishment From which words one of two consequences will necessarily follow either that the Consecrated Elements do really nourish the Body which we intend to prove from them or that the Body of Christ is not in the Elements but as they are Sacramentally used which we acknowledg many of the Fathers believed But the last words we cited of the Spiritual nourishment shew those Fathers did not think so and if they did we suppose those we deal with will see that to believe Christ's Body is only in the Elements when used will clearly leave the charge of Idolatry on that Church in their Processions and other adorations of the Host. But none is so express as Origen who on these words ' T is not that which enters within a man which defiles a man says If every thing that enters by the mouth goes into the belly and is cast into the draught then the food that is sanctified by the word of God and by Prayer goes also to the belly as to what is material in it and from thence to the draught but by the Prayer that was made over it it is useful in proportion to our Faith and is the mean that the understanding is clear-sighted and attentive to that which is profitable and it is not the matter of Bread but the word pronounced over it which profits him that does not eat it in a way unworthy of our Lord. This Doctrine of the Sacraments being so digested that some parts of it turned to excrement was likewise taught by divers Latin Writers in the 9 th age as Rabanus Maurus Arch-Bishop of Mentz and Heribald Bishop of Auxerre Divers of the Greek Writers did also hold it whom for a reproach their adversaries called Stercoranists It is true other Greek Fathers were not of Origen's opinion but believed that the Eucharist did entirely turn into the substance of our bodies So Cyril of Ierusalem says that the Bread of the Eucharist does not go into the belly nor is cast into the draught but is distributed thorough the whole substance of the Communicant for the good of body and soul. The Homily of the Eucharist in a dedication that is in St. Chrysostom's works says Do not think that this is Bread and that this is Wine for they pass not to the draught as other victuals do And comparing it to wax put to the fire of which no ashes remain he adds So think that the Mysteries are consumed with the substance of our bodies John Damascene is of the same mind who says that the Body and the Blood of Christ passes into the consistence of our souls and bodies without being consumed corrupted or passing into the draught God forbid but passing into our substance for our conservation Thus it will appear that though those last-cited-Fathers did not believe as Origen did that any part of the Eucharist went to the draught yet they thought it was turned into the substance of our bodies from which we may well conclude they thought the substance of Bread and Wine remained in the Eucharist after the consecration and that it nourished our bodies And thus we hope we have sufficiently proved our first Proposition in all its three Branches So leaving it we go on to the second Proposition which is That the Fathers call the consecrated Elements the Figures the Signs the Symboles the Types and Antitypes the Commemoration representation the Mysteries and the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ. Tertullian proving against Marcion that Christ had a real Body he brings some Figures that were fulfilled in Christ and says He made the Bread which he took and gave his Disciples to be his Body saying This is my Body that is the Figure of my Body but it had not been a Figure if his Body had not been true for an empty thing such as a Phantasm cannot have a Figure Now had Tertullian and the Church in his time believed Transubstantiation it had been much more pertinent for him to have argued Here is corporally present Christ's Body therefore he had a true Body than to say Here is a Figure of his Body therefore he had a true Body such an escape as this is not incident to a man of common sense if he had believed Transubsubstantiation And the same Father in two other places before cited says Christ gave the Figure of his Body to the Bread and that he represented his own Body by the Bread St. Austin says He commended and gave to his Disciples the Figure of his Body and Blood The same expressions are also in Bede Alcuine and Druthmar that lived in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries But what St. Austin says elsewhere is very full in this matter where treating of the Rules by which we are to judg what expressions in Scripture are figurative and what not he gives this for one Rule If any place seem to command a crime or horrid action it is figurative and to instance it cites these words Except ye eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man you have no life in you which says he seems to command some crime or horrid action therefore it is a Figure commanding us to communicate in the Passion of our Lord and sweetly and profitably to lay up in our memory that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for us Which words are so express and full that whatever those we deal with may think of them we are sure we cannot devise how any one could have delivered our Doctrine more formally Parallel to these are Origen's words who calls the understanding the words of our Saviour of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood according to the Letter a Letter that kills The same St. Austin calls the Eucharist a sign