where clearly the High Priest was supreme in many senses yet in no sense infallible will it inferre more to us then it did amongst the Apostles amongst whom if for orders sake S. Peter was the first yet he had no compulsory power over the Apostles there was no such thing spoke of nor any such thing put in practise And that the other Apostles were by a personall priviledge as infallible as himselfe is no reason to hinder the exercise of jurisdiction or any compulsory power over them for though in Faith they were infallible yet in manners and matter of fact as likely to erre as S. Peter himselfe was and certainly there might have something hapned in the whole Colledge that might have been a Record of his Authority by transmitting an example of the exercise of some Judiciall power over some one of them If he had but withstood any of them to their faces as S. Paul did him it had been more then yet is said in his behalfe Will the Ministeriall Headship inferre any more then when the Church in a Community or a publike capacity should doe any Act of Ministery Ecelesiasticall he shall be first in Order Suppose this to be a dignity to preside in Councels which yet was not alwayes granted him Suppose it to be a power of taking cognisance of the Major Causes of Bishops when Councels cannot be called Suppose it a double voyce or the last decisive or the negative in the causes exteriour Suppose it to be what you will of dignity or externall regiment which when all Churches were united in Communion and neither the interest of States nor the engagement of opinions had made disunion might better have been acted then now it can yet this will fall infinitely short of a power to determine Controversies infallibly and to prescribe to all mens faith and consciences A Ministeriall Headship or the prime Minister cannot in any capacity become the foundation of the Church to any such purpose And therefore men are causlessely amused with such premises and are afraid of such Conclusions which will never follow from the admission of any sense of these words that can with any probability be pretended 8. I consider that these Arguments from Scripture are too weak to support such an Authority which pretends to give Numb 10. Oracles and to answer infallibly in Questions of Faith because there is greater reason to believe the Popes of Rome have erred and greater certainty of demonstration then these places can be that they are infallible as will appear by the instances and perpetuall experiment of their being deceived of which there is no Question but of the sense of these places there is And indeed if I had as clear Scripture for their infallibility as I have against their halfe Communion against their Service in an unknown tongue worshipping of Images and divers other Articles I would make no scruple of believing but limit and conform my understanding to all their Dictates and believe it reasonable all Prophecying should be restrain'd But till then I have leave to discourse and to use my reason And to my reason it seemes not likely that neither Christ nor any of his Apostles S. Peter himselfe not S. Paul writing to the Church of Rome should speak the least word or tittle of the infallibility of their Bishops for it was certainly as convenient to tell us of a remedy as to foretell that certainly there must needs be heresies and need of a remedy And it had been a certain determination of the Question if when so rare an opportunity was ministred in the Question about Circumcision that they should have sent to Peter who for his infallibility in ordinary and his power of Headship would not only with reason enough as being infallibly assisted but also for his Authority have best determin'd the Question if at least the first Christians had known so profitable and so excellent a secret and although we have but little Record that the first Councell at Jerusalem did much observe the solennities of Law and the forms of Conciliary proceedings and the Ceremonials yet so much of it as is recorded is against them S. James and not S. Peter gave the finall sentence and although S. Peter determin'd the Question pro libertate yet S. James made the Decree and the Assumentum too and gave sentence they should abstaine from some things there mentioned which by way of temper he judg'd most expedient And so it passed And S. Peter shewed no sign of a Superiour Authority nothing of S. Chrysost. hom 3. in act Apost Superiour jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that if this Question be to be determin'd by Scripture it Numb 11. must either be ended by plaine places or by obscure plaine places there are none and these that are with greatest fancy pretended are expounded by Antiquity to contrary purposes But if obscure places be all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by what meanes shall we infallibly find the sense of them The Popes interpretation though in all other cases it might be pretended in this cannot for it is the thing in Question and therefore cannot determine for it selfe either therefore we have also another infallible guide besides the Pope and so we have two Foundations and two Heads for this as well as the other upon the same reason or else which is indeed the truth there is no infallible way to be infallibly assured that the Pope is infallible Now it being against the common condition of men above the pretences of all other Governours Ecclesiasticall against the Analogy of Scripture and the deportment of the other Apostles against the Oeconomy of the Church and S. Peters own entertainment the presumption lies against him and these places are to be left to their prime intentions and not put upon the rack to force them to confesse what they never thought But now for Antiquity if that be deposed in this Question there are so many circumstances to be considered to reconcile Numb 12. their words and their actions that the processe is more troublesome then the Argument can be concluding or the matter considerable But I shall a little consider it so farre at least as to shew either Antiquity said no such thing as is pretended or if they did it is but little considerable because they did not believe themselves their practise was the greatest evidence in the world against the pretence of their words But I am much cased of a long disquisition in this particular for I love not to prove a Question by Arguments whose Authority is in it selfe as fallible and by circumstances made as uncertain as the Question by the saying of Aeneas Sylvius that before the Nicene Councell every men liv'd to himselfe and small respect was had to the Church of Rome which practise could not well consist with the Doctrine of their Bishops infallibility and by consequence supreme judgement and last resolution in matters of
with a menace of death to them that should disobey that all the world might know the meaning and extent of such precepts and that there is a limit beyond which they cannot command and we ought not to obey it came once to that pass that if the Priest had been obeyed in his Conciliary decrees the whole Nation had been bound to beleeve the condemnation of our blessed Saviour to have been just and at another time the Apostles must no more have preached in the name of JEsus But here was manifest error And the case is the same to every man that invincibly and therefore innocently beleeves it so Deo potius quà m hominibus is our rule in such cases For although every man is bound to follow his guide unless he beleeves his guide to mislead him yet when he sees reason against his guide it is best to follow his reason for though in this he may fall into error yet he will escape the sin he may doe violence to truth but never to his own conscience and an honest error is better then an hypocriticall profession of truth or a violent luxation of the understanding since if he retains his honesty and simplicity he cannot erre in a matter of faith or absolute necessity Gods goodness hath secur'd all honest and carefull persons from that for other things he must follow the best guides he can and he cannot be obliged to follow better then God hath given him And there is yet another way pretended of infallible Numb 3. Expositions of Scripture and that is by the Spirit But of this I shall say no more but that it is impertinent as to this question For put case the Spirit is given to some men enabling them to expound infallibly yet because this is but a private assistance and cannot be proved to others this infallible assistance may determine my own assent but shall not inable me to prescribe to others because it were unreasonable I should unless I could prove to him that I have the Spirit and so can secure him from being deceived if he relyes upon me In this case I may say as S. Paul in the case of praying with the Spirit He verily giveth thanks well but the other is not edified So that let this pretence be as true as it will it is sufficient that it cannot be of consideration in this question The result of all is this Since it is not reasonable to limit and prescribe to all mens understandings by any externall rule in the Numb 4. interpretation of difficult places of Scripture which is our rule Since no man nor company of men is secure from error or can secure us that they are free from malice interest and design and since all the wayes by which we usually are taught as Tradition Councels Decretals c. are very uncertain in the matter in their authority in their being legitimate and naturall and many of them certainly false and nothing certain but the divine authority of Scripture in which all that is necessary is plain and much of that that is not necessary is very obscure intricate and involv'd either we must set up our rest onely upon articles of faith and plain places and be incurious of other obscurer revelations which is a duty for persons of private understandings and of no publike function or if we will search further to which in some measure the guides of others are obliged it remains we inquire how men may determine themselves so as to doe their duty to God and not to diserve the Church that every such man may doe what he is bound to in his personall capacity and as he relates to the publike as a publike minister SECT X. Of the authority of Reason and that it proceeding upon best grounds is the best judge HEre then I consider that although no man may be trusted to judge for all others unless this person were infallible and Numb 1. authorized so to doe which no man nor no company of men is yet every man may be trusted to judge for himself I say every man that can judge at all as for others they are to be saved as it pleaseth God but others that can judge at all must either choose their guides who shall judge for them and then they oftentimes doe the wisest and alwayes save themselves a labour but then they choose too or if they be persons of greater understanding then they are to choose for themselves in particular what the others doe in generall and by choosing their guide and for this any man may be better trusted for himselfe then any man can be for another For in this case his own interest is most concerned and ability is not so necessary as honesty which certainly every man will best preserve in his owne case and to himselfe and if he does not it is he that must smart for 't and it is not required of us not to be in errour but that we endeavour to avoid it 2. He that followes his guide so far as his reason goes along with him or which is all one he that followes his owne reason Numb 2. not guided onely by naturall arguments but by divine revelation and all other good meanes hath great advantages over him that gives himselfe wholly to follow any humane guide whatsoever because he followes all their reasons and his own too he follows them till reason leaves them or till it seemes so to him which is all one to his particular for by the confession of all sides an erroneous Conscience binds him when a right guide does not bind him But he that gives himselfe up wholly to a guide is oftentimes I meane if he be a discerning person forc'd to doe violence to his own understanding and to lose all the benefit of his owne discretion that he may reconcile his reason to his guide And of this we see infinite inconveniences in the Church of Rome for we finde persons of great understanding oftentimes so amused with the authority of their Church that it is pity to see them sweat in answering some objections which they know not how to doe but yet beleeve they must because the Church hath said it So that if they reade study pray search records and use all the means of art and industry in the pursuite of truth it is not with a resolution to follow that which shall seem truth to them but to confirm what before they did beleeve and if any argument shall seeme unanswerable against any Article of their Church they are to take it for a temptation not for an illumination and they are to use it accordingly which makes them make the Devill to be the Author of that which Gods Spirit hath assisted them to find in the use of lawfull means and the search of truth And when the Devill of falshood is like to be cast out by Gods Spirit they say that it is through Beelzebub which was one of the worst things
