Forreign Considerations taken from the persons of those who excited us to do it if otherwise it does not appear to us that the Consciences of our Fathers and our own were deceived and that our Action is unjust in the Foundation If the Law of the Conscience obliges us and gives us a right to separate our selves at least Negatively how can we depart from that Separation on the account of personal Actions in which neither our Fathers nor our selves have had any part and which have nothing of common with our Separation Our Reformation being good and just as we are perswaded it is is it not true that we ought to hold our selves to it whatsoever they tell us further of the Passions of Luther or of the Marriage of some Monks These things are wholly separate For our Fathers might very well Read the Writings of Luther and hear the Preaching of these Monks who should discover to them the Abuses of the Church of Rome they might very well Reform themselves in the end out of a motion of their Consciences stirred up by their Teachings without either approving or Canonizing their other Actions But they will say to have avoided falling into that motion of Conscience your Fathers ought not to have heard them And why ought they not That same motion that their Teachings stirred up and that produced a Reformation sufficiently notes that they ought But whether they ought or whether they ought not they did hear them the thing was done and that which they heard having caused that Sentiment of their Consciences which obliged them to Reform themselves we should be impious if we should quit that Reformation without any ones satisfying us about that Sentiment or shewing us that it is ill and fit to be condemned But that they can never do by those personal Actions which have no Relation to it else they would be bound to condemn the comfort which we every day receive from the Psalms of David under a pretence that David had committed Adultery with Bathsheba and to reject that Instruction that we gather from the Books of Solomon under a pretence that Solomon was not so constant as he ought to have been in the Worship of the True God There is then nothing else but a Sophism in all that 2. But if that way of Reasoning is captious it is not less contrary to the interests of the True Religion since it would have us Judge of the Reformation by the Quality of the persons who Preached it and not by it self or the Nature of the things it Treats of which would Establish a Principle whose Use could not but be very pernicious to the Church For if we ought not to consider its Doctrine in it self but to judge of it by the Persons who should teach it us how could any one discern the Angels of Darkness when they should be disguised into Angels of Light and be able to know the false Prophets when they should work signs and wonders even to deceive if it were possible the very Elect How could any know those Impostors and those Hypocrites who come in Sheeps cloathing but inwardly are ravening Wolves Moreover would it be a hard matter for those men who should be interested against the sound Doctrine to invent a Thousand Calumnies against the persons of the Teachers of it and how many did they invent in the beginning against the Apostles and the Primitive Christians whom they represented to the people as the most wicked among men I confess it is a great means of Edification that those who Preach a good Doctrine confirm it by good Examples and that on the contrary it is Scandalous when their works do not correspond with their words But nevertheless it does not follow that one ought to receive a Word because it is spoken by persons of an honest life or to reject it for the contrary Reason for this Maxim would make us very often reject Truths and receive Heresies It is then certain that we ought to examine that Word in it self without any dependance on those who Preach it For Truth is not in Men but in God alone she cannot change her Nature nor lose her right through the Vices of its Ministers If our Fathers were Reformed by the Authority of Luther or by that of Zuinglius and Calvin they would have some Reason to draw us back to the Examination of their manners since in that Case they would treat of that that would either establish or destroy the Right which they would have had to believe their meer words But how many times have our Fathers and we protested that we do not believe that which our Reformers said because they said it but because they proved it and because those things appeared sufficiently evident in themselves We look upon them only as persons whom God made use of to teach men their Duty they discovered it our Fathers saw it we see it also and it is on the sight of this Duty alone and not on their Authority that the Reformation depends As it frequently falls out that our very Enemies make us know our Duty in reproaching us with our faults suppose we that a Jew or some other Infidel should have accused and convinced the Latins that they had corrupted their Christianity and had not preserved the Gospel in that State wherein Christ and his Apostles left it is it not true that without any regard to the person the Latins would be bound to do that which our Fathers have done and that the Quality of him who should have so reproached them would not have been a sufficient excuse before God to hinder them from the doing of their duty It is then very evident that we ought to Judge of those matters by the matters themselves and not by the persons who teach them to us and by Consequence that the Principle of the Author of Prejudices is false and contrary to true Piety As to what he says that there is no likelyhood that God has committed the Care of Reforming his Church to Scandalous Persons I answer that God has committed to all his Faithful the Care of Reforming themselves and to all his Pastors that of Exhorting their Flocks If it falls out that among those Pastors who have acquitted themselves in that respect of their charges there should have been some few who did Actions worthy to be blamed that ought not to create any Prejudice against the Word nor put a stop to the motion of the Consciences of the Faithful any more then the defection of Saint Peter or his excessive compliance with the Jews ought to have hindred the Conversion of People to Christianity The Ministers that God makes use of are men who have their faults and faults sometimes of the highest nature as may appear from the Example of Aaron who encouraged the Israelites in Idolatry and of Jonas who fled to Tarsis when he was bound to have gone and Preached to Ninive but their faults make the word of
God lose nothing either of its Truth or its Authority 3. It is a very strange thing that the Author of the Prejudices has not taken any heed in laying down a very bad Argument against us of furnishing us with a very good one against the Church of Rome in that Estate wherein it was in the days of our Fathers For if we ought to Judge of the Doctrine by the Qualities or the Actions of those who Teach it I pray consider what Judgment could our Fathers make of that Religion that the Court of Rome and its Prelats taught and whether they had not all the grounds in the World to reform themselves If there be no likelyhood that God committed the Care of Reforming his Church to persons who were guilty of Scandalous Actions there is far less that God has given Infallibility and a Soveraign Authority over mens Consciences to such persons as the Popes and Prelats in the days of our Fathers were according to the Description which the unsuspected Authors that we have quoted give us of them and divers others that we might here add to them if we so pleased And that which makes these two Arguments differ is that his concludes upon a Principle which we maintain to be false and ill where ours concludes upon a Principle which he himself admits and acknowledges to be good so that in his own Judgment we have a sufficient Fundation whereon to Establish the Justice of our Reformation Let us see nevertheless of what Nature those Actions are wherewith he reproaches our first Reformers I will not says he stay to examine the Accusations wherewith they have been charged by divers Authors I do not pretend to detain my self in any but those publick things that are so manifest and so exposed to the Eyes of all the World I confess he has Reason not to stay upon all that which his Passion has invented against them for who knows not that Calumny has no bounds especially when interest and passion stir it up Our Reformers are not the only persons who have been attacked after that manner The Jews said of John the Baptist that he had a Devil and of Jesus Christ that he was a Blasphemer a Samaritan a glutton and a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners If then they have called the Father of the Family Beelzebub what will they not say of his Servants But what then are those things that are so Publick so manifest and so exposed to the Eyes of the whole World which the Author of the Prejudices has found fit to be insisted upon That new Gospel says he was Preached only out of the mouths of those Monks who had quitted their habit and their profession ouly to contract Scandalous Marriages or from the mouths of those Priests who had violated that Vow of Virginity which the Calvinists themselves confess to have been imposed on all Priests and on all Monks in the West by divers Councils and on all the Monks and all the Bishops in the East and the first fruit of this Doctrine was the setting open the Cloisters the taking off the Vails of the Nuns the abolishing of all Austerities and overthrowing of all manner of discipline in the Church This is that that forces him to say That the Reformers struck mens Eyes with a Spectacle that could not but create horrour according to the common Idea's of Piety and Vertue whech the Fathers give us The Author of the Prejudices will not take it ill that in order to our Answering him we must put him in mind what he himself exhorts us to To Transport our selves into another Time then that wherein we are at present and to represent to our selves our Separation in its first rise and during the first years wherein it was made amidst the Switzers and in France Upon his thus placing us in that State which he desires we will declare to him that The general Depravation which reign'd amidst the Monks and the Priests is to our Eyes a Spectacle worthy of horror according to the common Ideas of Piety and Vertue which the holy Scriptures and right Reason give us We will tell him that that which Scandalizes us is to see that for a respect of a purely humane Order they endured for so long a time a disorder that dishonoured the Latin Church that drew upon it God's Judgments and that laid open the Ministry of the Church to an everlasting reproach It is in the detesting of those Infamies and those Impurities that the true zeal of Christians ought to consist and it is to the searching out of a solid remedy for them that one ought to apply the Discipline of the Church and not to keep them up under a pretence of observing rash Vows and a Caelibasy that God never commanded If the Author of the Prejudices is more Scandalized to see Priests and Monks Married then to see them plunged into all the filthyness of Debauchery I cannot hinder my self from telling him that he makes Christianity a Law of Hypocrisy and it may be yet somewhat worse for Hypocrisy does not content it self with meer Names she would have fair appearances without of those things which she really rejects Whereas for him he rejects not only the things but their appearances also suffering patiently the loss of any more seeing either the things or their appearances provided we do not meddle with those empty names of Caelibacy and Virginity But true Moral Christianity inspires other Sentiments she would have us honour that Caelibacy and Virginity as gifts that come from God but she would also have a Contempt and horrour for those specious names when they shall be applyed to those beastlinesses and excesses which both God and Men condemn She would have us in that Case instead of being Scandalized to see a false Caelibacy made void and a vain shadow of Virginity abolished that we should on the contrary be edified to see them got out from those snares of sin and to have recourse to a lawful Marriage that God has allowed unto all and that he has even commanded unto those who have not received the gift of Continency It was in the View of this that our Fathers lookt upon the Marriage of those Priests and Monks as the Abolishing of an unjust Law contrary to the express words of Saint Paul if they cannot contain let them Marry and which moreover had produced such mischeivous effects as it was no longer possible for them to indure But says the Author of Prejudices we do not intend to speak of the Interests of Families of Marriage nor of base and fleshly passions in the lives of those Great Bishops and all those great men of old whom God opposed to the Heresies that rose up against his Church as Saint Cyprian Saint Athanasius Saint Basil Saint Gregory Nazianzen Saint Jerome Saint Epiphanius Saint Chrysostome and Saint Augustine They were all of them eminent in Sanctity in a disingagement