of Christ's Body in his Book against Adimantus who studied to prove that the Author of the Old and New Testament was not the same God and among other arguments he uses this That Blood in the Old Testament is called the Life or Soul contrary to the New Testament To which St. Austin answers that it was so called not that it was truly the Soul or Life but the Sign of it and to shew that the sign does sometimes bear the name of that whereof it is a sign he says Our Lord did not doubt to say This is my Body when he was giving the sign of his Body Where if he had not believed the Eucharist was substantially different from his Body it had been the most impertinent illustration that ever was and had proved just against him that the sign must be one and the same with that which is signified by it For the Sacrament being called the Type the Antitype the Symbole and Mystery of Christs Body and Blood The ancient Liturgies and Greek Fathers use these phrases so frequently that since
Christ and following his example But when we were for some years thus tried in the fire then did God again bless us with the protection of the rightful and lawful Magistrate Then did our Church do as the Primitive Church had done under Theodosius when she got out from a long and cruel persecution of the Arrians under those enraged Emperours Constantius and Valens They reformed the Church from the Arrian Doctrine but would not imitate them in their persecuting spirit And when others had too deep resentments of the ill usage they had met with under the Arrian Tyranny Nazianzen and the other holy Bishops of that time did mitigate their animosities So that the Churches were only taken from the Arrians but no storms were raised against them So in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign it cannot be denied that those of that Church were long suffered to live at quiet among us with little or no disturbance save that the Churches were taken out of their hands Nor were even those who had bathed themselves in so much blood made examples so entirely did they retain the meekness and lenity of the Christian spirit And if after many years quiet those of that Religion when they met with no trouble from the government did notwithstanding enter into so many plots and conspiracies against the Queens person and the established government was it any wonder that severe Laws were made against them and those Emissaries who under a pretence of coming in a mission were sent as spies and agents among us to fill all with blood and confusion Whom had they blame for all this but themselves or was this any thing but what would have been certainly done in the gentlest and mildest government upon earth For the Law of self-preservation is engraven on all mens natures and so no wonder every State and government sees to its own security against those who seek its ruine and destruction and it had been no wonder if upon such provocations there had been some severities used which in themselves were unjustifiable for few take reparation in an exact equality to the damage and injury they have received But since that time they have had very little cause to complain of any hard treatment and if they have met with any they may still thank the officious insolent deportment of some of their own Church that have given just cause of jealousie and fear But I shall pursue this discourse no farther hoping enough is already said upon the head that engaged me to it to make it appear that it was possible the Doctrine of the Church should be changed in this matter and that it was truly changed From which I may be well allowed to subsume that our Church discovering that this change was made had very good reason and a sufficient authority to reform this corruption and restore the Primitive Doctrine again And now being to leave my Reader I shall only desire him to consider a little of how great importance his eternal concerns are and that he has no reason to look for endless happiness if he does not serve God in a way suitable to his will For what hopes soever there may be for one who lives and dies in some unknown error yet there are no hopes for those that either neglect or despise the truth and that out of humour or any other carnal account give themselves up to errours and willingly embrace them Certainly God sent not his Son in the world nor gave him to so cruel a death for nothing If he hath revealed his Counsels with so much solemnity his designs in that must be great and worthy of God The true ends of Religion must be the purifying our Souls the conforming us to the Divine Nature the uniting us to one another in the most tender bonds of Love Truth Justice and Goodness the raising our minds to a Heavenly and contemplative temper and our living as Pilgrims and strangers on this earth ever waiting and longing for our change Now we dare appeal all men to shew any thing in our Religion or Worship that obstructs any of these ends on the contrary the sum and total of our Doctrine is the conforming our selves to Christ and his Apostles both in faith and life So that it can scarce be devised what should make any body that hath any sense of Religion or regard to his Soul forsake our Communion where he finds nothing that is not highly suitable to the Nature and ends of Religion and turn over to a Church that is founded on and cemented in carnal interests the grand design of all their attempts being to subject all to the Papal tyranny which must needs appear visibly