Fathers an Infallibility It is without doubt the Kings pleasure that we should submit our selves to his Officers and that we should obey them but he does not mean to advance them to be Infallible nor to ordain us to obey them if they shall happen to command us these things that are directly contrary to his service and to that Fidelity which we owe to our Soveraign It is then True that all those Exhortations to hear our Pastors and to obey their words are always to be restrain'd by this clause understood as far as their words shall be conformable to that of God that they can never go beyond that and that they cannot from thence draw any Priviledge of Infallibility 4. As these Gentlemen let slip nothing that may serve for their Interests so they ordinarily make use of that passage in the 18th Chapter of St. Matthew where Jesus Christ ordains that if any one receive an injury from another he is to reprove him between himself and him alone and if that first complaint signifies nothing then he must take witnesses with him and if he neglect to hear those witnesses he is to tell it to the Church and if he neglect to hear the Church he is to be unto us as a Heathen and a Publican All that that follows in the close of that discourse of Jesus Christ shews that he speaks there neither of Faith nor Worship but of some private quarrels that we might have against our Brethren to be taken away and of the use of that Discipline For the mind of our Lord is that before we break off absolutely with our Brethren we should observe all the Rules of Charity and that we should there make use of the Church but if he would refuse to hear the Church that in that case it was allowed us to treat him no longer as a Brother but as a real stranger Who sees not that if they would draw any thing of consequence from that passage they ought to pretend that the Church is Infallible not in matters of Faith for they are not medled with there but in matters of Fact and in the Censures that it gives upon private Quarrels in which nevertheless all the World agrees that she may be deceiv'd And therefore it is that these Gentlemen are wont to alleadge these last words Tell it to the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as the Heathens and Publicans and they alleadge them also as separated from the sequel of that Discourse because otherwise they could not but observe that they would signify nothing to them 5. In fine they produce those words of St. Paul to Timothy These things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the Truth How can say they the Church be the pillar and ground of Truth if it is not Infallible in the Doctrines it proposes as of Faith and in the Worship which it Practises But what likelyhood is there that he would have established an opinion so important as that of the Infallibility of the Latin Church on such Metaphorical terms which St. Paul did not make use of upon the sight of any Infallibility which should respect no other but the Latin Church in particular and which should much rather have respected the Church of Ephesus or the other Churches of Asia where Timothy was then when the Apostle wrote to him which yet did not fail of falling into Error in Terms which may be explained in divers sences and which have been appli'd to divers particular Bishops without yet pretending to raise them up to be Infallible what colour I say is there that they can prove the Infallibility of the Church of Rome It appears in the end of that discourse of St. Paul that he never thought of making the Church Infallible for in all that Chapter he aims at nothing else then to set down the duties of Bishops and Deacons and after having markt out in particular some qualities with which they ought to be endow'd and from what Vices they ought to be more especially exempt after what manner they ought to govern themselves he adds in the close of all That he wrote all that to his disciple to the end he might know how to behave himself in the House of God which is the Church of the Living God the pillar and ground of Truth Who sees not that that Infallibility comes not in at all to the purpose in that close of the Discourse Let the Bishops says he and the Deacons take heed they be wise sober c. That they hold the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience that their Wives should be honest and faithful in all things that their Children should be well educated c. And that which I say in general I apply also to thee Timothy to the end thou mayst live unblameably in the House of God in the Church of the living God Add according to the Interpretation of these Gentlemen Which Church is Infallible and cannot err and there is nothing of any natural Connexion in it On the contrary that conceit of the Infallibility of the Church according to the Principle that our Adversaries makes use of in the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints would harden them in security for let them do as they will all would go well and after whatsoever manner the Pastors govern the Church could never be corrupted nor its Truth be lost Which would seem far more proper to inspire negligence into the Bishops then to animate them to do their duty In effect if they cannot tell how to exhort men by