Councils of Ariminum and of Constantinople which included all the East and all the West and if they had had no more but that they ought not to have separated from the body of their actually governing Pastors that they might have cleaved to a Synod which was past and gone It was therefore the importance of the Truth that was contested and that of the Error that was opposite to it which made the Separation and not the meer Authority of the Nicene Fathers and therefore it is that S. Augustine disputing against Maximinus an Arian would that they should set aside as well the Council of Nice as that of Ariminum and that they should only contend about the things themselves Not but that sometimes the Orthodox did set before them the Council of Nice according to the manner of disputes where one will neglect no advantage for its being ever so small but it was as a little help and not as the essential reason of their Separation which was alwayes taken from the thing it self and from the testimonies of the Scripture so that that difference is very frivolous If they say lastly that the point that was controverted then was one of a far greater importance than those upon which our Fathers separated themselves I answer that indeed the Article of the Consubstantiality of the Son is one of the chief and most fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion but that does not hinder that those that are controverted between the Church of Rome and us should not also be of the greatest importance to salvation and sufficient to cause a separation And when they would make the justice or injustice of ours to depend on that they must quit all that vain dispute of prejudices and go on to the discussion of the foundation it self The Author of the Prejudices must not take it ill that in endeavouring to decide the Question concerning the right of the Separation of our Fathers I make use here of his own proper testimony For it is a matter surprising enough that writing in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters in which he would he sayes convince us of Schism without entring upon a discussion either of our Doctrine or our Mission that he should not have remembred what he himself had just before said in the Seventh First of all he there proposes this difficulty as on our side If the visible Church were really fallen into Error as we suppose that it is possible for it to do if it drive away the truly faithful from its bosome if it persecute them must those truly faithful needs be deprived of all external worship in Religion must they needs cleave to the Church to perish with them since we suppose that it resides in them alone Is it not against the Divine Providence that the true worshippers of God the true heirs of Heaven cannot form a Church in the World and that God has not left any means to provide against so strange an inconvenience He answers plainly That indeed that inconvenience is exceeding great but that it is not necessary that God should have provided against it by remedies because he has resolved to hinder it from ever falling out in alwayes preserving the True Ministry in his Church So that it can never be in a necessity of being re-established and that very thing is a certain mark that that inconvenience can never happen in that God has not provided any remedy for it He sayes that so it is that our Ministers ought to conclude and not to conclude as they do in supposing that the visible Church may fall into ruine that there is a necessity of having recourse to the establishment of a new Ministry Since immediately after he adds But if the adhaesion which they have to their sentiments hinders them from coming to agree to this consequence they ought rather to conclude that those pretended truly faithful must remain in that state without Pastors and without any external worship and that they should rather expect that God should raise up some extraordinarily and with visible marks of their mission than to usurp to themselves a right of creating Ministers and Pastors and giving them power to govern the Churches and administer the Sacraments We have already shewn him and we shall yet further shew him in the end that it is not without reason that we suppose that the Ministry may be corrupted in the Church We shall shew him also that the consequence which we draw from it concerning the re-establishing of the Ministry is just and right and that a faithful people have a right in that case to create their Ministers and their Pastors and to give them power to govern their Churches and to administer the Sacraments But as we are only disputing at present about knowing whether we may separate our selves from the body of the ordinary Pastors when they are fallen into errors incompatible with our salvation and when they will force the people to profess the same Errors it shall suffice at present to take notice that the Author of the Prejudices comes to agree that when persons are perswaded that the body of those who possess the Ministry in the Church is fallen into Error and when it drives away from its bosome and persecutes those who maintain the Truth they may remain separated without acknowledging that Body for their Pastors and without assisting in their external worship provided that they do not make other Ministers But who sees not that this is precisely to acknowledge the right of that Separation about which the question at present is Who sees not that it is at least in that respect a discharging our Fathers from the Accusation of Schism and to declare them further innocent of that crime which he would design to lay to their charge at last Our Fathers did not collect that consequence of the Author of the Prejudices they did not conclude that the Ministry must be incorruptible in the Church in that which it had of humane in it This is not a place to dispute whether they adhered too much to their own opinions where because that in effect they judg'd well that manner of reasoning is pernicious Howsoever it were they have concluded quite otherwise they were perswaded that the body of those who possessed the Ordinary Ministry in the Latin Church were fallen not only into an Error but into many and into such as were contrary to mens salvation that it was guilty of opinionativeness in maintaining them that it did impose a necessity upon all to profess them that it drove away from its bosome those who refused that obedience It was upon this that they separated themselves from them not acknowledging them any more for their Pastors and assisting no further in their external worship Thus far the Author of the Prejudices does not condemn them he would only that they should have remained throughout without Pastors and without external worship We shall see in its place whether
that every Society which has not that extension is not the Church so that this reasoning is alwayes sound your Society is shut up in a little part of the world Therefore it is not the Church and that it is by this Principle that S. Augustine has disputed against the Donatists and convinced them of Schism This is the summ of his eighth Chapter In the ninth he labours to apply these general Maxims to our Separation and 1. He sayes That our Communion is not spread over all the world any more than that of the Donatists and that not having that visible extension which is the perpetual mark of the True Church it follows that it is not so and by consequence that we are all Schismaticks 2. He sayes We carry the principle of the Donatists much higher than those Schismaticks stretch'd it for as for them they did not say that there ever was a time in which the Church had wholly fell into Apostasic and that they excepted the Communion of Donatus but as for us we will have it that there has been whole Ages in which all the world had generally apostatized and lost the faith and treasure of salvation 3. He labours to shew that the Societies of the Berengarians of the Waldenses and Albigenses c. in whom he sayes we shut up the Church could not be this Catholick Church of which S. Augustine speaks And lastly He concludes from thence that we are Schismaticks and by consequence out of a state of salvation Before we enter upon the particular Examination of the Propositions whereof this Objection is made up it will be good to note that there is nothing new in all that and that it is nothing but that some mark of visible extension that the greatest part of the Controversial Writers of the Roman Communion have been wont to propound when they would give the marks of the True Church There is this only difference to be found in it that the others labour to ground this upon what they produce out of the passages of the Scripture whereas the Author of the Prejudices grounds his argument upon the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers But when it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers disputing against the Donatists should have prest this visible extension of the Church too much and urged it further than they ought will the Author of the Prejudices believe that he ought to hold all those things that the Fathers have advanc'd in their disputes for infallible and all their reasonings and hypotheses to have been so Does he not know what Theodoret himself who was a Father has noted concerning some of those who were before him That the vehemence of Disputation had made them fall into excesses just as those who would rectifie a crooked Tree turn it too much on the other side from that straightness which it ought to have And is he ignorant of what S. Athanasius said concerning Dionysius of Alexandria whose Authority the Arians objected to him That Dionysius had said so not with design to make a simple exposition of his faith but occasionally having a respect to the times and persons That a Gardiner is not to be found fault with if he cultivate his Trees according to the quality of the soil sowing one planting another pruning this and plucking up that We must sayes S. Jerome distinguish between the different kinds of writing and especially of Polemical and Dogmatical For in the Polemical the dispute is vagous and when they answer to an adversary they propound sometimes one thing and sometimes another they argue as they think fit they say one thing and do another or as the Proverb sayes they offer bread and give one a stone But in the Dogmatical on the contrary they speak openly and ingenuously We may easily apprehend by that that we ought not to hold for Canonical all that the Fathers may have wrote in the heat of their disputes or to take what they have said according to the rigour of the Letter since they themselves acknowledge that having the Pen in their hands they often advance things that on other occasions ought not to be press'd So that though it should be true that S. Augustine and the African Fathers had made that visible extension an inseparable and perpetual mark of the True Church yet we should not fear to say in respect of them what S. Augustine himself has said concerning S. Cyprian whom the Donatists objected to him I do not hold the Writings of Cyprian for Canonical but I examine them by the Canonical Scriptures That which I find in them conformable to the holy Scriptures I receive with praising him and I reject with the respect that I owe to his person what I find in them disagreeing thereto We should make no scruple to apply to them what the same S. Augustine has said on the subject of S. Hilary and some other Fathers whom they alledg'd to him We must throughly distinguish these sorts of writings from the Authority of the Canonical Books For however we should read them yet we cannot draw convincing testimonies from them and it is allow'd us to depart from them when we see that they themselves have departed from the truth It is therefore certain that the Author of the Prejudices has but weakned his proof when instead of labouring to establish it on the Scripture as the rest have done he restrains it to the meer Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers We have thought that we ought to have freely represented this to the Author of the Prejudices to oblige him a little to moderate his pretensions for he imagin'd that the sole Authority of S. Augustine and some Fathers was enough to convince us I will sayes he convince them we have frequently told him already and shall tell him here again That the Scripture is the only rule of our Faith that we do not acknowledge any other authority able to decide the disputed Points in Religion than that of the Word of God and that if we sometimes dispute by the Fathers it is but by way of condescention to those of the Church of Rome to act upon their own principle and not to submit our consciences to the word of men But because that he may also imagine under a pretence of this declaration that we have no other way to answer his argument I shall undertake to answer here and shew him if I can that he has abused the Authority of S. Augustine and that he has neither comprised or had a mind to comprehend either the true sentiments of that Father or ours This is that which I design to shew him in this Chapter and in the following But before we enter upon this matter it will be necessary to clear in a few words the History of the Donatists and to represent what was the beginning of their quarrel and what their Separation was The Author of the
