will flee Deceit Wisd 1.5 and from Thoughts that are without Understanding and will not abide when Unrighteousness cometh in Now saith he P. 72. if according to the Testimony of the Lord the Holy Spirit rests only upon the Humble and the Meek the Man who trembles at God's Word Et secundum mores hodiernos pauci admodum tales verisimiliter in conciliis sunt and according to the Manners of our Times 't is very likely that few such are in our Councils but of carnal worldly ambitious and contentious Men and of Men having that Knowledge which puffeth up turba solet adesse copiosa the Number usually is very great what necessity is there to believe that the Holy Spirit doth prevail in those Councils and move the Minds of them who always do resist and do oppose his Motions to those things which are most sound and salutary P. 73. If it be not from humane Infirmity but from the Guidance of the Holy Spirit that Councils cannot be deceived who can be sure this Holy Spirit will be present with the major part of an Assembly of such Men they being though in Profession Christians ye in reallity Men of the World who Joh. 14.17 saith St. John cannot receive the Spirit of Truth 2ly Because such corrupt Manners do provoke God in his righteous Judgment to give Men up to strong Delusions and to permit the great Deceiver to prevail upon them according to that Expression of St. Paul That evil Men and Seducers will grow worse and worse 2 Tim. 3.13 deceiving and being deceived Thus of the Times of Antichrist he hath foretold 2 Thess 2.9 10. That because Men received not the Truth in the Love of it therefore God should send among them strong Delusions that they should believe a Lye. And this Account St. Basil also gives of the forementioned Miscarriages of the Church Governors of his Time Ibid. p. 394. viz. That they befel them because being corrupt and abominable in their doings they had deserved the Punishment which the Apostle speaks of saying because they liked not to retain God in their Knowledge therefore he gave them up to a reprobate Sence and which our Lord inflicted on the wicked Jews to whom he therefore spake in Parables 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might not perceive the Divine Mysteries of the Gospel because they first had shut their Eyes made their Ears heavy and their foolish Heart was waxed gross that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That by way of Punishment they might be subject unto Blindness in greater Matters Clemangis in this also follows the Sentiments of St. Basil For after he had abundantly declared the great Corruptions of their Manners who usually then met in Councils he puts this Question Ibid. p. 73. Quis certo possit scire an major pars concilij sit digna decipi who therefore can know surely whether the major Part of a Council be not worthy to be deceived 3ly Mens evil Lives had they no other Tempter do naturally incline them to cast off those Principles and Practices which contradict and do condemn their Actions and hinder their Pursuit and free Enjoyment of their sensual Appetites this they must be enclined to do partly to free themselves from the continual Gripings of an evil and condemning Conscience For as Theodoret observes They who have put away the upright Conscience do afterwards cast off the Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they cannot bear the Accusations of a guilty Conscience And partly that they may exert more freely that natural Opposition that is in them to that Law of Holiness and Light by which their Actions are reproved according to that saying of our Lord Every one that doth Evil hateth the Light John 3.20 neither cometh he unto the Light least his Deeds should be reproved 'T is this Corruption of Manners which seemeth to have turned all the Severities of ancient Penance and all the wholesom Methods of Church Discipline into Formalities and Superstition into fruitless Pilgrimages the going barefoot the carrying wax Tapers the mumbling over a few Pater Noster's Ave Maria's or penitential Psalms which either the penitent doth not or at the least is not obliged to attend to and which have very little Tendency to the Conversion and Reformation of a Sinner but rather do encourage him to sin at such an easy rate 'T is this hath introduced so many easy Ways of Pardon and Justification Attritio ex turpitudinis peccati Consideratione vel ex Gehennae poenarum metu communiter concipitur Concil Trid. Sess 14. c. 4. Et eum ad gratiam dei in Sacramento poenitentiae impetrandam dispoint Ibid. vid. Catechism Rom. Part. 2. c. 5. §. 