motives of that nature They ought then to confess the Truth to wit that these words The Pillar and Ground of Truth note the end and natural design of the Church that for which she is made and to which she is called which is to sustain and bear the Truth and to make it subsist in the World and so the discourse of the Apostle appears very just and well connected Behold says he after what manner the Bishops ought to frame their course and after what sort thou oughtest to live in the Church of God in behaving thy self in it so as remembring that God has appointed it to be the pillar and ground of his Truth Live therefore in that manner that may answer that end or that natural appointment of the Church Just as if the King exhorting one of the Officers of his Parliament to do his duty should tell him That he liv'd in a body that was the Pillar and Ground of Justice and the Rights of the Crown that is to say which is naturally ordain'd for the maintaining Justice in the State and to defend the Rights of the Crown But as that speech of the Prince would not establish any priviledge of
Infallibility in the Parliament so neither can that of the Apostle do it for the Church for Societies do not always follow their natural appointments we see that they often enough depart from them I confess that the Church does not always wander from its end nor in all things yet it cannot also be imagin'd that she never departs For the wicked are mingled with the good in the same Society the Dignities of the Church are sometimes to be found more possessed by the men of the World then by the truly Faithful the very best men themselves are subject to weaknesses and they sometimes commit faults of that importance that may consequently be dilated by continuance and all that cannot but produce Errors and Corruptions which it will be most necessary to reform Behold all those passages of Scripture upon which they seem to me to found that pretension of the Infallibility of the Latin Church To them they joyn some Arguments 1. If say they it be possible for the Church to err why do we call it holy as we do in the Creed I believe the Holy Catholick Church Such an Assembly that is united in the profession of an error is so far unfit to be called Holy That on the contrary it is Impious since it agrees in a Doctrine that is contrary to the Holy Truths revealed by God I answer That if this Argument were good it would follow not only that the Church should be Infallible as to matters of Faith but also that she should be impeccable in respect of manners for she is called Holy as well from that Holiness that regards good works as from that which regards the Faith The Church is Holy but yet after an imperfect manner while she is here upon Earth and she will never be perfectly so but in Heaven Furthermore they ought to remember that the Title of Holy and generally all other Titles of Honour and Glory that are given to the Church belong to it in truth only in respect of the true Believers and not in respect of the Hypocrites and wicked which are mingled with the good in the same visible Society and that it is but only on the same account of the Good that all that visible Body is called the Church For they are none but those whom God has called to his Salvation who only can be the true mystical Body of Jesus Christ When then it shall come to pass that the number of the wicked prevails in that Visible Society they will fill up the Pulpits they will be Masters of Councils and of Decisions of Faith of the Government and Ministry of the Church and will not fail to introduce Errors and a false Worship but when those persons should introduce and authorise them the Church would not cease to be Holy not in respect of those wicked men who waste it and corrupt it as much as it lyes in their power to do but in regard of the Faithful whom God will keep pure by the illuminations of his Holy Spirit and the methods of his Providence The Church of Israel in the midst of its greatest Idolatries did not cease to keep the Titles of a Holy Nation and a Kingdom of Priests which Moses had given her but she kept them not in respect of her Corruptors and those wretched men that would have seduc't her but in respect of those that were Holy For it is certain that God has always done that which he did in the days of Elias where he reserv'd seven thousand men who had not bowed the Knee unto Baal and it is in those that the Church is preserv'd and always kept Holy 2. But yet further say they If the Church may err and particularly the Church Representative that is to say the Body of Pastors why do the Councils pronounce Anathema's against all those who shall not consent to their Decrees Would it not be very unjust to bind men under so great a penalty to consent to things that are uncertain and which may be false I answer that the force of the Anathema's of those Councils depends altogether on their Justice If those Councils have lawfully decided controversies according to the word of God and if with the Truth they have kept Love and Charity according to the Precept of the Apostle their Anathema is very efficacious and all that they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven But if they have decided any thing against the Truth or against