could not be a certain character of the Infallibility of that Council But why do we use Arguments in a matter in which experience has sufficiently instructed us The Fifth Council assembled at Constantinople on occasion of three Books published the one of Ibas Bishop of Edessa the other of Theodorus of Mopsuesta and the other of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus was it not held in spight of all the oppositions of Pope Vigilius did not that Council condemn those Writings as Heretical against the express prohibitions that Vigilius had made by a publick Decree to Condemn them and yet notwithstanding was not that very Council in the end approved by the Successours of Vigilius and in fine received throughout all the Church for a True and Holy Oecumenical Council Those Approbations therefore are only a juggle which wholly depend on the capricious humours of the Popes on their different Interests on their good or ill humours One Pope disapproves of a Council and makes it void to advance all that he does by that the Council is remote enough from Infallibility and ought not to be held for Infallible another Pope comes and receives and approves of it and behold on a sudden that Council changes its condition and becomes Infallible Besides that did not Pope Liberius approve an Arian Council held at Sirmium in subscribing an Heretical Confession that had been drawn up and which Saint Hilary calls the Arian perfidiousness the Heresie sprung from Sirmium for which he pronounced an Anathema against Liberius For what else was that Subscription in Consequence of which Liberius embraced the Communion of the Arians but a Ratification and real Approbation of the Act of an Erroneous Council and it signifies nothing to say That Liberius was in Exile when he committed that Error for without alledging here what he himself declared to the Eastern Arian Bishops That he was in Peace and Unanimity with them and all their Provinces in good earnest and that he had received that Catholick Faith with all his heart that he had never in the least contradicted it that he had readily given his consent that he followed and held it his Exile and Concern to get away from them does not hinder but that it should be true That he did approve an Infidel Confession nor by Consequence letting us see that it might very well happen That the Popes did Authorize the Acts of wicked Councils and that it ought not to be pretended that their Approbation makes Councils Infallible nor that it has any certain ground for declaring them to be such 6. That Example of Liberius encounters also all those who ascribe that Infallibility to the Popes for behold one in whom by the Testimony of St. Hilary and St. Jerom that Priviledge had no effect But as that Opinion is not generally received in this Kingdom and we need not to fear objections from any here so it is needless to refute them I shall only say that that Dispute that is in the Church of Rome about those to whom this Infallibility belongs whether to the Pope only or a Council only or to a Council approved by the Pope or to the Pope as the Head of the Council lets us see that that pretence in general has no ground for if in truth the Latine Church had that Priviledge it would never be so uncertain as they have made it but it would have been known a little more clearly where it resided However it be it plainly appears that the Latine Church does not pretend to it as a Law of Nature for she is composed of no different blood from the rest of men nor as a right joyned to the profession of Christianity nor as a meer quality of a Church for in that case the Greek and other Churches would have the same advantage but that she pretends to it as a peculiar priviledge whereby they were distinguished from other Churches as the Greek and Armenian c. It appears that they would not set this Prerogative before us as a first Principle which is evident of it self without needing any proof for in fine it is not so clear that the Latin Church should be Infallible as it is that one and one make two and that the whole is greater than any of its parts It is then certainly but very reasonable to demand that they would give us the proofs and grounds of so important a right I mean other proofs than those that are commonly taken from the same Authority of that Church For it will not be enough to confirm that Infallibility for her only to say I am so every Church may say the same and yet not be believed They ought to produce proofs and proofs that come from Heaven since there is none besides God that can confer so great a Right and they ought to shew them to us to the end we may judge of them and weigh their Cogency and Truth That being so I affirm that our Fathers were bound to use all sorts of Rational methods to examine that Question whether the Church of Rome was Infallible or no And to look to both sides to settle themselves in a good Judgment This is that which in my opinion none will contest But from thence these things will clearly follow 1. That our Fathers had right to examine one of the Tenets of the Latin Church which is that of her Infallibility 2. That they had right to judge of it according to the Nature of those proofs which presented themselves for or against it 3. That they might lawfully reject it as false if in their examination of it it appeared to be false 4. That it is neither absurd nor rash to maintain that every one has right to examine a Tenet of the Church and to judge of it 5. That all those General Objections which they have hitherto made against that Truth are false and frivolous such as these that if one give All that Liberty of examining every one may make a Religion of his own That there is no other way to keep men in the Unity of the Faith That he who examines makes himself a Judg above the Church That it is the ready way to bring in a private Spirit and other such like things all which are refuted by that one Example in the Point of Infallibility 6. That if it is no ways absurd that every one should have right to examine a Tenet of the Church that cannot be proved otherwise than by the Scriptures it is not also absurd to say that that right of searching out the true sence of Scripture belongs to every Christian 7. That it is not absurd to say that a Believer is Master of his own Faith by depending only upon God and independant on men 8. That if every Christian has right to examine one of the chief Articles of Religion it is no ways inconvenient to say that he has right to examine all for there is not less danger nor less
consequence for all than for one 9. In fine it will also follow from thence that our Fathers were bound upon that pretence of the Latin Church to examine all the Points of that Religion For firmly to assure themselves of the Truth of that Priviledge it was not enough to consider it in its Grounds and its Causes which are those Proofs that they call a Priori they ought further to look on it in its effects that is to say to see it in the Doctrines of that Church in its Maxims in its Voice and diligently to take notice whether they may see all the Characters of Infallibility resplendent in it or whether they may not discover some Error It was after this manner that the Disciples of Jesus Christ acknowledged and cleaved to him I have given unto them says he the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee To whom should we go Said they to him Thou hast the words of Eternal Life Our Fathers had so much the more reason to use theirs also when all the prejudices of Corruption which we have taken notice of in the foregoing Chapters presented themselves to their sight They observed there all the Characters of humane Weakness of Ambition Covetousness Interest Negligence of plotting Contrivances and of the Spirit of the World and all the other marks of Fallible men who can then blame them for holding so circumspect a course to come to the full and clear knowledge of the Truth So that that pretence of Infallibility was so far from driving our Fathers from the examining of those Doctrines which were taught in their days that the very same thing necessarily engaged and led them to it CHAP. VI. An Examination of the proofs which they produce to establish the Infalliblity of the Church of Rome LEt us see nevertheless upon what Foundations that pretended Prerogative of the Latin Church is built They produce on this Subject some passages of Scripture and some Arguments But as to the Passages of Scripture it is evident that there is not any one which respects more peculiarly the Latin Church then the Greek the Aegyptian the Aethiopian and others every one of which has as much reason to apply them to themselves as the Latin Yet we do not here dispute about a favour common to all Christian Societies but about a peculiar prerogative pretended to by the Latins For they are all agreed that all other Societies have err'd notwithstanding all those passages They ought then necessarily to alleadge something which belongs to the Latins peculiarly exclusively from all others or they ought to come to an acknowledgment that those passages do not at all establish the Infallibility of a visible Church since if they did so establish it being so general as they are they would have the same cogency in favour of the Greeks the Armenians and the Jacobites as well as the Latins 1. In effect one sort of those passages respect the true Church of Jesus Christ that is to say not that multitude of men who make profession of Christianity or who live in the same external Society of Religion but the truly faithful those holy men whom God has inwardly regenerated by his Spirit and whom he leads to life everlasting It is of that Church that it is said That she is the body of Jesus Christ That there is one Body and one Spirit That Jesus Christ is her head That she is his spouse It is only of the truly Faithful and no otherwise that these promises are verifi'd Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I will be with you always unto the end of the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter who shall abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth shall lead you into all Truth where two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be there in the midst of them These passages denote nothing less then an Infallibility either in the whole Body of the Visible Church or in the side that is strongest or in Councils or in the Decisions of Popes or in Traditions and Ancient Customs but they only signify that God will have always some truly Faithful upon the Earth even unto the end of the World and that he will accompany them with such a measure of the light and grace of his Spirit as shall in the end bring them to the Glory of his Kingdom 2. There are others which they yet make use of far less to the purpose because they signify only the Duty of Pastors and what they are appointed to do and not that that in effect they shall do Such as these Go Teach all Nations Baptising them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Son of man I have set thee for a Watch-man over the House of Israel The Priests lips shall keep knowledge and they shall seek the Law at his Mouth I have set watch-men upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastours and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ These and some other like passages shew to what the Offices of the Ministry are naturally appointed and the Obligation of those that are called to it but they are very far from giving from thence a Prerogative of Infallibility 3. They alledge also some passages that recommend to the Faithful the having a respect for and an Obedience to their Pastors Such are these He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works But I cannot see what this last passage should let us see but that all those Exhortations that God makes to the Faithful to have a submission to the word of their Pastours denote very truly the Duty of the people in that matter but they do not in the least settle any Infallibility in their Pastours For is this that that Jesus Christ would say That the Scribes and Pharisees as long as they sat in the Chair of Moses were Infallible he that on the contrary accus'd them of having made void the Commandments of God by their Traditions and who elsewhere gave his Disciples such a Charge to take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees that is to say of their pernicious Doctrines How many times is that Obedience that Respect and that Submission recommended to Children to give to their Fathers in the Scriptures Is it that the Scripture in that ascribes to their
Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE SECOND PART Of the Justice of the Reformation CHAP. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
God to worship him purely and to remove far from them all that which they believed to be contrary to a Spiritual-Life and their own Salvation For they need not for that any other Call then the Obligation that lies upon every one to save himself and the necessity of beating back all that which would oppose it self to so just an Obligation There are not in a Civil Society any certain Select Persons who only have a right to Live to Act and to labour for others whilst those others should be dead or not able to move So also there are none in a Religious Society who ought to believe and to be good for others whilst those others should remain in ignorance or in sin and that Implicit Faith which some have invented by which a man is to believe in general that which the Church believes to go no further is in truth the most Commodious way of all others for those men who have something else to do then to serve God but it is also most proper for the Damnation of men Faith then is a thing so common as to belong to particular Persons she is so one in the whole Body of the Church as to distribute her self to each one and one could not be of that Body of the Church if one were not a believer as one could not be of the Body in a Civil Society if one were not a man and had not Life So each man has not only a personal Call but lies also under an Obligation to believe and to live as a good Christian whence it follows that each man has a Call to remove far from him all that he shall judge to be contrary to the Truth of his uprightness Faith and Piety as also that being under an Obligation to live Holily and Justly he has a Call to avoid Sins and to repent of them when soever he shall commit them But is not this some will say to rend the Church by Divisions and to make ones self guilty of a Schism so to reject out of self-will the common Sentiments and Customes without the consent of the whole Society No certainly for the true Union of the Church does not consist in holding of Errors how common soever they may be nor in any false-worship after what manner soever it be Established These things do not only not belong to a Christian Communion but they destroy it as diseases how popular and general soever they may be do bring nothing but desolation on a Civil Society instead of being the Bonds to Unite it So the Union of the Church doth not bind any person in that respect on the