or the authority of plain Scriptures but this will be nothing to I. S. his hypothesis for if a part of the Catholic Fathers did deliver the contrary there was no irrefragable Catholic Oral tradition of the Church when so considerable a part of the Church delivered the contrary as their own doctrine which is not to be imagin'd they would have done if the consent of the Church of that age was against it And if we can suppose this case that one part of the Fathers should say this is the doctrine of the Church when another part of the Fathers are of a contrary judgment either they did not say true and then the Fathers testimony speaking as witnesses of the doctrine of the Church of their age is not infallible or if they did say true yet their testimony was not esteemed sufficient because the other Fathers who must needs know it if it was the Catholic doctrine of the Church then do not take it for truth or sufficient And that Maxime which was received in the Council of Trent that a Major part of voices was sufficient for decreeing in a matter of reformation but that a decree of faith could not be made if a considerable part did contradict relies upon the same reason faith is every mans duty and every mans concern and every mans learning and therefore it is not to be supposed that any thing can be an article of faith in which a number of wise and good men are at difference either as Doctors or as witnesses And of this we have a great testimony from Vincentius Lirinensis Common c. 3. In ipsa item Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè propriéque Catholicum Not that which a part of the Fathers but that which is said every where always and by all that is truly and properly Chatholic and this says he is greatly to be taken care of in the Catholic Church From all these premisses it will follow that the Dissuasive did or might to very good purpose make use of the Fathers and if I did there or shall in the following Sections make it appear that in such an age of the Ancient Church the doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day imposes on the world as articles of faith were not then accounted articles of faith but either were spoken against or not reckoned in their Canon and Confessions it will follow that either they can make new articles of faith or at least cannot pretend these to be articles of faith upon the stock of Oral Catholic tradition for this cannot be at all if the Catholic Fathers were though Unequally divided in their testimony The rest of I. S. his last Way or Mine is but bragging and indeed this whole Appendix of his is but the dregs of his sure-footing and gives but very little occasion of useful and material discourse But he had formerly promised that he would give an account of My relying on Scripture and here was the place reserved for it but when he comes to it it is nothing at all but a reviling of it calling of it a bare letter Unsens't outward characters Ink thus figur'd in a book but whatsoever it is he calls it my main most fundamental and in a manner my only principle though he according to his usual method of saying what comes next had said before that I had no Principle and that I had many Principles All that he adds afterwards is nothing but the same talk over again concerning the Fathers of which I have given an account I hope full enough and I shall add something more when I come to speak concerning the justification of the grounds of the Protestant and Christian religion Only that I may be out of I. S. his debt I shall make it appear that he and his party are the men that go upon no grounds that in the Church of Rome there is no sure-footing no certain acknowledged rule of faith but while they call for an assent above the nature and necessity of the thing they have no warrant beyond the greatest Uncertainty and cause their people to wander that I may borrow I. S. his expression in the very sphere of contingency THE SECOND PART OF The Dissuasive from Popery The first Book SECTION I. Of the Church shewing that The Church of Rome relies upon no certain foundation for their faith THat the Scriptures are infallibly true though it be acknowledged by the Roman Church yet this is not an infallible rule to them for several reasons 1. Because it is imperfect and insufficient as they say to determine all matters of Faith 2. Because it is not sufficient to determine any that shall be questioned not onely because its authority and truth is to be determin'd by something else that must be before it but also because its sense and meaning must be found out by something after it And not he that writes or speaks but he that expounds it gives the Rule so that Scripture no more is to rule us then matter made the world until something else gives it form and life and motion and operative powers it is but iners massa not so much as a clod of earth And they who speak so much of the obscurity of Scripture of the seeming contradictions in it of the variety of readings and the mysteriousness of its manner of delivery can but little trust that obscure dark intricate and at last imperfect book for a perfect clear Rule But I shall not need to drive them out of this Fort which they so willingly of themselves quit If they did acknowledge Scripture for their Rule all Controversies about this would be at an end and we should all be agreed but because they do not they can claim no title here That which they pretend to be the infallible Judge and the measure of our faith and is to give us our Rule is the Church and she is a rock the pillar and ground of truth and therefore here they fix Now how little assurance they have by this Confidence will appear by many considerations 1. It ought to be known and agreed upon what is meant by this word Church or Ecclesia For it is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Church cannot be a Rule or Guide if it be not known what you mean when you speak the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Suidas His body viz. mystical Christ calls his Church Among the Greeks it signifies a Convention or Assembly met together for publick imployment and affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Aristophanes understands it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is there not a Convocation or an Assembly called for this Plutus Now by Translation this word is us'd amongst Christians to signifie all them who out of the whole mass of mankind are called and come and are gathered together by the voice and call of God to
Solomon but when we consider those men who detain the Faith in Vnrighteousness it is no wonder that God leaves them and gives them over to believe a Lye and delivers them to the spirit of Illusion and therefore it will be ill to make our Faith to rely upon such dangerous foundations As all the Principles and graces of the Gospel are the propriety of the Godly so they only are the Church of God of which glorious things are spoken and it will be vain to talk of the infallibility of God's Church the Roman Doctors either must confess it Subjected here that is in the Church in this sense or they can find it no where In short This is the Church in the sense now explicated which is the pillar and ground of truth but this is not the sense of the Church of Rome and therefore from hence they refusing to have their learning can never pretend wisely that they can be Infalliby directed We have seen what is the true meaning of the Church of God according to the Scriptures and Fathers and sometimes Persons formerly in the Church of Rome In the next place let us see what now a days they mean by the Church with which name or word they so much abuse the world 1. Therefore by Church sometimes they mean the whole body of them that profess Christianity Greges pastoribus adunatos Priest and People Bishops and their Flocks all over the world upon whom the name of Christ is called whether they be dead in sins or alive in the spirit whether good Christians or false hypocrites but all the number of the Baptized except Excommunicates that are since cut off make this body Now the word Church I grant may and is given to them by way of supposition and legal presumption as a Jury of twelve men are called Good men and true that is they are not known to be otherwise and therefore presum'd to be such And they are the Church in all humane accounts that is they are the Congregation of all that profess the name of Christ of whom every particular that is not known to be wicked is presum'd to be good and therefore is still part of the External Church in which are the wheat and the tares and they are bound up in Common by the Union of Sacraments and external rites De doctr Christ. lib. 3. c. 32. name and profession but by nothing else This Doctrine is well explicated by S. Austin That is not the body of Christ which shall not reign with him for ever And yet we must not say it is bipartite but it is either true or mixt or it is either true or counterfeit or some such thing For not only in eternity but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with Christ although they may seem to be of his Church But the Scripture speaks of those and these as if they were both of one body propter temporalem commixtionem communionem Sacramentorum they are only combin'd by a temporal mixtion and united by the common use of the Sacraments And this to my sense all the Churches of the world seem to say for when they excommunicate a person then they throw him out of the Church meaning that all his being in the Church of which they could take cognisance is but by the Communion of Sacraments and external society Imped ri non debet fides aut charitas nostra ut quoniam zizania esse in Ecclesiâ cernimus ipsi de Ecclesiâ recedamus â— Cypr. lib. 3. ep 3. ad Maximum Now out of this society no man must depart because although a better union with Christ and one another is most necessary yet even this cannot ought not to be neglected for by the outward the inward is set forward and promoted and therefore to depart from the external communion of the Church upon pretence that the wicked are mingled with the godly is foolish and unreasonable for by such departing Scil. ep 51. edit Rigaltianae a man is not sure he shall depart from all the wicked but he is sure he shall leave the communion of the good who are mingled in the common Mass with the wicked or else all that which we call the Church is wicked And what can such men propound to themselves of advantage when they certainly forsake the society of the good for an imaginary departure from the wicked and after all the care they can take they leave a society in which are some intemperate or many worldly men and erect a Congregation for ought they know of none but hypocrites So that which we call the Church is permixta Ecclesia as S. Austin is content it should be called a mixt Assembly Vbi suprà and for this mixture sake under the cover and knot of external communion the Church that is all that company is esteemed one body and the appellatives are made in common and so are the addresses and offices and ministeries because of those that are not now some will be good and a great many that are evil are undiscernably so and in that communion are the ways and ministeries and engagements of being good and above all in that society are all those that are really good therefore it is no wonder that we call this Great mixtion by the name of Ecclesia or the Church But then since the Church hath a more sacred Notion it is the spouse of Christ his dove his beloved his body his members his temple his house in which he loves to dwell and which shall dwell with him for ever and this Church is known and discern'd and lov'd by God and is United unto Christ therefore although when we speak of all the acts and duties of the judgments and nomenclatures of outward appearances and accounts of law we call the mixt Society by the name of the Church Yet when we consider it in the true proper and primary meaning by the intention of God and the nature of the thing and the Entercourses between God and his Church all the promises of God the Spirit of God the life of God and all the good things of God are peculiar to the Church of God in God's sense in the way in which he owns it that is as it is holy United unto Christ like to him and partaker of the Divine nature The other are but a heap of men keeping good Company calling themselves by a good name managing the external parts of Union and Ministery but because they otherwise belong not to God the promises no otherwise belong to them but as they may and when they * In Ecclesiâ non est macula aut ruga quia peccatores donec non poenitet eos vitae prioris nâ—n sunt in Ecclesiâ cum autem poenitel jam sani sunt Pacian ep 3. ad Symp onium Idem aâ—t S. Hieron comment in Ephes. c. 5. Maculaâ—i ab eâ Ecclesiâ alieni esse censentur nisi rursum per
poenitentiam fuerint expurgati do return to God Here then are two senses of the word Church God's sense and Man's sense The sense of Religion and the sense of Government common rites and spiritual union II. Having now laid this foundation that none but the true servants of Christ make the true Church of Christ and have title to the promises of Christ and particularly of the Spirit of truth and having observ'd that the Roman Church relies upon the Church under another notion and definition the next inquiry is to be What certainty there is of finding truth in this Church and in what sense and meaning it is that in the Church of God we shall be sure to find it Of the Church in the first sense 1 Tim. 3. 15 â—6 S. Paul affirms it is the pillar and ground of truth He spake it of the Church of Ephesus or the Holy Catholick Church over the world for there is the same reason of one and all if it be as S. Paul calls it Ecclesia Dei vivi if it be united to the head Christ Jesus every Church is as much the pillar and ground of truth as all the Church which that we may understand rightly we are to consider that what is commonly called the Church is but Domus Ecclesiae verae as the Ecclesia vera is Domus Dei it is the School of Piety the place of institution and discipline Good and bad dwell here but God onely and his Spirit dwells with the good They are all taught in the Church but the good onely are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught by God by an infallible Spirit that is by a Spirit which neither can deceive nor be deceived and therefore by him the good and they onely are lead into all saving truth and these are the men that preserve the truth in holiness without this society the truth would be hidden and held in Unrighteousness so that all good men all particular Congregations of good men who upon the foundation Christ Jesus build the superstructure of a holy life are the pillar and ground of truth that is they support and defend the truth they follow and adorn the truth which truth would in a little time be suppress'd or obscur'd or varied or conceal'd and mis-interpreted if the wicked onely had it in their conduct That is Amongst good men we are most like to find the ways of peace and truth all saving truth and the proper spiritual advantages and loveliness of truth Now then this does no more relate to all Churches then to every Church God will no more leave or forsake any one of his faithful servants then he will forsake all the world And therefore here the Notion of Catholick is of no use for the Church is the Communion of Saints where-ever it be or may be and that this Church is Catholick it does not mean by any distinct existence but by comprehension and actual and potential inclosure of all Communions of holy people in the unity of the spirit and in the band of peace that is both externally and internally Externally means the common use of the Symbol and Sacraments for they are the band of peace but the unity of the Spirit is the peculiar of the Saints and is the internal confederation and conjunction of the members of Christs body in themselves and to their head And by the Energy of this state where-ever it happens to be all the blessings of the Spirit are entail'd every man hath his share in it he shall never be left or forsaken and the Spirit of God will never depart from him as long as he remains in and is of the Communion of Saints But this promise is made to him onely as he is part of this Communion that is of the body of Christ Membrum divulsum if a limb be cut off from the union of the body it dies No man belongs to God but he that is of this Communion but therefore the greater the Communion is the more abundance of the Spirit they shall receive as there is more wisdom in many wise men than in a few and since every single Church or Convention receives it in the vertue of the whole Church that is in conjunction with the body of Christ it is the whole body to whom this appellative belongs that she is the pillar and ground of truth But as every member receives life and nourishment and is alive and is defended and provided for by the head and stomach as truly and really as the whole body so it is in the Church every member preserves the saving truth and every member lives unto God and so long as they do so they shall never be forsaken by the Spirit of God and this is to every man as really as to every Church and therefore every good man hath his share in this appellative Apud Euseb. Eccles. hist. lib. 5. c. 1. and the Saints of Vienna and Lyons called Attalus the Martyr a pillar and ground of the Churches and truly he seems to have been a man that was fully grounded in the truth one that hath built his house upon a rock one with whom truth dwels to whom Christ the fountain of truth will come and dwell with him for he hath built upon the foundation Christ Jesus being the chief corner-stone and thus Attalus was a pillar one upon whose strength others were made more confident bold and firm in their perswasion he was one of the Pillars that helped to * Puâ—o quod convenienter hi qui Episcopaâ—um benè administrant in Ecclesiâ Trabes dici possunt quibus sustentatur tegitur omne aedificiâ—m Origen homil in Cantica support the Christian faith and Church and yet no man supposes that Attalus was infallible but so it is in the case of every particular Church as really as of the Catholick that is as to all Churches for that is the meaning of the word Catholick not that it signifies a distinct being from a particular Church and if taken abstractly nothing is effected by the word but if taken distributively then it is useful and material for it signifies that in every Congregation where two or three are gathered in the name of Christ God is in the midst of them with his blessing and with his Spirit it is so in all the Churches of the Saints and in all of them as long as they remain such the truth and faith is certainly preserv'd But then that in the Apostolical Creed the Church is recommended under the notion of Catholick it is of great use and excellent mysterie for by it we understand that in all ages there is and in all places there may be a Church or Collection of true Christians and this Catholick Church cannot fail that is all particular Churches shall not fail for still it is to be observed there is no Church Catholick really distinct from all particular Churches and therefore there is no promise made to a Church in the