too forward in condemning where God hath declared no sentence nor prescribed any rule is to disswade from tyranny not to encourage licentiousnesse is to take away a license of judging not to give a license of dogmatizing what every one please or as may best serve his turn And for the other part of the Objection Fifthly This Discourse is so farre from giving leave to men to professe any thing though they believe the contrary that it takes order that no man shall bee put to it for I earnestly contend that another mans opinion shall be no rule to mine and that my opinion shall be no snare and prejudice to my selfe that men use one another so charitably and so gently that no errour or violence tempt men to hypocrisy this very thing being one of the Arguments I use to perswade permissions lest compulsion introduce hypocrisy and make sincerity troublesome and unsafe Sixthly If men would not call all opinions by the name of Religion and superstructures by the name of fundamentall Articles and all fancies by the glorious appellative of Faith this objection would have no pretence or footing so that it is the disease of the men not any cause that is ministred by such precepts of charity that makes them perpetually clamorous And it would be hard to say that such Physitians are incurious of their Patients and neglectfull of their health who speak against the unreasonablenesse of such Empericks that would cut off a mans head if they see but a Wart upon his cheek or a dimple upon his chin or any lines in his face to distinguish him from another man the case is altogether the same and we may as well decree a Wart to be mortall as a various opinion in re alioqui non necessariâ to be capitall and damnable For I consider that there are but few Doctrines of Christianity that were ordered to be preached to all the world to every single person and made a necessary Article of his explicite beliefe Other Doctrines which are all of them not simply necessary are either such as are not clearly revealed or such as are If they be clearely revealed and that I know so too or may but for my own fault I am not to be excused but for this I am to be left to Gods judgement unlesse my fault be externally such as to be cognoscible and punishable in humane judicatory But then if it be not so revealed but that wise men and good men differ in their opinions it is a clear case it is not inter dogmata necessaria simpliciter and then it is certain I may therefore safely disbelieve it because I may be safely ignorant of it For if I may with innocence be ignorant then to know it or believe it is not simply obligatory ignorance is absolutely inconsistent with such an obligation because it is destructive and a plaine negative to its performance and if I doe my honest endeavour to understand it and yet doe not attain it it is certain that is not obligatory to me so much as by accident for no obligation can presse the person of a man if it be impossible no man is bound to doe more then his best no man is bound to have an excellent understanding or to be infallible or to be wiser then he can for these are things that are not in his choyce and therefore not a matter of a Law nor subject to reward and punishment so that where ignorance of the Article is not a sin there disbelieving it in the right sense or believing it in the wrong is not breach of any duty essentially or accidentally necessary neither in the thing it selfe nor to the person that is he is neither bound to the Article nor to any endeavours or antecedent acts of volition and choyce and that man who may safely bee ignorant of the proposition is not tyed at all to search it out and if not at all to search it then certainly not to find it All the obligation we are capable of is not to be malicious or voluntarily criminall in any kind and then if by accident we find out a truth we are obliged to believe it and so will every wise or good man doe indeed he cannot doe otherwise But if he disbelieves an Article without malice or design or involuntarily or unknowingly it is contradiction to say it is a sinne to him who might totally have been ignorant of it for that he believes it in the wrong sense it is his ignorance and it is impossible that where hee hath heartily endeavoured to finde out a truth that this endeavour should make him guilty of a sinne which would never have been laid to his charge if he had taken no paines at all His ignorance in this case is not a fault at all possibly it might if there had been no endeavour to have cur'd it So that there is wholly a mistake in this proposition For true it is there are some propositions which if a man never heare of they will not be required of him and they who cannot read might safely be ignorant that Melchizedeck was King of Salem but he who reads it in the Scripture may not safely contradict it although before that knowledge did arrive to him he might safely have been ignorant of it But this although it be true is not pertinent to our Question For in sensu diviso this is true that which at one time a man may be ignorant of at some other time he may not disbelieve But in sensu conjuncto it is false For at what time and in what circumstance soever it is no sinne to be ignorant at that time and in that conjuncture it is no sinne to disbelieve and such is the nature of all Questions disputable which are therefore not required of us to bee believed in any one particular sense because the nature of the thing is such as not to be necessary to be known at all simply and absolutely and such is the ambiguity and cloud of its face and representment as not to be necessary so much as by accident and therefore not to the particular sence of any one person And yet such is the iniquity of men that they suck in opinions as wild Asses doe the wind without distinguishing the wholesome from the corrupted ayre and then live upon it at a venture and when all their confidence is built upon zeale and mistake yet therefore because they are zealous and mistaken they are impatient of contradiction But besides that against this I have laid prejudice enough from the dictates of holy Scripture it is observable that this with its appendant degrees I meane restraint of Prophesying imposing upon other mens understanding being masters of their consciences and lording it over their Faith came in with the retinue and traine of Antichrist that is they came as other abuses and corruptions of the Church did by reason of the iniquity of times and the cooling of the first heats of
quòd aberrarunt quidam from which charity and purity and goodnesse and sincerity because some have wandred deflexerunt ad vaniloquium And immediately after he reckons the oppositions to faith and sound doctrine and instances only in vices that staine the lives of Christians the unjust the uncleane the uncharitable the lyer the perjur'd person si quis alius qui sanae doctrinae adversatur these are the enemies of the true doctrine And therefore S. Peter having given in charge to adde to our vertue patience temperance charity and the like gives this for a reason for if these things be in you and abound yee shall be fruitfull in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that knowledge and faith is inter praecepta morum is part of a good life * Quid igitur credulitas vel fides opinor fidelitèr hominem Christo credere id est fidelem Deo esse hoc est fidelitèr Dei mandata servare So Salvian And Saint Paul cals Faith or the forme of sound words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the doctrine that is according to godlinesse 1 Tim. 6. 3. †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's our Religion or Faith the whole manner of serving God C. de summâ Trinit fide Cathol And veritati credere and in injustitiâ sibi complacere are by the same Apostle opposed and intimate that piety and faith is all one thing faith must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intire and holy too or it is not right It was the heresy of the Gnosticks that it was no matter how men liv'd so they did but believe aright Which wicked doctrine Tatianus a learned Christian did so detest that he fell into a quite contrary Non est curandum quid quisque credat id tantum curandum est quod quisque faciat And thence came the Sect Excratites Both these heresies sprang from the too nice distinguishing the faith from the piety and good life of a Christian They are both but one duty However they may be distinguished if we speak like Philosophers they cannot be distinguished when we speak like Christians For to believe what God hath commanded is in order to a good life and to live well is the product of that believing and as proper emanation from it as from its proper principle and as heat is from the fire And therefore in Scripture they are used promiscuously in sense and in expression as not only being subjected in the same person but also in the same faculty faith is as truly seated in the will as in the understanding and a good life as meerly derives from the understanding as the will Both of them are matters of choyce and of election neither of them an effect naturall and invincible or necessary antecedently necessaria ut fiant non necessario facta And indeed if we remember that S. Paul reckons heresy amongst the works of the flesh and ranks it with all manner of practicall impieties we shall easily perceive that if a man mingles not a vice with his opinion if he be innocent in his life though deceiv'd in his doctrine his errour is his misery not his crime it makes him an argument of weaknesse and an object of pity but not a person sealed up to ruine and reprobation For as the nature of faith is so is the nature of heresy contraries having the same proportion and commensuration Now Numb 9. faith if it be taken for an act of the understanding meerly is so farre from being that excellent grace that justifies us that it is not good at all in any kinde but in genere naturae and makes the understanding better in it selfe or pleasing to God just as strength doth the arme or beauty the face or health the body these are naturall perfections indeed and so knowledge and a true beliefe is to the understanding But this makes us not at all more acceptable to God for then the unlearned were certainly in a damnable condition and all good Scholars should be saved whereas I am afraid too much of the contrary is true But unlesse Faith be made morall by the mixtures of choyce and charity it is nothing but a naturall perfection not a grace or a vertue and this is demonstrably prov'd in this that by the confession of all men of all interests and perswasions in matters of meer belief invincible ignorance is our excuse if we be deceived which could not be but that neither to believe aright is commendable nor to believe amisse is reprovable but where both one and the other is voluntary and chosen antecedently or consequently by prime election or ex post facto and so comes to be consider'd in morality and is part of a good life or a bad life respectively Just so it is in heresy if it be a design of ambition and making of a Sect so Erasmus expounds S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sectarum * Alieni sunt à veritate qui se obarmant multitudine Chryst. authorem if it be for filthy lucres sake as it was in some that were of the circumcision if it be of pride and love of preheminence as it was in Diotrephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or out of pevishnesse and indociblenesse of disposition or of a contentious spirit that is that their feet are not shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace in all these cases the errour is just so damnable as is its principle but therefore damnable not of it selfe but by reason of its adherencie And if any shall say any otherwise it is to say that some men shall be damned when they cannot help it perish without their own fault and be miserable for ever because of their unhappinesse to be deceived through their own simplicity and naturall or accidentall but inculpable infirmity For it cannot stand with the goodnesse of God who does Numb 10. so know our infirmities that he pardons many things in which our wills indeed have the least share but some they have but are overborn with the violence of an impetuous temptation I say it is inconsistent with his goodnesse to condemn those who erre where the error hath nothing of the will in it who therefore cannot repent of their errour because they believe it true who therefore cannot make compensation because they know not that they are tyed to dereliction of it And although all Hereticks are in this condition that is they believe their errous to be true yet there is a vast difference between them who believe so out of simplicity and them who are given over to believe a lie as a punishment or an effect of some other wickednesse or impiety For all have a concomitant assent to the truth of what they believe and no man can at the same time believe what he does not believe but this assent of the understanding in Hereticks is caused not by force of Argument but the Argument is made forcible by something that is
wise and good man and yet how others began even then to be abused by that temptation which since hath invaded all Christendome S. Cyprian re baptized Hereticks and thought he was bound so to doe calls a Synod in Africk as being Metropolitan and confirms his opinion by the consent of his Suffragans and Brethren but still with so much modesty that if any man was of another opinion he judg'd him not but gave him that liberty that he desired himself Stephen Bishop of Rome growes angry Excommunicates the Bishops of Asia and Africa that in divers Synods had consented to rebaptization and without peace and without charity condemns them for Hereticks Indeed here was the rarest mixture and conjunction of unlikelihoods that I have observed Here was errour of opinion with much modesty and sweetnesse of temper on one side and on the other an over-active and impetuous zeal to attest a truth it uses not to be so for errour usually is supported with confidence and truth suppressed and discountenanc'd by indifferency But that it might appear that the errour was not the sinne but the uncharitablenesse Stephan was accounted a zealous and furious person and S. * Vid. S. Aug. l. 2. c. 6. de baptis contra Donat. Cyprian though deceiv'd yet a very good man and of great sanctity For although every errour is to be opposed yet according to the variety of errours so is there variety of proceedings If it be against Faith that is a destruction of any part of the foundation it is with zeal to be resisted and we have for it an Apostolicall warrant contend earnestly for the Faith but then as these things recede farther from the foundation our certainty is the lesse and their necessity not so much and therefore it were very fit that our confidence should be according to our evidence and our zeal according to our confidence and our confidence should then be the Rule of our Communion and the lightnesse of an Article should be considered with the weight of a precept of charity And therefore there are some errours to be reproved rather by a private friend then a publike censure and the persons of the men not avoided but admonished and their Doctrine rejected not their Communion few opinions are of that malignity which are to be rejected with the same exterminating spirit and confidence of aversation with which the first Teachers of Christianity condemn'd Ebion Manes and Cerinthus and in the condemnation of Hereticks the personall iniquity is more considerable then the obliquity of the doctrine not for the rejection of the Article but for censuring the persons and therefore it is the piety of the man that excused S. Cyprian which is a certain Argument that it is not the opinion but the impiety that condemns and makes the Heretick And this was it which Vincentius Lirinensis Adv. haeres c. 11. said in this very case of S. Cyprian Vnius ejusdem opinionis mirum videri potest judicamus authores Catholicos sequaces haereticos Excusamus Magistros condemnamus Scholasticos Qui scripserunt libros sunt haeredes Coeli quorum librorum defensores detruduntur ad infernum Which saying if we confront against the saying of Salvian condemning the first Authors of the Arrian Sect and acquitting the Followers we are taught by these two wise men that an errour is not it that sends a man to Hell but he that begins the heresy and is the authour of the Sect he is the man mark'd out to ruine and his Followers scap'd when the Here siarch commenc'd the errour upon pride and