37 38. without the bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance and taught even Councils to determine that Attrition or Sorrow out of apprehension of the Foulness of Sin or the fear of Punishment will dispose Men to obtain the Favour of God in the Sacrament of Penance So that if the vilest Wretch when going out of that World in which he hath lived most lewdly all his Life be afraid of Punishment for his Enormities or apprehensive of the Foulness of them as the more wicked he hath been the likelier he is and the greater Reason he still hath to be provided he be absolved by a Priest he must go out of the World in the Favour of God and in a justified Estate And if so what necessity is there of adding to our Faith Vertue and of patient Continuance in well doing that we may seek for Honour and Immortality or of following after Holiness and Purity of Life that we may see God Moreover Men by their wicked Conversations will be disposed to introduce and cherish such Doctrines as best comply with their impure Inclinations that they may have the greater Freedom in the Pursuit of their Ambition Covetousness and all their other sensual Appetities and may the better gratify those Inclinations And here we have a wide Door open at which the Innovations of the Church of Rome might enter seeing most of them have an apparent Tendance to the gratification of Pride and love of Empire of Covetousness and Ambition of Ease and Freedom from restraint in the Ecclesiasticks and Church Governors and give them Opportunity to Lord it over Mens Consciences to engross the Wealth and the Conveniences of the World to live at ease and to be uncontroulable by any but themselves For do not the Doctrines of Purgatory Pardons and Indulgences directly tend to make them Masters of Mens eternal and by that of their temporal Estates Is not the Treasury of the Saints and of our Saviour 's Merits a way of driving Trade for the enriching their own Treasuries Do not their Masses and Oblations of true propitiatory Sacrifices for the Dead tend to engage all dying Persons to sacrifice their Estates unto them and leave them lumping Summs of Money for that end Are
under Heaven Act. 2.5 and all received the same Traditions and Doctrines which were condemned by our Lord and his Disciples and that it was incredible that Churches so dispersed through many Countries and Nations should agree together to affirm a Falshood for a Truth Now to this way of Arguing I desire to know what Answer can be given but by shewing by what ways such Opinions actually might have spread among them though not originally received and proving from their own Scriptures and Writers That these Opinions were not always held among them and if this way be good when used by Christians against them it must be as good when used by Protestants against Papists if this Plea be sophistical when put into the Mouth of an unbelieving Jew it must be as sophistical when it proceedeth from the Mouth of Papists I have not been so fortunate as to meet with any direct Answer to this Argument only to the Argument urged from the actual Condemnation of our Lord as an Impostor by the Sanhedrim That no Submission no blind Obedience could be due to the Church Guides then ruling in the Jewish Church The Guide of Controversies Disc of the necessity of Ch. Guides c. 3. §. 25. p. 17. Confer avec M. Claude p. 183 184 185. and the Bishop of Meaux thus answer That the Messias coming with Miracles and manifested by the other Two Persons of the Trinity by the Father with a Voice from Heaven commanding to hear him and by the Holy Ghost seen descending on him as also by the Baptist was now from henceforth to be received as the supreme Legislator and nothing to be admitted from others or from the Sanhedrim it self contradictory to what he taught which high Court therefore now for the Accomplishment of his necessary Sufferings was permitted by God to be the greatest Enemy of Truth and guided therein not by Gods but a Satanical Spirit of whose Doctrines therefore our Lord often warned the People to beware The Bishop of Meaux adds nothing considerable to this Answer and is plainly baffled by his learned Adversary Mr. Claude to whose Works I remit the Reader Now First Is it not wonderful to see how these Men say and unsay pronounce a thing impossible in one Case and in another like unto it confess it actually done We shew them That in the Jewish Church such false Traditions had generally prevail'd as tended to evacuate the Law of God render his Worship vain and to engage them to reject the true Messiah and yet they were received as Doctrines of their great Prophet Moses handed down to them by oral Tradition that infallible Preserver of Truth True say they the Church Guides were then permitted by God to be the greatest Enemies of Truth and guided therein not by Gods but a Satanical Spirit add now to this That the Doctrines and Traditions of these Men found general Reception in the Jewish Church And will it not hence follow That Doctrines taught Traditions introduced by the greatest Enemies of Truth and by Men acted not by the Spirit of God but that of Satan may generally prevail to be received as true Doctrines and Traditions derived from prophetical Authority and fit to be assented to received and practised by all Secondly Did these Traditions and false Doctrines against which our Saviour cautioned them begin then only to spring up among them when our Saviour appeared with his Miracles when at his Baptism the Holy Ghost descended visibly upon him and God gave Testimony to him by a Voice from Heaven If so you see that even the whole Jewish Church though scattered throughout the World might all