capacitie of being Catholick or Universal for that which hath no distinct Being can have no distinct Promises no distinct capacities but the promises are made to all Churches and to every Church onely there is this in it if any Church of one denomination shall be cut off other branches shall stand by faith and still be in the vine The Church of God cannot be without Christ their head and the head will not suffer his body to perish Thus I understand the meaning of the Churches being the pillar and ground of truth Just as we may say Humane understanding and the experience of mankind is the pillar and ground of true Philosophy but there is no such abstracted Being as Humane understanding distinct from the understanding of all individual men Every Universal is but an intentional or notional Being so is the word Catholick relating to the Church if it be understood as something separated from all particular Churches and I do not find that it is any other ways us'd in Scripture than in the distributive sense So S. Paul The care of all the Churches is upon me that is he was the Apostle of the Catholick Church of the Gentiles And so I teach in all the Churches of the Saints And in this sense it is that I say the Apostles have in the Creed comprehended all the Christian world all the the congregations of Christ's servants in the word Catholick But then 2. It is to be considered that this Epithet of the Church to be the pillar and ground of truth is to be understood to signifie in opposition to all Religions that were not Christian. The implied Antithesis is not of the whole to its parts but of kind to kind it is not so called to distinguish it from conventions of those who disagree in the house of God but from those that are out of the house meaning that whatever pretences of Religion the Gentile Temples or the Jewish Synagogues could make truth could not be found among them but only in those who are assembled in the name of Christ who profess his faith and are of the Christian Religion for they alone can truly pretend to be the conservers of truth to them only now are committed the Oracles of God and if these should fail Truth would be at a loss and not be found in any other Assemblies In this sense S. Paul spake usefully and intelligibly for if the several conventions of separated and disagreeing Christians should call themselves as they do and always did the Church the question would be which were the Church of God and by this rule you were never the nearer to know where truh is to be found for if you say In the Church of God several pretend to it who yet do not teach the truth and then you must find out what is truth before you find the Church But when the Churches of Christians are distinguish'd from the Assemblies of Jews and Turks and Heathens she is visible and distinguishable and notorious and therefore they that love the truth of God the saving truth that makes us wise unto salvation must become Christians and in the Assemblies of Christians they must look for it as in the proper repository and there they shall find it 3. But then it is also considerable What truth that is of which the Church of the living God is the pillar and ground It is only of the saving truths of the Gospel that whereby they are made members of Christ the house of God the temples of the Holy Spirit For the Spirit of God being the Churches teacher he will teach us to avoid evil and to do good to be wise and simple to be careful and profitable to know God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ to increase in the knowledge and love of them to be peaceable and charitable but not to entertain our selves and our weak Brethren with doubtful disputations but to keep close to the foundation and to superstruct upon that a holy life that is God teaches his Church the way of salvation that which is necessary and that which is useful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which will make us wise unto salvation But in this School we are not taught curious questions Unedifying notions to unty knots which interest and vanity which pride and covetousness have introduc'd these are taught by the Devil to divide the Church and by busying them in that which profits not to make them neglect the wisdom of God and the holiness of the Spirit And we see this truth by the experience of above 1500 years The Churches have troubled themselves with infinite variety of questions divided their precious unity destroyed charity and instead of contending against the Devil and all his crafty methods they have contended against one another and excommunicated one another and anathematiz'd and damn'd one another and no man is the better after all but most men are very much the worse and the Churches are in the world still divided about questions that commenc'd twelve or thirteen ages since and they are like to be so for ever till Elias come which shows plainly that God hath not interested himself in the revelations of such things and that he hath given us no means of ending them but Charity and a return to the simple ways of Faith And this is yet the more considerable because men are so far from finding out a way to end the questions they have made that the very ways of ending them which they propounded to themselves are now become the greatest questions and consequently themselves and all their other unnecessary questions are indeterminable their very remedies have increased the disease And yet we may observe that God's ways are not like ours and that his ways are the ways of truth and Everlasting he hath by his wise providence preserv'd the plain places of Scripture and the Apostles Creed in all Churches to be the rule and measure of that faith by which the Churches are sav'd and which is only that means of the unity of Spirit which is the band of peace in matters of belief And what have the Churches done since To what necessary truths are they after all their clampers advanc'd since the Apostles left to them that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that sound form of words and doctrine What one great thing is there beyond this in which they all agree or in which they can be brought to agree He that wisely observes the ways of God and the ways of man will easily perceive that God's goodness prevails over all the malice and all the follies of mankind and that nothing is to be relied upon as a rule of truth and the wayes of peace but what Christ hath plainly taught and the Apostles from him for he alone is the Author and Finisher of our Faith he began it and he perfected it and unless God had mightily preserved it we had spoil'd it Now to bring all this home to the
present Inquiry The event and intendment of the premisses is this They who slighting the plain and perfect rule of Scripture rely upon the Church as an infallible guide of faith and judge of questions either by the Church mean the Congregation and Communion of Saints or the outward Church mingled of good and bad and this is intended either to mean a particular Church of one name or by it they understand the Catholick Church Now in what sense soever they depend upon the Church for decision of questions expecting an infallible determination and conduct the Church of Rome will find she relies upon a Reed of Egypt or at least a staff of wooll If by the Church they mean the Communion of Saints only though the persons of men be visible yet because their distinctive cognisance is invisible they can never see their guide and therefore they can never know whether they go right or wrong Lib. 3. de Eccl. milit cap 10. And the sad pressure of this argument Bellarmine saw well enough Sect. Ad hoc necesse est It is necessary saith he it should be infallibly certain to us which Assembly of men is the Church For since the Scriptures traditions and plainly all Doctrines depend on the testimony of the Church unless it be most sure which is the true Church all things will be wholly uncertain But it cannot appear to us which is the true Church if internal faith be required of every member or part of the Church Now how necessary true saving Faith or holiness is which Bellarmine calls internal faith I referr my self to the premisses It is not the Church unless the members of the Church be members of Christ living members for the Church is truly Christ's living body And yet if they by Church mean any thing else they cannot be assur'd of an infallible guide for all that are not the true servants of God have no promise of the abode of the Spirit of truth with them so that the true Church cannot be a publick Judge of questions to men because God only knows her numbers and her members and the Church in the other sense if she be made a Judge she is very likely to be deceiv'd her self and therefore cannot be relied upon by you for the promise of an infallible Spirit the Spirit of truth was never made to any but to the Communion of Saints 3. If by the Church you mean any particular Church which will you chuse since every such Church is esteemed fallible But if you mean the Catholick Church then if you mean her an abstracted separate Being from all particulars you pursue a cloud and fall in love with an Idea and a child of fancy but if by Catholick you mean all particular Churches is the world then though truth does infallibly dwell amongst them yet you can never go to school to them all to learn it in such questions which are curious and unnecessary and by which the salvation of Souls is not promoted and on which it does not rely not only because God never intended his Saints and servants should have an infallible Spirit so to no purpose but also because no man can hear what all the Christians of the world do say no man can go to them nor consult with them all nor ever come to the knowledge of their opinions and particular sentiments And therefore in this inquiry to talk of the Church in any of the present significations is to make use of a word that hath no meaning serving to the end of this great Inquiry The Church of Rome to provide for this necessity have thought of a way to find out such a Church as may salve this Phaenomenon and by Church they mean the Representation of a Church The Church representative is this infallible guide The Clergy they are the Church the teaching and the judging Church And of these we may better know what is truth in all our Questions for their lips are to preserve knowledge and they are to rule and feed the rest and the people must require the law from them and must follow their faith Heb. 13. 7. Indeed this was a good way once even in the days of the Apostles who were faithful stewards of the mysteries of God And the Apostolical men the first Bishops who did preach the Faith and liv'd accordingly these are to be remembred that is their lives to be transscribed their faith and perseverance in faith is to be imitated To this purpose is that of S. Irenaeus to be understood Tantae ostensiones cum sint Lib. 3. cap. 3. in principis non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesiâ sumere cum Apostoli quasi in repositorium dives plenissimè in eâ contulerint omnia quae sint veritatis ubi omnis quicunque velit sumat ex eâ potum vitae Haec est enim vitae introitus Omnes autem reliqui fures sunt latrones propter quod oportet devitare quidem illos As long as the Apostles lived as long as those Bishops lived who being their Disciples did evidently and notoriously teach the doctrine of Christ and were of that communion so long they that is the Apostolical Churches were a sure way to follow because it was known and confess'd These Clergy-guides had an infallible Unerring spirit But as the Church hath decayed in Discipline and Charity hath waxen-cold and Faith is become interest and disputation this Counsel of the Apostle and these words of S. Irenaeus come off still the fainter But now here is a new question viz. Whether the Rulers of the Church be the Church that Church which is the pillar and ground of truth whether when they represent the diffusive Church the Promises of an indeficient faith and the perpetual abode of the Holy Spirit and his leading into all truth and teaching all things does in propriety belong to them For if they do not then we are yet to seek for an Infallible Judge a Church on which our Faith may relie with certainty and infallibility In answer to which I find that in Scripture the word Ecclesia or Church is taken in contradistinction from the Clergy but never that it is us'd to signifie them alone Act. 15. 22. Then it pleas'd the Apostles and the Elders with the whole Church to choose men of their own company c. And the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the Church of God Act. 20. 28. And Hilarius Diac. observes that the Apostle to the Church of Coloss sent by them a message to their Bishop In Col. 4. 16. Praepositum illorum per eos ipsos commonet ut sit sollicitus de salute ipsorum quia plebis solius scribitur epistola ideò non ad rectorem ipsorum destinata est sed ad Ecclesiam observing that the Bishop is the Ruler of the Church but his Flock is that which he intended onely to
words of Scripture and the Apostles Creed for a sufficient rule of their faith but are threatned with damnation if they do not believe whatever their Church hath determin'd and yet they neither do nor can know it but by the word of their Parish Priest or Confessor it lies in the hand of every Parish Priest to make the People believe any thing and be of any religion and trust to any Article as they shall choose and find to their purpose The Council of Trent requires Traditions to be added and received equal with Scriptures they both not singly but in conjunction making up the full object of faith and so the most learned and indeed generally their whole Church understands one to be incomplete without the other and yet Master White who I suppose tells the same thing to his Neighbours affirms that it is not the Catholick position That all its doctrines are not contain'd in Scripture which proposition being tied with the decree of the Council of Trent gives a very good account of it and makes it excellent sense Thus Traditions must be receiv'd with equal authority to the Scripture saith the Council and wonder not for saith Master White all the Traditions of the Church are in Scripture You may believe so if you please for the contrary is not a Catholick doctrine But if these two things do not agree better then it will be hard to tell what regard will be had to what the Council says the People know not that but as their Priest teaches them And though they are bound under greatest pains to believe the whole Catholick Religion yet that the Priests themselves do not know it or wilfully mis-report it and therefore that the people cannot tell it it is too evident in this instance and in the multitude of disputes which are amongst themselves about many considerable Articles in their Catholick religion Vide Wadding of Immac oncept p. 282. p. 334. alibi Pius Quintus speaking of Thomas Aquinas calls his doctrine the most certain rule of Christian religion And divers particulars of the religion of the Romanists are prov'd out of the revelations of S. Briget which are contradicted by those of S. Katherine of Siena Now they not relying on the way of God fall into the hands of men who teach them according to the interest of their order or private fancy and expound their rules by measures of their own but yet such which they make to be the measures of salvation and damnation They are taught to rely for their faith upon the Church and this when it comes to practise is nothing but their private Priest and he does not always tell them the sense of their Church and is not infallible in declaring the sense of it and is not always as appears in the instance now set down faithful in relating of it but first consens himself by his subtilty and then others by his confidence and therefore in is impossible there can be any certainty to them that proceed this way when God hath so plainly given them a better and requires of them nothing but to live a holy life as a superstructure of Christian Faith describ'd by the Apostles in plain places of Scripture and in the Apostolical Creed in which they can suffer no illusion and where there is no Uncertainty in the matters to be believ'd IV. The next thing I observe is that they all talking of the Church as of a charm and sacred Amulet yet they cannot by all their arts make us certain where or how infallibly to find this Church I have already in this Section prov'd this in the main Inquiry by shewing that the Church is that body which they do not rely upon but now I shall shew that the Church which they would point out can never be certainly known to be the true Church by those indications and signs which they offer to the world as her characteristick notes S. Austin in his excellent Book De Vnitate Ecclesiae Lib. de Vnit. Eccles. cap. cap. 17. Ergo in Scripturis Canonicis eam Ecclesiam requiramus cap. 3. affirms that the Church is no whereto be found but in Praescripto legis in prophetarum praedictis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Sanctorum canonicis authoritatibus in the Scriptures only And he gives but one great note of it and that is adhering to the head Jesus Christ for the Church is Christ's body who by charity are united to one another and to Christ their Head and he that is not a member of Christ cannot obtain salvation And he adds no other mark but that Christ's Church is not this or that viz. not of one denomination but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dispersed over the face of the earth The Church of Rome makes adhesion to the head Bellarm. de Eccles Militant lib. 3. cap. Sect. Nostra autem Sententia not Jesus Christ but the Bishop of Rome to be of the essential constitution of the Church Now this being the great Question between the Church of Rome and the Greek Church and indeed of all other Churches of the world is so far from being a sign to know the Church by that it is apparent they have no ground of their Faith but the great Question of Christendom and that which is condemn'd by all the Christian world but themselves is their foundation And this is so much the more considerable because concerning very many Heads of their Church it was too apparent that they were not so much as members of Christ but the basest of Criminals and Enemies of all godliness And concerning others that were not so notoriously wicked they could not be certain that they were members of Christ or that they were not of their Father the Devil The spirit of truth was promis'd to the Apostles upon condition and Judas fell from it by transgression But the uncertainties are yetgreater Adhering to the Pope cannot be a certain note of the Church because no man can be certain who is true Pope For the Pope if he be a Simoniac is ipso facto no Pope as appears in the Bull of Julius the 2d And yet besides that he himself was called a most notorious Simoniac Sixtus Quintus gave an obligation under his hand upon condition that the Cardinal d'Este would bring over his voices to him and make him Pope that he would never make Hierom Matthew a Cardinal which when he broke the Cardinal sent his Obligation to the King of Spain who intended to accuse him of Simony but it broke the Pope's heart and so he escaped here and was reserved to be heard before a more Unerring Judicatory And when Pius Quartus used all the secret arts to dissolve the Council of Trent and yet not to be seen in it and to that purpose dispatch'd away the Bishops from Rome he forbad the Archbishop of