ambition and his Followers went after him in simplicity of their heart and so it was most commonly but on the contrary when the first man in the opinion was honestly and invincibly deceived as S. Cyprian was and that his Scholars to maintaine their credit or their ends maintaind the opinion not for the excellency of the reason perswading but for the benefit and accruments or peevishnesse as did the Donatisis qui de Cypriani authoritate fibi carnaliter blandiuntur as S. Austin said of them then the Scholars are the Hereticks and the Master is a Catholike For his errour is not the heresy formally and an erring person may be a Catholike A wicked person in his errour becomes heretick when the good man in the same errour shall have all the rewards of Faith For whatever an ill man believes if he therefore believe it because it serves his own ends be his belief true or false the man hath an hereticall minde for to serve his own ends his minde is prepared to believe a lie But a good man that believes what according to his light and upon the use of his morall industry he thinks true whether he hits upon the right or no because he hath a minde desirous of truth and prepared to believe every truth is therefore acceptable to God because nothing hindred him from it but what hee could not help his misery and his weaknesse which being imperfections meerly naturall which God never punishes he stands faire for a blessing of his morality which God alwayes accepts So that now if Stephen had followed the example of God Almighty or retained but the same peaceable spirit which his Brother of Cathage did he might with more advantage to truth and reputation both of wisdome and piety have done his duty in attesting what he believ'd to be true for we are as much bound to be zealous pursuers of peace as earnest contenders for the Faith I am sure more earnest we ought to be for the peace of the Church then for an Article which is not of the Faith as this Question of re-baptization was not for S. Cyprian died in beliefe against it and yet was a Catholike and a Martyr for the Christian Faith The summe is this S. Cyprian did right in a wrong cause as Numb 23. it hath been since judged and Stephen did ill in a good cause as fame then as piety and charity is to be preferr'd before a true opinion so farre is S. Cyprian's practise a better precedent for us and an example of primitive sanctity then the zeale and indiscretion of Stephen S. Cyprian had not learn'd to forbid to any one a liberty of prophesying or interpretation if hee transgressed not the foundation of Faith and the Creed of the Apostles Well thus it was and thus it ought to be in the first Ages Numb 23. the Faith of Christendome rested still upon the same foundation and the judgements of heresies were accordingly or were amisie but the first great violation of this truth was when Generall Councels came in and the Symbols were enlarged and new Articles were made as much of necessity to be believed as the Creed of the Apostles and damnation threatned to them that did diffent and at last the Creeds multiplyed in number and in Articles and the liberty of prophesying began to be something restrained And this was of so
thought by some that Scripture might with good profit and great truth be expounded and yet the expositions not put into the Canon or goe for Scripture but that left still in the naked Originall simplicity and so much the rather since that Explication was further from the foundation and though most certainly true yet not penn'd by so infallible a spirit as was that of the Apostles and therefore not with so much evidence as certainty And if they had pleased they might have made use of an admirable precedent to this and many other great and good purposes no lesse then of the blessed Apostles whose Symbol they might have imitated with as much simplicity as they did the Expressions of Scripture when they first composed it For it is most considerable that although in reason every clause in the Creed should be clear and so inopportune and unapt to variety of interpretation that there might be no place left for severall senses or variety of Expositions yet when they thought fit to insert some mysteries into the Creed which in Scripture were expressed in so mysterious words that the last and most explicite sense would still be latent yet they who if ever any did understood all the senses and secrets of it thought it not fit to use any words but the words of Scripture particularly in the Articles of Christs descending into Hell and sitting at the right hand of God to shew us that those Creeds are best which keep the very words of Scripture and that Faith is best which hath greatest simplicity and that it is better in all cases humbly to submit then curiously to enquire and pry into the mystery under the cloud and to hazard our Faith by improving our knowledge If the Nicene Fathers had done so too possibly the Church would never have repented it And indeed the experience the Church had afterwards Numb 28. shewed that the Bishops and Priests were not satisfied in all circumstances nor the schism appeased nor the persons agreed nor the Canons accepted nor the Article understood nor any thing right but when they were overborn with Authority which Authority when the scales turned did the same service and promotion to the contrary But it is considerable that it was not the Article or the Numb 29. thing it selfe that troubled the disagreeing persons but the manner of representing it For the five Dissenters Eusebius of Nicomedia Theognis Maris Theonas and Secundus believed Christ to be very God of very God but the clause of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they derided as being perswaded by their Logick that he was neither of the substance of the Father by division as a piece of a lump nor derivation as children from their Parents nor by production as buds from trees and no body could tell them any other way at that time and that made the fire to burn still And that was it I said if the Article had been with more simplicity and lesse nicety determin'd charity would have gain'd more and faith would have lost nothing And we shall finde the wisest of them all for so Eusebius Pamphilus was esteem'd published a Creed or Confession in the Synod and though he and all the rest believed that great mystery of Godlinesle Vide Sozomen lib. 2. c. 18. God manifested in the flesh yet he was not fully satisfied nor so soone of the clause of one substance till he had done a little violence to his own understanding for even when he had subscribed to the clause of one substance he does it with a protestation that heretofore he never had been acquainted nor accustomed himselfe to such speeches And the sense of the word was either so ambiguous or their meaning so uncertain that Andreas Fricius does with some probability dispute that Socrat. lib. 1. cap. 26. the Nicene Fathers by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did meane Patris similitudinem non essentiae unitatem Sylva 4. c. 1. And it was so well undestood by personages disinterested that when Arius and Euzoius had confessed Christ to be Deus verbum without inserting the clause of one substance the Emperour by his Letter approv'd of his Faith and restor'd him to his Countrey and Office and the Communion of the Church And along time after although the Article was believed with Non imprudentèr dixâ—t qui curiosae explicationi hujus mysterii dictum Aristonis Philosophi applicuâ—t Hâ—lleborus niger si crassiùs sumatur purgat senat Quum autum teritur comminuitur suffocat nicety enough yet when they added more words still to the mystery and brought in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saying there were three hypostases in the holy Trinity it was so long before it could be understood that it was believed therefore because they would not oppose their Superiours or disturb the peace of the Church in things which they thought could not be understood in so much that S. Hierom writ to Damasus in these words Discerne si placet obsecro non timebo tres hypostases dicere si jubetis and againe Obtestor beatitudinem tuam per Crucifixum mundi salutem per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Trinitatem ut mihi Epistolis tuis sive tacendarum sive dicendarum hypostaseôn detur authoritas But without all Question the Fathers determin'd the Question Numb 30. with much truth though I cannot say the Arguments upon which they built their Decrees were so good as the conclusion it selfe was certain But that which in this case is considerable is whether or no they did well in putting a curse to the foot of their Decree and the Decree it selfe into the Symbol as if it had been of the same necessity For the curse Eusebius Pamphilus could hardly finde in his heart to subscribe at last he did but with this clause that he subscribed it because the forme of curse did only forbid men to acquaint themselves with forraign speeches and unwritten languages whereby confusion and discord is brought into the Church So that it was not so much a magisteriall high assertion of the Article as an endeavour to secure the peace of the Church And to the same purpose for ought I know the Fathers composed a Form of Confession not as a prescript Rule of Faith to build the hopes of our salvation on but as a tessera of that Communion which by publike Authority was therefore established upon those Articles because the Articles were true though not of prime necessity and because that unity of confession was judg'd as things then stood the best preserver of the unity of minds But I shall observe this that although the Nicene Fathers Numb 31. in that case at that time and in that conjuncture of circumstances did well and yet their approbation is made by after Ages ex post facto yet if this precedent had been followed by all Councels and certainly they had equall power if they had thought it equally reasonable and that they had put
Epist. Abailardi ad Heliss conjugem major part of voices against his Adversary Abailardus And as farre as these men did doe their duty the duty of Priests and Judges and wise men so we may presume them to be assisted But no further But I am content this because but a private Assembly shall passe for no instance But what shall we say of all the Arrian Councels celebrated with so great fancy and such numerous Assemblies we all say that they erred And it will not be sufficient to say they were not lawfull Councels For they were conven'd by that Authority which all the world knowes did at that time convocate Councels and by which as it is * Cusanus l. 2. cap. 25 Concord confessed and is notorious the first eight Generalls did meet that is by the Authority of the Emperour all were called and as many and more did come to them then came to the most famous Councell of Nice So that the Councels were lawfull and if they did not proceed lawfully and therefore did erre this is to say that Councels are then not deceiv'd when they doe their duty when they judge impartially when they decline interest when they follow their Rule but this sayes also that it is not infallibly certain that they will doe so for these did not and therefore the others may be deceiv'd as well as these were But another thing is in the wind for Councels not confirmed by the Pope have no warrant that they shall not erre and they not being confirmed therefore faild But whether is the Popes confirmation after the Decree or before It cannot be supposed before for there is nothing to be confirmed till the Decree be made and the Article composed But if it be after then possibly the Popes Decree may be requisite in solemnity of Law and to make the Authority popular publike and humane but the Decree is true or false before the Popes confirmation and is not at all altered by the supervening Decree which being postnate to the Decree alters not what went before Nunquam enim crescit ex postfacto praeteriti aestimatio is the voyce both of Law and reason So that it cannot make it divine and necessary to be heartily believed It may make it lawfull not make it true that is it may possibly by such meanes become a Law but not a truth I speak now upon supposition the Popes confirmation were necessary and requir'd to the making of conciliary and necessary sanctions But if it were the case were very hard For suppose a heresy should invade and possesse the Chaire of Rome what remedy can the Church have in that case if a Generall Councell be of no Authority without the Pope confirm it will the Pope confirm a Councell against himselfe will he condemn his own heresy That the Pope may be a Heretick appears in the * Dist. 40. Can. si Papa Canon Law which sayes he may for heresy be deposed and therefore by a Councell which in this case hath plenary Authority without the Pope And therefore in the Synod at Rome held under Pope Adrian the Second the Censure of the Sixth Synod against Honorius who was convict of heresy is approved with this Appendix that in this case the case of heresy minores possint de majoribus judicare And therefore if a Pope were above a Councell yet when the Question is concerning heresy the case is altered the Pope may be judg'd by his inferiours who in this case which is the maine case of all become his Superiours And it is little better then impudence to pretend that all Councells were confirmed by the Pope or that there is a necessity in respect of divine obligation that any should be confirmed by him more then by another of the Patriarchs For the Councell of Chalcedon it selfe one of those foure which S. Gregory did revere next to the foure Evangelists is rejected by Pope Leo who in his 53 Epistle to Anatolius and in his 54 to Martian and in his 55 to Pulcheria accuses it of ambition and inconsiderate temerity and therefore no fit Assembly for the habitation of the holy Spirit and Gelasius in his Tome de vinculo Anathematis affirms that the Councell is in part to be receiv'd in part to be rejected and compares it to hereticall books of a mixt matter and proves his assertion by the place of S. Paul Omnia probate quod bonum est retinete And Bellarmine sayes the same In Concilio Chalcedonensi quaedam sunt bona quaedam mala quaedam recipienda quaedam rejicienda De laicis l. 3. c. 20. § ad hoc ult ita in libris haereticorum and if any thing be false then all is Questionable and judicable and discernable and not infallible antecedently And however that Councell hath ex postfacto and by the voluntary consenting of after Ages obtained great reputation yet they that lived immediately after it that observed all the circumstances of the thing and the disabilities of the persons and the uncertainty of the truth of its decrees by reason of the unconcludingnesse of the Arguments brought to attest it were of another mind Quod autem ad Concilium Chalcedonense attinet illud id temporis viz. Anastasii Imp. neque palam in Ecclesiis sanctissimis praedicatum fuit neque ab omnibus rejectum nam singuli Evagr. lib. 3. cap. 30. Ecclesiarum praesides pro suo arbitratu in ea re egerunt And so did all men in the world that were not master'd with prejudices and undone in their understanding with accidentall impertinencies they judg'd upon those grounds which they had and saw and suffered not themselves to be bound to the imperious dictates of other men who are as uncertain in their determinations as other in their Questions And it is an evidence that there is some deception and notable errour either in the thing or in the manner of their proceeding when the Decrees of a Councell shall have no authority from the Compilers nor no strength from the reasonablenesse of the decision but from the accidentall approbation of Posterity And if Posterity had pleased Origen had believed well and been an Orthodox person And it was pretty sport to see that Papias was right for two Ages together and wrong ever since and just so it was in Councels particularly in this of Chalcedon that had a fate alterable according to the Age and according to the Climate which to my understanding is nothing else but an Argument that the businesse of infallibility is a later device and commenc'd to serve such ends as cannot be justified by true and substantiall grounds and that the Pope should confirm it as of necessity is a fit cover for the same dish In the sixth Generall Councell Honorius Pope of Rome was condemned did that Councell stay for the Popes Confirmation Numb 4. before they sent forth their Decree Certainly they did not think it so needfull as that they would