to every one whose eyes are opened For attaining which end they have set up such a vast company of additions to the simplicity of the Faith and the purity of the Christian Worship that it is a great work even to know them Is it not then a strange choice to leave a Church that worships God so as all understand what they do and can say Amen to go to a Church where the worship is not understood so that he who officiats is a Barbarian to them A Church which worships God in a spiritual unexceptionable manner to go to a Church that is scandalously to raise this charge no higher full of images and pictures and that of the blessed Trinity before which prostrations and adorations are daily made A Church that directs her devotions to God and his Son Jesus Christ to go to a Church that without any good warrant not only invocates Saints and Angels but also in the very same form of words which they offer up to God and Jesus Christ which is a thing at least full of scandal since these words must be strangely wrested from their natural meaning otherwise they are high blasphemies A Church that commemorates Christs death in the Sacrament and truly communicates in his body and blood with all holy reverence and due preparationâ— to go to a Church that spends all her devotion in an outward adoring the Sacrament without communicating with any due care but resting in the Priestly absolution allows it upon a single attrition A Church that administers all the Sacraments Christ appointed and as he appointed them to go to a Church that hath added many to those he appointed and hath maimed that he gave for a pledge of his presence when he left this earth In a word that leaves a Church that submits to all that Christ and his Apostles taught and in a secondary order to all delivered to us by the Primitive Church to go to a Church that hath set up an authority that pretends to be equal to these sacred oracles and has manifestly cancelled most of the Primitive Constitutions But it is not enough to remain in the Communion of our Church for if we do not walk conform to that holy Faith taught in it we disgrace it Let all therefore that have zeal
memory can serve me This I declare as I shall answer to God Signed as follows Gilbert Burnet April 6. 1676. This Narrative was read and I do hereby attest the truth of it Edw. Stillingfleet Being present at the Conference April 3. 1676. I do according to my best memory judge this a just and true Narrative thereof Will. Nailor The Addition which N. N. desired might be subjoined to the Relation of the Conference if it were published but wished rather that nothing at all might be made publick that related to the Conference THE substance of what N. N. desired me to take notice of was that our eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood doth as really give everlasting life as almsgiving or any other good workâ— gives it where the bare external action if separated from a good intention and principle is not acceptable to God So that we must necessarily understand these words of our Saviour with this addition of Worthily that whoso eats his Flesh and drinks his Blood in the Sacrament Worthily hath everlasting life for he said he did not deny but the believing the death of Christ was necessary in communicating but it is not by Faith only we receive his Body and Blood For as by Faith we are the Sons of God yet it is not only by Faith but also by Baptism that we become the Sons of God so also Christ saith he that believeth and is Baptized shall be saved yet this doth not exclude repentance and amendment of life from being necessary to Salvation therefore the universality of the expression whoso eats does not exclude the necessity of eating worthily that we may have everlasting life by it And so did conclude that since we believe we have all our Faith in the Holy Scriptures we must prove from some clear Scriptures by arguments that consist of a Major and Minor that are either express words of Scripture or equivalent to them that Christ was no otherwise present in the Sacrament than spiritually as he is received by Faith And added that it was impertinent to bring impossibilities either from sense or reason against this if we brought no clear Scriptures against it To this he also added that when D. S. asked him by which of his senses he received Christ in the Sacrament he answered that he might really receive Christ's Body at his mouth though none of his senses could perceive him as a â—ole or pill is taken in a sirrup or any other liquor so that I really swallow it over though my senses do not tast it in like manner Christ is received under the accidents of bread and wine so that though our senses do not perceive it yet he is really taken in at our Mouth and goes down into our Stomach Answer HAving now set down the strength of N.N. his plea upon second thoughts I shall next examine it The stress of all lies in this whether we must necessarily supply the words of Christ with the addition of worthily he affirms it I deny it for these reasons Christ in this discourse was to shew how much more excellent his Doctrine was than was Moses his Law and that Moses gave Manna from Heaven to nourish their Bodies notwithstanding which they died in the wilderness But Christ was to give them food to their Souls which if they did eat they should never die for it should give them life Where it is apparent the bread and nourishment must be such as the life was which being internal and spiritual