Turris to go Hist. Concil Trid. lib. 7 ◠D. 156◠because he had been too free in declaring his opinion for the Jus Divinum of the Residence of Bishops he at the same time durst not trust the Bishop of Cesena for a more secret reason but it was known enough to many He was a familiar friend of the Cardinal of Naples whose Father the Count of Montebello had in his hand an Obligation which that Pope had given to the Cardinal for a sum of money for his Voice in the Election of him to the Papacy And all the world have been full of noises and Pasquils sober and grave Comical and Tragical accusations of the Simony of the Popes for divers ages together and since no man can certainly know that the Pope is not Simoniacal no man can safely rely on him as a true Pope or the true Pope for an infallible Judge 2. If the Pope be a Heretick he is ipso facto no Pope now that this is very possible Bellarmine supposes because he makes that one of the necessary cases in which a General Council is to be called as I have shewed above And this uncertainty is manifest in an instance that can never be wip'd off for when Liberius had subscrib'd Arianism and the condemnation of S. Athasius and the Roman Clergy had depriv'd Liberius of his Papacy S. Felix was made Pope and then either Liberius was no Pope or S. Felix was not and one was a Heretick or the other a Schismatick and then as it was hard to tell who was their Churches head so it was impossible that by adherence to either of them their subjects could be prov'd to be Catholicks 3. There have been many Schisms in the Church of Rome and many Anti-popes which were acknowledged for true and legitimate by several Churches and Kingdoms respectively and some that were chosen into the places of the depos'd even by Councils were a while after disown'd and others chosen which was a known case in the times of the Councils of Constance and Basil. And when a Council was sitting and it became a Question who had power to chuse the Council or the Cardinals What man could cast his hopes of Eternity upon the adherence to one the certainty of whose legitimation was determin'd by power and interest and could not by all the learning and wisdom of Christendom 4. There was one Pope who was made head of the Church before he was a Priest It was Constantine the second who certainly succeeded not in S. Peter's Privileges when he was not capable of his Chair and yet he was their head of the Church for a year but how adherence to the Pope should then be a note of the Church I desire to know from some of the Roman Lawyers for the Divines know it not I will not trouble this account with any questions about the Female-head of their Church I need not seek for matter I am press'd with too much and therefore I shall omit very many other considerations about the nullities and insufficiencies and impieties and irregularities of many Popes and consider their other notes of the Church to try if they can fix this inquiry upon any certainty Bellarmine reckons fifteen notes of the Church It is a mighty hue and cry after a thing that he pretends is visible to all the world 1. The very name Catholick is his first note he might as well have said the word Church is a note of the Church for he cannot be ignorant but that all Christians who esteem themselves members of the Church think and call themselves members of the Catholick Church and the Greeks give the same title to their Churches Nay all Conventions of Hereticks anciently did so and therefore I shall quit Bellarmine of this note by the words of Lactantius which himself * Bellarm. l. 4. de Notis Eccles. cap. 1. Lact. lib. 3. Divinar institut cap. ult also a little forgetting himself quotes Sed tamen singuli quique Haereticorum coetus se potissimum Christianos suam esse Catholicam Ecclesiam putant 2. Antiquity indeed is a note of the Church and Salmeron proves it to be so from the Example of Adam and Eve most learnedly But it is certain that God had a Church in Paradise is as good an argument for the Church of England and Ireland as for Rome for we derive from them as certainly as do the Italians and have as much of Adam's religion as they have But a Church might have been very ancient and yet become no Church and without separating from a greater Church The Church of the Jews is the great example and the Church of Rome unless she takes better heed may be another Rom. 11. 20 21. S. Paul hath plainly threatned it to the Church of Rome 3. Duration is made a note now this respects the time past or the time to come If the time past then the Church of Britain was Christian before Rome was and blessed be God are so at this day If Duration means the time to come for so Bellarmine says Denotis Eccles. lib. 4. cap. 6. Ecclesia dicitur Catholica non solùm quia semper fuit sed etiam quia semper erit so we have a rare note for us who are alive to discern the Church of Rome to be the Catholick Church and we may possibly come to know it by this sign many ages after we are dead because she will last always But this sign is not yet come to pass and when it shall come to pass it will prove our Church to be the Catholick Church as well as that of Rome and the Greek Church as well as both of us for these Churches at least some of them have begun sooner and for ought they or we know they all may so continue longer 4. Amplitude was no note of the Church when the world was Arian and is as little now because that a great part of Europe is Papal 5. Succession of Bishops is an excellent conservatory of Christian doctrine but it is as notorious in the Greek Church as in the Roman and therefore cannot signifie which is the true Church unless they be both true and then the Church of England can claim by this tenure as having since her being Christian a succession of Bishops never interrupted but as all others have been in persecution 6. Consent in doctrine with the Ancient Church may be a good sign or a bad as it happens but the Church of Rome hath not and never can prove the pure and prime Antiquity to be of her side 7. Vnion of members among themselves and with their head is very good if the members be united in truth for else it may be a Conspiracy and if by head be meant Jesus Christ and indeed this is the onely true sign of the Church but if by head be meant the Roman Pope it may be Ecclesia Malignantium and Antichrist may sit in the chair But the uncertainty
difference S. Basil here declar'd that as formerly he had it always fixt in mind to fly every voice every sentence which is a stranger to the doctrine of the Lord so now also at this time Ibidem in seqâ—entibus viz. when he was to set down the whole Christian Faith Neither can there be hence any escaping by saying * Truth will out pag. 3. that nothing indeed is to be added to the Scriptures but yet to the faith something is to be reckoned which is not in Scripture For although the Church of Rome does that also putting more into the Canon than was among the Jews acknowledged or by the Primitive Church of Christians yet besides this S. Basil having having said Vbi supra Whatsoever is not in the Scriptures is not of faith and therefore it is a sin he says also by certain consequence That to add to the Scriptures is all one as to add to the Faith And therefore he exhorts even the Novices to study the Scriptures In Regul brev reg 95. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for to his 95th question Whether it be fit for Novices presently to learn the things of the Scripture he answers It is right and it is necessary that those things which appertain to use every one should learn from the Scriptures both for the replenishing of their mind with piety as also that they may not be accustomed to humane traditions By which words he not onely declares that by the Scriptures our minds are abundantly fill'd with piety but that humane traditions by which he means every thing that is not contain'd in Scripture are not to be receiv'd but ought to be and are best of all banish'd from our minds by entertaining of Scripture To the same purpose are his words in his Ethicks Moral Regul 26. Whatsoever we say or do ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of Divinity inspired by Scriptures both for the full persuasion of the good and the confusion or damnation of evil things There 's your rule that 's the ground of all true faith And therefore S. Athanasius speaking concerning the Nicene Council Epist. ad Epicteâ—um Corinthiorum Episc. made no scruple that the question was sufficiently determin'd concerning the proper Divinity of the Son of God because it was determin'd and the faith was expounded according to the Scriptures and affirms that the faith so determin'd was sufficient for the reproof of all impiety meaning in the Article of Christ's Divinity and for the establishment of the Orthodox faith in Christ. De Incarnat Nay he affirms that the Catholick Christians will neither speak nor endure to hear any thing in religion that is a stranger to Scripture it being an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are not written Which words I the rather remark Idem Athanas. in Exhort ad Monachos because this Article of the Consubstantiality of Christ with the Father is brought as an instance by the Romanists of the necessity of tradition to make up the insufficiency of Scripture But not in this onely but for the preaching of the truth indefinitely Moral contra Gentiles in 〈◊〉 that is the whole truth of the Gospel he affirms the Scriptures to be sufficient For writing to Macarius a Priest of Alexandria he tells him that the knowledge of true and divine religion and piety does not much need the ministery of man and that he might abundantly draw this forth from the divine books and letters for truly the holy and divinely-inspir'd Scriptures are sufficient for the preaching of the truth Coloniae ex officâ—â— Melcâ—â—â—â—â— Novefiani 1548. ad omnem instructionem veritatis so the Latine Translation for the whole instruction of truth or the instruction of all truth But because Macarius desir'd rather to hear others teach him this doctrine and true religion than himself to draw it from Scripture S. Athanasius tells him that there are many written monuments of the Holy Fathers and our masters which if men will diligently read over he shall learn the interpretation of Scriptures and obtain that notion of truth which he desires Which is perfectly the same advice which the Church of England commands her Sons that they shall teach nothing but what the Fathers and Doctors of the Church draw forth from Scriptures The same principal doctrine in the whole is taught frequently by S. Chrysostom Homil. 58. 〈◊〉 Johan who compares the Scriptures to a Door which is shut to hinder the hereticks from entring in and introduce us to God and to the knowledge of God This surely is sufficient if it does this it does all that we need and if it does not S. Chrysostom was greatly deceiv'd and so are we and so were all the Church of God in all the first ages But he is constant in the same affirmative Homil 9. in 2 Timoth. If there be need to learn or to be ignorant thence we shall learn it Idem in Psal. 95. versus finem if to confute or argue that which is false thence we shall draw it if to be corrected or chastis'd to exhortation if any thing be wanting for our comfort and that we ought to have it nevertheless from thence from the Scriptures we learn it That the man be perfect therefore without it he cannot be perfected In stead of me he saith thou hast the Scriptures if thou desirest to learn any thing hence thou mayest But if he writes these things to Timothy who was fill'd with the holy Spirit how much more must we think these things spoken to us To the same purpose he discourses largely in his eighth Homily on the Epistle to the Hebrews Homil. 9. in Coloss. in 2 Thess. 2. which is here too long to transcribe Let no man look for another master Homil. 49. in Matth. 23. oper imperfecti Thou hast the Oracles of God No man teaches thee like to them Because ever since heresie did infest those Churches there can be no proof of true Christianity nor any other refuge for Christians who would know the truth of faith but that of the Divine Scripture but now by no means is it known by them who would know which is the true Church of Christ but onely by the Scriptures De verbo Dei l. 4. c. 11. Sect. Sextò profert Bellarmine very learnedly sayes that these words were put into this book by the Arians but because he offers at no pretence of reason for any such interpolation and it being without cause to suspect it though the Author of it had been an Arian because the Arians were never noted to differ from the Church in the point of the Scriptures sufficiency I look upon this as a pitiful shift of a man that resolved to say any thing rather than confess his errour And at last he concludes with many words to the same purpose Our Lord therefore knowing what confusion of things would be in the
are apt to be earnest in their perswasion and over-act the proposition and from being true as he supposes he will think it profitable and if you warm him either with confidence or opposition he quickly tells you It is necessary and as he loves those that think as he does so he is ready to hate them that do not and then secretly from wishing evil to him he is apt to believe evil will come to him and that it is just it should and by this time the Opinion is troublesome and puts other men upon their guard against it and then while passion reigns and reason is modest and patient and talks not loud like a storm Victory is more regarded than Truth and men call God into the party and his judgments are us'd for arguments and the threatnings of the Scripture are snatched up in haste and men throw arrows fire-brands and death and by this time all the world is in an uproar All this and a thousand things more the English Protestants considering deny not their Communion to any Christian who desires it and believes the Apostles Creed and is of the Religion of the four first General Councils they hope well of all that live well they receive into their bosome all true believers of what Church soever and for them that erre they instruct them and then leave them to their liberty to stand or fall before their own Master It was a famous saying of Stephen the Great King of Poland that God had reserved to himself three things 1. To make something out of nothing 2. To know future things and all that shall be hereafter 3. To have the rule over Consciences It is this last we say the Church of Rome does arrogate and invade 1. By imposing Articles as necessary to salvation which God never made so Where hath God said That it is necessary to salvation that every humane Creature should be subject to the Roman Bishop Extrav de Majorit obedien Dicimus definimus pronunciamus absolutè necessarium ad salutem omni humanae Creaturae subesse Romano Pontifici But the Church of Rome says it and by that at one blow cuts off from Heaven all the other Churches of the world Greek Armenian Ethiopian Russian Protestants which is an Act so contrary to charity to the hope and piety of Christians so dishonourable to the Kingdom of Christ so disparaging to the justice to the wisdom and the goodness of God as any thing which can be said Where hath it been said That it shall be a part of Christian Faith To believe that though the Fathers of the Church did Communicate Infants yet they did it without any opinion of necesty And yet the Church of Rome hath determin'd it in one of her General Councils Sess. 1. cap. 4 as a thing Sine Controversiâ Credendum to be believ'd without doubt or dispute It was indeed the first time that this was made a part of the Christian Religion but then let all wise men take heed how they ask the Church of Rome Where was this part of her Religion before the Council of Trent for that 's a secret and that this is a part of their Religion I suppose will not be denied when a General Council hath determin'd it to be a truth without controversie and to be held accordingly Where hath God said that those Churches that differ from the Roman Church in some propositions cannot conferre true Orders nor appoint Ministers of the Gospel of Christ and yet Super totam materiam the Church of Rome is so implacably angry and imperious with the Churches of the Protestants that if any English Priest turn to them they re-ordain him which yet themselves call sacrilegious in case his former Ordination was valid as it is impossible to prove it was not there being neither in Scripture nor Catholick tradition any Laws Order or Rule touching our case in this particular Where hath God said that Penance is a Sacrament or that without confession to a Priest no man can be sav'd If Christ did not institute it how can it be necessary and if he did institute it yet the Church of Rome ought not to say it is therefore necessary for with them an Institution is not a Command though Christ be the Institutor and if Institution be equal to a Commandment how then comes the Sacrament not to be administred in both kinds when it is confessed that in both kinds it was instituted 2. The Church of Rome does so multiply Articles that few of the Laity know the half of them and yet imposes them all under the same necessity and if in any one of them a man make a doubt he hath lost all Faith and had as good be an Infidel for the Churche's Authority being the formal object of Faith that is the only reason why any Article is to be believ'd the reason is the same in all things else and therefore you may no more deny any thing she says than all she says and an Infidel is as sure of Heaven as any Christian is that calls in question any of the innumerable propositions which with her are esteem'd de fide Now if it be considered that some of the Roman doctrines are a state of temptation to all the reason of mankind as the doctrine of Transubstantiation that some are at least of a supicious improbity as worship of Images and of the consecrated Elements and many others some are of a nice and curious nature as the doctrine of Merit of Condignity and Congruity some are perfectly of humane inventions without ground of Scripture or Tradition as the formes of Ordination Absolution c. When men see that some things can never be believ'd heartily and many not understood fully and more not remembred or consider'd perfectly and yet all impos'd upon the same necessity and as good believe nothing as not every thing this way is apt to make men despise all Religion or despair of their own Salvation The Church of Rome hath a remedy for this and by a distinction undertakes to save you harmless you are not tied to believe all with an explicite Faith it suffices that your Faith be implicite or involved in the Faith of the Church that is if you believe that she says true in all things you need inquire no further So that by this means the authority of their Church is made authentick for that is the first and last of the design and you are taught to be sav'd by the Faith of others and a Faith is preached that you have no need ever to look after it a Faith of which you know nothing but it matters not as long as others do but then it is also a Faith which can never be the foundation of a good life for upon ignorance nothing that is good can be built no not so much as a blind obedience for even blindly to obey is built upon something that you are bidden explicitely to believe viz.