fidem etiam dictum unius privati esset dicto Pape aut totius Concilii praeferendum si ille moveretur melioribus Argumentis I end this Discourse with representing the words of Gregory Nazianzen in his Epistle to Procopius Ego si vera scribere Numb 11. oportet ita animo affectus sum ut omnia Episcoporum Concilia Athanas. lib. de Synod Frusta igitur circumcursitantes praetexunt ob fidem se Synodos postulare cum sit Divina Scriptura omnibus potentior fugiam quoniam nullius Concilii finem laetum faustumque vidi nec quod depulsionem malorum potius quam accessionem incrementum habuerit But I will not be so severe and dogmaticall against them For I believe many Councels to have been cald with sufficient Authority to have been managed with singular piety and prudence and to have been finished with admirable successe and truth And where we find such Councels he that will not with all veneration believe their Decrees and receive their sanctions understands not that great duty he owes to them who have the care of our soules whose faith we are bound to follow saith S. Paul that is so long as they follow Christ and certainly many Councels have done so But Heb. 13. 7. this was then when the publike interest of Christendome was better conserv'd in determining a true Article then in finding a discreet temper or a wise expedient to satisfie disagreeing persons As the Fathers at Trent did and the Lutherans and Calvinists did at Sendomir in Polonia and the Sublapsarians and Supralapsarians did at Dort It was in Ages when the summe of Religion did not consist in maintaining the Grandezza of the Papacy where there was no order of men with a fourth Vow upon them to advance S. Peters Chaire when there was no man nor any company of men that esteem'd themselves infallible and therefore they searched for truth as if they meant to find it and would believe it if they could see it prov'd not resolv'd to prove it because they had upon chance or interest believ'd it then they had rather have spoken a truth then upheld their reputation but only in order to truth This was done sometimes and when it was done God's Spirit never fail'd them but gave them such assistances as were sufficient to that good end for which they were Assembled and did implore his aid And therefore it is that the foure generall Councels so called by way of eminency have gained so great a reputation above all others not because they had a better promise or more speciall assistances but because they proceeded better according to the Rule with lesse faction without ambition and temporall ends And yet those very Assemblies of Bishops had no Authority by their Decrees to make a Divine Faith or to constitute Numb 12. new objects of necessary Credence they made nothing true that was not so before and therefore they are to be apprehended in the nature of excellent Guides and whose Decrees are most certainly to determine all those who have no Argument to the contrary of greater force and efficacy then the Authority or reasons of the Councell And there is a duty owing to every Parish Priest and to every Dioecesan Bishop these are appointed over us and to answer for our soules and are therefore morally to guide us as reasonable Creatures are to be guided that is by reason and discourse For in things of judgement and understanding they are but in forme next above Beasts that are to be ruled by the imperiousnesse and absolutenesse of Authority unlesse the Authority be Divine that is infallible Now then in a juster height but still in its true proportion Assemblies of Bishops are to guide us with a higher Authority because in reason it is supposed they will doe it better with more Argument and certainty and with Decrees which have the advantage by being the results of many discourses of very wise and good men But that the Authority of generall Councels was never esteem'd absolute infallible and unlimited appears in this that before they were obliging it was necessary that each particular Church respectively should accept them Concurrente universali totius Ecclesiae consensu c. Vid. S. August 1. l. c. 18. de bapt contr Donat. in declaratione veritatum quae credendae sunt c. That 's the way of making the Deerees of Councels become authentik and be turn'd into a Law as Gerson observes and till they did their Decrees were but a dead letter and therefore it is that these later Popes have so labour'd that the Councell of Trent should be received in France and Carolus Molineus a great Lawyer and of the Roman Communion disputed * So did the third Estate of France in the Convention of the three Estates under Lewis the 13th earnestly contend against it against the reception and this is a known condition in the Canon Law but it proves plainly that the Decrees of Councels have their Authority from the voluntary submission of the particular Churches not from the prime sanction and constitution of the Councell And there is great reason it should for as the representative body of the Church derives all power from the diffusive body which is represented so it resolves into it and though it may have all the legall power yet it hath not all the naturall for more able men may be unsent then sent and they who are sent may be wrought upon by stratagem which cannot happen to the whole diffusive Church it is therefore most fit that since the legall power that is the externall was passed over to the body representative yet the efficacy of it and the internall should so still remaine in the diffusive as to have power to consider whether their representatives did their duty yea or no and so to proceed accordingly For unlesse it be in matters of justice in which the interest of a third person is concern'd no man will or can be supposed to passe away all power from himselfe of doing himselfe right in matters personall proper and of so high concernment It is most unnaturall and unreasonable But besides that they are excellent instruments of peace the best humane Judicatories in the world rare Sermons for the determining a point in Controversy and the greatest probability from humane Authority besides these advantages I say I know nothing greater that generall Councels can pretend to with reason and Argument sufficient to satisfie any wise man And as there was never any Councell so generall but it might have been more generall for in respect of the whole Church even Nice it selfe was but a small Assembly so there is no Decree so well constituted but it may be prov'd by an Argument higher then the Authority of the Councell And therefore generall Councels and Nationall and Provinciall and Dioecesan in their severall degrees are excellent Guides for the Prophets and directions and instructions for their Prophesyings but
not of weight and Authority to restraine their Liberty so wholy but that they may dissent when they see a reason strong enough so to perswade them as to be willing upon the confidence of that reason and their own sincerity to answer to God for such their modesty and peaceable but as they believe their necessary disagreeing SECT VII Of the fallibility of the Pope and the uncertainty of his Expounding Scripture and resolving Questions BUt since the Question between the Councell and the Pope Numb 1. grew high there have not wanted abettors so confident on the Popes behalfe as to believe Generall Councels to be nothing but Pompes and Solennities of the Catholike Church and that all the Authority of determining Controversies is formally and effectually in the Pope And therefore to appeale from the Pope to a future Councell is a heresy yea and Treason too said Pope Pius II and therefore it concerns us now Epist. ad Norimberg to be wise and wary But before I proceed I must needs remember that Pope Pius II while he was the wise and learned Patrum avorum nostrorum tempore pauci audebant dicere Papam esse supra Concilium l. 1. de gestis Concil Basil. Aeneas Sylvius was very confident for the preheminence of a Councell and gave a merry reason why more Clerks were for the Popes then the Councell though the truth was on the other side even because the Pope gives Bishopricks and Abbeys but Councels give none and yet as soone as he was made Pope as if he had been inspired his eyes were open to see the great priviledges of S. Peters Chaire which before he could not see being amused with the truth or else with the reputation of a Generall Councell But however there are many that hope to make it good that the Pope is the Universall and the infallible Doctor that he breathes Decrees as Oracles that to dissent from any of his Cathedrall determinations is absolute heresy the Rule of Faith being nothing else but consormity to the Chaire of Peter So that here we have met a restraint of Prophecy indeed but yet to make amends I hope we shall have an infallible Guide and when a man is in Heaven he will never complaine that his choyce is taken from him and that he is confin'd to love and to admire since his love and his admiration is fixt upon that which makes him happy even upon God himselfe And in the Church of Rome there is in a lower degree but in a true proportion as little cause to be troubled that we are confin'd to believe just so and no choice left us for our understandings to discover or our wills to chuse because though we be limited yet we are pointed out where we ought to rest we are confin'd to our Center and there where our understandings will be satisfied and therefore will be quiet and where after all our strivings studies and endeavours we desire to come that is to truth for there we are secur'd to find it because we have a Guide that is infallible If this prove true we are well enough But if it be false or uncertain it were better we had still kept our liberty then be cozened out of it with gay pretences This then we must consider And here we shall be oppressed with a cloud of Witnesses For what more plaine then the Commission given to Peter Numb 2. Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church And to thee will I give the Keyes And again for thee have I prayed that thy faith faile not but thou when thou art converted confirm thy brethren And again If thou lovest me feed my sheep Now nothing of this being spoken to any of the other Apostles by one of these places S. Peter must needs be appointed Foundation or Head of the Church and by consequence he is to rule and govern all By some other of these places he is made the supreme Pastor and he is to teach and determine all and inabled with an infallible power so to doe And in a right understanding of these Authorities the Fathers speak great things of the Chaire of Peter for we are as much bound to believe that all this was spoken to Peters Successors as to his Person that must by all meanes be supposed and so did the old Doctors who had as much certainty of it as we have and no more but yet let 's hear what they have said a Irenae contra haeres l. 3. c. 3. To this Church by reason of its more powerfull principality it is necessary all Churches round about should Convene ..... In this Tradition Apostolicall alwayes was observed and therefore to communicate with this Bishop with this * Ambr. de obitu Salyri l. 1. Ep. 4. ad Imp. Cypr. Ep. 52. Church was to be in Communion with the Church Catholike .... b Cypr. Ep. 55. ad Cornel. To this Church errour or perfidiousnesse cannot have accesse .... c S. Austin in Psal. contra partem Donat. Against this Sea the gates of Hell cannot prevaile .... d Hieron Ep. 57. ad Damasum For we know this Church to be built upon a Rock .... And whoever eats the Lamb not within this House is prophane he that is not in the Ark of Noah perishes in the inundation of waters He that gathers not with this Bishop he scatters and he that belongeth not to Christ must needs belong to Antichrist And that 's his finall sentence But if you would have all this prov'd by an infallible Argument e L. 2. contra Parmenian Optatus of Milevis in Africa supplies it to us from the very name of Peter For therefore Christ gave him the cognomination of Cephas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew that S. Peter was the visible Head of the Catholike Church Dignum patellà operculum This long harangue must needs be full of tragedy to all them that take liberty to themselves to follow Scripture and their best Guides if it happens in that liberty that they depart from the perswasions or the Communion of Rome But indeed if with the peace of the Bishops of Rome I may say it this Scene is the most unhandsomely laid and the worst carried of any of those pretences that have lately abused Christendome 1. Against the Allegations of Scripture I shall lay no greater Numb 3. prejudice then this that if a person dis-interested should see them and consider what the products of them might possibly be the last thing that he would think of would be how that any of these places should serve the ends or pretences of the Church of Rome For to instance in one of the particulars that man had need have a strong fancy who imagines that because Christ pray'd for S. Peter that being he had design'd him to be one of those upon whose preaching and Doctrine he did meane to constitute a Church that his faith