contrary it engages us to shew our Brethren a good Example in beginning to Reform by our selves For the greater Love any one has for the Church the more he ought to free it from those evils that press in upon it and especially then when those evils shall put it into a manifest danger of Ruin If it is so our Adversaries will yet further reply Is not that some way to break that Communion when those things that you renounce are Publick and common I confess that it is to break a Society but a bad Society which being against the right of Christianity gives no lawful Call to any person to enter into it or to defend it but on the contrary she gives a Call to all and binds them at the same time to break and oppose it A Corrupted Church has two bonds of its Communion the one consisting in what is good the other in what is ill the one of which makes it to be a Church the other a Corrupted Church the one binding not only men among themselves but with God also and the other that in Uniting men among themselves tends to divide and separate them from God The former of those bonds ought to be regarded and preserved intire as much as lies in our power but the Second is a mortal bond which no person has a right to make and which all men have a Call and Obligation to dissolve It is as certain that the first of those bonds gives us a right and Call to Act against the other for Truth and Piety Authorise us against Error and Superstition and it is the Love that we bear to the Church that opens our mouths against its Corruptions There can then be nothing further contested about the personal Call of our Fathers concerning their own Reformation But had they any Right to Labour in the Reforming of others Who can doubt it Charity would have bound them to procure that good for others which they had thought it their duty to procure for themselves That Christian Communion in which they lived among their Brethren did not less oblige them to it The Interest of the Glory of God which appeared to them to cry loudly for a general Reformation urged them on to it and their own Innocence exacted it of them that they should make it appear to the Eyes of the Publick in laying open the Foundations of those Errors which they were constrained to forsake which could not well have been done without exhorting others to imitate them Being then bound to all these Duties none can deny that they had not a sufficient Call to stir up their Brethren to Reform themselves with them That which I have said will appear more evident if we pass on to the Consideration of the Circumstances of the Reformation for we have already seen after a long and vain Expectation there could be nothing more hoped for on the side of Rome or its Prelats We have seen also that the evils whereof our Fathers made such Complaints and which they would have cured did not lye in things indifferent that were trivial or tolerable but in the very Essentials of Religion and these two Circumstances added to what I have just before represented let us see that our Fathers were not only in the right and not only under an Obligation but under a necessary and indispensable Obligation to do that which they have done I confess that if the Court of Rome and its Clergy would have laboured in good earnest for a Reformation it had been the Duty of our Fathers to have received it from their hands for how rude and corrupt soever their Call had been that Action had rectified it I confess also that if the Dispute had been only about things of small imporstance our Fathers had done better to have kept themselves quiet as I have acknowledged in the foregoing Chapter But they can alleadge neither the one nor the other for Rome and its Bishops were obstinate in the design to Reform nothing and matters were reduced to the very utmost extremity so that the Call of our Fathers appears yet more indisputable being grounded on these three Foundations of Right of Obligation and Necessity and that same Necessity was so much the greater as the evil was more inveterate and had spread it self almost over all the parts of the
Body of the Church to which those words of Isaiah might be generally applied From the Crown of the head to the sole of the foot there was no soundness in her But if any would have us yet further Examine the other Circumstances they will find that they all concur to establish that Call whereof we Treat I rank in this place all those extraordinary Qualities wherewith it pleased God to inrich those among our Fathers who contributed most of all to the work of the Reformation Who may not perceive in them a lively and penetrating understanding a solid Judgment an exquisite and profound knowledge an indefatigable propension to Labour a wonderful readiness to compose and to deliver an exceeding exact study of the Scripture and the Principles of the Christian Religion a great and resolute Soul an unshaken courage an upright Conscience a sincere love of the Truth an ardent zeal for the Glory of God a solid Piety without Hypocrisie and without Pride a plain and open Carriage an intire disengagement from the things of the World an admirable confidence in God and in his Providence a Cordial Friendship to all good men and the greatest aversion to the Vices Prophanation and Sophistry of others These were the Gifts and Talents wherewith the Divine Favour Honoured the greatest part of them there yet remains the liveliest Characters of them in their Writings and they were as the Seal wherewith God would confirm their Call For when his Wisdom designs persons to any great work it is wont to bestow on them those necessary qualifications to acquit themselves in it and we may say without fear of being charged with derogating from the Truth by those who know History that from the Sixth Age until that of our Fathers that is to say for the space of more then nine hundred Years there could not be found any space of Time so fertile in great men as that of the Reformation was which shews that God had a design to make use of them for that Work as the event has justified Add to all that The Ardent and almost Universal desire among the People to see a good Reformation spring up in the Church for even that is a yet further Seal to the Call of the Reformers in as much as it is a Testimony that God had markt out that Age wherein to purge his floor as the Scripture speaks Who knows not that that desire was such as neither the Artifices nor the Violences nor the Calumnies wherewith they laboured to darken the Reformation could wholly put a stop to The Church was left in Ignorance and in Superstition she panted after the Light of the Gospel which had been for so long a Time hid under a dark vail and that general Disposition wherein she was may let us see that the Time of her Deliverance was come But lastly is it not true that then the greatest part of those who laboured in that Reformation were Ecclesiastical persons whom the Duty of their place obliged more particularly then others to root out Errors from the minds of men to purify Religion and to endeavour that God should be worshipped according to his Will Every one knows that Luther and Zuinglius who appeared the first in that Great Work were not only Priests but ordinary Preachers also the one at Wittenburg and the other at Zurich and that the former was Professour in Divinity And they are not ignorant that those who joyned themselves to them to advance that design were also in Publick Offices in the Church as the whole University of Wittenburg a very great Number of Priests and other Church-men with Bishops and Arch-Bishops in Germany in Swedeland and in Denmark and some even in France and the whole Body of Bishops in England They will say it may be that the Pope Excommunicated them all whence it follows that they had no more either any publick Call or lawful Ministry But that Answer would be fallacious For the Pope having Excommunicated them for nothing else but that business of the Reformation his Excommunication can be considered no otherwise then as null in this Cause without an Obligation to enter upon an Examination of the Validity of his Thunders in general In effect if they did their Duty if they obeyed their Call in Reforming themselves and in reforming their Flocks it ought not to be questioned that those Excommunications which they suffered for so good a Cause did not fall of right upon those who unjustly pronounced them and that not only what our Reformers had done before but also what they did afterward was well and lawfully done Who can deny that an Excommunication contrary to the Glory of God to the good of the Church and to the Salvation of men should not not be Null But if the Reformation was just and the Glory of God the good of the Church and the Salvation of the People called for it as we suppose they did in this Dispute they may very well see that the Thunders of Rome upon this Subject are unjust and by consequence of no consideration They ought not then to propound things so to us nor to deny the first Reformers to be publick persons who had a part in the Ministry of the Church and who for that Reason had a most strict Obligation to Labour in the Re-establishment of its Purity And to declare what we think those Excommunications of the Popes were so far from diminishing the Right and Call of the first Reformers that they did on the contrary confirm them the more and that for two Reasons The one in that they made them see more and more that they could hope for nothing on the part of Rome or the Bishops of its side from whence there arose an indispensable necessity on our Fathers to employ themselves in it and the other in that those pretended Excommunications furnisht them also with a just Subject of laying open more and more to the Eyes of the people the gross and fundamental Errors whose Protection the Popes took up with so great an Ardour To which I add That as much as the Popes and the Prelats of their party opposed themselves to the Reformation so much they lost of that Right which yet remained to them in that publick Ministry which they abused with so great Injustice and that very thing did but strengthen the Right of the other Party and render their Ministry more Publick and more Lawful For in those contests that divide a Body or a Society that which one of the parties loses by its ill Conduct is re-assembled together and reunited in the other But as it is only proper to our present purpose to Treat of the Call that our Fathers had to Reform themselves and to Labour to Reform others that is to say meerly to reject Errors and to excite others to do the same and not to go further to talk of their Right or Call to the publick Ministry We ought not to insist more upon this
learned The one extends its use unto all that is Necessary for Instruction and the Conduct of life and the other in heaping up of general difficulties makes it unprofitable to Instruct us in the least Truths What Judgment can we make of this diversity unless this that the language of these Gentlemen changes according to the difference of Times and Interests as one has said of them elsewhere When the case is about gaining credit to their Translation of the New Testament they speak as advantagiously of the Scripture as it is possible for them to speak and when the business is to oppose a Reformation made according to the Rule of the Scripture but which notwithstanding has not the happiness of their Agreement you see what they say of that same Scripture The Scripture shall then to speak properly be only to be commended by the Intrest of their Translation and as long as that Interest shall remain shall be the Collection of the divine Teachings of our Lord The Testament that assures us of the Inheritance of our Father The mouth of Jesus Christ who although he is in Heaven speaks continually upon earth not only the nourishment of sound Souls and those who are establish'd in grace as the Body of the Son of God but even the Consolation of Sinners the light of the blind the remedy of the Sick and the life of the dead For these are the Titles that the Preface gives it but whenever that Interest shall cease those praises shall do so too and it shall be nothing but a Ridiculous way and impossible for the Instructing of men in the Truth I would therefore very fain know of these Gentlemen whether it were only upon the sight of their Translation that S. Cyprian S. Augustine and S. Gregory wrote that which the Preface relates or whether those Fathers did not consider the Scripture in it self For if it be the first they forgot to tell us that they only spake out of a Prophetick Spirit of that Translation and if it be the Second why have they entertained us with that admirable proportion of the Scripture to great and small to the strong and weak and that easy and intelligible manner wherewith it propounds to us all that is necessary for the Conduct of our life since that without the Translation of Mons it is an Infinite way which has no end a ridiculous way and Impossible to Instruct men in the Truth What can the Author of the Prejudices say to defend himself from this Manifest Contradiction which he discovers between him and his Colleague Will he say that the Scripture is in truth a good means for the Instruction of men but that it is so only with the Interpretations of the Fathers But the Author of that Preface speaks for Scripture alone separated from the Interpretation of the Fathers such as its Translation is for he excuses himself in that he had not made a collection of notes and explanations drawn out of the writings of the holy Fathers and he does not fail to say that in his Translation as plain as it is not only the Souls of the more learned but of the more simple also and unlearned may find that which will be necessary for their Instruction Will he say that he does not mean to exclude the learned from the use of the Scripture but only the more simple for the Instruction of which former he does