have been puzzled to unriddle the words of transubstantiation and hyperdulia and infallibility and doctrines ex Cathedra and fere de fide and next to heresie and temerarious and ordo ad spiritualia and S. Peters chair and supremacy in spirituals and implicit faith and very many more prophane or unhallowed novelties of speech which have made Christianity quite another thing than it is in it self or then it was represented by the Apostles and Apostolic men at first as the plain way of salvation to all succeeding ages of the Church for ever But be it as it will for he will neither approve of Scripture language nor is he pleased that I use any handsome expressions for that is charged upon me as part of my fault only to countenance all this he is pleased to say that all these are but division upon no grounds and therefore to grounds and first principles I must be brought and by this way he is sure to blow up my errors from the foundation that 's his expression being a Metaphor I suppose taken from the Gunpowder treason in which indeed going upon Popish grounds they intended to blow up something or other that was very considerable from it's very foundations To perform this effect I. S. hath eight several mines all which I hope to discover without Guido Faux his Lanthorn The First Way HIS first Way is That I have not one first or self evident principle to begin with on which I build the Dissuasive but he hath that is he says he hath for he hath reproved that oral tradition on which he and his Church relies is such a principle He thought it may be he had reason then to say so but the Scene is altered and until he hath sufficiently confuted his adversaries who have proved his self evident principle to be an evident and pitiful piece of Sophistry his boasting is very vain However though he hath failed in his undertaking yet I must acquit my self as well as I can I shall therefore tell him that the truth fulness and sufficiency of Scripture in all matters of faith and manners is the principle that I and all Protestants rely upon And although this be not a first and self-evident principle yet it is resolved into these that are 1. Whatsoever God hath said is true 2. Whatsoever God hath done is good 3. Whatsoever God intends to bring to pass he hath appointed means sufficient to that end Now since God hath appointed the Scriptures to instruct us and make us wise unto salvation and to make the man of God perfect certain it is that this means must needs be sufficient to effect that end Now that God did do this to this end to them that believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God is as evident as any first principle And let these Scriptures be weighed together and see what they do amount to John 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for therein ye think to have eternal life The Jews thought so that is they confessed and acknowledged it to be so and if they had been deceived in their thought besides that it is very probable Christ would have reprov'd it so it is very certain he would not have bidden them to have used that means to that end And if Christ himself and the Apostles did convince the Jews out of the Scriptures of the old Testament proving that Jesus was the Christ if Christ himself and the Apostles proved the resurrection and the passion and the supreme Kingdom of Christ out of the Scriptures if the Apostle proved him to be the Messias and that be ought to suffer and to rise again the third day by no other precedent topic and that upon these things Christian religion relied as upon it's intire foundation and on the other side the Jewish Doctors had brought in many things by tradition to which our Blessed Saviour gave no countenance but reproved many of them and made it plain that tradition was not the first and self evident principle to rely upon in religion but a way by which they had corrupted the Commandment of God It will follow from hence that the Scriptures are the way that Christ and his Apostles walked in and that oral tradition was not But then to this add what more concerns the N. T. when S. Luke wrote his Gospel in the preface he tells us That many had taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us Christians and that he having perfect understanding of all things viz. which Christ did and taught from the very first did write this Gospel that Theophilus might know the certainty of those things in which he had been instructed Now here if we believe S. Luke was no want of any thing he was fully instructed in all things and he chose to write that book that by that book Theophilus might know the truth yea the certainty of all things Now if we be Christians and believe S. Luke to be divinely inspired this is not indeed a first but an evident principle that a book of Scripture can make a man certain and instructed in the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. To the same purpose is that of S. John These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God John 20. 31. and that believing ye might have life through his name The end is salvation by Jesus Christ the means of effecting this was this writing the Gospel by S. John and therefore it is a sure principle for Christians to rely upon the word of God written by men divinely inspired such as Christians believe and confess S. Luke and S. John to be Hear S. Luke again Acts 1. The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach untill the day he was taken up No man then can deny but all Christs doctrine and life was fully set down by these Evangelists and Apostles whether it were to any purpose or no let I. S. consider and I shall consider with him in the sequel But first let us hear what S. Paul saith in an Epistle written as it is probable not long before his death but certainly after three of the Gospels and divers of the Epistles were written and consequently related to the Scriptures of the old and new Testament Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of 2 Tim. 5. 14. knowing of whom thou hast learned them And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Now I demand Does I. S. believe these words to be true Are the Scriptures
together that indeed they are inke varied in divers figures and unsensed characters they are nothing else For 1. It is false that all reason for so he must mean if he would speak to any purpose is fetch'd from the natures of things some rely upon Concessions and presuppositions only some upon the state of exterior affairs and introduced Oeconomies or accidental mesnage of things some upon presumptions and some even upon the weaknesses of men upon contingencies and some which pretend to be reasons rely upon false grounds and such are I. S. his demonstrations But suppose they did as indeed the best reasons do what then Why then the best nature that is I suppose he means the humane unalterable abstracting from disease and madness is the ground of the humane part of Christian tradition This proposition hath in it something that is false and something that is to no purpose That which is false is that the nature of man unless he be mad or diseas'd in his brain is Unalterable As if men could not be chang'd by interest or ambition pride or prejudice by weakness and false Apostles mistake or negligence And by any of these a man that naturally hath faculties to understand and capacity of learning and speaking truth may be so changed that he is very alterable from good to bad from wise to foolish from the knowledge of the truth to believe a lie and be transported by illusions of the Devil Every man naturally loves knowledge that 's his nature and it is the best nature but yet it is so alterable that some men who from the principles of this best nature are willing to learn and they are ever learning yet they are so altered that they never come to the knowledge of truth But supposing that this best nature is the ground of the humane part of tradition yet it is not the ground of the humane part of tradition as it is unalterable but as it hath a defectible understanding and a free and a changeable will and innumerable weaknesses for these are so in this best nature that it can never be without them And therefore because this ground may be slippery there will be no sure footing here Especially since it is but the ground of the humane part of tradition for which cause it can be no more ground of truth in religion than the Roman story than Plutarch or Livy is of infallible indefectible truth in history and therefore I. S. does very wisely add to this the incomparable strengths of the supernatural assistances of the Holy Ghost But these alone can be sufficient if they could be proved to be given infallibly absolutely and without the altering condition of our making right use of them without grieving the Holy Spirit of which because there is no promise and no experience it is no wild Conceit to think tradition may be uncertain and yet our discourses in Religion by other principles be certain enough But now I perceive that I. S. is no such implacable man for all the seeming fierceness of his persuasion in his new mode of Oral tradition but that in time he may be reduc'd to the old way of this Church and ground as he does mainly here her infallibility not upon new demonstrations taken from the nature of things but upon the continual assistances and helpes of the only infallible spirit of God That indeed is a way possible if it were to be had but this new way hath neither sense nor reason And therefore in this place he wisely puts the greatest stress upon the other I should have proceeded a little further if I could have understood what I. S. means by any piece of nature built on Tradition and if he had not here put in the phrase of a wild Conceit I should have wanted a name for it but because it is no other I shall now let it alone and dig into the other mines and see if they be more dangerous than these Bugbears The third Way THe third Way I must needs say is a fine one He offers to prove my Dissuasive to be no Dissuasive no nor can it be a Dissuasive And why because to Dissuade is to unfix the understanding from what it held before which includes to make it hold or assent that what it held before certain is false or at least uncertain And here before I proceed further it is fit we acknowledge that we owe to I. S. the notice of these two mysteries 1. What is meant by Dissuading and that it is making a man to change his opinion an unfixing of his mind And the second That this unfixing the minde makes the minde to shake or to be chang'd to be uncertain or to think the proposition fit to be held we being thus instructed in these grounds of some new design'd demonstration may the surer proceed For wisely he adds a conjecture that surely by my Dissuasive from Popery I intend to oblige men to assent to the contrary I do believe indeed I did but my first aim was to dissuade that is to unfixe them and afterwards to establish them in the contrary Well! thus far we are agreed but for all this The thing I intend cannot be done by me I cannot dissuade because I have no peculiar method of my own but I use those means which others use to prove errors by and if the way I take be common to truth and error It is good for nothing error shall pretend to it as well as truth I must have a particularity of method above what is in others Now this is strange that I should be so severely dealt with why is more requir'd of me than of others I take the same way that the writers of books of controversie us'd to take I quote Scriptures and Fathers and Histories and instances and I use reason as well as I can I finde that Bellarmine and Baronius Card. Perron and Gregory de Valentia Stapleton and Hart Champian and Reynolds use the same Dull way as I do and yet they hope to persuade and Dissuade according to the subject matter and why my penny should not be as good silver as theirs I know not but I hope I shall know by and by why the true reason why I cannot Dissuade and that I miscall my book a Dissuasive is because the method which I take is common to those discourses which have in them power to satisfie the understanding and those who have no such power But herein is a wonderful thing my book cannot dissuade because I take a way which is taken in discourses which can satisfie the understanding For if some discourses proceeding my way can satisfie the Understanding as I. S. here confesses then it is to be hop'd so may mine at least there is nothing in my method to hinder it but it may yea but this method is also us'd in Discourses which have no such power well and what then Is not therefore my method as good a method as can be
Concilio Generali praesidens and the 3d. Council of Toledo in the 18th Chapter uses this mandatory form Praecipit haec sancta Vniversalis Synodus 3 But if we will suppose a Catachrêsis in this style and that this title of Vniversal means but a Particular that is an Universal of that place though this be a hard expression because the most particular or local Councils are or may be universal to that place yet this may be pardon'd since it is like the Catholick Roman style that is the manner of speaking in the Universal particular Church but after all this it will be very hard in good Earnest to tell which Councils are indeed Universal or General Councils Bellarmine reckons eighteen from Nicene to Trent inclusively so that the Council of Florence is the sixteenth and yet Pope Clement the seventh calls it the eighth General and is reproved for it by Surius who for all the Pope's infallibility pretended to know more than the Pope would allow The last Lateran Council viz. the fifth is at Rome esteem'd a General Council In Germany and France it passes for none at all but a faction and pack of Cardinals 4. There are divers General Councils that though they were such yet they are rejected by almost all the christian world It ought not to be said that these are not General Councils because they were conventions of heretical persons for if a Council can consist of heretical persons as by this instance it appears it may then a General Council is no sure rule or ground of faith And all those Councils which Bellarmin calls reprobate are as so many proofs of this For what ever can be said against the Council of Ariminum yet they cannot say but it consisted of DC Bishops and therefore it was as general as any ever was before it but the faults that are found with it prove indeed that it is not to be accepted but then they prove two things more First That a General Council binds not till it be accepted by the Churches and therefore that all its authority depends on them and they do not depend upon it And secondly that there are some General Councils which are so far from being infallible that they are directly false schismatical and heretical And if when the Churches are divided in a question and the communion like the Question is in flux and reflux when one side prevails greatly they get a General Council on their side and prevail by it but lose as much when the other side play the same game in the day of their advantages And it will be to no purpose to tell me of any Collateral advantages that this Council hath more than another Council for though I believe so yet others do not and their Council is as much a General Council to them as our Council is to us And therefore if General Councils are the rule and law of faith in those things they determine then all that is to be considered in this affair is Whether they be General Councils Whether they say true or no is not now the question but is to be determin'd by this viz. whether are they General Councils or no for relying upon their authority for the truth if they be satisfied that they are General Councils that they speak and determine truth will be consequent and allowed Now then if this be the question then since divers General Councils are reprobated the consequent is that although they be General Councils yet they may be reprov'd And if a Catholick producing the Nicene Council be r'encontred by an Arian producing the Council of Ariminum which was farre more numerous here are aquilis aquilae pila minantia pilis but who shall prevail If a General Council be the rule and guide they will both prevail that is neither And it ought not to be said by the Catholick Yea but our Council determin'd for the truth but yours for errour for the Arian will say so too But whether they do or no yet it is plain that they may both say so and if they do then we do not find the truth out by the conduct and decision of a General Council but we approve this General because upon other accounts we believe that what is there defin'd is true And therefore S. Austin's way here is best Neque ego Nicenum Concilium neque tu Ariminense c. both sides pretend to General Councils that which both equally pretend to will help neither therefore let us go to Scripture But there are amongst many others two very considerable instances by which we may see plainly at what rate Councils are declar'd General A. D. 755. There was a Council held at C. P. under Constantinus Copronymus of 338 Bishops It was in that unhappy time when the question of worshipping or breaking images was disputed A D. 786. aut 789. This Council commanded images to be destroyed out of Churches and this was a General Council and yet 26 or as some say 31 years after this was condemned by another General Council viz. the second at Nice which decreed images to be worshipped not long after about five years this General Council of Nice for that very reason was condemned by a General Council of Francford and generally by the Western Churches Now of what value is a General Council to the determination of questions of faith when one General Council condemns another General Council with great liberty and without scruple And it is to no purpose to allege reasons or excuses why this or that Council is condemn'd for if they be General and yet may without reason be condemn'd then they have no authority but if they be condemned with reason then they are not infallible The other instance is in those Councils which were held when the dispute began between the Council and the Pope The Council of Constance consisting of almost a thousand Fathers first and last defin'd the Council to be above the Pope the Council of Florence and the fift Council in the Lateran have condemn'd this Council so far as to that article The Council of Basil all the world knows how greatly they asserted their own Authority over the Pope but therefore though in France it is accepted yet in Italy and Spain it is not But what is the meaning that some Councils are partly approv'd and partly condemned the Council of Sardis that in Trullo those of Francfort Constance and Basil but that every man and every Church accepts the General Councils as far as they please and no further The Greeks receive but seven General Councils the Lutherans receive six the Eutychians in Asia receive but the first three the Nestorians in the East receive but the first two the Anti-trinitarians in Hungary and Poland receive none The Church of England receives the four first Generals as of highest regard not that they are infallible but that they have determin'd wisely and holily Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata It