Charity if they have abused their Places their Anathema's are vain and rash and will fall upon none but their Heads who pronounce them For God has never submitted his Righteousness to the Unrighteousness of any Prelats All the force of those Thunderbolts depends on those very things which have been decided We can do nothing says the Apostle against the Truth We ought not then to imagine that those Anathema's must needs be Infallible we ought not also to believe that they could not be rightly used if they had not that Infallibility Saint Hilary did not pretend to be Infallible and yet nevertheless he pronounc'd an Anathema against Liberius who was a Deceiver Saint Paul did not pretend to make us Infallible and yet notwithstanding he commands us to Anathematise even an Angel from Heaven and himself if he should Preach any other Gospel then that which he has preached unto us Cyril of Alexandria did not aspire after Infallibility and yet he thunders out his Anathema's against all the Errours of Nestorius The second Council of Tours never thought of being Infallible and yet nevertheless it Anathematis'd all those who after the third admonition refus'd to restore the goods of the Church In fine every private Person pronounces an Anathema against all Heresies The Anathema's of the Councils are not the Sentences of the Magistrate the force of which depends on the Authority of him who pronounces them they are only the Denuntiations that men make on Gods side as his Interpreters and his Ministers of the severity of his Judgments against the Unbeleivers the Wicked and the Hereticks And provided that those Denuntiations should be founded on the word of God as far as the light of the Pastors of the Church and their good Consciences could perswade them we ought not to doubt but that they would be just altho' they would not be Infallible For howsoever it be that good and lawful Councils assembled in the Name of Jesus Christ would never pretend that their Anathema's should bind any person any farther then their Decisions and their Canons were just and conformable to the Scripture 3. They add yet if it were possible for the Church to err it were possible for it totally to fall away after that manner that there should not be any longer a Church upon the Earth and yet notwithstanding how many promises have we in the Scripture that denote the Perpetuity of the Church God says in Hosea That he would betroth her unto him for ever
Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE SECOND PART Of the Justice of the Reformation CHAP. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
God to worship him purely and to remove far from them all that which they believed to be contrary to a Spiritual-Life and their own Salvation For they need not for that any other Call then the Obligation that lies upon every one to save himself and the necessity of beating back all that which would oppose it self to so just an Obligation There are not in a Civil Society any certain Select Persons who only have a right to Live to Act and to labour for others whilst those others should be dead or not able to move So also there are none in a Religious Society who ought to believe and to be good for others whilst those others should remain in ignorance or in sin and that Implicit Faith which some have invented by which a man is to believe in general that which the Church believes to go no further is in truth the most Commodious way of all others for those men who have something else to do then to serve God but it is also most proper for the Damnation of men Faith then is a thing so common as to belong to particular Persons she is so one in the whole Body of the Church as to distribute her self to each one and one could not be of that Body of the Church if one were not a believer as one could not be of the Body in a Civil Society if one were not a man and had not Life So each man has not only a personal Call but lies also under an Obligation to believe and to live as a good Christian whence it follows that each man has a Call to remove far from him all that he shall judge to be contrary to the Truth of his uprightness Faith and Piety as also that being under an Obligation to live Holily and Justly he has a Call to avoid Sins and to repent of them when soever he shall commit them But is not this some will say to rend the Church by Divisions and to make ones self guilty of a Schism so to reject out of self-will the common Sentiments and Customes without the consent of the whole Society No certainly for the true Union of the Church does not consist in holding of Errors how common soever they may be nor in any false-worship after what manner soever it be Established These things do not only not belong to a Christian Communion but they destroy it as diseases how popular and general soever they may be do bring nothing but desolation on a Civil Society instead of being the Bonds to Unite it So the Union of the Church doth not bind any person in that respect on the contrary it engages us to shew our Brethren a good Example in beginning to Reform by our selves For the greater Love any one has for the Church the more he ought to free it from those evils that press in upon it and especially then when those evils shall put