cannot doe this when they list but when they are mov'd to it by the Spirit then we are never the nearer for so may the Bishop of Angolesme write infallible Commentaries when the holy Ghost moves him to it for I suppose his motions are not ineffectuall but hee will sufficiently assist us in performing of what he actually moves us to But among so many hundred Decrees which the Popes of Rome have made or confirmed and attested which is all one I would faine know in how many of them did the holy Ghost assist them If they know it let them declare it that it may be certain which of their Decretals are de fide for as yet none of his own Church knowes If they doe not know then neither can we know it from them and then we are as uncertaine as ever and besides the holy Ghost may possibly move him and he by his ignorance of it may neglect so profitable a motion and then his promise of infallible assistance will be to very little purpose because it is with very much fallibility applicable to practise And therefore it is absolutely uselesse to any man or any Church because suppose it settled in Thesi that the Pope is infallible yet whether he will doe his duty and perform those conditions of being assisted which are required of him or whether he be a secret Simoniack for if he be he is ipso facto no Pope or whether he be a Bishop or Priest or a Christian being all uncertain every one of these depending upon the intention and power of the Baptizer or Ordainer which also are fallible because they depend upon the honesty and power of other men we cannot be infallibly certain of any Pope that he is infallible and therefore when our Questions are dermin'd we are never the nearer but may hugge our selves in an imaginary truth the certainty of finding truth out depending upon so many fallible and contingent circumstances And therefore the thing if it were true being so to no purpose it is to be presum'd that God never gave a power so impertinently and from whence no benefit can accrue to the Christian Church for whose use and benefit if at all it must needs have been appointed But I am too long in this impertinency If I were bound Numb 18. to call any man Master upon earth and to believe him upon his own affirmative and authority I would of all men least follow him that pretends he is infallible and cannot prove it For that he cannot prove it makes me as uncertaine as ever and that he pretends to infallibility makes him carelesse of using such meanes which will morally secure those wise persons who knowing their own aptnesse to be deceiv'd use what endeavours they can to secure themselves from errour and so become the better and more probable guides Well! Thus farre we are come Although we are secured in fundamentall points from involuntary errour by the plaine Numb 19. expresse and dogmaticall places of Scripture yet in other things we are not but may be invincibly mistaken because of the obscurity and difficulty in the controverted parts of Scripture by reason of the incertainty of the meanes of its Interpretation since Tradition is of an uncertain reputation and sometimes evidently false Councels are contradictory to each other and therefore certainly are equally deceiv'd many of them and therefore all may and then the Popes of Rome are very likely to mislead us but cannot ascertain us of truth in matter of Question and in this world we believe in part and prophecy in part and this imperfection shall never be done away till we be translated to a more glorious state either we must throw our chances and get truth by accident or predestination or else we must lie safe in a mutuall toleration and private liberty of perswasion unlesse some other Anchor can bee thought upon where wee may fasten our floating Vessels and ride safely SECT VIII Of the disability of Fathers or Writers Ecclesiasticall to determine our Questions with certainty and Truth THere are some that think they can determine all Questions Numb 1. in the world by two or three sayings of the Fathers or by the consent of so many as they will please to call a concurrent Testimony But this consideration will soon be at an end for if the Fathers when they are witnesses of Tradition doe not alwayes speak truth as it hapned in the case of Papias and his numerous Followers for almost three Ages together then is their Testimony more improbable when they dispute or write Commentaries 2. The Fathers of the first Ages spake unitedly concerning Numb 2. divers Questions of secret Theology and yet were afterwards contradicted by one personage of great repution whose credit had so much influence upon the world as to make the contrary opinion become popular why then may not we have the same liberty when so plain an uncertainty is in their perswasions and so great contrariety in their Doctrines But this is evident in the case of absolute predestination which till S. Austine's time no man preached but all taught the contrary and yet the reputation of this one excellent man altered the scene But if he might dissent from so Generall a Doctrine why may not we doe so too it being pretended that he is so excellent a precedent to be followed if we have the same reason he had no more Authority nor dispensation to dissent then any Bishop hath now And therefore S. Austin hath dealt ingeniously and as he took this liberty to himself so he denies it not to others but indeed forces them to preserve their own liberty And Sess. ult therefore when S. Hierom had a great mind to follow the Fathers in a point that he fancyed and the best security he had was Patiaris me cum talibus errare S. Austin would not endure it but answered his reason and neglected the Authority And therefore it had been most unreasonable that we should doe that now though in his behalfe which he towards greater personages for so they were then at that time judg'd to be unreasonable It is a plaine recession from Antiquity which was determin'd by the Councell of Florence piorum animas purgatas c. mox in Caelum recipi intueri clarè ipsum Deum trinum unum sicuti est As who please to try may see it dogmatically resolved to the contrary by a Q. 60. ad Christian. Justin Martyr b Lib. 5. Irenaeus by c Hom. 7. in Levit. Origen d Hom. 39 in 1 Cor. S. Chrysostome e In c. 11. ad Heb. Theodoret f In c. 6. ad Apoc. Arethas Caesariensis g In 16. c. Luc. Euthymius who may answer for the Greek Church and it is plaine that it was the opinion of the Greek Church by that great difficulty the Romans had of bringing the Greeks to subscribe to the Florentine Councell where the
digressions against the custome of that excellent man by some passages contradictory to others of S. Basil by citing Meletius as dead before him who yet lived three * Vid. Baron in Annal. years after him and by the very frame and manner of the discourse and yet it was so handsomly carried and so well serv'd the purposes of men that it was quoted under the title of S. Basil by many but without naming the number of chapters and by S. John Damascen in these words Basilius in opere triginta capitum de Spiritu S. ad Amphilochium and to the same purpose and in the number Lâ— de imagin orat 1. of 27 29. chapters he is is cited by * Nomocan tit 1. cap. 3. Photius by Euthymius by Burchard by Zonaras Balsamon and Nicephorus but for this see more in Erasmu's his Preface upon this book of S. Basil. There is an Epistle goes still under the name of S. Hierom ad Demetriadem viâ—ginem and is of great use in the Question of Predestination with its appendices and yet a very †V. Beda de gratiâ Christi adv Iulianum learned man 800 yeares agone did believe it to be written by a Pelagian and undertakes to confute divers parts of it as being high and confident Pelagianisme and written by Julianus Episc. Eclanensis but Gregorius Ariminensis from S. Austin affirmes it to have been written by Pelagius himselfe I might instance in too many Greg. Arim. in 2. sent dist 26. q. 1. a. 3. There is not any one of the Fathers who is esteemed Author of any considerable number of books that hath escaped untouched But the abuse in this kinde hath been so evident that now if any interessed person of any side be pressed with an Authority very pregnant against him he thinks to escape by accusing the Edition or the Author or the hands it passed through or at last he therefore suspects it because it makes against him both sides being resolv'd that they are in the right the Authorities that they admit they will believe not to be against them and they which are too plainly against them shall be no Authorities And indeed the whole world hath been so much abused that every man thinks he hath reason to suspect whatsoever is against him that is what he please which prooceeding only produces this truth that there neither is nor can be any certainty nor very much probability in such Allegations But there is a worse mischiefe then this besides those very many which are not yet discovered which like the pestilence Numb 6. destroyes in the dark and growes into inconvenience more insensibly and more irremediably and that is corruption of particular places by inserting words and altering them to contrary senses A thing which the Fathers of the sixth Generall Synod complain'd of concerning the constitutions of S. Clement quibus jam olim ab iis qui à sidè aliena sent iunt adulterina quaedam etiam pietate aliena introducta sunt quae divinorum nobis Decretorum Can. 2. elegantem venustam speciem obscurarunt And so also have his Recognitions so have his Epistles been used if at least they were his at all particularly the fifth Decretall Epistle that goes under the name of S. Clement in which community of Wives is taught upon the Authority of S. Luke saying the first Christians had all things common if all things then Wives also sayes the Epistle a forgery like to have been done by some Nicolaitan or other impure person There is an Epistle of Cyrill extant to Successus Bishop of Diocaesarea in which he relates that hee was ask'd by Budus Bishop of Emessa whether he did approve of the Epistle of Athanasius to Epictetus Bishop of Corinth and that his answer was Si haec apud vos scripta non sint adultera Nam plura ex his ab hostibus Ecclesiae Euseb. l. 4. c. 23. deprehenduntur esse depravata And this was done even while the Authors themselves were alive for so Dionysius of Corinth complan'd that his writings were corrupted by Hereticks and Pope Leo that his Epistle to Flavianus was perverted by the Greeks And in the Synod of Constantinople before quoted the Act. 8. vid. etiam Synod 7. act 4. sixth Synod Macarius and his Disciples were convicted quod Sanctorum testimonia aut truncârint aut depravârint Thus the third Chapter of S. Cyprians book de unitate Ecclesiae in the Edition of Pamelius suffered great alteration These words Primatus Petro datur wholly inserted and these super Cathedram Petri fundata est Ecclesia and whereas it was before super unum aedificat Ecclesiam Christus that not being enough they have made it super illum unum Now these Additions are against the faith of all old Copies before Minutius and Pamelius and against Gratian even after himselfe had been chastiz'd by the Roman Correctors the Commissaries of Gregory XIII as is to be seen where these words are alledged Decret c. 24. Q. 1. can loquitur Dominus ad Petrum So that we may say of Cyprians works as Pamelius himself said concerning his writings and the writings of other of the Fathers unde colligimus saith he Cypriani scripta ut aliorum Veterum à librariis variè fuisse Annot. Cyprian super Concil Carthage n. 1. interpolata But Gratian himselfe could doe as fine a feat when he listed or else some body did it for him and it was in this very Question their beloved Article of the Popes Supremacy for de paenit dist 1. c. potest fieri he quotes these words out of S. Ambrose Non habent Petri haereditatem qui non habent Petri sedem sidem not sedem it is in S. Ambrose but this errour was made authentick by being inserted into the Code of the Law of the Catholick Church and considering how little notice the Clergy had of Antiquity but what was transmitted to them by Gratian it will be no great wonder that all this part of the world swallowed such a bole and the opinion that was wrapped in it But I need not instance in Gratian any further but referre any one that desires to be satisfied concerning this Collection of his to Augustinus Archbishop of Tarracon in emendatione Gratiani where he shall find fopperies and corruptions good store noted by that learned man But that the Indices Expurgatorii Vid. Ind. Expurg Belg. in Bertram Flandr Hispan Portugal Neopolitan Romanum lunium in praefat ad Ind. Expurg Belg. Hasen muslerum pag. 275. Withrington Apolog. num 449. commanded by Authority and practised with publike license professe to alter and correct the sayings of the Fathers and to reconcile them to the Catholike sense by putting in and leaving out is so great an Imposture so unchristian a proceeding that it hath made the faith of all books and all Authors justly to be suspected For considering their infinite diligence and great opportunity as