versantur ut decet It is our own fault our prejudice our foolish expectations our carnal fancies our interests and partialities make the Scriptures difficult The Apostles did not would not could not understand their Master and Lord when he told them of his being put to death They look'd for some other thing and by that measure they would understand what was spoken and by nothing else But to them that are conversant in Scriptures as they ought nothing is difficult So S. Cyril That is nothing that is necessary for them to know nothing that is necessary to make us wise unto salvation which is the great end of man To this purpose are the words of S. Austin In Psal. 8. Inclinavit Deus Scripturas ad infantium lactentium Capacitatem God hath made the Scriptures to stoop to the Capacitie of babes and sucklings that so out of their mouths he may perfect praise Homil. primâ in Matth. And S. Chrysostom says that the Scriptures are faciles ad intelligendum prorsus expositae they are expounded and easie to be understood to the servant and the countrey-man to the widow and the boy and to him that is very unskilful Homil. 3. in 2 Thess. Omnia clara sunt plana in Divinis literis all things are clear and plain in the Divine writings All things that is saith S. Chrysostom Omnia necessaria aperta sunt manifesta All that is necessary is open and manifest 2. The Fathers say that in such things viz. in which our Salvation is concerned the Scriptures need no interpreter but a man may find them out himself by himself Apostoli verò Prophetae omnia contrà fecerunt manifesta claráque quae prodiderunt exposuerunt nobis veluti communes orbis Doctores Homil. 3. de Lazaro homil 3. in 2 Thess. ut per se quisque discere possit ea quae dicuntur ex solâ lectione So S. Chrysostom and therefore saith he what need is there of a Preacher All things are clear and plain out of the Divine Scriptures But ye seek for Preachers because you are nice and delicate and love to have your ears pleased To the same purpose are those words of S. Cyril Alex. Lib. 7. 〈◊〉 Julian The Divine Scripture is sufficient to make them who are educated in it wise and most approved and having a most sufficient understanding And to this we need not any foreign teachers There is no question but there are many places in the Divine Scriptures mysterious intricate and secret but these are for the learned not the ignorant for the curious and inquisitive not for the busied and imployed and simple they are not the repositories of salvation but instances of labour and occasions of humility and arguments of forbearance and mutual toleration and an indearment of reverence and adoration But all that by which God brings us to himself is plain and easie In S. Paul's Epistles S. Peter said there were some things hard to be understood but they were but quaedam some things there are enow besides which are very plain and easie and sufficient for the instruction and the perfecting the man of God S. Peter is indeed suppos'd to say that in S. Paul's Epistles some things were hard yet if we observe it rightly he does not relate to S. Paul's writings and way of expressing himself but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which relates to the mysterious matters contain'd in S. Paul's Epistles 2 Pet. 3. 16. of which S. Peter also there treats the mysteries were so deep and sublime so far remov'd from sense and humane experience that it is very hard for us poor ignorants to understand them without difficulty and constancy of labour and observation But then when such mysterious points occurre let us be wary and wise not hasty and decretory but fearful and humble modest and inquisitive S. Paul expressed those deep mysteries of the Coming of Christ to Judgement and the conflagration of the world as plainly as the things would easily bear and therefore the difficulty was not in the style but in the subject matter nor there indeed as they are in themselves so much as by the ignorance and instability or unsetledness of foolish people and although when things are easie there needs no interpreter but the very reading and observing and humility and diligence simplicity and holiness are the best expositors in the world yet when any such difficulty does occurre we have a guide sufficient to carry us as farre as we need or ought to go Therefore 3. The way of the Ancient and Primitive Church was to expound the Scriptures by the Scriptures So S. Clemens of Alexandria Stromat lib. 7. p. 757. 758. perfectly demonstrating out of the Scriptures themselves concerning themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Confirming every thing from those things which are demonstrated from the Scriptures out of those and the like Scriptures Contr. Gentil in initio To the same purpose are the words of S. Athanasius The knowledge of true and Divine religion and piety does not much need the Ministery of man and he might abundantly draw this forth from the Divine books and Letters S. Paul's way of teaching us to expound Scripture is that he that prophecies should do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the analogy of faith the fundamental proportions of faith are the measures by which we are to exact the sense and meaning of points more difficult and less necessary This way S. Clement urges in other expressions Truth is not found in the translation of significations Ubi suprà pag. 758. for so they might overthrow all true doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in this that every one consider what is perfectly agreeable to our Lord the Almighty God and what is decent or fit to be said of him If we follow this way close our interpretations of Scripture can never be impious and can never lead into dangerous errour 4. In pursuance of this the Ancient Fathers took this way and taught us to do so too to expound difficult places by the plain Lib. 2. de doctr Christ. cap. 6. So S. Austin Magnificè salubritèr Spiritus Sanctus c. The Holy Spirit hath magnificently and wholsomly qualified the Holy Scriptures that in the more open or plainer places provision is made for our hunger viz. for our need and in the obscure there is nothing tedious or loathsom Nihil enim ferè de illis obscuritatibus eruit quod non planissimè dictum alibi reperiatur For there is scarce any thing drawn from those obscure places but the same in other places may be found spoken most plainly Bellarmine observes De verbo Dei l. 3. cap. 2. Sect. Respondeo iâ—pimis that S. Austin uses the word ferè almost meaning that though by plainer places most of the obscure places may be clear'd yet not all And truly it is very probable that S. Austin
the next best had been to have suppress'd and forgotten it instantly for as it came in by zeal and partiality in the hands of the Cappadocian Bishops so it was fed by pride and faction in the hands of the Donatists and it could have no determination but the mere nature of the thing it self all the Apostles and Ministers of Religion were commanded to baptize in water in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and this was an admission to Christianity not to any sect of it and if this had been consider'd wisely so it had been done by a Christian Minister in matter and form there could be no more in it And therefore the whole thing was to no purpose so far was it from being an Article of Faith 4. The next pretence is that the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is an Article of our Faith and yet no where told in Scripture and consequently tradition must help to make up the object of our Faith To this some very excellent persons have oppos'd this Consideration that the Greeks and Latins differ but in modo loquendi and therefore both speaking the same thing in differing words show that the Controversie it self is trifling or mistaken But though I wish them agreed yet when I consider that in all the endeavours for Union at the Council of Florence they never understood one another to purposes of peace I am apt to believe that those who would reconcile them shew their piety more than the truth of the thing and that the Greeks and Latins differ'd intirely in this point But then that on the Latin side there should be a tradition Apostolical can upon no other account be pretended but that they could not prove it by Scripture or shew any Ecclesiastical law or authority for it Now if we consider that the Greeks pretend their doctrine not only from Scripture but also from immemorial tradition that is that they have not innovated the doctrine which their Fathers taught them and on the other side that the Latins have contrary to the Canon of the Council of Ephesus superadded the clause of Filióque to the Constantinopolitan-Creed and that by authority of a little Convention of Bishops at Gentilly neer to Paris without the consent of the Catholick Church and that by the Confession of Cardinal Perron Contr. le Râ—y Jaques p. 709. not only the Scripture favours the Greeks but Reason also because it is unimaginable that the same particular effect should proceed from two principles in the same kind and although the three Persons created the world yet that production was from the Divine essence which is but one principle but the opinion of the Latius is that the Holy Ghost proceeds from two Persons as Persons and therefore from two principles it will be very hard to suppose that because all this is against them therefore it is certain that they had this from Apostolical tradition The more natural consequence is that their proposition is either mistaken or uncertain or not an article of Faith which is rather to be hop'd lest we condemn all the Greek Churches as Infidels or perverse Hereticks or else that it can be deriv'd from Scripture which last is indeed the most probable and pursuant to the doctrine of those wiser Latins who examin'd things by reason and not by prejudice But Cardinal Perron's argument is no better than this Titius was accus'd to have deserted his station in the Battel and carried false Orders to the Legion of Spurinna He answers I must either have received Orders from the General or else you must suppose me to be a Coward or a Traytor for I had no warrant for what I did from the Book of Military Discipline Well what if you be suppos'd to be a Coward or Traytor what hurt is in that supposition But must I conclude that you had Order from the General for fear I should think you did it on your own head or that you are a Traytor That 's the case Either this proposition is deriv'd to us by Apostolical tradition or we have nothing else to say for our selves well Nempe hoc Ithacus velit The Greeks allow the argument and will say thus You had nothing to say for your selves unless we grant that to you which is the Question and which you can never prove viz. that there is for this Article an Apostolical tradition but because both sides pretend that let us try this thing by Scripture And indeed that 's the only way And Cardinal Perron's argument may by any Greek be inverted and turned upon himself For he saying It is not in Scripture therefore it is a tradition of the Church it is as good an argument It is not deliver'd to us by universal Tradition therefore either it is not at all or it is deriv'd to us from Scripture and upon the account of this for my part I do believe it 5. The last instance of Cardinal Perron is the observation of the Lord's Day but this is matter of discipline and external rite and because it cannot pretend to be an article of faith or essentially necessary doctrine the consideration is differnt from the rest And it is soon at an end but that the Cardinal would fain make some thing of nothing by telling that the Jews complain of the Christians for changing Circumcision into Baptism and the Saturday-sabbath into the Dominical or Lord's-day He might as well have added They cry out against the Christians for changing Moses into Christ the Law into the Gospel the Covenant of works into the Covenant of faith Ceremonies into substances and rituals into spiritualities And we need no further inquiry into this Question but to consider Perron ibid. 710. what the Cardinal says that God did the Sabbath a special honour by writing this ceremonial alone into the summary of the moral law Now I demand Whether there be not clear and plain Scripture for the abolishing of the law of Ceremonies If there be then the law of the Sabbath is abolished It is part of the hand-writing of ordinances which Christ nail'd to his Cross. Now when the Sabbath ceases to be obligatory the Church is at liberty but that there should be a time sanctified or set apart for the proper service of God I hope is also very clear from Scripture and that the circumstances of religion are in the power of the presidents of religion and then it will follow from Scripture that the Apostles or their Successors or whoever did appoint the Sunday-festival had not onely great reason but full authority to appoint that day and that this was done early and continued constantly for the same reason and by an equal authority is no question But as to the Sabbath S. Paul gave express order that no man should be judged by any part of the ceremonial law and particularly name 's the Sabbath-days Colos. 2. 16. saying They all were a shadow of things
in the ancient Apostolical Creeds expounded by Marcellus Ruffinus Chrysologus Maximus Taurinensis Venantius Fortunatus Etherius and Beatus Lib. 1. contra Elipand Tolet. yet because it is so plain in the Article of the Church as the omission is no prejudice to the integrity of the Christian Faith so the inserting it is no addition of an Article or Innovation So these Copies now reckon'd omit in the beginning of the Creed Maker of Heaven and Earth but out of the Constantinopolitan Creed it is now inserted into all the Copies of the Apostolical Symbol Now as these omissions or additions respectively that is this variety is no prejudice to these being the Apostles Creed So neither is the addition made at Nice any other but a setting down what was plainly included in the Filiation of the Son of God and therefore was no addition of an Article nor properly an explication but a saying in more words what the Apostles and the Apostolical Churches did mean in all the Copies and what was deliver'd before that Convention at Nice But there was ill use made of it and wise men if they had pleased might easily have foreseen it But whether it was so or no for I can no otherwise affirm it than as I have said yet to add any new thing to the Creed or to appoint a new Creed was at that time so strange a thing so unknown to the Church that though what they did was done with pious intention and great advantage in the Article it self yet it did not produce that effect which from such a concurrence of sentiments might have been expected For first even some of the Fathers then present refus'd to subscribe the Additions some did it as they said against their will some were afraid to use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consubstantial and most men were still so unsatisfied that presently after Council upon Council was again called at Sirmium Ariminum Seleucia Sardis to appease the new stirrs rising upon the old account and instead of making things quiet they quench'd the fire with oyle and the Principal persons in the Nicene Council Casu Hosii planè miserabâ—li Cathulicus Orbis contremâ—it concussaeque sunt solidissimae petrae Baron A. C. 347. 17. 18. chang'd their minds and gave themselves over to the contrary temptation Even Hosius himself who presided at Nice and confirm'd the former Decrees at Sardis yet he left that Faith and by that desertion affrighted and shook the fabrick of the Christian Church in the Article added or explained at Nice In the same sad condition was Marcellus of Ancyra Vide Epist. Marcellinorum ad Episcipos in Dio-Caesarea exulantes a great friend of S. Athanasius and an earnest opposer of Arius so were the two Photinus's Eustathius Elpidius Heracides Hygin Sigerius the President Cyriacus and the Emperour Constantine himself who by banishing Athanasius into France by becoming Arian and being baptiz'd by an Arian Bishop secur'd the Empire to his sons as themselves did say as it is reported by Lucifer Calaritanus * Pro S. Athanas l. 1. apud Baron A. â— 336. 13. and that he was vehemently suspected by the Catholicks is affirmed by Eusebius Hierom Ambrose Theodoret Sozomen and Socrates But Liberius Bishop of Rome was more than suspected to have become an Arian Idem aiunt Martinus Polâ—nus Alphonsus de Castro Volaterranus as Athanasius himself S. Hierom Damasus and S. Hilary report So did Pope Felix the second and Leo his successor It should seem by all this that the definitions of General Councils were not accounted the last determination of truths or rather that what propositions General Councils say are true are not therefore part of the body of faith though they be true or else that all these persons did go against an establish'd rule of faith and conscience which if they had done they might easily have been oppress'd by their adversaries urging the plain authority of the Council against them But Neither am I to urge against thee the Nicene Council nor thou the Council of Ariminum against me was the saying of S. Austin even long after the Council of Nice had by Concession obtain'd more authority than it had at first Now the reason of these things can be no other than this not that the Nicene Council was not the best that ever was since the day that a Council was held at Jerusalem by all the Apostles but that the Council's adding something to the Creed of the Church which had been the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian faith for 300 years together was so strange a thing that they would not easily bear that yoke And that this was the matter appears by what the Fathers of the Church after the Council did complain Dum in verbis pugna est dum de novitatibus quaestio est dum de ambiguis dum de Authoribus querelae est dum de studiis certamen est dum in consensu difficultas est dumque alter alteri anathema esse coepit prope jam nemo est Christi S. Hilar. After the Nicene Synod we write nothing but Faiths viz. new Creeds while there is contention about Words while there is question about Novelties while there is complaint of ambiguities and of Authors while there is contention of parties and difficulty in consenting and while one is become an Anathema to another scarce any man now is of Christ. And again We decree yearly and monethly faiths of God we repent when we have decreed them we defend them that repent we anathematize them that are defended we either condemn foreign things in our own or condemn our own in forein things and biting one another we are devour'd of one another This was the product of leaving the simplicity and perfection of the first rule by which the Church for so many ages of Martyrdom was preserv'd and defended and consummated their religious lives and their holy baptism of bloud and which they oppos'd as a sufficient shield against all heresies arising in the Church And yet the Nicene Fathers did adde no new Article Quid unquam aliud Ecclesia Conciliorum decretis enisa est nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur hâ—c idem posteà diligentiùs crederetur Vincent Lirin contr haeres cap. 32. of new matter but explicated the Filiation of Jesus Christ saying in what sense he was the Son of God which was in proper speaking an interpretation of a word in the Apostles Creed and yet this occasion'd such stirs and gave so little satisfaction at first and so great disturbances afterward that S. Hilary * Lib. de Synodis call'd them happy who neither made nor knew nor receiv'd any other Symbol besides that most simple Creed us'd in all Churches ever since the Apostles days However it pleas'd the Divine Providence so to conduct the spirits of the Catholick Prelates that by their wise and holy adhering to the Creed as explicated