it into a manifest danger of Ruin If it is so our Adversaries will yet further reply Is not that some way to break that Communion when those things that you renounce are Publick and common I confess that it is to break a Society but a bad Society which being against the right of Christianity gives no lawful Call to any person to enter into it or to defend it but on the contrary she gives a Call to all and binds them at the same time to break and oppose it A Corrupted Church has two bonds of its Communion the one consisting in what is good the other in what is ill the one of which makes it to be a Church the other a Corrupted Church the one binding not only men among themselves but with God also and the other that in Uniting men among themselves tends to divide and separate them from God The former of those bonds ought to be regarded and preserved intire as much as lies in our power but the Second is a mortal bond which no person has a right to make and which all men have a Call and Obligation to dissolve It is as certain that the first of those bonds gives us a right and Call to Act against the other for Truth and Piety Authorise us against Error and Superstition and it is the Love that we bear to the Church that opens our mouths against its Corruptions There can then be nothing further contested about the personal Call of our Fathers concerning their own Reformation But had they any Right to Labour in the Reforming of others Who can doubt it Charity would have bound them to procure that good for others which they had thought it their duty to procure for themselves That Christian Communion in which they lived among their Brethren did not less oblige them to it The Interest of the Glory of God which appeared to them to cry loudly for a general Reformation urged them on to it and their own Innocence exacted it of them that they should make it appear to the Eyes of the Publick in laying open the Foundations of those Errors which they were constrained to forsake which could not well have been done without exhorting others to imitate them Being then bound to all these Duties none can deny that they had not a sufficient Call to stir up their Brethren to Reform themselves with them That which I have said will appear more evident if we pass on to the Consideration of the Circumstances of the Reformation for we have already seen after a long and vain Expectation there could be nothing more hoped for on the side of Rome or its Prelats We have seen also that the evils whereof our Fathers made such Complaints and which they would have cured did not lye in things indifferent that were trivial or tolerable but in the very Essentials of Religion and these two Circumstances added to what I have just before represented let us see that our Fathers were not only in the right and not only under an Obligation but under a necessary and indispensable Obligation to do that which they have done I confess that if the Court of Rome and its Clergy would have laboured in good earnest for a Reformation it had been the Duty of our Fathers to have received it from their hands for how rude and corrupt soever their Call had been that Action had rectified it I confess also that if the Dispute had been only about things of small imporstance our Fathers had done better to have kept themselves quiet as I have acknowledged in the foregoing Chapter But they can alleadge neither the one nor the other for Rome and its Bishops were obstinate in the design to Reform nothing and matters were reduced to the very utmost extremity so that the Call of our Fathers appears yet more indisputable being grounded on these three Foundations of Right of Obligation and Necessity and that same Necessity was so much the greater as the evil was more inveterate and had spread it self almost over all the parts of the
the state of grace where the goodness of God had sent the Gospel in declaring to them that they ought to fear being cut off as the Jews from the Covenant of God he addresses himself to the whole body of the Gentiles converted to Jesus Christ Ad totum Gentium corpus adds he And certainly that horrible Apostasy of the whole world which has fallen out since manifestly shews us that this advice of S. Paul was not unprofitable For God having diffused in so great an extension of Countreys almost in a moment the waters of his Grace so that Religion flourished every where within a very little while after the truth of the Gospel was vanished and the treasure of salvation banished out of the Earth But whence could that change come unless from this that the Gentiles were fallen away from their Call and therefore it is that he clearly professes in a Letter to Melancthon that they had separated from all the world Plusquam enim absurdum est postquam discessionem à toto mundo facere coacti sumus alios ab aliis desilire The Author of the Prejudices yet further makes use of an Article of our Confession of Faith to prove the same thing which sayes That we believe that no one ought of his own authority to thrust himself into the government of the Church but that that ought to be done by election while it is possible and while God permits it Which exception we emphatically add to it because it has failed sometimes and even in our time