But the observation and experience of all wise men can justifie this truth All that I shall say to the present purpose is this that consideration is to be had to the weakness of persons when they are prevail'd upon by so innocent a prejudice and when there cannot be arguments strong enough to over-master an habituall perswasion bred with a man nourish'd up with him that alwayes eat at his table and lay in his bosome he is not easily to be called Heretique for if he keeps the foundation of faith other articles are not so cleerly demonstrated on either side but that a man may innocently be abused to the contrary And therefore in this case to handle him charitably is but to doe him justice And when an opinion in minoribus articulis is entertain'd upon the title and stock of education it may be the better permitted to him since upon no better stock nor stronger arguments most men entertain their whole Religion even Christianity it selfe 5. There are some persons of a differing perswasion who therefore Numb 5. are the rather to be tolerated because the indirect practices and impostures of their adversaries have confirmed them that those opinions which they disavow are not from God as being upheld by means not of Gods appointment For it is no unreasonable discourse to say that God will not be served with a lye for he does not need one and he hath means enough to support all those truths which he hath commanded and hath supplyed every honest cause with enough for its maintenance and to contest against its adversaries And but that they which use indirect arts will not be willing to lose any of their unjust advantages nor yet be charitable to those persons whom either to gain or to undoe they leave nothing unattempted the Church of Rome hath much reason not to be so decretory in her sentences against persons of a differing perswasion for if their cause were entirely the cause of God they have given wise people reason to suspect it because some of them have gone to the Devill to defend it And if it be remembred what tragedies were stirred up against Luther for saying the Devill had taught him an argument against the Mass it will be of as great advantage against them that they goe to the Devill for many arguments to support not onely the Mass but the other distinguishing Articles of their Church I instance in the notorious forging of Miracles and framing of false and ridiculous Legends For the former I need no other instances then what hapned in the great contestation about the immaculate conception when there were Miracles brought on both sides to prove the contradictory parts and though it be more then probable that both sides play'd the jugglers yet the Dominicans had the ill luck to be discovered and the actors burn'd at Berne But this discovery hapned by providence for the Dominican opinion hath more degrees of probability then the Franciscan is cleerly more consonant both to Scripture and all antiquity and this part of it is acknowledged by the greatest Patrons themselves as Salmeron Posa and Wadding yet because they played the knaves in a just question and used false arts to maintain a true proposition God Almighty to shew that he will not be served by a lye was pleased rather to discover the imposture in the right opinion then in the false since nothing is more dishonourable to God then to offer a sin in sacrifice to him and nothing more incongruous in the nature of the thing then that truth and falshood should support each other or that true doctrine should live at the charges of a lye And he that considers the arguments for each opinion will easily conclude that if God would not have truth confirmed by a lye much lesse would he himself attest a lye with a true miracle And by this ground it will easily follow that the Franciscan party although they had better luck then the Dominicans yet had not more honesty because their cause was worse and therefore their arguments no whit the better And although the argument drawn from miracles is good to attest a holy doctrine which by its own worth will support it selfe after way is a little made by miracles yet of it selfe and by its owne reputation it will not support any fabrick for instead of proving a doctrine to be true it makes that the miracles themselves are suspected to be illusions if they be pretended in behalfe of a doctrine which we think we have reason to account false And therefore the Jews did not beleeve Christs doctrine for his Miracles but dis-beleeved the truth of his Miracles because they did not like his doctrine And if the holinesse of his doctrine and the Spirit of God by inspirations and infusions and by that which Saint Peter calls a surer word of prophecy had not attested the Divinity both of his Person and his Office we should have wanted many degrees of confidence which now we have upon the truth of Christian Religion But now since we are fore-told by this surer word of prophecy that is the prediction of Jesus Christ Vid. Baron AE D. 68. n. 22. Philostrat l. 4. T. 485. compend Cedren p. 202. that Antichrist should come in all wonders and signs and lying miracles and that the Church saw much of that already verified in Simon Magus Apollonius Tyaneus and Manetho and divers * Stapleton prompt Moral pars aestiva p. 627. Heretiques it is now come to that passe that the argument in its best advantage proves nothing so much as that the doctrine which it pretends to prove is to be suspected because it was foretold that false doctrine should be obtruded under such pretences But then when not onely true miracles are an insufficient argument to prove a truth since the establishment of Christianity but that the miracles themselves are false and spurious it makes that doctrine in whose defence they come justly to be suspected because they are a demonstration that the interested persons use all means leave nothing unattempted to prove their propositions but since they so faile as to bring nothing from God but something from the Devill for its justification it 's a great signe that the doctrine is false because we know the Devill unlesse it be against his will does nothing to prove a true proposition that makes against him And now then those persons who will endure no man of another opinion might doe well to remember how by their exorcismes their Devils tricks at Lowdon and the other side pretending to cure mad folkes and persons bewitched and the many discoveries of their jugling they have given so much reason to their adversaries to suspect their doctrine that either they must not be ready to condemne their persons who are made suspicious by their indirect proceeding in attestation of that which they value so high as to call their Religion or else they must condemne themselves for making
lose the comfort of truth because he beleeves it upon indirect insufficient and incompetent arguments and as his desire it should be so is his best argument that it is so so the pleasing of men is his best reward and his not being condemned and contradicted all the possession of a truth SECT XIIII Of the practice of Christian Churches towards persons disagreeing and when persecution first came in ANd thus this truth hath been practiced in all times of Christian Religion when there were no collaterall designes on foot nor interests to be served nor passions to be satisfied In S. Pauls time though the censure of heresie were not so loose and forward as afterwards and all that were called Heretiques were cleerly such and highly criminall yet as their crime was so was their censure that is spirituall They were first admonished once at least for so a l. 3. cap. 3. Irenaeus b de prescript Tertullian c lib. ad Quirinum Cyprian d in hunc locum Ambrose and e ibidem Hierome read that place of Titus 3. But since that time all men and at that time some read it Post unam alteram admonitionem reject a Heretique Rejection from the communion of Saints after two warnings that 's the penalty Saint John expresses it by not eating with them not bidding them God speed but the persons against whom he decrees so severely are such as denyed Christ to become in the flesh direct Antichrists and let the sentence be as high as it lists in this case all that I observe is that since in so damnable doctrines nothing but spirituall censure separation from the communion of the faithfull was enjoyned and prescribed we cannot pretend to an Apostolicall precedent if in matters of dispute and innocent question and of great uncertainty and no malignity we should proceed to sentence of death For it is but an absurd and illiterate arguing to say that excommunication is a greater punishment and killing a lesse and therefore Numb 2. whoever may be excommunicated may also be put to death which indeed is the reasoning that Bellarmine uses for first excommunication is not directly and of it self a greater punishment then corporall death Because it is indefinite and incompleat and in order to a further punishment which if it happens then the excommunication was the inlet to it if it does not the excommunication did not signifie halfe so much as the losse of a member much lesse death For it may be totally ineffectuall either by the iniquity of the proceeding or repentance of the person and in all times and cases it is a medicine if the man please if he will not but perseveres in his impiety then it is himselfe that brings the Censure to effect that actuates the judgement and gives a sting and an energy upon that which otherwise would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secondly but when it is at worst it does not kill the Soule it onely consignes it to that death which it had deserved and should have received independently from that sentence of the Church Thirdly and yet excommunication is to admirable purpose for whether it referres to the person censured or to others it is prudentiall in it selfe it is exemplary to others it is medicinall to all For the person censured is by this meanes threatned into piety and the threatning made the more energeticall upon him because by fiction of Law or as it were by a Sacramentall representment the paines of hell are made presentiall to him and so becomes an act of prudent judicature and excellent discipline and the best instrument of spirituall Government Because the neerer the threatning is reduced to matter the more present and circumstantionable it is made the more operative it is upon our spirits while they are immerged in matter And this is the full sense and power of excommunication in its direct intention consequently and accidentally other evills might follow it as in the times of the Apostles the censured persons were buffeted by Satan and even at this day there is lesse security even to the temporall condition of such a person whom his spirituall parents have Anathematiz'd But besides this I know no warrant to affirme any thing of excommunication for the sentence of the Church does but declare not effect the finall sentence of damnation Whoever deserves excommunication deserves damnation and he that repents shall be saved though he dye out of the Churches externall Communion and if he does not repent he shall be damn'd though he was not excommunicate But suppose it greater then the sentence of corporall death yet Numb 3. it followes not because hereticks may be excommunicate therefore kill'd for from a greater to a lesse in a severall kind of things the argument concludes not It is a greater thing to make an excellent discourse then to make a shooe yet he that can doe the greater cannot doe this lesse An Angell cannot beget a man yet he can doe a greater matter in that kind of operations which we terme spirituall and Angelicall And if this were concluding that whoever may be excommunicate may be kill'd then because of excommunications the Church is confessed the sole and intire Judge she is also an absolute disposer of the lives of persons I beleeve this will be but ill doctrine in Spaine for in Bullâ Coenae Domini the King of Spaine is every year excommunicated on Maunday Thursday but if by the same power he might also be put to death as upon this ground he may the Pope might with more ease be invested in that part of S. Peters patrimony which that King hath invaded and surpriz'd But besides this it were extreme harsh Doctrine in a Roman Consistory from whence excommunications issue for trifles for fees for not suffering themselves infinitely to be oppressed for any thing if this be greater then death how great a tyrannie is that which does more then kill men for less then trifles or else how inconsequent is that argument which concludes its purpose upon so false pretence supposition Well however zealous the Apostles were against hereticks yet none were by them or their dictates put to death The death of Numb 4. Ananias and Saphira and the blindnesse of Elymas the Sorcerer amount not to this for they were miraculous inflictions and the first was a punishment to Vow-breach and Sacriledge the second of Sorcery and open contestation against the Religion of Jesus Christ neither of them concerned the case of this present question or if the case were the same yet the authority is not the same For he that inflicted these punishments was infallible and of a power competent But no man at this day is so But as yet people were converted by Miracles Preaching and Disputing and Hereticks by the same meanes were redargued and all men instructed none tortured for their opinion And this continued till Christian people were vexed by disagreeing
doe make it it is to no purpose This would bee considered And in Conclusion Our way is the the surer way for not to baptize Children till they can give an account of their Faith is Numb 32. the most proportionable to an act of reason and humanity and it can have no danger in it For to say that Infants may be damn'd for want of Baptism a thing which is not in their power to acquire they being persons not yet capable of a Law is to affirm that of God which we dare not say of any wise and good man Certainly it is much derogatory to Gods Justice and a plaine defiance to the infinite reputation of his goodnesse And therefore who ever will pertinaciously persist in this opinion Numb 33. of the Paedo-baptists and practise it accordingly they pollute the blood of the everlasting Testament they dishonour and make a pageantry of the Sacrament they ineffectually represent a sepulture into the death of Christ and please themselves in a sign without effect making Baptism like the fig-tree in the Gospel full of leaves but no fruit And they invocate the holy Ghost in vaine doing as if one should call upon him to illuminate a stone or a tree Thus farre the Anabaptists may argue and men have Disputed Numb 34. against them with so much weaknesse and confidence that they have been encouraged in their errour * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen observes of the case of the Church in his time more by the accidentall advantages we have given them by our weak arguings then by any truth of their cause or excellency of their wit But the use I make of it as to our present Question is this That since there is no direct impiety in the opinion nor any that is apparently consequent to it and they with so much probability doe or may pretend to true perswasion they are with all meanes Christian faire and humane to be redargued or instructed but if they cannot be perswaded they must be left to God who knowes every degree of every mans understanding all his weaknesses and strengths what impresse each Argument makes upon his Spirit and how unresistible every reason is and he alone judges his innocency and sincerity and for the Question I think there is so much to be pretended against that which I believe to be the truth that there is much more truth then evidence on our side and therefore we may be confident as for our own particulars but not too forward peremptorily to prescribe to others much lesse damne or to kill or to persecute them that only in this particular disagree SECT XIX That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines inconsistent with piety or the pulique good BUt then for their other capitall Opinion with all its branches Numb 1. that it is not lawfull for Princes to put Malefactors to death nor to take up desensive Armes nor to minister an Oath nor to contend in judgement it is not to be disputed with such liberty as the former For although it bee part of that Doctrine which Clemens Alexandrinus sayes was delivered per secretam traditionem Apostolorum Non licere Christianis contendere L. 7. Stromat in Iudicio nec corà m gentibus nec corà m sanctis perfectum non debere Iurare and the other part seemes to be warranted by the eleventh Canon of the Nicene Councell which enjoynes penance to them that take Armes after their conversion to Christianity yet either these Authorities are to be slighted or be made receptive of any