not deny but that it would be a most proper means But besides that his Brother speaks formally of the Instruction of the more simple why has the Author of the Prejudices made it a ridiculous and Impossible way an infinite way which has no Issue a way which is of so excessive a length that one can never rationally hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence one should make Will he say that the Scripture ought to be joined with Tradition and that without Tradition it cannot give a perfect Instruction But the Preface says expresly that they will find in that Translation all that will be necessary for Instruction Will he say that in order to the Scriptures Instructing one the Sence of the Church ought to be added to it But the Preface says that according to Saint Augustine the Scripture lays down all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives after a most easy and Intelligible manner and that she explains and makes clear her self Will he say that in order to the Scriptures being capable to Instruct us we ought at least to read it with Dependance upon the Church and to take it from her hand But wherefore then would these Gentlemen have the People to read their Translation since they are only private Doctors and not the Church Wherefore when the Prelats rais'd to the highest dignities have forbid the reading of it by their Ordinances have we seen Printed writings maintain on the contrary there was in those Ordinances a Threatning of the Will and Commandment of God who would that we should hear his Son and not that we should suppress his Gospel a Contradiction to the Holy Scripture which was set down in writing for no other end but to be heard and practis'd by all Nations of the world a Contradiction of all the Councils which have always taken the Scripture for the Judge of the belief of the Church and of all the Difficulties and Questions that can arise in the Doctrine of Faith or Manners a Contradiction of all the Holy Fathers who advis'd the Faithful above all things continually to read the word of God Why has one Introduc'd two Lay-men Parishoners Saint Hilary Montanus saying one to another The Bishops cannot take away from us the Gospel that Jesus Christ has given us that God spoke to all his People when he said To day if you will hear my voice harden not your Hearts a Bishop cannot take away our Eyes from us to hinder us from seeing and considering our way we should not see Jesus Christ our Saviour our Pastor and our great Bishop who goes before us in his Gospel That if a Bishop would turn us away from if an Apostle if an Angel from Heaven would stop up this way and would go about to lead and guide us in another we ought not to believe him Why has he made us see those Parishoners holding That there is nothing more contrary to the Gospel then a prohibition to read and have it that bread and nourishment is not more necessary to preserve the life of the Body then the word of God is to maintain Life in our Souls That all Christians have a natural right that cannot be taken from them of Instructing themselves by the word of God and labouring to understand it and that the Holy Scriptures were given to the whole Church and not only to the Bishops who have no right to deprive the Faithful of them That this is say they what the Divel would preach up if he were
necessary to Salvation I will maintain to him that his proposition is impious that it manifestly tends to make Socinians and Arrians to be received into the Church and almost all Hereticks since it bannishes out of the number of the Articles of the Faith all the Tenets which those Hereticks dispute and which they do not see in the Scripture But it is not very difficult to satisfy that demand I speak of such a clearness as will convince a sincere person who does not blind himself either by passion or malice or interest or prejudice but lets his Reason and his Conscience act in good Earnest This is well near the Answer that the Author of the Prejudices would make if we asked him the same Question touching the clearness which he pretends there is in Tradition or in the infallible voice of the Church for his Justice is so great that he does never propose any difficulties of our Principle to us which are not common to the Principle of the Church of Rome and which by consequence he would not be bound to answer himself as well as we Notwithstanding I shall tell him that he grosly deceives himself if he imagins that we will only acknowledge those things for Articles of Faith which are clearly contained in the Scripture It is true that we acknowledging them only for the Articles of Faith which are necessary to the Salvation of the most simple does not hinder but that other things which are contained in the Scripture with less evidence may also be Articles of the Faith although not absolutely necessary for all that which is in the Scripture after what manner soever it be contained there is of Faith He does not less deceive himself if he imagins that although the Articles which the Socinians and Arrians and other Hereticks dispute were of the number of those which are not so clearly contained in the Scripture and the knowledge of which is not absolutely necessary to the Salvation of the simple yet that we ought to receive those Hereticks into the Church There is a great difference between simple persons who do not conceive a Fundamental Truth otherwise then under a general notion and indistinctly without going any farther and those going so far as a distinct Idea of the Truth expresly deny it and substitute a false and deceitful Idea in its place The former may be in a State of Salvation and ought to be received into the Church whereas the second sort ought to be banished as persons infected with a pernitious Error A Peasant may be made to believe in good earnest that Jesus Christ is God and that the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are but one only God without going any farther because he will not understand the terms of Nature Essence Person Hypostatical Union and others that are made use of upon that subject and he will also be ignorant of the subtil and frivolous distinctions of the Hereticks Who can deny that such a man holds the Truth under a General Idea And who will not yet place a very great difference between him and a Socinian who very well knowing what these Propositions mean Jesus Christ is God by his Essence The Father Son and Holy-Ghost are Three Persons and one only Divine Nature will deny them and substitute in their places these other Propositions Jesus Christ is God only by the dignity of his Office and Glory of his Exaltation The Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost being only so by Denomination It would be a very hard case in my Judgment to exclude the former from the Church but it would be a sin to admit the latter and this shews us by the way the falshood of the reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices But we ought to resume our discourse I say therefore the same thing of the Third condition as of the two Former The things whereof we treat perswade themselves and make themseves to be perceived as true and Divine as well by the weakest as the strongest For although the weaker are not in a condition to render a Reason exactly of their perswasion as a Learned man would do yet notwithstanding we must not doubt but they are rightly perswaded A Tradesman a Peasant a Labourer know not how to explain either the rules of right reasoning or the mediums that Logick affords to discover the faults of Sophistry or false reasoning and yet nevertheless they do yet apprehend a just reasoning and reject a bad It is the same thing of a good Doctrine and a false the weaker sort may receive the one and reject the other when it shall be presented to them and they would make that discernment by the meer Judgment of their Consciences though they should not be capable of Explaining their Reasons well For there are two ways of being perswaded of a Truth and knowing a falshood the one is by a simple apprehension and the other by reflection the first comes from a meer impression of the Objects that make themselves to be discerned by their very nature and the other comes from Meditation and Study through the application of certain Rules I confess that there is more confusion in the first but that has also sometimes more force and more certainty then the Second As for that which regards the Fourth Condition which is That the Faith should be pure and free'd from every damnable Error besides that which I have said that the meer sentiment of Conscience is enough for the weaker sort to make them discern the good from the bad and by Consequence to reject the false Doctrines that shall concern their Salvation besides that I say it is certain that damnable Errors that is to say those which are incompatible with a true and saving Faith have a natural repugnancy with the Truths that are Essential to Religion wherewith the simpler sort are endowed so that those Truths alone are sufficient for the rejection of Errors without any absolute necessity that they should have a greater stock of Learning For Example The principle of the Adoration of one only God in the Souls of the weakes sort in our Communion is sufficient to make them reject a Religious worship paid to Creatures without their lying under a necessity of entring further into the Controversy which we have with the Church of Rome upon that subject The Principle of confidence in God alone is sufficient to make them reject invocation of Saints and Angels and a confidence in their merits The principle of the one only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross for the Expiation of our sins is sufficient to make them reject humane Satisfactions Purgatory and the Indulgences of the Pope The Principle of the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ is sufficient to make them reject the Intercession of Saints and Angels The Principle of the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ like unto us in all things except sin is sufficient to make them reject the Real Presence
of it but they would have subordinate heads humane heads on whom they might depend by an external dependance and that was necessary for them to be by that means linked to Jesus Christ after the same manner that they would have us at this day to depend on the See of Rome Wherefore did S. Paul say to them Is Christ divided Why did he not say to them that as for Paul and Apollos they had no reason to take them for their heads but that it was far otherwise as to Peter since God had set up him and his Successors for ever to be the heads of the Universal Church Why in stead of that did he conclude after this manner That no one should glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Is it not to let them understand that Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church that there is only his communion that is absolutely necessary and that as for other Ministers whosoever they were they were appointed for our use as all other things to serve us in as much as they lead us to Jesus Christ If the Church under the New Testament ought to be inviolably ty'd to the See of Rome how should the Scripture have been silent in so weighty a truth which could not be ignor'd without extream danger nor contested without evident damnation Notwithstanding we do not find any other head of the Church in those Sacred Books but Jesus Christ nor any other High Priest but him We do not find in the Scripture any Universal Bishop nor Ministerial head or subordinate or any particular Church the Mistress of all others We find there indeed that Jesus Christ being ascended up on high gave some to be Apostles others to be Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ How came the Apostle to forget in that Enumeration the chief of all Offices to wit that of the Ministerial Head of the whole Church and the Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ in the Government and conduct of his flock If the Christian Church ought in that to resemble the Synagogue and to have as that a Soveraign High Priest upon earth who should be the head of that Religion and who should have his Successors as the ancient High Priest had whence comes it that the Scripture has alwayes regarded that Ancient High Priest as a Figure of Jesus Christ that it alwayes referred it to him and never to the Roman Bishops nor even to S. Peter who was then alive and who should by consequence have exercised that pretended charge which they would make to descend from him There is therefore no lawful foundation in all that pretension of Rome and her See We ought to pass the same judgement on all other Sees and other particular Churches with which it is just we should hold communion while they teach good and sound Doctrine and that we should even bear with them when they should fall into some errors provided they constrain no body to believe them but from which it is also just to separate our selves when they shall fall into errors contrary to the communion of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and when they would violently force all others to believe the same If in a long course of Ages Rome has usurped by little and little the rights that do not belong to her if she has found it very easie through the ignorance or complaisance of men in the diverse intrigues of the World to raise her Throne as high as our Fathers beheld it and as we do yet at this day If her flatterers have not failed alwayes to raise her pretensions as high as Heaven and if she has been lull'd asleep with the sound of those sweet charms that enchant her we do not believe that that ought to prejudice our separation We have no other aversion for her communion than that which our conscience gives us and if it shall please God to re-establish her in her ancient purity she would not have so great a joy to spread forth her arms to us as we should have an impatience to demand her peace of her But as long as we shall see her in that bad state wherein we are perswaded she is we cannot but bewail and pray for her and yet notwithstanding no body can blame us for preferring our own salvation to her communion CHAP. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had had right at the foundation BEfore we leave this matter of our Separation from the Church of Rome there yet remains two Questions for us to examine the one Whether our Fathers were not too precipitate in so great an affair whether they did not act with too much haste or Whether they had sufficient motives from the conduct of those from whom they separated to forsake in the end their communion The other Whether with all that they can say that they separated themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church spread over the whole World as the Donatists did heretofore and whether they did not fall into the same crime with those ancient Schismaticks against whom Optatus and S. Augustine so strongly disputed I will treat of this second Question in the following Chapter and this here shall be design'd to the clearing of the former To effect this methinks we need but freely to set before their eyes all that I have said in the second Part touching the necessity that lay upon our Fathers to reform themselves For since it clearly results from those matters of fact which I have set down that the Popes and those of their party were so far from applying themselves seriously to a Reformation that they studied on the contrary only how to stifle the truth from the very first moment they beheld it appear and to defend their Errors and Superstitions by all manner of wayes who sees not that that inflexible resolution which had not yielded either to the first or second admonition rendred from that time the separation of our Fathers just and exempted them from all reproach For when there are Errors capable of giving ground for a separation it ought to be defer'd only upon a hope of amendment and that hope seem'd to be sufficiently destroy'd by those Historical actions which I have already set down Notwithstanding to shew them more and more how the conduct of our Fathers was very prudent in that respect and full of circumspection it will not be besides our purpose to resume here the close of their story from the unjust condemnation of Luther and his Doctrine made by Pope Leo the Tenth
them from the Church because they brought in a new Heresie into it But why also did the same S. Augustine with the whole Church of God hold the Donatists to be justly excommunicated against whom these things are written and why did not they receive them into their communion but only after signs of repentance and the imposition of hands Jesus Christ who propounded the Parable of the Tares did not he clearly ordain excommunication elsewhere saying that if our brother would not obey the Church correcting him we ought to reckon him as a Heathen and a Publican That which manifestly shews us that it is one thing to excommunicate and another to pluck up the Discipline of the Church excommunicates but it does not pluck up See here precisely that which S. Augustine himself said non estis ad eradicandum sed ad corrigendum From whence the truth of that which I have said appears that according to this Father there is a bad separation and that is schismatical in its own nature and another that is not so and that although it is never permitted us to make the former yet it does not follow that we may not make the latter provided we do it upon just causes and observe the rules of Prudence and Charity in it We must therefore lay it down as a certain truth that S. Augustine thought that we might sometimes break the communion of the Sacraments and Assemblies we are only concerned to know in what case he thought that that separation should be made To make this point clear I shall say in the Sixth place that when S. Augustine considered the Church in the meer mixture with the wicked that is to say in the mixture with those whose manners are vicious and criminal he taught that those who are in office in the Church may proceed to the excommunication of impenitent sinners when those sinners are few in number and when there is ground to believe that they may disturb the peace of the Church but if the crime includes a whole multitude and that the Body in general is infected then he would that the good should content themselves to preserve their own righteousness without partaking of the sins of the wicked he would that they should groan under it and pray to God but he would not that they should separate themselves When the evil sayes he has seized the greater number nothing remains for the good to do but to groan and lament And a little lower If the contagion of sin has invaded the multitude then it is necessary that Discipline should be used with mercy for the counsels of Separation are vain pernicious and sacrilegious But when he considers the Church not only as a mixture of good and wicked but also as a mixture of the truly faithful and Hereticks I maintain that he has formally acknowledg'd the justice and necessity of a separation not only in regard of some particular persons but in regard even of entire Societies provided they go not so far as that which he calls Eradication We have already noted that he would that we should according to S. Paul pronounce an Anathema against those who preach another Gospel than that which he has preached But this very thing gives the faithful a right to reject the communion of Heretical Societies and to separate themselves from their Assemblies In his Book of the True Religion he aggravates it as a very strange thing and very much deserving to be condemn'd that the Heathen Philosophers who had other sentiments concerning Divinity than the people should partake in the worship of the people In their Schools sayes he they had sentiments differing from those of the people and yet notwithstanding they had Temples common with the people The people and their Priests were not ignorant that these Philosophers had opinions contrary to theirs touching the nature of the Gods since every Philosopher was not afraid of publishing his opinions and of labouring at the same time to perswade them and others and yet nevertheless with that diversity of sentiments they did not fail to assist at the publick worship without being hindred by any body A man that speaks after this manner would not think it ill that any should separate themselves from Heretical communions But he yet further explains himself more clearly afterwards For he sayes That if the Christian Religion should do nothing else but correct that vice it would deserve infinite praises And he adds immediately after That it appears by the example of so many Heresies that have deviated from the rule of Christianity that they would not admit to the communion of the Sacraments those who taught concerning God the Father his Wisdom and his Grace otherwise than the truth would allow them and who would perswade men to receive their false Doctrine But that is not only to be found true in regard of the Manichees and of some others who have other Sacraments than we but also in regard of those who having the same Sacraments have sentiments differing from us in other things and errors which they obstinately defend for they are shut out from the Catholick communion and the participation of those same Sacraments which they have common with us From whence comes it to pass therefore you will say that S. Augustine seems sometimes to ascribe to the Orthodox the right only of a passive separation in regard of Heretical Societies that is to say that he would not that we should separate from them even then when they separate themselves For he sayes in some place that though the Traditors should have openly maintain'd in the Church that their Action was good and holy that is to say that they ought to have delivered up their Bibles to the Pagans for them to burn them and that though they should even have wrote on that subject provided they had not set up their Assemblies apart nor separated themselves yet we ought not to have abandoned for them the good wheat which signifies this to us that we ought not to separate our selves from those though their Doctrine whereof he had spoken was detestable contrary to the faith conscience and good manners In effect he speaks almost alwayes of the Heretical Societies of his time as of those who were themselves cut off from the communion of the Church and whom the Church had not rejected I answer that S. Augustine would have us suffer the communion of Hereticks in certain cases but that he would have us also in other cases to separate our selves from them While we are in no danger of partaking with their errors neither in effect nor in appearance but that we may preserve the profession of our faith pure without consenting to impiety or seeming to consent to it and that there should not be on the part of the Hereticks that obstinacy of opinion he would have us suffer their communion For it is the manifest Doctrine of this Father that in the Society of the
the Faith and the True Orthodox Church to be regulated by that extension that he made on the contrary this extension a ground of reproach to the Arians taking that for a mark of Heresie which the Author of the Prejudices would have us take for a mark of Orthodoxy Are you ignorant sayes he that the faith as miserable and forsaken as it is is a thousand times more pretious than impiety in splendor and abundance Is it so that you prefer the multitude of the Canaanites before one only Abraham or all the inhabitants of Sodom before one only Lot or all the Midianites to one only Moses Notwithstanding you know that these Saints were but strangers and foreigners among those people I pray tell me whether the three hundred that lapped the water with Gideon were not more to be esteemed than all those thousands who cowardly forsook him whether the servants of Abraham who were few in number were not to be preferr'd to all those Kings who with their innumerable Armies were overcome But I pray yet farther tell me how you understand that which is said when the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea a remnant only shall be saved and this other passage I have reserv'd to my self seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal The matter will not go as you imagine no without doubt for God takes no pleasure in a multitude As for you you reckon your thousands but God reckons those who work out their salvation you heap up a great pile of dust but I assemble the vessels of election There is nothing so great before God as the pure Doctrine and a soul that is filled and adorned with the Tenets of the Truth S. Athanasius or if you will Theodoret is not less express about the subject of a small number in opposition to that extension and multitude than S. Gregory Nazianzen Shall we not sayes he hearken to Jesus Christ who sayes That many are called and few chosen that straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find that gate or this way What man of good understanding will not rather chuse to be among this small number that enters into life than to be joyned to this multitude that goes to perdition If we had lived in the age of S. Stephen should we not have rather chose his party though it should have been forsaken by all else buried under stones and exposed to all manner of reproaches than the party of that multitude which thought that the faith ought to follow the greatest number One man alone who has the Truth on his side is more to be esteemed than ten thousand rash men and this is what the Scriptures of the Old Testament confirm for when millions of men fell under Gods sword one Phineas alone oppos'd himself in the breach and put a stop to the anger of the Lord. If he had not resisted that torrent which bore down all the others if he had approved that which the multitude did he had never himself been commended above all he had never put a stop to the flood of divine vengeance nor had saved that remnant which was after that the object of Gods mercy It was therefore a thing worthy of praise that one man alone should boldly maintain right and justice against the opinion of the multitude Go if you will and be drowned with the multitude that perished in the deluge but give me leave to save my self in the Ark with that small number Be consumed if you please with the inhabitants of Sodom I shall not fail to go out of it with Lot alone Thus these Fathers spoke concerning the state whereto the Orthodox communion might be sometimes reduced and into which it had been in effect reduced which evidently shews us that this visible extension is not a perpetual mark of the True Church and that it is not so very necessary that this arguing should be always just Your society is not spread every where over the world therefore it is not the Church This Vincentius Lirinensis has also acknowledg'd in his Admonition against Heresies for he acknowledges that it may sometimes fall out that Heresie invades the whole Church and he makes a question what he ought to do in that case What ought we to do sayes he when some new contagion endeavours to infect not one part only but the whole Body of the Church in general Quid si novella aliqua contagio non jam portiunculam sed totam pariter Ecclesiam commaculare conetur What visible extension could the Orthodox communion have throughout all Nations in those unhappy times in which the same Vincentius Lirinensis sayes that the greatest part of the good were put to death or imprisoned or banish'd or condemned to the Mines or hid in Desarts and Caves exposed to savage Beasts to hunger thirst and nakedness Horum pars maxima interdictis urbibus protrusi atque extorres inter deserta speluncas feras saxa nuditate fame siti affecti attriti tabefacti sunt What visible extension could that same Orthodox communion have in the time wherein S. Athanasius cryed out after this manner Who is there among the servants of Jesus Christ that these rebells have not calumniated or whom they have not lain snares for Who is there that the Emperour has not banished upon their false accusations he who has alwayes so readily hearkned to them who has alwayes so constantly refused to hear whatsoever should be said against them and who never refused to believe all that they have said against others Where now a dayes shall we find a Church that worships Jesus Christ with liberty If Churches have any piety they are in danger if they dissemble they are alwayes in fear The Emperour has fill'd all with wickedness and hypocrisie as far as things depend on him I know that there are every where many persons who have piety and a love of Jesus Christ but in what place so ever they are they are forced either to conceal themselves as the Prophets and as the great Elias till they find some faithful Abdias who should hide them in a Cave or to to go dwell in the Desarts For it is most true that these wicked men make use of the same calumnies against the good that Jezebell made use of against Naboth and the Jews against Jesus Christ And the Emperour who stirs up himself to defend Heresie and to overthrow the Truth as Ahab overthrew Naboth 's Vineyard refused nothing to the desires of these Hereticks because these Hereticks also spake to him only according to his desires The Fathers had then no regard to seek for the true Church either in that visible extension or in that temporal glory or splendor or in a word any where else than in the True Faith and there it is that they seek for it in effect The Church sayes the