in which the state of the Church was interrupted till God had raised up men after an extraordinary manner to order the Church a new which was in ruine and desolation Grounding himself on these two passages he insults over Monsieur Vigerius the Author of the Discourse in the Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith because he had declared That none of us had ever said that it could be possible that the Church should no longer subsist and that he defied Monsieur Arnaud to shew him one only Author among us who had thought so Before he had expressed such desires sayes the Author of the Prejudices it would have been well to the purpose that he had better informed himself about that which not only some Authors of his Sect have wrote but the Master of all their Authors which is Calvin who sayes a great deal more than that which is contained in that Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith since he looks upon the Church not only as possible to perish but as having effectually done so for many Ages so far as to say that the threatning of S. Paul which he pretends to be spoken to the whole body of the Gentiles had its effect that all the Gentiles had fell from their Call through a general Apostasy that the light of the Gospel had vanished in respect of them and that they had lost the treasure of salvation It is upon this foundation that he builds his Proposition and pretends to make us pass for worse men than the Donatists But all this is nothing else but an effect of the unjust and violent hatred that this Author has conceiv'd against us and Monsieur Vigerius had reason to deny that which he has denyed As the dispute here is only to know what our Hypothesis is upon the point of the perpetual subsistence of the Church it would be sufficient methinks to stop the mouth of the Author of the Prejudices to tell him that he troubles himself to no purpose that we do not believe that intire extinction of the Church throughout all the world which he layes to our charge and that he has mistaken the meaning of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith for there is no likelihood that he should better know what we believe than our selves nor that he should be a more faithful Interpreter of the sense of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith than we our selves Notwithstanding to make the Character of the Author of the Prejudices more and more known and what judgement we ought to make of that which he propounds when he speaks with the greatest confidence it will be good to relate here the testimony that Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu has given to the Protestant Churches concerning that that they believe and teach upon the subject of the perpetual subsistence of the Church until the end of the world For we might say that he had the Author of the Prejudices in his view and wrote about this matter only to confute him There is not sayes he any point in controversie between our Adversaries and us about which their Confessions of Faith speak so clearly and agree so uniformly as this which I may truly say ought not to be put into the number of the controverted points The Confession of Ausburg which may be said to be as well the Rule as the source and origine of all the other Confessions of Faith of our Adversaries sayes in express terms that the Church ought perpetually to remain one and holy That of Saxony sayes that the Article of the Creed which declares the Church Holy and Catholick was inserted therein only to confirm the faithful against the doubts that they might have of the stability of the Church That of the Switzers does not only affirm this truth but sets down the same reason for it that I my self have made use of here above since God sayes it would from all eternity that men should be saved we must acknowledge this truth that the Church has alwayes been for the time past that she subsists for the present and that she will do so till the end of the world The Scotch holds this Article to be so undoubtedly true that it compares the belief of it to that of the Mysterie of the Trinity saying That as the faithful believe the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost so they also constantly believe the perpetuity of the Church The Flemish professes the same truth and gives the reason altogether founded upon the Regality of Jesus Christ which being perpetual supposes in all times some subjects over whom he must reign The French Confession alone sayes nothing upon this occasion but it is so far from saying nothing of it through the difficulty that they found in this point that on the contrary the certainty which they had of it was in my opinion the cause of their silence She does not therefore it may be speak any thing because she did not think she could doubt of so evident a truth of which her founders have spoke so clearly for her Luther teaches it in terms so express that he makes perpetuity to enter into the definition of the Church as a quality that making a part of its essence is altogether inseparable from it He draws the duration of the Church from an Article of the Creed and the words of Jesus Christ which bind us to believe it saying that it is an