interpretation rather then the Common-wealth be disarmed of its necessary supports and all Lawes made ineffectuall and impertinent For the interest of the republique and the well being of bodies politick is not to depend upon the nicety of our imaginations or the fancies of any peevish or mistaken Priests and there is no reason a Prince should ask John-a-Brunck whether his understanding will give him leave to raign and be a King Nay suppose there were divers places of Scripture which did seemingly restraine the Politicall use of the Sword yet since the avoyding a personall inconvenience hath by all men been accounted sufficient reason to expound Scripture to any sense rather then the literall which inferres an unreasonable inconvenience and therefore the pulling out an eye and the cutting off a hand is expounded by mortifying a vice and killing a criminall habit much rather must the Allegations against the power of the Sword endure any sence rather then it should be thought that Christianity should destroy that which is the only instrument of Justice the restraint of vice and support of bodies politick It is certain that Christ and his Apostles and Christian Religion did comply with the most absolute Government and the most imperiall that was then in the world and it could not have been at all indured in the world if it had not for indeed the world it selfe could not last in regular and orderly communities of men but be a perpetuall confusion if Princes and the Supreme Power in Bodies Politick were not armed with a coercive power to punish Malefactors The publike necessity and universall experience of all the world convinces those men of being most unreasonable that make such pretences which destroy all Lawes and all Communities and the bands of civill Societies and leave it arbitrary to every vaine or vitious person whether men shall be safe or Lawes be established or a Murderer hang'd or Princes Rule So that in this case men are not so much to Dispute with particular Arguments as to consider the Interest and concernment of Kingdomes and Publick Societies For the Religion of Jesus Christ is the best establisher of the felicity of private persons and of publick Communities it is a Religion that is prudent and innocent humane and reasonable and brought infinite advantages to mankind but no inconvenience nothing that is unnaturall or unsociable or unjust And if it be certain that this world cannot be governed without Lawes and Lawes without a compulsory signifie nothing then it is certain that it is no good Religion that teaches Doctrine whose consequents will destroy all Government and therefore it is as much to be rooted out as any thing that is the greatest pest and nuisance to the publick interest And that we may guesse at the purposes of the men and the inconvenience of such Doctrine these men that did first intend by their Doctrine to disarme all Princes and bodies Politick did themselves take up armes to establish their wild and impious fancie and indeed that Prince or Common-wealth that should be perswaded by them would be exposed to all the insolencies of forraingners and all mutinies of the teachers themselves and the Governours of the people could not doe that duty they owe to their people of protecting them from the rapine and malice which will be in the world as long as the world is And therefore here they are to be
persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their fore-Fathers which had actuall possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions had a name And so much the rather because Religion hath more advantages upon the fancy and affections then it hath upon Philosophy and severe discourses and therefore is the more easily perswaded upon such grounds as these which are more apt to amuse then to satisfie the understanding Secondly If we consider the Doctrines themselves we shall Numb 3. finde them to be superstructures ill built and worse manag'd but yet they keep the foundation they build upon God in Jesus Christ they professe the Apostles Creed they retain Faith and Repentance as the supporters of all our hopes of Heaven and believe many more truths then can be proved to be of simple and originall necessity to salvation And therefore all the wisest Personages of the adverse party allowed to them possibility of salvation whilst their errours are not faults of their will but weaknesses and deceptions of the understanding So that there is nothing in the foundation of Faith that can reasonably hinder them to be permitted The foundation of Faith stands secure enough for all their vaine and unhandsome superstructures But then on the other side if we take account of their Doctrines as they relate to good life or are consistent or inconsistent with civill Government we shall have other considerations Thirdly For I consider that many of their Doctrines doe Numb 4. accidentally teach or lead to ill life and it will appeare to any man that considers the result of these propositions Attrition which is a low and imperfect degree of sorrow for sin or as others say a sorrow for sinne commenc'd upon any reason of temporall hope or feare or desire or any thing else is a sufficient disposition for a man in the Sacrament of penance to receive absolution and be justified before God by taking away the guilt of all his sinnes and the obligation to eternall paines So that already the feare of Hell is quite removed upon conditions so easie that many men take more paines to get a groat then by this Doctrine we are oblig'd to for the curing and acquitting all the greatest sinnes of a whole life of the most vitious person in the world And but that they affright their people with a feare of Purgatory or with the severity of Penances in case they will not venter for Purgatory for by their Doctrine they may chuse or refuse either there would be nothing in their Doctrine or Discipline to impede and slacken their proclivity to sinne but then they have as easy a cure for that too with a little more charge sometimes but most commonly with lesse trouble For there are so many confraternities so many priviledged Churches Altars Monasteries Coemeteries Offices Festivals and so free a concession of Indulgences appendant to all these and a thousand fine devices to take away the feare of Purgatory to commute or expiate Penances that in no sect of men doe they with more ease and cheapnesse reconcile a wicked life with the hopes of heaven then in the Roman Communion And indeed if men would consider things upon their true Numb 5. grounds the Church of Rome should be more reproved upon Doctrines that inferre ill life then upon such as are contrariant to Faith For false superstructures doe not alwayes destroy Faith but many of the Doctrines they teach if they were prosecuted to the utmost issue would destroy good life And therefore my quarrell with the Church of Rome is greater and stronger upon such points which are not usually considerd then it is upon the ordinary disputes which have to no very great purpose so much disturb'd Christendome And I am more scandaliz'd at her for teaching the sufficiency of Attrition in the Sacrament for indulging Penances so frequently for remitting all Discipline for making so great a part of Religon to consist in externalls and Ceremonialls for putting more force and Energy and exacting with more severity the commandments of men then the precepts of Justice and internall Religion Lastly besides many other things for promising heaven to persons after a wicked life upon their impertinent cryes and Ceremon all 's transacted by the Priest and the dying Person I confesse I wish the zeale of Christendome were a little more active against these and the like Doctrines and that men would write and live more earnestly against them then as yet they have done But then what influence this just zeale is to have upon the Numb 6. persons of the Professors is another consideration For as the Pharisees did preach well and lived ill and therefore were to be heard not imitated So if these men live well though they teach ill they are to be imitated not heard their Doctrines by all meanes Christian and humane are to be discountenanc'd but their persons tolerated eatenùs their Profession and Decrees to be rejected and condemn'd but the persons to be permitted because by their good lives they confute their Doctrines that is they give evidence that they think no evill to be consequent to such opinions and if they did that they live good lives is argument sufficient that they would themselves cast the first stone against their own opinions if they thought them guilty of such misdemeanours Fourthly But if we consider their Doctrines in relation to Numb 7. Government and Publick societies of men then if they prove faulty they are so much the more intolerable by how much the consequents are of greater danger and malice Such Doctrines as these The Pope may dispence with all oathes taken to God or man He may absolve Subjects from their Allegiance to their naturall Prince Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks Hereticall Princes may be slaine by their Subjects These Propositions are so deprest and doe so immediately communicate with matter and the interests of men that they are of the same consideration with matters of fact and are to be handled accordingly To other Doctrines ill life may be consequent but the connexion of the antecedent and the consequent is not peradventure perceiv'd or acknowledged by him that believes the opinion with no greater confidence then he disavowes the effect and issue of it But in these the ill effect is the direct profession and purpose of the opinion and therefore the man and the mans opinion is to be dealt withall just as the matter of fact is to be judg'd for it is an immediate a perceiv'd a direct event and the very purpose of the opinion Now these opinions are a direct overthrow to all humane society and mutuall commerce a destruction of Government and of the lawes and duty and subordination which we owe to Princes and therefore those men of the Church of Rome that doe hold them and preach them cannot pretend to the excuses of innocent opinions and
safe ventured to present him with a dowbaked sacrifice and put him off with that which in nature and humane consideration is absolutely the worst for such is all the crude and imperfect utterance of our more imperfect conceptions But let Solomons reason be what it will good we are sure it is Let us consider who keeps the precept best He that deliberates or he that considers not but when he speakes What man in the world is hasty to offer any thing before God if he bee not who prayes ex tempore And then adde to it but the weight of Solomons reason and let any man answer me if he thinks it can well stand with that reverence we owe to the Immense the infinite and to the eternall God the God of wisdome to offer him a sacrifice which we durst not present to a Prince or a prudent Governour in re seriâ such as our prayers ought to be And that this may not be dashed with a pretence it is carnall Numb 7. reasoning I desire it may be remembred that it is the argument God himselfe uses against lame maimed and imperfect sacrifices Goe and offer this to thy Prince see if he will accept it Implying that the best person is to have the best present and what the Prince will slight as truly unworthy of him much more is it unfit for God For God accepts not of any thing we give or doe as if he were bettred by it for therefore its estimate is not taken by its relation or naturall complacency to him it is all alike to him for in it selfe it is to him as nothing But God accepts it by its proportion and commensuration to us That which we call our best and is truly so in humane estimate that pleases God for it declares that if we had better we would give it him But to reserve the best sayes too plainly that we think any thing is good enough for him As therefore God in the Law would not be served by that which was imperfect in genere naturae so neither now nor ever will that please him which is imperfect in genere morum or materiâ intellectuali when we can give a better Well then in the nature of the thing ex tempore forms have much the worse of it But it is pretended that there is such Numb 8. a thing as the gift of Prayer a praying with the Spirit Et nescit tarda molimina spiritus sancti gratia Gods Spirit if he pleases can doe his work as well in an instant as in long premeditation And to this purpose are pretended those places of Scripture which speak of the assistance of Gods Spirit in our prayers Zech. 12. 10. And I will poure upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication But especially Rom. 8. 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it selfe maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered c. From whence the Conclusion that is inferred is in the words of Saint Paul That we must pray with the spirit therefore not with set forms therefore ex tempore The Collection is somewhat wild for there is great independence in the severall parts and much more is in the Conclusion Numb 9. then was virtually in the premises But such as it is the Authors of it I suppose will own it And therefore we will examine the maine design of it and then consider the particular meanes of its perswasion quoted in the objection It is one of the priviledges of the Gospel and the benefit of Numb 10. Christs ascension that the holy Ghost is given unto the Church and is become to us the fountaine of gifts and graces But these gifts and graces are improvements and helps of our naturall faculties of our art and industry not extraordinary miraculous and immediate infusions of habits and gifts That without Gods Spirit we cannot pray aright that our infirmities need his help that we know not what to ask of our selves is most true and if ever any Heretique was more confident of his own naturals or did ever more undervalue Gods grace then ever the Pelagians did yet he denyes not this But what then Therefore without study without art without premeditation without learning the spirit gives the gift of prayer and it is his grace that without any naturall or artificiall help makes us pray ex tempore No such thing The Objection proves nothing of this Here therefore we will joyn issue whether the gifts and helps Numb 11. of the Spirit be immediate infusions of the Faculties and powers and perfect abilities Or that he doth assist us only by his aydes externall and internall in the use of such means which God and nature hath given to man to ennoble his soul better his Faculties and to improve his understanding That the aydes of the holy Ghost are only assistances to us in the use of naturall and artificiall means I will undertake to prove and from thence it will evidently follow that labour and hard study and premeditation will soonest purchase the gift of prayer and ascertain us of the assistance of the spirit and therefore set forms of prayer studyed and considered of are in a true and proper sense and without enthusiasm the fruits of the spirit 1. Gods Spirit did assist the Apostles by wayes extraordinary Numb 12. and fit for the first institution of Christianity but doth assist us now by the expresses of those first assistances which he gave to them immediately So that the holy Ghost is the author of our saith and we believe with the spirit it is Saint Pauls expression and yet our beliefe comes by hearing and reading the holy Scriptures and their interpretations Now reconcile these two together Faith comes by hearing and yet is the gift of the Spirit and it sayes that the gifts of the Spirit are not extasies and immediate infusions of habits but helps from God to enable us upon the use of the meanes of his own appointment to believe to speak to understand to prophecy and to pray 2. And that these are for this reason called gifts and graces and issues of the Spirit is so evident and notorious that the Numb 13. speaking of an ordinary revealed truth is called in Scripture a speaking by the Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 8. No man can say that Jesus Vid. Act. 19. 21. Act. 16. 7 8 9. 10. is the Lord but by the holy Ghost For if the holy Ghost supplyes us with materials and fundamentals for our building it is then enough to denominate the whole edifice to be of him although the labour and the workmanship be ours upon anothers stock And this is it which the Apostles speaks 1 Cor. 2. 13. Which things also we speak not in the words which mans wisdome teacheth but which the holy Ghost teacheth comparing spirituall