at once embrace Traditions of such evil and pernicious Consequences though they before had never heard one tittle of them and so not only in the Compass of one Age but of Three Years at farthest new and pernicious Doctrines might generally obtain in the whole Jewish Church and why not also in the Western Churches within the compass of Eight hundred Years But that these Doctrines of the Scribes and Pharisees these Traditions which they had received touching Christ's temporal Kingdom and touching the personal Appearance of the Tisbite to be his Fore-runner and touching the Expositions of the Law condemned by Christ were not of so late Date as our Lord's Baptism and Entrance upon his prophetick Office is evident beyond Dispute from what I have discoursed already from Josephus Ch. 11. §. 7. asserting that they were received from the most ancient Jews from Epiphanius that they derived them from Moses from the mention of them in our Saviour 's time as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. xxviij 17. Gal. i. 14. Customs and Traditions received from their Fathers and from the great Incredibility that these things should so generally obtain to be received as Traditions in so short a time Besides we know the Expectation of their temporal King had alarm'd all the East before and their Tradition that Elias the Tisbite should come in Person to anoint him and be his Fore-runner must be as old as the Translation of the Septuagint These Doctrines and Traditions must be therefore taught whilst these Church Guides and Rulers were infallible in the Interpretation of the Scriptures and were true Judges of what they had received by Tradition if ever they were so or rather it must be apparent that they were not so because they generally had prevailed upon the People to receive Doctrines and Traditions of such fatal and pernicious Consequences and therefore all the specious Harangues the Papists make concerning the Impossibility that false Traditions and corrupt Doctrines should prevail amongst them must be as plausible when uttered by the Jew against the Christian as by the Papist against Protestants For v. g. where may they say will you produce the Men of former Ages who taxed the Jewish Church with such corrupt Traditions as your Jesus taxed them with or bid Men beware of the Doctrine of them who sate in Moses Chair or of those Scribes and Pharisees who had obtained so great Credit on the Account of Piety and Learning Do not you Christians own that we were once a right Vine the true and only Church of God till the Appearance and Baptism of your Jesus Who therefore can believe that God would suffer such dangerous Doctrines to prevail in his own Church and raise up no Church Guides except the Sadducees to contradict them until your Jesus and his Disciples undertook to be Reformers of it Where then had God a true Church in the World if not among the People of the Jews What other Church could Christ and his Disciples mention besides that whose Governors he taxed with voiding the Commandments of God and rendring his Worship vain because of some Traditions which they had received from their Fore-Fathers If then God suffered his Church to be all over-run with such a fatal Leprosy where was the watchful Eye of Providence Yea where the Care or Conscience of
of Antiquity ascribed by some to Athanasius by others to Theodoret to Maximus to Etherius we have one brief but full Discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against them who judge of Truth only by multitude Athanas Tom. 2. p. 293. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where the Author first tells us that he is to combat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against a false Assertion that the Authors of it are Objects of Pity or Commiseration that they fled to this miserable Refuge only for want of Reason on their side and even confessed their being vanquished that multitude was proper to fright a Man but by no means to perswade him that in the concernments of this World we do not much regard it and much less should we be moved by it in heavenly Matters to recede from the Testimonies of the Scriptures and the agreeing Sentiments of the Ancients that our Lord had told us That many are called but few chosen That streight was the Gate which leadeth unto Life and few there be that find it And that every wise Man would rather be of the number of those few P. 291. than of that number which goes in the broad way For had any Man lived in the days of Stephen would he not rather have been of his side alone than of the side of the multitude which rose up against him Had not Phineas boldly opposed himself to the prevailing multitude the Plague had not ceased nor had the rest been saved Was it not better to fly with Noah to the Ark than with the multitude to perish in the deluge to go alone with Lot from Sodom than with the multitude to perish there We indeed venerate the multitude but then it is a multitude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which flies not examination but which affordeth demonstration 2dly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apud Athanas To. 2. p. 325. They add That they ought not to be called upon to yield a blind assent to the Dictates of other Men without using their own Judgments to consider and enquire What is possible what is suitable or unsuitable what acceptable to God what is congruous to Nature what consonant to Truth what accords with the Mystery what is agreeable to piety They have accordingly left us a Discourse in opposition to those Men who required them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simply to believe their Dictates without considering what was fit or unfit to be embraced informing us That this was of many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pag. 326. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 horrible Doctrines the worst which Satan had invented to lead Men into dangerous Deceits That it was the Doctrine of Men who imperiously commanded all Men to follow their Dictates and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to believe without Reason and called that Faith which was an assent without trial to things unstable and undemonstrated That it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rise of Error and of all Evils the Doctrine of all Hereticks who declined the Examination that they might avoid the consutation of their Doctrines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That according to it no Man could find the way of Truth or avoid the precipice of Error That according to it we being asked to yield assent to the unproved Doctrines of Hereticks and Heathens should consent to do so P. 327. Whereas if we examine what we are required to believe we shall have full assurance of the Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither believing without reason nor speaking without Faith. Ninthly They say that it must be acknowledged that they had rationally cast off the Customs and Traditions of their Fore-fathers because they could discover wherein they had generally erred Praepar Evang l. 4. c. 4. For thus Eusebius speaks If we can shew that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Heathens and Barbarians which were before our Saviours time did not know the true God but either worshipped those which were no Gods or evil Spirits it must be then confessed that we acted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a true and righteous Judgment when we became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Revolters from the Superstition of our Fore-fathers If therefore we not only can but actually have shewed in the forementioned particulars that the Church of Rome hath generally erred then must it also be acknowledged that our Separation from her was the result of Truth and Righteousness Tenthly They lastly say Arnob. l. 2. P. 95. That their Religion must be Ancient because it consisted in the Worship of the Supream God Quo non est antiquius quicquam than whom nothing is more Ancient And in like manner we declare our positive Religion must be Ancient because it consists of the Articles delivered in the Scriptures of the New Testament and in the Symbol of the Apostles and taught by the Four first Centuries we therefore in like manner do conclude with them as to all the positive Articles of our Religion Non ergo quod sequimur novum est sed nos sero addicimus quidnam sequi oporteat That what we follow is not New though 't was but lately that we learned that it was that and that alone we ought to follow Now by impartial consideration of these particulars I leave any Man of Reason to judge whose Religion is most suitable in the general Grounds of it to the Sentiments of Antiquity whether we Protestants plead any thing against those of Rome which the ancient Christians did not also plead against the Heathens and whether the most plausible Objections of the Romanists against us be not fully answered by what these Fathers say in the defence of common Christianity against the Hereticks and Heathens 4thly Mr. M. adds Object 4 That all those who had been instructed by the Apostles before Scripture was written P. 322 340. converted and instructed Thousands who never had heard any Apostle preach and all these believed on the Authority of the then present Church P. 415. That from the preaching of Christ unto the finishing of the Canon and the divulging of the same in such Languages as all Nations understood very many Years passed and all the true Believers in Christ's Church were governed by Tradition only R. H. doth also tell us That God besides Guide of Controv Disc 2. ch 5. §. 44. and before the New Testament Scriptures left these Doctrines sufficiently revealed to the then appointed Ecclesiastical Guides from whom both the present People and the future Successors of those Guides both were and might rationally know they were to learn them and so had there been no Scriptures might to this Day by meer Tradition have learn'd them sufficiently for their Salvation First Reply 1 To this I answer That Mr. M. is much out when he talks of Seventy or Eighty Years before those Scriptures were written which were to be the future Rule of Christians for the Gospel of St.