Augustine had been very well able to have prov'd that they were Schismaticks but that he had not notwithstanding been able to conclude from thence that his Society was the True Church The reason of this is because they had broken the general bond of an External Call that S. Augustine would have them obliged to keep even in regard of Hereticks so that according to him they might very well have been Schismaticks although the Church which they had forsaken had not been the true Church He prov'd therefore that his Society was the true Church only because they acknowledg'd it to be Orthodox and did not lay to its charge either any Error in the Faith or depravation in Worship For in supposing that confession it manifestly appears that that time was a time of the increase of the Church since it cannot be deny'd that the Church does not then encrease when the true Doctrine is spread abroad in all places from whence would follow that the Society that taught that true Doctrine throughout the world was the true Church rather than a small party that were shut up within one only Province So that the Error of the Donatists consisted in this in that they would have restrain'd the Church in their Africa in a time wherein it manifestly increased in all Nations and this increase was manifest by the acknowledgement which they themselves made that the Society that was spread over all the world was Orthodox This is that precisely that Bellarmine would say He would have S. Augustine reason after this manner in a time wherein it manifestly appears that the Church encreases it is an error not to acknowledge that Society that is spread over all the world to be the true Church of Jesus Christ in opposition to a small party But in this time it manifestly appears that the Church increases since by your own confession it is the true Doctrine and not Heresie that multiplies it self Therefore it is an error not to acknowledge at this time the Society that is spread over the world to be the true Church This is in effect the true reasoning of S. Augustine and Bellarmine is no wayes deceiv'd in it But it clearly follows from thence that according to S. Augustine that visible extension may be sometimes a mark of the true Church in opposition to a small party to wit then when the true and pure Doctrine is spread abroad every where because that is the time of the increase of the Church But it does not follow that this mark is perpetual since the time of that increase does not last alwayes From whence it appears that the arguing of S. Augustine can have no place in the question that is between the Church of Rome and us In one word then when we contest the title of the true Church with a Society that does otherwise own us to be Orthodox then visible extension decides the question according to S. Augustine But then when we contest that title with a Society that accuses us with false Doctrine that visible extension decides nothing and the difference cannot be determined but by the discussion of the foundation it self S. Augustine alledg'd it in the former case and the Author of the Prejudices alledges it in the latter What need we to do more to set down this truth in its full evidence and to give the Author of the Prejudices entire satisfaction Do we need to let him see that if they had accused the Society of S. Augustine of false Doctrine that Father had not pretended in this case that that visible extension should have decided the contest but that he would have decided it at the foundation Need we to go yet farther and to shew him that S. Augustine has formally acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has had no visible extension If we could shew him these two things he would methinks have some reason to be contented and to leave us in peace about this business of extension Let us therefore endeavour to satisfie him about these two Articles The first will be decided if we here appeal to what I have related of that Father on the occasion of what Cresconius had said to him that he ought to withdraw himself from the Church of the Traditors Is it sayes he that the Traditors have composed Books to shew that we ought to do or imitate their action Is it because they have recommended those Books to posterity Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine If they had done that and if they would have permitted none to remain in their communion but such as would read those Books and approve that Doctrine I say that they would have separated themselves from the Unity of the Church and if you saw me in their Schism you would then have reason to say that I am in the Church of the Traditors We need no great learning to understand by this discourse 1. That S. Augustine had acknowledg'd that if in effect his Society had determined a false Doctrine if it had framed Books about it and suffered no person its communion who had not approved it it had lost the title of the True Church although that visible extension should have been secured to it 2. That if the Donatists who were but a small party had accused it it would have admitted them to proof without a wrangling with them about that extension For he who sayes Is it because we hold and follow that Doctrine makes us sufficiently see that he would not have refused them liberty to come to a proof if his adversaries had said that they held and followed it indeed And it ought not to be said that S. Augustine makes not that supposition only in regard of the whole of his Society but only in regard of some Traditors For he makes that supposition in regard of that same Society that Cresconius had called the Church of the Traditors and these words Is it because we hold and follow this Doctrine leave no place for that evasion See here the first Article the second is yet more formal in S. Augustine for no one can doubt that he has not acknowledg'd that there have been in effect times wherein the true Church has scarce had any visible extension This is that which he has in his Letter to Hesychius wherein he treats of the state of the Church in those miserable times which Jesus Christ foretold in the four and twentieth of S. Matthew Then the Sun sayes he shall be darkned and the Moon shall not give her light the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken The Church shall not appear because the wicked becoming persecutors shall no more observe any bounds in their cruelties Temporal Prosperity shall accompany them every where so that seeing no occasion of fear they shall say peace and security to themselves Then the Stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens
not God his Prophets and his Altars yet among them Lord said Elias they have killed thy Prophets and thrown down thy Altars And the hundred Prophets of God that Obadiah hid in two Caves to withdraw them from the persecution of the Idolatress Jezabel the Altar of God that Elias repaired in Carmel to sacrifice there by the miraculous fire that fell down from Heaven to consume the victim the calling of Elisha and Micaiah and in a word the whole History of those schismatical Ten Tribes does it not evidently note that God looked on them as his true Church in which there was yet a means to be saved We must not therefore abuse that which the Fathers have wrote against Schismaticks in intending to aggravate their crime and to draw them from it nor must we take their expressions in the whole rigour of the letter Their meaning is not that all those generally who are found engaged in a Schismatical Communion even down to Tradesmen and Labourers who remain there with an upright heart and through the prejudice of their consciences are out of the Church and eternally damned but that the Authors and Defenders of Schism who run into it through their personal interests or out of a spirit of fierceness pride and an hatred incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ commit a horrible crime and that while they are in that state they remain deprived of all hopes of salvation That if the Fathers have said any thing more generally and which cannot be thus restrained it is just to understand it in a comparative sense that is to say that setting that Schismatical party of the Church in opposition to that which is not so the hope of salvation appears evidently in this which it does not in the other where it is obscured by that Schism The End of the Third Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FOURTH PART Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHAP. I. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the supposition that they were right in the Foundation THE Order of the Matters of this Treatise requires that we now go on to that Separation which the Author of the Prejudices calls Positive and that after having confirmed the Right that our Fathers had to Examine the State of Religion and the Church in their days after our having shewed the indispensable necessity that lay upon them to forsake the Assemblies of the Church of Rome and to live apart from her Communion that we also establish the Right that they had to set up a Christian Society among themselves notwithstanding their going off from the other Party who were not for a Reformation and to make up alone and apart a Body of the Church or an External and visible Communion This is that which I pretend to establish in this Fourth and last Part and to that end I shall here Treat of two things The first shall respect the Right of those Publick Assemblies and the Second shall be concerning that of the Gospel Ministry wherein our Function lies Howsoever these two things have a dependance one upon another it will yet be well to Treat of them with some distinction To make the First clear I shall first lay it down as an indisputable Truth That the Right of Religious Assemblies naturally follows that of Societies I mean That as far as a Religious Society is Just and Lawful so far the Assemblies that are therein made are Just and Lawful and that on the contrary as far as a Society is unjust and wicked so far its Assemblies are so too This Principle is evident to common sence and it is for that Reason that we condemn the Assemblies of the Heathens Jews and Mahometans as Unlawful and Criminal because their Societies are impious and wicked and that having no right to be united to believe and practice those Errors which they believe and practice they have also no right to Assemble themselves together in order to make a Publick Profession It is for the same Reason that we hold on the contrary the Christian Assemblies to be not only Just and Allowable but to be necessary and commanded by Divine Right because the Christian Society that is to say the Church is it self also of Divine Right It is then True that the Right of Assemblies follows that of Societies But we must further suppose as another evident and certain Truth That our Fathers before the Reformation were Latin Christians living in the Communion of the Latin Church in which they made as considerable a party as the rest of the Latins and that from Father to Son throughout a long succession Time out of mind they enjoyed with the others the rights of that Society That they were equally in possession of it with the other common Assemblies of that Religion having a part in the Ministry in the Churches in the Sacraments in the publick Prayers in the Reading and Preaching of the Word and that as far as the communion of the Latin Church was lawful so far the part that our Fathers had in it was lawful also That it was not a company of Strangers or unknown persons come from the utmost parts of America or the Southern Lands nor a sort of People dropt down from the Clouds who were newly joyned together with them in the same Society but Persons and whole Families setled a long time ago who were joyned together with them in the Profession of the Christian Religion many Ages before and who by consequence were in possession of the Rights of that Society Although had they been Strangers Americans and Barbarians on whom God should have suddenly bestowed the Favour of Calling them to the True Faith and the True Holiness of Christanity yet we could believe that by that thing alone they would have been invested in all the Rights of that Society as much as if they had had it by a long possession time out of mind But howsoever it be they were Christians from Father to Son and neither their blood nor their birth did distinguish them from the others We are now concerned only to search out whether that which hapned to our Fathers that is to say their Reformation their Condemnation by the Popes and by their Council of Trent and their Separation from the Church of Rome can be able to spoil them of all their Rights For if it be True that they were fallen off either by their own ill Carriage or by the meer Authority of the Church of Rome we must yield that our Assemblies are Unlawful and Criminal but if on the contrary they were not so fallen off if that which hapned to them did nothing else but confirm their Right and render it more pure more just and more indisputable they ought also