the other must be such also And verse 47. he clearly explains how that food was received he that believeth on me hath everlasting life Now having said before that this bread gives life and here saying that believing gives everlasting life it very reasonably follows that believing was the receiving this food Which is yet clearer from verse 34. where the Jews having desired him evermore to give them that bread he answers verse 35. I am the bread of life he that comes to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Which no man that is not strangely prepossessed can consider but he must see it is an answer to their question and so in it he tells them that their coming to him and believing was the mean of receiving that bread And here it must be considered that Christ calls himself bread and says that a Man must eat thereof which must be understood figuratively and if Figures be admitted in some parts of that discourse it is unjust to reject the applying the same Figures to other parts of it In fine Christ tells them this bread was his flesh which he was to give for the life of the World which can be applied to nothing but the offering up himself on the Cross. This did as it was no wonder startle the Jews so they murmured and said How can this man give us his flesh to eat To which Christs answer is so clear that it is indeed strange there should remain any doubting about it He first tells them except they eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man they had no life in them Where on the way mark that drinking the blood is as necessary as eating the flesh and these words being expounded of the Sacrament cannot but discover them extreamly guilty who do not drink the blood For suppose the Doctrine of the bloods concomitating the flesh were true yet even in that case they only eat the blood but cannot be said to drink the blood But from these words it is apparent Christ must be speaking chiefly if not only of the spiritual Communicating for otherwise no man can be saved that hath not received the Sacrament The words are formal and positive and Christ having made this a necessary condition of life I see not how we dare promise life to any that hath never received it And indeed it was no wonder that those Fathers who understood these words of the Sacrament appointed it to be given to infants immediately after they were baptized for that was a necessary consequence that followed this exposition of our Saviours words And yet the Church of Rome will not deny but if any die before he is adult or if a person converted be in such circumstances that it is not possible for him to receive the Sacrament and so dies without it he may have everlasting life therefore they must conclude that Christs flesh may be eaten by faith even without the Sacrament Again in the next verse he says Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life These words must be understood in the same sense they had in the former verse they being indeed the reverse of it Therefore since there is no addition of worthily necessary to the sence of the former verse neither is it necessary in this But it must be concluded Christ is here speaking of a thing without which none can have life and by which all have life therefore when
abundance of his Grace on your Ladiship to make you still continue in the love and obedience of the Truth is the earnest Prayer of MADAM London Apr. 15. 1676. Your Ladiship 's most Humble Servants Edward Stillingfleet Gilbert Burnet A Discourse To shew How unreasonable it is To ask for Express Words of Scripture in proving all Articles of Faith And that a just and good Consequence from Scripture is sufficient IT will seem a very needless labour to all considering persons to go about the exposing and baffling so unreasonable and ill-grounded a pretence That whatever is not read in Scripture is not to be held an Article of Faith For in making good this Assertion they must either fasten their proofs on some other ground or on the words of our Article which are these Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation So that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation Now it is such an affront to every mans eyes and understanding to infer from these words That all our Articles must be read in Scripture that we are confident every man will cry Shame on any that will pretend to fasten on our Church any such obligation from them If these unlucky words Nor may be proved thereby could be but dashed out it were a won cause But we desire to know what they think can be meant by these words or what else can they signifie but that there may be Articles of Faith which though they be not read in Scripture yet are proved by it There be some Propositions so equivalent to others that they are but the same thing said in several words and these though not read in Scripture yet are contained in it since wheresoever the one is read the other must necessarily be understood Other Propositions there are which are a necessary result either from two places of Scripture which joined together yeild a third as a necessary issue according to that eternal Rule of Reason and Natural Logick That wherever two things agree in any Third they must also agree among Themselves There be also other Propositions that arise out of one single place of Scripture by a natural deduction as if Jesus Christ be proved from any place of Scripture the Creator of the world or that He is to be worshipped with the same