a happy Resurrection to eternal life which he hath promis'd to us by his Son and which we shall receive if we walk in the Spirit and live in the Spirit What is wanting to him that does all this but that he do so still Is not this faith unto righteousness and the confession of this-faith unto salvation We all believe we shall arise from our graves at the last day one sort of Christians thinks with one sort of body and another thinks with another but these conjectures ought not to be accounted necessary and we are not concern'd to dispute which it is for we shall never know by all our disputing but we may lose the good of it if we make it an argument of Uncharitableness But besides this Did not the Apostles desire to know nothing but Christ Jesus and him crucified and risen again and did not they preach this faith to all the world and did they preach any other but severely reprove all curious and subtle questions and all pretences of science or knowledge falsely so called when men languished about Questions and strife of words Are we not taught by the Apostles that we ought not to receive our weak Brother unto doubtful disputations and that the servant of God ought not to strive Did not they say that all that keep the foundation shall be saved some with and some without loss and that erring brethren are to be tolerated and that if they be servants of God and yet in a matter of doctrine or opinion otherwise minded God shall reveal even this also unto them And if these things be thus Why shall one Christian Church condemn another which is built upon the same foundation with her self And how can it be imagined that the servants of God cannot be sav'd now as in the days of the Apostles Are we wiser than they are our Doctors more learned or more faithful Is there another Covenant made with the Church since their days or is God less merciful to us than he was to them Or hath he made the way to heaven narrower in the end of the world than at the beginning of the Christian Church Do men live better lives now than at the first so that a holy life is so enlarged that the foundation of faith laid at first is not broad enough to support the new buildings We find it much otherwise And men need not enlarge the Articles and Conditions of Faith in these degenerate ages wherein when Christ comes he shall hardly upon earth find any faith at all and if there were need yet no man is able to do it because Christ onely is our Lord and Master and no man is Master of our faith But to come closer to the thing It is certain There is nothing simply necessary to salvation now that was not so always and this must be confess'd by all that admit of the so much commended rule of Vincentius Lirinensis That which was always and every where believ'd by all that 's the rule of faith and therefore there can be no new measure no new Article no new determination no declaration obliging us to believe any proposition that was not always believ'd And therefore as that which was first is true that which was at first and nothing else is necessary Nay suppose many truths to be found out by industry and by Divine Assistances yet no more can be necessary because nothing of this could ever be wanting to the Church Therefore the new discover'd truth cannot of it self be necessary Neither can the discovery make it necessary to be believ'd unless I find it to be discover'd and reveal'd by him whose very discovery though accidental yet can make it necessary that is unless I be convinced that God hath spoken it Indeed if that happen there is no further inquiry But because there are no new revelations since the Apostles died whatever comes in after them is onely by mans ratiocination and therefore can never go beyond a probability in it self and never ought to pretend higher lest God's incommunicable right be invaded which is to be the Lord of humane Understandings The consequent of all this is There can be nothing of necessity to be believ'd which the Church of God taught by the Apostles did not believe necessary SECTION V. That the Church of Rome pretends to a power of introducing into the Confessions of the Church new Articles of faith and endeavours to alter and suppress the old Catholick Doctrine NOw then having establish'd the Christian Rule and Measure I shall in the next place shew how the Church of Rome hath usurp'd an Empire over Consciences offering to enlarge the Faith to add new propositions to the Belief of Christians and imposes them under pain of damnation And this I prove 1. Because they pretend to a power to do it 2. They have reason and necessity to do so in respect of their interest and they actually do so both in faith and manners 3. They use indirect and unworthy arts that they may do it without reproach and discovery 4. Having done this they by enlarging Faith destroy Charity 1. They pretend to a power to do it The Authorities which were brought in the first part of the Dissuasive Chapt. 1. Sect. pag. 10. edit Dublin 1664. did sufficiently prove this but because they were snarl'd at I shall justifie and enlarge them and confirm their sense by others First the Pope hath authority as his Doctors teach the world to declare an Article of Faith and this is as much as the Apostles themselves could do that is As the Apostles by gathering the necessary Articles of Faith made up a Symbol of what things are necessary and by their imposing this Collection on all Churches their baptizing into that Faith their making it a Rule of Faith to all Christians did declare not only the truth but the necessity of those Articles to be learn'd and to be believ'd So the Pope also pretends he can declare For declaring a thing to be true and declaring it to be an Article of Faith are things of vast difference He that declares it only to be true imposes no necessity of believing it but if he can make it appear to be true he to whom it so appears cannot but believe it But if he declares it to be an Article of Faith he says that God hath made it necessary to be known and to be believ'd and if any hath power to declare this to declare I say not as a Doctor but as an Apostle as Jesus Christ himself he is Master and Lord of the Conscience Now that the Pope pretends to this we are fiercely taught by his Doctors and by his Laws Thus the Gloss upon the Extravagant de verborum significatione Gloss ibid. Cap. Cum inter verb. Declaramus says He being Prince of the Church and Christ's Vicar can in that capacity make a declaration upon an Article of the Catholick Faith He can declare it authoritativè not
restrain them yet it abated much of their willingness but there was less need of it because they had very well purg'd them before by cancellating the lines by parting the pages by corrupting their Writings by putting Glosses in the Margent and afterwards putting these Glosses into the Text. Quod lector ineptiens annotârat in margine sui codicis Scribae retulerunt in contextum said Erasmus in his Preface to the Works of S. Austin to the Archbishop of Toledo and the same also is observed by the Paris-overseers of the press in their Preface to their Edition of S. Austin's Works at Paris 1571. by Martin and Nivellius And this thing was notorious in a considerable instance in S. Cyprian * Vide Pamelii annot in librum de Vnitate Ecclesiae where after the words of Christ spoken to S. Peter and recorded by S. Matthew there had been a marginal note Hîc Petro primatus datur which words they have brought into the Roman and Antwerp Editions but they have both left out Hîc and the Roman instead of it hath put Et. And whereas in the old Editions of Cyprian even the Roman it self these words were He who withstandeth and resisteth the Church doth he trust himself to be in the Church some body hath made bold to put the words thus in the Text of the Edition of Antwerp He who forsaketh Peter's Chair on which the Church is founded doth he trust himself to be in the Church But in how many places that excellent Book of S. Cyprian's is interlined and spoil'd by the new Correctors is evident to him that shall compare the Roman Edition with the elder Copies and them with the later Edition of Antwerp and Pamelius himself concerning some words saith ibid. Atque adeò non sumus veriti in textum inserere I could bring in many considerable instances though it be more than probable that of forty falsities in the abusing the Father's Writings by Roman hands there was not perhaps above one or two discoveries yet this and many other concurrences might make it less needful to pass their Sponges upon the Fathers But when the whole charge of printing of Books at Rome lies on the Apostolical See as a Epist. l. 9. ad Jacobum Gorseium Manutius tells us it is likely enough that all shall be taken care of so as shall serve their purposes And so the Printer tells us viz. In Praef. ad Pium Quartm in librum Cardinalis Poli de Câ—ncilio That such care was taken to have them so corrected that there should be no spot which might infect the minds of the simple with the shew or likeness of false doctrine And now by this we may very well perceive how the force was put upon Saurius in the purging S. Ambrose even by the Inquisitors and that by the authority and care of the Pope and therefore though the Works of most of the greater Fathers were not put into the Expurgatory Indices yet they were otherwise purged that is most shamefully corrupted torn and maimed and the lesser Fathers pass'd under the file in the Expurgatory Indices themselves 3. But then The Author of a Letter to a friend pag 7. E. W. p. 20. that they purg'd the Indices of the Fathers Works is so notorious that it is confess'd and endeavour'd to be justified But when we come to consider that many times the very words of the Fathers which are put into the Index are commanded to be expung'd it at once shows that fain they would and yet durst not expunge the words out of the Books since they would be discover'd by their adversaries and they would suffer reproach without doing any good to themselves Now whereas it is said that therefore the words of the Fathers are blotted out of the Indices E. W. p. 1â— because they are set down without antecedents and consequents and prepare the Reader to an ill sense this might be possible but we see it otherwise in the Instances themselves which oftentimes are so plain that no context no circumstances can alter the proposition which is most of all notorious in the deleatur's of the Indices of the Bible set forth by Robert Stephen Credens Christo non morietur in aeternum this is to be blotted out Joh. 11. 26. and yet Christ himself said it Every one that lives and believes in me shall never die Justus coram Deo nemo is to be blotted out of Robert Stephen's Index Psal. 142. v. 1. alias 143. and yet David prayed Enter not into judgment with thy servant O Lord for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Now what antecedent or what context or what circumstances can alter the sense of these places which being the same in the Text and the Index shews the good will of the Inquisitors and that like King Edward the 6th his Tutor they corrected the Prince upon his Page's back and they have given sufficient warning of the danger of those words wherever they find them in the Fathers since they have so openly rebuked them in the Indices And therefore I made no distinction of places but reckon'd those words censur'd in the Expurgatory Tables as the Fathers words censur'd or expung'd and in this I followed the style of their own Books for in the Belgick Index the style is thus In Hieronymi Operibus expungenda pag. 70. Edit 1611. quae sequuntur and yet they are the Scholia Indices and sense of the Fathers set down and printed in the same volume altogether and having the same fate and all upon the same account I had reason to charge it as I did And how far the evil of this did proceed may easily be conjectur'd by what was done by the Inquisition in the year 1559. in which there was a Catalogue of 62 Printers and all the books which any of them printed of what authour or what language soever prohibited and all books which were printed by Printers that had printed any books of Hereticks insomuch that not onely books of a hundred two hundred three hundred years ago and approbation were prohibited but there scarce remained a book to be read But by this means they impose upon mens faith and consciences suffering them to allow of nothing in any man no not in the Fathers but what themselves mark out for them not measuring their own doctrines by the Ancients but reckoning their sayings to be or not to be Catholick according as they agree to their present opinions which is infinitely against the candor ingenuity and confidence of truth which needs none of these arts And besides all this how shall it be possible to find out tradition by succession when they so interrupt and break the intermedial lines And this is beyond all the foregoing instances very remarkable in their purging of Histories In Munsters Cosmography there was a long Story of Ludovicus the Emperour of the house of Bavaria that made very much against