voluntatum non opinionum True Faith which leads to charity Aquin. 22 ae q 37 a 1. leads on to that which unites wills and affections not opinions Upon these or the like considerations the Emperour Zeno Numb 3. publish'd his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which he made the Nicene Creed to be the medium of Catholick Communion and although he liv'd after the Councell of Chalcedon yet he made not the Decrees of that Councell an instrument of its restraint and limit as preferring the peace of Christendome and the union of charity farre before a forced or pretended unity of perswasion which never was or ever will be reall and substantiall and although it were very convenient if it could be had yet it is therefore not necessary because it is impossible and if men please whatever advantages to the publick would be consequent to it may be supply'd by a charitable complyance and mutuall permission of opinion and the offices of a brotherly affection prescrib'd us by the Lawes of Christianity And we have seen it that all Sects of Christians when they have an end to be serv'd upon a third have permitted that liberty to a second which we now contend for and which they formerly deny'd but now grant that by joyning hands they might be the stronger to destroy the third The Arrians and Meletians joyned against the Catholicks The Catholicks and Novatians joyn'd against the Arrians Now if men would doe that for charity which they doe for interest it were handsomer and more ingenuous For that they doe permit each others disagreeings for their interest 's sake convinces them of the lawfulnesse of the thing or else the unlawnesse of their own proceedings and therefore it were better they would serve the ends of charity then of faction for then that good end would hallow the proceeding and make it both more prudent and more pious while it serves the design of religious purposes SECT XXII That particular men may communicate with Churches of different perswasions and how farre they may doe it AS for the duty of particular men in the Question of communicating with Churches of different perswasions it is Numb 1. to be regulated according to the Lawes of those Churches for if they require no impiety or any thing unlawfull as the condition of their Communion then they communicate with them as they are Servants of Christ as Disciples of his Doctrine and subjects to his Laws and the particular distinguishing Doctrine of their Sect hath no influence or communication with him who from another Sect is willing to communicate with all the Servants of their Common Lord For since no Church of one name is infallible a wise man may have either the misfortune or a reason to believe of every one in particular that she erres in some Article or other either he cannot communicate with any or else he may communicate with all that doe not make a sinne or the profession of an errour to be the condition of their Communion And therefore as every particular Church is bound to Tolerate disagreeing persons in the senses and for the reasons above explicated so every particular person is bound to Tolerate her that is not to refuse her Communion when he may have it upon innocent conditions For what is it to me if the Greek Church denies Procession of the third Person from the second so she will give me the right hand of Fellowship though I affirm it therefore because I professe the Religion of Jesus Christ and retain all matters of Faith and necessity But this thing will scarce be reduced to practise for few Churches that have fram'd bodies of Confession and Articles will endure any person that is not of the same confession which is a plaine demonstration that such bodies of Confession and Articles doe much hurt by becomming instruments of separating and dividing Communions and making unnecessary or uncertain propositions a certaine meanes of Schism and disunion But then men would doe well to consider whether or no such proceedings doe not derive the guilt of Schism upon them who least think it and whether of the two is the Schismatick he that makes unnecessary and supposing the state of things inconvenient impositions or he that disobeyes them because hee cannot without doing violence to his conscience believe them Hee that parts Communion because without sinne hee could not entertain it or they that have made it necessary for him to separate by requiring such conditions which to man are simply necessary and to his particular are either sinfull or impossible The Summe of all is this There is no security in any thing Numb 2. or to any person but in the pious and hearty endeavours of a good life and neither sinne nor error does impede it from producing its proportionate and intended effect because it is a direct deletery to sin and an excuse to errors by making them innocent and therefore harmlesse And indeed this is the intendment and design of Faith For that we may joyn both ends of this Discourse together therefore certain Articles are prescribed to us and propounded to our understanding that so we might be supplyed with instructions with motives and engagements to incline and determine our wills to the obedience of Christ. So that obedience is just so consequent to Faith as the acts of will are to the dictates of the understanding Faith therefore being in order to obedience and so farre excellent as it selfe is a part of obedience or the promoter of it or an engagement to it it is evident that if obedience and a good life be secured upon the most reasonable and proper grounds of Christianity that is upon the Apostles Creed then Faith also is secur'd Since whatsoever is beside the duties the order of a good life cannot be a part of Faith because upon Faith a good life is built all other Articles by not being necessary are no otherwise to be requir'd but as they are to be obtain'd and fourd out that is morally and fallibly and humanely It is fit all truths be promoted fairely and properly and yet but few Articles prescribed Magisterially nor framed into Symbols and bodies of Confession least of all after such composures should men proceed so furiously as to say all disagreeing after such declarations to be damnable for the future and capitall for the present But this very thing is reason enough to make men more limited in their prescriptions because it is more charitable in such suppositions so to doe But in the thing it selfe because few kinds of errours are damnable it is reasonable as few should be capitall And because Numb 3. every thing that is damnable in it selfe and before Gods Judgement Seat is not discernable before men and questions disputable are of this condition it is also very reasonable that fewer be capitall then what are damnable and that such Questions should bee permitted to men to believe because they must be left to
God to judge It concernes all persons to see that they doe their best to finde out truth and if they doe it is certain that let the errour be never so damnable they shall escape the errour or the misery of being damn'd for 't And if God will not be angry at men for being invincibly deceiv'd why should men be angry one at another For he that is most displeased at another mans errour may also be tempted in his own will and as much deceived in his understanding For if he may faile in what he can chuse he may also faile in what he cannot chuse His understanding is no more secur'd then his will nor his Faith more then his obedience It is his own fault if he offends God in either but whatsoever is not to be avoided as errours which are incident oftentimes even to the best and most inquisitive of men are not offences against God and therefore not to be punished or restrained by men but all such opinions in which the publick interests of the Common-wealth and the foundation of Faith and a good life are not concern'd are to be permitted freely Quisque abundet in sensu suo was the Doctrine of S. Paul and that is Argument and Conclusion too and they were excellent words which S. Ambrose said in attestation of this great truth Nec Imperiale est libertatem dicendi negare nec sacerdotale quod sentias non dicere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THE END A DISCOURSE CONCERNING PRAYER Ex tempore OR By pretence of the Spirit In justification of Authorized and Set-forms of LITURGIE 1 COR. 14. 32. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets For God is not the Author of confusion but of peace as in all Churches of the Saints Printed for Richard Royston 1647. A Discourse concerning PRAYER Ex tempore c. I Have read over this Book which the Assembly of Divines is pleased to call The Directory for Prayer I confesse I came to it with much expectation and was in some measure confident I should have found it an exact and unblameable modell of Devotion free from all those objections which men of their own perswasion had obtruded against the publike Liturgy of the Church of England or at least it should have been composed with so much artifice and finenesse that it might have been to all the world an Argument of their learning and excellency of spirit if not of the goodnesse and integrity of their Religion and purposes I shall give no other character of the whole but that the publike disrelish which I finde amongst persons of great piety of all qualities not only of great but even of ordinary understandings is to me some argument that it lies so open to the objections even of common spirits that the Compilers of it did intend more to prevaile by the successe of their Armies then the strength of reason and the proper grounds of perswasion which yet most wise and good men believe to be the more Christian way of the two But Sir you have engaged me to say something in particular to satisfie your conscience In which also I desire I may reserve a leave to my self to conceal much if I may in little doe you satisfaction I shall therefore decline to speak of the Efficient cause of this Directory and not quarrell at it that is was composed against Numb 2. the Lawes both of England and all Christendome If the thing were good and pious I should learn to submit to the imposition and never quarrell at the incompetency of his authority that engaged me to doe pious and holy things And it may be when I am a little more used to it I shall not wonder at a Synod in which not one Bishop sits in the capacity of a Bishop though I am most certain this is the first example in England since it was first Christned But for present it seemes something hard to digest it because I know so well that all Assemblies of the Church have admitted Priests to consultation and dispute but never to authority and decision till the Pope enlarging the phylacteries of the Archimandrites and Abbots did sometimes by way of priviledge and dispensation give to some of them decisive voyces in publike Councels But this was one of the things in which he did innovate and invade against the publike resolutions of Christendome though he durst not doe it often and when he did it it was in very small and inconsiderate numbers I said I would not meddle with the Efficient and I cannot meddle with the Finall cause nor guesse at any other ends and Numb 3. purposes of theirs then at what they publiquely professe which is the abolition and destruction of the Book of Common-Prayer which great change because they are pleased to call Reformation I am content in charity to believe they think it so and that they have Zelum Dei but whether secundum scientiam according to knowledge or no must be judged by them who consider the matter and the forme But because the matter is of so great variety and minute consideration every part whereof would require as much scrutiny Numb 4. as I purpose to bestow upon the whole I have for the present chosen to consider only the form of it and because it pretends against the form of set Lyturgy and that ex tempore forms doe succeed in room of the established and determined services I shall give you my judgement of it without any sharpnesse or bitternesse of spirit for I am resolved not to be angry with any man of another perswasion as knowing that I differ just as much from them as they doe from me And first I consider that the true state of the Question is only this Whether it is better to pray to God with consideration Numb 5. or without whether is the wiser man of the two hee who thinks and deliberates what to say or he that utters his mind as fast as it comes Whether is the better man he who out of reverence to God is most carefull and curious that he offend not in his tongue and therefore he himselfe deliberates and takes the best guides he can or he who out of the confidence of his own abilities or other exteriour assistances speaks what ever comes uppermost And here I have the advice and councell of a very wise man no lesse than Solomon Eccles. 5. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth Numb 6. and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few The consideration of the vast distance between God and us Heaven and Earth should create such apprehensions in us that the very best and choycest of our offertoryes are not acceptable but by Gods gracious vouchsafeing and condescension and therefore since we are so much indebted to God for accepting our best it is not