Adoration that is due to the Great God then it necessarily follows that He is the Great God because He does the Works and receives the Worship of the Great God So it is plain that our Church by these words Nor may be proved thereby has so declared Her self in this point that it is either very great want of consideration or shameless impudence to draw any such thing from our Articles But we being informed that by this little art as shuffling and bare so ever as it must appear to a just discerner many have been disordered and some prevailed on We shall so open and expose it that we hope it shall appear so poor and trifling that every body must be ashamed of it It hath already shewed it self in France and Germany and the Novelty of it took with many till it came to be canvassed and then it was found so weak that it was universally cried down and hissed off the stage But now that such decried wares will go off no-where those that deal in them try if they can vent them in this Nation It might be imagined that of all persons in the world they should be the furthest from pressing us to reject all Articles of Faith that are not read in Scripture since whenever that is received as a Maxim The Infallibility of their Church the Authority of Tradition the Supremacy of Rome the Worship of Saints with a great many more must be cast out It is unreasonable enough for those who have cursed and excommunicated us because we reject these Doctrines which are not so much as pretended to be read in Scripture to impose on us the Reading all our Articles in these Holy Writings But it is impudent to hear persons speak thus who have against the express and formal words of Scripture set up the making and worshipping of Images and these not only of Saints though that be bad enough but of the Blessed Trinity the praying in an unknown tongue and the taking the Chalice from the people Certainly this plea in such mens mouths is not to be reconciled to the most common rules of decency and discretion What shall we then conclude of men that would impose rules on us that neither themselves submit to nor are we obliged to receive by any Doctrine or Article of our Church But to give this their Plea its full strength and advantage that upon a fair hearing all may justly conclude its unreasonableness we shall first set down all can be said for it In the Principles of Protestants the Scriptures are the rule by which all Controversies must be judged now they having no certain way to direct them in the exposition of them neither Tradition nor the Definition of the Curch Either they must pretend they are Infallible in their Deductions or we have no reason to make any account of them as being Fallible and Vncertain and so they can never secure us from error nor be a just ground to found our Faith of any Proposition so proved upon Therefore no Proposition thus proved can be acknowledged an Article of Faith This is the bredth and length of their Plea which we shall now examine And first if there be any strength in this Plea it will conclude against our submitting to the express words of Scripture as forcibly Since all words how formal soever are capable of several expositions Either they are to be understood literally or figuratively either they are to be understood positively or interrogatively With a great many other varieties of which all expressions are capable So that if the former Argument have any force since every place is capable of several meanings except we be infallibly sure which is the true meaning we ought by the same parity of Reason to make no account of the most express and formal words of Scripture from which it is apparent that what noise soever these men make of express words of Scripture yet if they be true to their own argument they will as little submit to these as to deductions from Scripture Since they have the same reason to question the true meaning of a place that they have to reject an inference and deduction from it And this alone may serve to satisfy every body that this is a trick under which there lies no fair dealing at all But to answer the Argument to all mens satisfaction we must consider the nature of the Soul which is a reasonable being whose chief faculty is to discern the connexion of things and to draw
unworthily that are guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord and eat and drink judgment against themselves Therefore it is only the internal receiving of Christ by Faith that gives eternal life from which another necessary inference directs us also to conclude that since all that eat his Flesh and drink his Blood have eternal life and since it is only by the internal communicating that we have eternal life therefore these words of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood can only be understood of internal communicating therefore they must be spiritually understood But all this while the Reader may be justly weary of so much time and pains spent to prove a thing which carries its own evidence so with it that it seems one of the first Principles and Foundations of all Reasoning for no proposition can appear to us to be true but we must also assent to every other deduction that is drawn out of it by a certain inference If then we can certainly know the true meaning of any place of Scripture we may and ought to draw all such conclusions as follow it with a clear and just consequence and if we clearly apprehend the consequence of any proposition we can no more doubt the