the Saints and one of the godly All Solifidians do thus and all that do thus are Solifidians the Church of Rome her self not excepted for though in words she proclaims the possibility of keeping all the Commandments yet she dispenses easier with him that breaks them all than with him that speaks one word against any of her articles though but the least even the eating of fish and forbidding flesh in Lent So that it is faith they regard more than charity a right belief more than a holy life and for this you shall be with them upon terms easie enough provided you go not a hairs breadth from any thing of her belief For if you do they have provided for you two deaths and two fires both inevitable and one Eternal And this certainly is one of the greatest evils of which the Church of Rome is guilty For this in it self is the greatest and unworthiest Uncharitableness But the procedure is of great use to their ends For the greatest part of Christians are those that cannot consider things leisurely and wisely searching their bottoms and discovering the causes or foreseeing events which are to come after but are carried away by fear and hope by affection and prepossession and therefore the Roman Doctors are careful to govern them as they will be governed If you dispute you gain it may be one and lose five but if ye threaten them with damnation you keep them in fetters for they that are in fear of death Heb. 2. 15. are all their life time in bondage saith the Apostle and there is in the world nothing so potent as fear of the two deaths which are the two arms and grapples of iron by which the Church of Rome takes and keeps her timorous or consciencious Proselytes The easie Protestant calls upon you from Scripture to do your duty to build a holy life upon a holy Faith the Faith of the Apostles and first Disciples of our Lord he tells you if you erre and teaches you the truth and if ye will obey it is well if not he tells you of your sin and that all sin deserves the wrath of God but judges no man's person much less any states of men He knows that God's Judgments are righteous and true but he knows also that his Mercy absolves many persons who in his just Judgment were condemn'd and if he had a warrant from God to say that he should destroy all the Papists as Jonas had concerning the Ninevites yet he remembers that every Repentance if it be sincere will do more and prevail greater and last longer than God's anger will Besides these things there is a strange spring and secret principle in every man's Understanding that it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses of which no man can give an account But we all remember a most wonderful Instance of it in the Disputation between the two Reynolds's John and William the former of which being a Papist and the later a Protestant met and disputed with a purpose to confute and to convert each other and so they did for those Arguments which were us'd prevail'd fully against their adversary and yet did not prevail with themselves The Papist turned Protestant and the Protestant became a Papist and so remain'd to their dying day Bella inter geminos plusquam civilia fratres Traxerat ambiguus Religionis apex Ille reformatae fidei pro partibus instat Iste reformandam denegat esse fidem Propositis causae rationibus alter utrinque Concurrêre pares cecidêre pares Quod fuit in votis fratrem capit alter uterque Quod fuit in fatis perdit uterque fidem Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt Et victor victi transfuga castra petit Quod genus hoc pugnae est ubi victus gaudet uterque Et tamen alâ—eruterâ—se suâ—erâsse dolet Of which some ingenious person gave a most handsome account in an excellent Epigram which for the verification of the story I have set down in the Margent But further yet he considers the natural and regular infirmities of mankind and God considers them much more he knows that in man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and weakness his prejudice and the infallible certainty of being deceiv'd in many things he sees that wicked men oftentimes know much more than many very good men and that the Understanding is not of it self considerable in morality and effects nothing in rewards and punishments It is the will only that rules man and can obey God He sees and deplores it that many men study hard and understand little that they dispute earnestly and understand not one another at all that affections creep so certainly and mingle with their arguing that the argument is lost and nothing remains but the conflict of two adversaries affections that a man is so willing so easie so ready to believe what makes for his Opinion so hard to understand an argument against himself that it is plain it is the principle within not the argument without that determines him He observes also that all the world a few individuals excepted are unalterably determin'd to the Religion of their Country of their family of their society that there is never any considerable change made but what is made by War and Empire by Fear and Hope He remembers that it is a rare thing to see Jesuit of the Dominican Opinion or a Dominican untill of late of the Jesuit but every order gives Laws to the Understanding of their Novices and they never change He considers there is such ambiguity in words by which all Law-givers express their meaning that there is such abstruseness in mysteries of Religion that some things are so much too high for us that we cannot understand them rightly and yet they are so sacred and concerning that men will think they are bound to look into them as far as they can that it is no wonder if they quickly go too far where no Understanding if it were fitted for it could go far enough but in these things it will be hard not to be deceiv'd since our words cannot rightly express those things that there is such variety of humane Understandings that mens Faces differ not so much as their Souls and that if there were not so much difficulty in things yet they could not but be variously apprehended by several men and then considering that in twenty Opinions it may be not one of them is true nay whereas Varro reckon'd that among the old Philosophers there were 800 Opinions concerning the summum bonum and yet not one of them hit the right They see also that in all Religions in all Societies in all Families and in all things opinions differ and since Opinions are too often begot by passion by passions and violences they are kept and every man is too apt to over-value his own Opinion and out of a desire that every man should conform his judgment to his that teaches men
this we understand the reproof which S. Paul makes of the Gnosticks Col. 2. of whose practice he forewarns the Christians that they suffer not themselves to be deceiv'd by the worshipping of Angels Now by these authorities it is plain that it can at least be no duty to worship Angels and therefore they that do it not cannot be blamed but if these words mean here as they do in all other places there is at least great danger to do it 4 And of the like danger is Invocation of Saints which if it be no more than a meer desire to them to pray for us why is it express'd in their publick Offices in words that differ not from our Prayers to God if it be more it creates in us or is apt to create in us confidence in the creatures it relies upon that which S. Paul us'd as an argument against worship of Angels and that is intruding into those things we understand not for it pretends to know their present state which is hid from our eyes and it proceeds upon the very reason upon which the Gnosticks and the Valentinians went that is that it is fit to have mediators between God and us that we may present our prayers to them and they to God To which adde that the Church of Rome presenting Candles and other Donaries to the Virgin Mary as to the Queen of Heaven do that which the Collyridians did the gift is only differing as Candle and Cake Gold and Garments this vow or that vow All which being put together makes a dangerous Liturgy not like to the Worship and Devotion us'd in the Primitive Church but so like to what is forbidden in Scripture that it is much the worse The advantage got by these things cannot countervail the evil of the suspicion and the wit of them that do so cannot by a secure answer escape the force of a prohibition and therefore it were infinitely more safe to let it alone and to invocate and adore him only who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of the Aeönes the Father of Men and Angels and God through Jesus Christ and that answers all objections 5. What good does the worship of Images do to the souls of Christians What glory is done to God by being represented in little shapes and humane or phantastick figures What Scripture did ever command it what prophet did not reprove it Is it not in all appearance and grammatical and proper understanding of words forbidden by an express Commandment of God Is there any duty incumbent on us to do it Certainly all the arts of witty men of the Roman side are little enough and much too little to prove that it is lawful to make and worship them and the distinctions and elusions the tricks and artifices are so many that it is a great piece of impertinent learning to remember them and no small trouble to understand them and they that most need the distinctions that is the common people cannot use them and at the best it is very hard to think it lawful but very easie to understand that it is forbidden and most easie to be assur'd it is very innocent to let it alone Where an image is there is no religion said Lactantius and we ought rather to die than to pollute our faith with such impieties said Origen Now let us suppose that these fathers speak against the heathen superstition of worshipping the images of their gods Against these quotations us'd in the Preface of the first Part the Author of the Letter to a friend page 3. And the Author of Truth will out page 6. object that these Fathers speak against the worshipping of the images of heathen gods not of the use of images amongst Christians which cavil the Reader may see largely refuted in the Sect. Of Images certainly if it was a fault in them it is worse in Christians who have received so many Commands to the contrary and who are tied to worship the Father in spirit and in truth and were never permitted to worship him by an image And true it is that images are more fit for false gods than for the true God the Father of Spirits the superstition of images is more proportion'd to the Idolatry of false gods than to true religion and the worship of him whom eye hath not seen and cannot see nor heart can comprehend And it is a vain Elusion to say that these Fathers did not severely censure the use of images among Christians for all that time among the Christians there was no use of images at all in religion and for the very reasons by which they condemn'd the heathen superstition of image-worship for the same reasons they would never endure it at all amongst Christians But then if this be so highly criminal as these Ancient Fathers say I desire it may be consider'd for what pretended reasons the Church of Rome should not onely permit but allow and decree and urge the use of images in their religious adorations If it be onely for instruction of the Laity that might be better supplied by Catechisings and frequent Homilies and if instruction be intended then the single Statues are less useful but Histories and Hieroglyphicks are to be painted upon Tables and in them I suppose there would be less temptation of doing abomination But when the images simple or mixt are painted or carved the people must be told what their meaning is and then they will not need such books who may with less danger learn their lesson by heart and besides this they are told strange stories of the Saints whose images they see and of the images themselves that represent the Saints and then it may be these Lay-mens books may teach them things that they must unlearn again But yet if they be useful for instruction what benefit is done to our spirits by giving them adoration That God will accept it as an honour done to himself he hath no where told us and he seems often to have told us the contrary and if it be possible by mans wit to acquit this practice from being what the prophets so highly reprove spiritual whoredom in giving Gods due to an image yet it can never be prov'd to be a part of that worshipping of God in spirit and in truth which he requires And though it would never have been believed in Origen's Tertullian's or Lactantius's days that ever there would arise a sort of Christians that should contend earnestly for the worshipping images or that ever the heathen way of worship viz. of what they call'd God by an image should become a great part of Christianity or that a Council of Bishops should decree the worship of images as an article of faith or that they should think men should be damned for denying worship to images yet after all this when it is considered that the worshipping of images by Christians is so great a scandal to the Indians that they think themselves justified in
use of the power of the Keys it being truly and properly the intromission of Catachumens into the house of God and an admitting them to all the Promises and Benefits of the Kingdom and which is the greatest the most absolute and most evident remission of all the sins precommitted and yet towards the dispensing this pardon no particular Confession of sins is previous by any necessity or Divine Law Repentance in persons of choice and discretion is and was always necessary but because persons were not tied to confess their sins particularly to a Priest before Baptism it is certain that Repentance can be perfect without this Confession And this argument is yet of greater force and persuasion against the Church of Rome for since Baptizing is for remission of sins and is the first act of the power of the Keys and the evident way of opening the doors of the house of God and yet the power of baptizing is in the Church of Rome in the absence of a Priest given to a lay-man and frequently to a Deacon it follows that the power of the Keys and a power of remitting sins is no Judiciary act unless a Lay-man be declar'd capable of the power of judging and of remitting sins 5. 5 If we consider that without true repentance no sin can be pardon'd and with it all sins may and that no one sin is pardon'd as to the final state of our souls but at the same time all are pardon'd it must needs follow that it is not the number of sins but the condition of the person the change of his life the sorrow of his heart the truth of his Conversion and his hatred of all sin that he is to consider If his repentance be a true change from evil to good from sin to God a thousand sins are pardon'd as soon as one and the infinite mercy of God does equally exceed one sin and one thousand Indeed in order to counsel or comfort it may be very useful to tell all that grieves the penitent all that for which he hath no rest and cannot get satisfaction but as to the exercising any other judgment upon the man either for the present or for the future to reckon up what is past seems not very useful or at all reasonable But as the Priest who baptizes a Convert judges of him as far as he can and ought that is whether he hath laid aside every hindrance and be dispos'd to receive remission of sins by the Spirit of God in Baptism so it is in Repentance the man's conversion and change is to be considered which cannot be by what is past but by what is present or future And now 3 3 Although the judicial power of the Priest cannot inferre the necessity of particular Confession yet if the judicial power be also of another nature than is supposed or rather be not properly judicium fori the judgment of a tribunal coercive poenal and exterminating by proper effect and real change of state and person then the superstructure and the foundation too will be digged down And this therefore shall be consider'd briefly And here the Scene is a little chang'd and the words of Christ to S. Peter are brought in as auxiliaries to prove the Priest's power to be judicial and that with the words of Christ to his Apostles John XX must demonstrate this point 1. Therefore I have the testimony and opinion of the Master of the Sentences affirming that the Priest's power is declarative not judicial the Sentence of an Embassadour Sent. lib. 4. dist 18. lit F. not of a Judge Sacerdotibus tribuit potestatem solvendi ligandi id est ostendendi homines ligatos vel solutos The Priest's power of loosing and binding is a power of shewing and declaring who are bound and who are loosed For when Christ had cur'd the Leper he sent him to the Priest by whose judgment he was to be declar'd clean and when Lazarus was first restor'd to life by Christ then he bade his Disciples loose him and let him go And if it be inquir'd To what purpose is the Priest's Solution if the man be pardon'd already It is answer'd that Although he be absolv'd before God yet he is not accounted loosed in the face of the Church but by the judgment of the Priest But we have the Sentence of a greater man in the Church S. Hierom in Matth. lib. 3. ad cap. 16. than Peter Lombard viz. of S. Hierom himself who discourses this affair dogmatically and fully and so as not to be capable of evasion speaking of those words of Christ to S. Peter I will give to thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven whatsoever thou shalt bind â—n Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose in Earth shall be loosed in Heaven This place saith S. Hierom some Bishops and Priests not understanding take upon them something of the superstitiousness of the Pharisees so as to condemn the Innocent or think to acquit the Guilty whereas God inquires not what is the Sentence of the Priest but the life of the Guilty In Leviticus the Lepers were commanded to shew themselves to the Priests who neither make them leprous nor clean but they discern who are clean and who are unclean As therefore there the Priest makes the leprous man clean or unclean So here does the Bishop or the Priest bind or loose i. e. according to their Office when he hears the variety of sins he knows who is to be bound and who is to be loosed S. Ambrose adds one advantage more as consequent to the Priest's absolving of penitents but expresly declares against the proper judicial power Men give their Ministery in the remission of sins Homines in remissione peccatorum ministerium suum exhibent non jus alicujus potestatis exercent Neque enim in suo sed in Nomine Patris Filii Spiritus Sancti peccata dimittuntur Istâ—rogant Divinitas donat c. S. Ambrose de Spir. S. lib. 3. cap. 19. but they exercise not the right of any power neither are sins remitted by them in their own but in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Men pray but it is God who forgives It is mans obsequiousness but the bountiful gift is from God So likewise there is no doubt sins are forgiven in Baptism but the operation is of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Here S. Ambrose affirms the Priest's power of pardoning sins to be wholly Ministerial and Optative or by way of Prayer Just as it is in Baptism so it is in Repentance after Baptism Sins are pardon'd to the truly penitent but here is no proper Judicial power The Bishop prays and God pardons the Priest does his Ministery and God gives the gift Here are three witnesses against whom there is no exception and what they have said was good Catholick doctrine in their ages that is from the fourth age after Christ to the eleventh How it hath