them do all that they please we are firm and fixed upon two Principles against which we are sure they cannot do any thing The one That if our Communion Teaches the True Doctrine if it has the True Worship and the True Rules of Christian Sanctity to a degree sufficient for Salvation and if the Causes for which we separated our selves from the Church of Rome were Just God nourishes and preserves his True Faithful Ones in our Communion whatsoever mixture there may be of Worldly Wicked and Hypocrites in it The other That if God nourishes and preserves his truly Faithful in our Communion we are the True Church of God that which has a Right to be in a Society and to which all the other Rights that follow that of a Society belong of Assemblies Ministry Sacraments Government Discipline and by Consequence we are the Church which succeeds not only de Jure but de Facto the Church of the Apostles that of the Ages following and even that which was immediately before the Reformation These two Propositions are framed in clear and distinct Terms they have neither Ambiguity nor Equivocation but I hold also that they are of a certain and indisputable Truth For there neither is nor ever was there any other True Church then that of the Truly Faithful and there never will be any other The Holy Scripture sets down no other Reason will not suffer us to acknowledge any other The Fathers never owned any other This is the constant and evident Principle of Saint Augustine as may be seen in the Fourth Chapter of the Third Part and it is also the Principle of the other Fathers as may be Justified by almost an infinite Number of passages The Antient Catholick Church says Clemens of Alexandria is but one only Church which assembles in the Vnity of one only Faith by the will of one only God and the Ministry of one only Lord all those who are before Ordained that is to say whom God has predestinated to be Just having known them before the Foundation of the World Where is the place where Jesus Christ should dwell says Origen It is the Mountain of Ephraim which signifies a fruitful Mountain but where are those fruitful Mountains among us where Jesus Christ dwels They are those on whom the fruits of the Spirit Joy Peace Patience Charity and other vertues may be found They are those fruitful Mountains which bring forth fruit to Jesus Christ and which are eminent for knowledge and hope And a little after The Grace of the Holy Spirit has gone over to the People of the Gentile and their Antient Solemnities are come to us because we have with us the True High-Priest after the Order of Melchizedec True Sacrifices are offered up amongst us that is to say the Spiritual Sacrifices and it is among us that he builds with living Stones the Temple of God which is the Church of the living God And elsewhere The Church desires to be united to Jesus Christ but note that the Church is a Society of the Saints And further elsewhere explaining those words Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church The Church says he that God builds consists in all those who are perfect and are full of those words thoughts and actions that lead to blessedness and a little lower How ought we to understand those words The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it For that expression is ambiguous is it the Rock that he speaks of or if it be of the Church is it that the Rock and the Church are but one and the same thing This latter I believe to be True for the Gates of Hell prevail neither against the Rock upon which Jesus Christ has built his Church nor against the Church according to that which is said in the Proverbs That the way of the Serpent is not found upon the Rock If the Gates of Hell do prevail against any there is neither that Rock upon which Jesus Christ builds the Church nor the Church that Jesus Christ builds upon the Rock For that Rock is inaccessible to the Serpent and stronger then the Gates of Hell And as to the Church as it is the Building of Jesus Christ she can never let in the Gates of Hell against her those Gates may very well prevail against every man that is without the Church and separated from that Rock but never against the Church Jesus Christ says Saint Ambrose knows those that are his and as to those who do not belong to him he does not vouschafe even to know them And elsewhere God called his Tabernacle Bethlehem because the Church of the Righteous is his Tabernacle and there is a Mystery in it for Bethlehem is Situate upon the Sea of Galilee on the East side which signifies to us that every Soul that is worthy to be called the Temple of God or the Church may be built upon the waves of this World but can never be drowned it may be encountred but can never be overthrown because it represses and calms the wild impetuousness of sufferings It looks upon the Shipwraecks of others while it self is safe from danger always ready to receive the illumination of Jesus Christ and to rejoyce under his Rays And further elsewhere he says Expresly That as the Saints are the Members of Jesus Christ so the wicked are the Members of the Devil Saint Hierome Teaches the same thing The Church says he which is the Assembly of all the Saints is called in the Scripture the Pillar and ground of Truth because she has in Jesus Christ an eternal firmness And in the Exposition of the Song of Songs he lays down this Maxim That the Church is the Assembly of all the Saints and that she is brought in speaking in the Canticles as if all the Saints were but one person And even the Author of the Commentary on the Psalms ascribed to Saint Hierome Explaining these words of the Prophet I will drive away from the City of the Lord all the workers of Iniquity The City of the Lord says he is the Church of the Saints the Congregation of the Just I do not deny that the Fathers sometimes give a very large extent to the Church when they consider it as mingled with almost an infinite number of the wicked and the Worldly as we have frequently explained it already and it is to this Idea that they refer their comparisons of a Field of the Air and the rest which we have often mentioned But it is certain That when the Question is to be decided which of the two Parties that make up that mixed Body is the Church that they unanimously agree to give that Title to the truly Faithful and to the Righteous only and that they deprive the wicked and the worldly of it and it is for this Reason that Saint Augustine always distinguishes in that extent of the mixt Church two People
to practise it self a Worship contrary to the true service of God or to celebrate the Sacraments that Jesus Christ has not instituted It belongs therefore to the Author of the Prejudices to tell us how he pretends to avoid that Discussion for it is certain that the first Question that must be decided to make the Validity of a Call clear is that of the Justice of the Ministry in it self that is to say in regard of those things that are taught and practised in it when that Justice is in dispute as it is between the Church of Rome and us after which when that point is once decided we must pass over to two other Questions the one whether the body that is to say the Society wherein one is has it self the Right to have Ministers and the other whether the Persons who exercise the Ministry therein are well and duly called as I have shewn in my third Observation That first Point then being supposed to wit that the things that are taught and practised among the Protestants are good and Christian I say that they cannot dispute with them the Right of their Ministry but by accusing them of a Schism like that of the Luciferians or the Donatists But we have so clearly shewn that if we have Reason at the bottom our Separation from the Church of Rome is just and that she her self is guilty of chism that there is no further ground for that unjust Accusation They cannot therefore any further contest our Ministry with us and in effect if we are true Believers and if we are justly Separated from the Church of Rome it is Evident that we are Lawfully United among our selves in a Religious Society as I have shewn in the first Chapter of the Fourth Part. And if we are Lawfully United in a Religious Society it is not less Evident that all the Rights of the Christian Society belong to us and that in all those Rights that of the Ministry is Comprised as it appears from my Sixth and Seventh Observation So that our Right to a Ministry is indisputable supposing that we have Reason in the Foundation and all that which they propound against us will remain null and Fallacious If we have Reason at the bottom we are the true Church of Jesus Christ but the true Church of Jesus Christ can never lose its Rights she is never deprived of them and she cannot so much as deprive her of them none can ravish them from her they are Rights that cannot be Alienated they can neither be lost by the Inundations or Concussions of the World with and by Interruption of Possession or Invasion of Enemies as the Inheritances of the World are and in one word there where the true Faith and Charity is there is the true Church and where there is a true Church there is the Right to a Ministry But say they Is the Ministry which you have that Antient and perpetual Ministry that Jesus Christ has established in his Church or is it a new one For if it be a new one it is a false and Unlawful Ministry and if it be the Antient and perpetual Ministry of the Church whence comes it to pass that we do not see among you any of the degrees of that Hierarchy which was established in the Church before your Reformation I answer that our Ministry is that Antient and perpetual one that Jesus Christ and his Apostles have set up in the Church and if it were a new one we must needs have set up a new Gospel which is a thing so remote from the Truth that our most passionate Adversaries except the Author of the Prejudices would never in my Judgment have us charged with it But I say that we must distinguish of the Essence of a Ministry from its State as I have shewn in my Fourth Observation Before the Reformation we grant that the Ministry was preserved in the Latin Church in regard of all that which was Essential to it and it is in that that our Church has Succeeded it so that in that Respect they are not two Ministries but only one and the same which we have retained We preach the same Truth that they teach yet we Adore one and the same God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost There is among us a Baptism an Eucharist a Government a Discipline as there was then but we have not succeeded it in that bad and Corrupted State whereinto the Ministry was then fallen we have no more either any Sacrificers of the Body of Jesus Christ or a Soveraign Monarch of the Church or Patriarchs or Cardinals or Preachers of Indulgences or Framers of Legends all that was not any thing of the Essence of the Ministry and in having retrenched those kinds of things we have it no more abolish'd then a Town is abolished when its excesses are retrenched or then a House is abolished when it is cleansed and its ruines repaired As to a Personal Call I say that we have that Body of the Church which only upon Earth has a Lawful Right to confer it on us That which our Reformers had they had from the Church in their days which did not consist in that Multitude of Prophane Worldly and Superstitious Persons which swell'd their Assemblies then but in those truly Faithful Persons who as yet preserved themselves pure in the midst of that Corruption in that good Corn which as yet grew amidst the Tares although it was almost Swallowed up by them It was in those that the Right of the Ministry properly and truly resided it was those who made as yet that Society any wayes Lawful and it was from those that the Justice of a Call proceeded I confess that they Communicated it then in a very corrupted State and after a very impure manner but God gave our first Reformers the Grace to purify theirs by the sound Doctrine and to rectify it by a Holy and Lawful Use It is therefore with and by those that the Body of that Society which is Reformed has conferred that Call upon others and that the Propagation of the Ministry has come down even to us after the most Evangelical manner in the World on one side with Instruction Examination Proof Inquiry and Testimony of good manners as exact as could possibly be made and on the other with publick Prayers Exhortation Benediction laying on of hands Mission and a particular Tye to a Flock Behold here what our Call is in Regard of the Body of the Protestants I do not deny that in some places of this Kingdom at the beginning of the Reformation there was not some Calls which were conferred by the People without a Pastor as that of La Riviere was at Paris in the year 1555. Which the Author of the Prejudices has not been wanting to reproach us with But besides that these are particular Cases of a very small number which hath not followed nor produced any setled Custom and by Consequence cannot be imputed to the