truth of the consequence than of the proposition from which it sprung For if I see the air full of a cleaâ— day-light I must certainly conclude the Sun is risen and I have the same assurance about the one that I have about the other There is more than enough said already for discovering the vanity and groundlesness of this method of arguing But to set the thing beyond all dispute let us consider the use which we find our Saviour and the Apostles making of the Old Testament and see how far it favours us and condemns this appeal to the formal and express words of Scriptures But before we advance further we must remove a prejudice against any thing may be drawn from such Presidents these being persons so filled with God and Divine knowledg as appeared by their Miracles and other wonderful Gifts that gave so full an Authority to all they said and of their being infallible both in their Expositions and Reasonings that we whose understandings are darkned and disordered ought not to pretend to argue as they did But for clearing this it is to be observed that when any person Divinely assisted having sufficiently proved his inspiration declares any thing in the name of God we are bound to submit to it or if such a person by that same Authority offers any Exposition of Scripture he is to be believed without further dispute But when an inspired person argues with any that does not acknowledg his inspiration but is enquiring into it not being yet satisfied about it then he speaks no more as an inspired person In which case the Argument offered is to be examined by the force that is in it and not by the authority of him that uses it For his Authority being the thing questioned if he offers an Argument from any thing already agreed to and if the Argument be not good it is so far from being the better by the authority of him that useth it that it rather gives just ground to lessen or suspect his Authority that understands a consequence so ill as to use a bad Argument to use it by This being premised When our Saviour was to prove against the Sadducees the truth of the Resurrection from the Scriptures he cites out of the Law that God was the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob since then God is not God of the dead but of the living Therefore Abraham Isaac and Jacob did live unto God From which he proved the Souls having a being distinct from the Body and living after its separation from the Body which was the principal Point in Controversy Now if these new Maxims be of any force so that we must only submit to the express words of Scripture without proving any thing by consequence then certainly our Saviour performed nothing in that Argument For the Sadducees might have told him they appealed to the express words of Scripture But alas they understood not these new-found Arts but submitting to the evident force of that consequence were put to silence and the multitudes were astonished at his Doctrine Now it is unreasonable to imagine that the great Authority of our Saviour and his many Miracles made them silent for they coming to try him and to take advantage from every thing he said if it were possible to lessen his esteem and Authority would never have acquiesced in any Argument because he used it if it had not strength in it self for an ill Argument is an ill Argumont use it whoso will For insâ—ance If I see a man pretending that he sits in an Infallible Chair and proving what he delivers by the most impertinent allegations of Scripture possible as if he attempts to prove the Pope must be the Head of all Powers Civil and Spiritual from the first words of Genesis where it being said In the Beginning and not in the Beginnings in the plural from which he concludes there must be but one Beginning and Head of all Power to wit the Pope I am so far from being put to silence with this that I am only astonished how any man of common sense though he pretended not to Infallibility could fall into such errors For an ill Argument when its fallacy is so apparent must needs heap contempt on him that uses it Having found our Saviour's way of Arguing to be so contrary to this new method these Gentlemen would impose on us let us see how the Apostles drew their proofs for matters in Controversy from Scriptures The two great Points they had most occasion to argue upon were Iesus Christ's being the true Messiah and the freedom of the Gentiles from any obligation to the observance of the Mosaical Law Now let us see how they proceeded in both these For the first In the first Sermon after the effusion of the Holy Ghost St. Peter proves the truth of Christ's Resurrection from these words of David Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption Now he shews that these words could not be meant of David who was dead and buried therefore being a Prophet he spake of the Resurrection of Christ. If here were not consequences and deductions let every one judg Now these being spoken to those who did not then believe in Christ there was either sufficient force in that Argument to convince the Jews otherwise these that spake them were very much both to be blamed and despised for offering to prove a matter of such importance by a consequence But this being a degree of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost we must acknowledg there was strength in their Argument and therefore Articles of Faith whereof this was the Fundamental may be proved from Scripture by a consequence We might add to this all