in this affair Epiphanius is the first I mentioned as a witness Haeres 75. but because I cited no words of his and my adversaries have cited them for me but imperfectly and left out the words where the argument lies I shall set them down at length 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We make mention of the just and of sinners for sinners that we may implore the mercy of God for them For the just the Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets Evangelists and Martyrs Confessors Bishops and Anachorets that prosecuting the Lord Jesus Christ with a singular honour we separate these from the rank of other men and give due worship to his Divine Majesty while we account that he is not to be made equal to mortal men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although they had a thousand times more righteousness than they have Now first here is mention made of all in their prayers and oblations and yet no mention made that the Church prays for one sort and only gives thanks for the other Letter pag. 10. Truth will out pag. 25. as these Gentlemen the objectors falsely pretend But here is a double separation made of the righteous departed one is from the worser sort of sinners the other from the most righteous Saviour True it is they believ'd they had more need to pray for some than for others but if they did not pray for all when they made mention of all how did they honour Christ by separating their condition from his Is it not lawful to give thanks for the life and death for the resurrection holiness and glorification of Christ And if the Church only gave thanks for the departed Saints and did not pray for mercy for them too how are not the Saints in this made equal to Christ So that I think the testimony of Epiphanius is clear and pertinent In Psal. 36. Conc. 2. To. 8. p. 120. To which greater light is given by the words of S. Austin Who is he for whom no man prays but only he who interceeds for all men viz. our Blessed Lord. And there is more light yet by the example of S. Austin who though he did most certainly believe his Mother to be a Saint and the Church of Rome believes so too yet he prayed for pardon for her Now by this it was that Epiphanius separated Christ from the Saints departed for he could not mean any thing else and because he was then writing against Aerius who did not deny it to be lawful to give God thanks for the Saints departed but affirm'd it to be needless to pray for them viz. he must mean this of the Churches praying for all her dead or else he had said nothing against his adversary or for his own cause S. Cyril though he be confidently denied to have said what he did say yet is confessed to have said these words A. L p. 11. Then we pray for the deceased Fathers and Bishops and finally for all who among us have departed this life Believing it to be a very great help of the souls Mysta Catech. 5. for which is offered the obsecration of the holy and dreadful sacrifice If S. Cyril means what his words signifie then the Church did pray for departed Saints for they prayed for all the departed Fathers and Bishops it is hard if amongst them there were no Saints but suppose that yet if there were any Saints at all that died out of the militant Church yet the case is the same for they prayed for all the departed And 2. They offered the dreadful sacrifice for them all 3. They offered it for all in the way of prayer 4. And they believed this to be a great help to souls Now unless the souls of all Saints that died then went to Purgatory which I am sure the Roman Doctors dare not own the case is plain that prayer and not thanksgivings only were offered by the Ancient Church for souls who by the Confession of all sides never went to Purgatory and therefore praying for the dead is but a weak argument to prove Purgatory Nicolaus Cabasilas hath an evasion from all this as he supposes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word us'd in the memorials of Saints does not alwayes signifie praying for one but it may signifie giving of thanks This is true but it is to no purpose for when ever it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we pray for such a one that must signifie to pray for and not to give thanks and that 's our present case and therefore no escape here can be made the words of S. Cyril are very plain The third allegation is of the Canon of the Greeks which is so plain evident and notorious and so confess'd even by these Gentlemen the objectors that I will be tried by the words which the Author of the letter acknowledges So it is in the Liturgy of S. James Remember all Orthodox from Abel the just unto this day make them to rest in the land of the living in thy Kingdom and the delights of Paradise Thus far this Gentleman quoted S. James and I wonder that he shall urge a conclusion manifestly contrary to his own allegation Did all the Orthodox from Abel to that day go to Purgatory Certainly Abraham and Moses and Elias and the Blessed Virgin did not and S. Stephen did not and the Apostles that died before this Liturgy was made did not and yet the Church prayed for all Orthodox prayed that they might rest in the land of the living c. and therefore they prayed for such which by the confession of all sides never went to Purgatory In the other Liturgies also the Gentleman sets down words enough to confute himself as the Reader may see in the letter if it be worth the reading But because he sets down what he list and makes breaches and Rabbet holes to pop in as he please I shall for the satisfaction of the Reader set down the full sense and practice of the Greek Canon in this question And first for S. James his Liturgy Biblioth Sanct. 1. 6. Annot. 345 Sect. Jacob. Apostolus which being merrily disposed and dreaming of advantage by it he is pleased to call the Mass of S. James Sixtus Senensis gives this account of it James the Apostle in the Liturgy of the Divine sacrifice prays for the souls of Saints resting in Christ so that he shews they are not yet arriv'd at the place of expected blessedness But the form of the prayer is after this manner Domine Deus noster c. O Lord our God remember all the Orthodox and them that believe rightly in the faith from Abel the just unto this day Make them to rest in the region of the living in thy Kingdom in the delights of Paradise in the bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob our Holy Fathers from whence are banished grief sorrow and sighing where the light of thy countenance is president and perpetually
hospitia dividamur Ibid. or by relation to this particular case but assertive he affirms expresly speaking to the same Demetrian that when this life is finish'd we are divided either to the dwelings of death or of immortality And that we may see this is not spoken of impenitent pagans only Sect. 16. as the letter to a friend dreams S. Cyprian renews the same caution and advice to the lapsed Christians Serm. de lapsis O ye my Brethren let every one confess his sin Confiteantur singuli vos fratres delictum suum dum adhuc qui deliquit iâ— saeculo est dum admitâ—i confessio ejus potest dum satisfactio remissio facta per sacerdotes apud Dominum grata est while he that hath sin'd is yet in this world while his confession can be admitted while satisfaction and pardon made by the Priests is grateful with God If there had been any thought of the Roman Purgatory in S. Cyprians time he could not in better words have impugned it than here he does All that have sinn'd must here look to it here they must confess here beg pardon here make amends and satisfie afterwards neither one nor the other shall be admitted Now if to Christians also there is granted no leave to repent no means to satisfie no means of pardon after this life these words are so various and comprehensive that they include all cases and it is plain S. Cyprian speaks it indefinitely there is no place of repentance no place of satisfaction none at all neither to Heathens nor to Christians But now let these words be set against the Roman doctrine viz. that there is a place called Purgatory in which the souls tormented do satisfie and come not out thence till they have paid viz. by sufferings or by suffrages the utmost farthing and then see which we will follow for they differ in all the points of the Compass And these men do nothing but betray the weakness of their cause by expounding S. Cyprian to the â—ense of new distinctions made but yesterday in the forges of the Schools And indeed the whole affair upon which the answer of Bellarmine relies which these men have translated to their own use is unreasonable For is it a likely business that when men have committed great crimes they shall be pardon'd here by confession and the ministeries of the Church c. and yet that the venial sins though confess'd in the general and as well as they can be and the party absolved yet there should be prepared for their expiation the intolerable torments of hell fire for a very long time and that for the greater sins for which men have agreed with their adversary in the way and the Adversary hath forgiven them yet that for these also they should be cast into prison from whence they shall not come till the utmost farthing be paid that 's against the design of our Blessed Saviours Counsel for if that be the case then though we and our adversaries are agreed upon the main and the debt forgiven yet nevertheless we may be deliver'd to the tormentors But then concerning the sense of S. Cyprian in this particular no man can doubt that shall have but read his excellent treatise of mortality that he could not did not admit of Purgatory after death before the day of judgment for he often said it in that excellent treatise which he made to comfort and strengthen Christians against the fear of death that immediately after death we go to God or the Devil and therefore it is for him only to fear to die who is not willing to go to Christ and he only is to be unwilling to go to Christ who believes not that he begins to reign with Christ. That we in the mean time die we pass over by death to immortality It is not a going forth but a pass over and when our temporal course is run a going over to immortality â— Let us embrace that day which assigns every one of us to our dwelling and restores those which are snatch'd from hence and are disintangled from the snares of the world to Paradise and the Heavenly kingdom There are here many other things so plainly spoken to this purpose that I wonder any Papist should read that treatise and not be cur'd of his infirmity To the same purpose is that of S. Dionys S. Dionys. calling death the end of holy agonies and therefore it is to be suppos'd they have no more agonies to run through immediately after death To this E. W. answers that S. Denis means Pag. 32. that death is the end of all the agonies of this life A goodly note and never revealed till then and now as if this were a good argument to incourage men to contend bravely and not to fear death because when they are once dead they shall no more be troubled with the troubles of this life indeed you may go to worse and death may let you into a state of being as bad as hell and of greater torments than all the pains of this world put together amount to But to let alone such ridiculous subterfuges see the words of S. Dionys They that live a holy life looking to the true promises of God as if they were to behold the truth it self in that resurrection which is according to it with firm and true hope and in a Divine joy come to the sleep of death as to an end of all holy contentions now certainly if the doctrine of Purgatory were true and that they who had contended here and for all their troubles in this world were yet in a tolerable condition should be told that now they shall go to worse he that should tell them so would be but one of Jobs comforters No the servant of God coming to the end of his own troubles viz. by death is fill'd with holy gladness and with much rejoycing ascends to the way of Divine regeneration â— viz. to immortality which word can hardly mean that they shall be tormented a great while in hell fire The words of Justin Martyr Justin Martyr resp ad Quest. 75. or whoever is the Author of those Questions Answers imputed to him affirms that presently after the departure of the soul from the body a distinction is made between the just and unjust for they are brought by Angels to places worthy of them the souls of the just to Paradise where they have the conversation and sight of Angels and Archangels but the souls of the unrighteous to the places in Hades â— the invisible region or Hell â— Against these words because they pinch severely Pag 33. E. W. thinks himself bound to say something and therefore 1. whereas Justin Martyr says after our departure presently there is a separation made he answers that Justin Martyr means here to speak of the two final states after the day of judgment for so it seems he understands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or
of Trent Sess. 25. decret de S. S. invoc Imagines Christi Deiparae virginis aliorum sanctorum in Templis praesertim habendas retinendas that the images of Christ and of the Virgin Mother of God and of other Saints be had and kept especially in Churches and in the world there cannot be a greater contradiction between two than there is between Eliberis and Trent the old and the new Church for the new Church not only commands pictures and images to be kept in Churches but paints them upon walls and neither fears thieves nor moisture There are divers other little answers amongst the Roman Doctors to this uneasie objection but they are only such as venture at the telling the secret reasons why the Council so decreed as Alan Cope saith it was so decreed lest the Christians should take them for Gods or lest the Heathen should think the Christians worshipped them so Sanders But it matters not for what reason they decreed Only if either of these say true then Bellarmine and Perron are false in their conjectures of the reason But it matters not for suppose all these reasons were concentred in the decree yet the decree it self is not observ'd at this day in the Roman Church but a doctrine and practice quite contrary introduced And therefore my opinion is Ioc. Theol. lib. 5. c. 4. that Melchior Canus answers best aut nimis duras aut parum rationi consentaneas a Consiliis provincialibus interdum editas non est negandum Qualis illa non impudenter modo verum etiam impie a Consilio Elibertino de tollendis imaginibus By this we may see not only how irreverently the Roman Doctors use the Fathers when they are not for their turns but we may also perceive how the Canon condemns the Roman doctrine and practice in the matter of images The next inquiry is concerning matter of History relating to the second Synod of Nice in the East and that of Francfurt in the West In the Dissuasive it was said that Eginardus Hincmarus Aventinus c. affirmed 1. That the Bishops assembled at Francfurt and condemned the Synod of Nice 2. That they commanded it should not be called a General Council 3. They published a book under the name of the Emperor confuting that Unchristian Assembly These things were said out of these Authors not supposing that every thing of this should be prov'd from every one of them but the whole of it by its several parts from all these put together 1. That the Bishops of Francfurt condemned the Synod of Nice or the seventh General Whether the Dissuasive hath said this truly out of the Authors quoted by him we need no further proof but the confession of Bellarmine Lib. 2. de imagin c. 14. Sect. secundò quia Auctores antiqui omnes conveniunt in hoc quod in concilio Francofordiensi sit reprobata Synodus VII quae decreverat imagines adorandas Ita Hincmarus Aimoinus Rhegino Ado alii passim docent So that if the objector blames the Dissuasive for alledging these authorities let him first blame Bellarmine who confesses that to be true which the Dissuasive here affirms Now that by the VII Synod Bellarmine means the II. Nicene Sect. neque obstat appears by his own words in the same chapter Videtur igitur mihi in Synodo Francofordiensi vere reprobatam Nicaenam II. Synodum sed per errorem materialiter c. And Bellarmine was in the right not only those which the Dissuasive quoted but all the Ancient writers saith Bellarmine So the Author of the life of Charles the Great speaking of the Council of Francfurt There Queen Fastrada died Pseudosynodus Graecorum quam falso septimam vocabant pro imaginibus rejecta est a pontificibus The same is affirm'd by the Annals of the Francs a Ad annum 794. by Adhelmus Benedictinus in his Annals in the same year by Hincmarus Rhemensis b Opusc. 55. N. cap. 20. in an Epistle to Hincmarus his Nephew by Strabus the Monk of Fulda Rhegino prumiensis Urspergensis and Hermanus Contractus in their Annals and Chronicles of the year 794. By Ado viennensis c Chron. aetat 6 ad annum Christi eundem 792. sed pseudosynodus quam septimam Graeci appellant pro adorandis imaginibus abdicata penitus the same is affirmed by the Annals of Eginhardus d Ad eund annum and by Aimoinus e Lib. 4. c 85. and Aventinus I could reckon many more if more were necessary but these are they whom the Dissuasive quoted and some more against this truth nothing material can be said only that Hincmarus and Aimoinus which are two whom the Dissuasive quotes do not say that the Synod of Francfurt rejected the second Nicene but the Synod of C. P. But to this Bellarmine himself answers that it is true they do so but it is by mistake and that they meant the Council which was kept at Nice so that the Dissuasive is justified by his greatest adversary But David Blondel answers this objection by saying that C. P. being the head of the Eastern Empire these Authors us'd the name of the Imperial city for the provinces under it which answer though it be ingenious yet I rather believe that the error came first from the Council of Francfurt who called it the Synod at C. P. and that after it these Authors took it up but that error was not great but always excusable if not warrantable because the second Nicene Council was first appointed to be at C. P. but by reason of the tumults of the people was translated to Nice But to proceed That Blondus whom the Dissuasive also quotes saith the Synod of Francfurt abrogated the seventh Synod the objector confesses and adds that it confuted the Felician heresie for taking away of images concerning which lest the less wary Reader should suppose the Synod of Francfurt to have determin'd for images as Alan Cope Gregory de Valentia Vasquez Suarez and Binius would fain have the world believe I shall note that the Synod of Francfurt did at the same time condemn the Heresie of Felix Urgetitanus which was that Christ was the adopted son of God Now because in this Synod were condemned the breakers of Images and the worshippers of images some ignorantly amongst which is this Gentleman the objector have suppos'd that the Felician Heresie was that of the Iconoclasts 2. Now for the second thing which the Dissuasive said from these Authors that the Fathers at Francfurt commanded that the second Nicene should not be called a general Council that matter is sufficiently cleared in the proof of the first particular for if they abrogated it and called it pseudosynodum and decreed against it hoc ipso they caused it should not be or be called a General Synod But I shall declare what the Synod did in the words of Adhelmus Benedictinus In annal Synodus etiam quae paucos ante annos C.