naturally goes before the Ministry it does not depend upon the Ministry but the Ministry on the contrary depends upon it as in the Civil Society the Magistracy depends upon the Society and not the Society upon the Magistracy In the Civil Society the first thing that must be thought on is that Nature made men afterwards we conceive that she Assembled and United them together and lastly that from that Union that could not subsist without Order Mastistracy proceeded It is the same thing in a Religious Society the first thing that Grace did was to produce Faith in the Hearts of men after having made them believe she United them and form'd a mutual Communion between them and because their Communion ought not to be without Order and without Government from thence the Ministry arose So that a Lawful Ministry is after the True Church and depending upon it It is not a Lawful Ministry that makes it to be the True Church for it is so by the Truth of its Faith and it would yet be so when it actually had not any Ministers but it is the True Church that makes the Ministry to be Lawful since it is from the Truth of a Church that the Justice of its Ministry proceeds The Argument therefore of the Author of the Prejudices involves the Dispute in a ridiculous Circle for when he would prove that we are not the True Church because we have not a Lawful Ministry we maintain on the contrary That we have a Lawful Ministry because we are the True Church And he cannot say that we are the cause of the ridiculous Circle because our way of Reasoning follows the Order of Nature and his does not follow it I omit that his first Proposition which is Where there is no Lawful Ministry there is no True Church is Equivocal For either he understands by that Lawful Ministry Ministers actually Established or else he means a Right to Establish them If the former his Proposition is false for the True Church may be without having actually any Ministers that is no ways impossible as I have already shewn And if he means the latter his Proposition is not to his purpose for it would maintain that the Society of the Protestants has a full and entire Right to set up Ministers for its Government supposing that it had the True Faith as it may appear by what I have said and as it will appear yet more clearly by the following Observation 8. I say then in the eighth place That the Body of the Church that is to say Properly and Chiefly the Society of the truly Faithful not only has the Right of the Ministry but that it is also that Body that makes a Call Lawful of persons to that Office This Truth will be confirmed by what I have already shewn without any further need of new Proofs But as the Question concerning the true Fountain whence that Call proceeds is it self alone almost all the difference that is between the Church of Rome and us about this matter and that moreover it is extreamly Important to the Subject we are upon It is necessary for us to examine it a little more carefully They cannot then take it ill that I insist a little more largely upon this Observation then I have done upon the rest To make it as clear as I can possibly I propose to Treat of three Questions The first shall be To know whether naturally a Call belongs to the Pastors only excluding the Laity or whether it belongs to the whole Body of the Church The Second Whether in case it belongs to the whole Body of the Church it can be said that the Church can of it self spoil it self of its right or whether it has lost it any way that it could be supposed to have And the Third Whether the Body of the Church may confer Calls immediately by it self or whether the Church is alwayes bound to confer them by means of its Pastors As to the first of these Questions All the Difficulty it can have comes only from the false Idea of a Call that is ordinarily formed in the Church of Rome For first They make it a Sacrament properly so called and they name it the Sacrament of Orders From whence the thought readily arises that the Body of the People cannot confer a Sacrament They Imagine next That that Sacrament impresses a certain Character which they call an Indelible Character and which they conceive of as a Physical Quality or an Absolute Accident as they speak in the School and as an Inherent Accident in the Soul of the Minister They perswade themselves further that Jesus Christ and his Apostles left that Sacrament and that Physical Quality in trust in the hands of the Bishops to be communicated by none but them With that they mix a great many Ceremonies and External Marks as Unction and the Shaving which they call the Priesty Crown They add to all that Priestly Habits the Stole the Alb the Cope the Cross the Miter the Rochet Hood Pall c. They make Mysterious Allegories upon these Ceremonies and those Ornaments they distinguish those Dignities into divers Orders they frame a Hierarchy set out by the Pompous Titles of Prelats Primates Arch-Bishops Patriarchs Cardinals c. They write great Books upon all these things and the half of their Divinity is taken up in explaining their Rights Authority Priviledges Immunities Apostolick Grants Exceptions c. What ground is here that all good men should not believe that the Church-men are at least men of another kind from all others and that they are no wayes made of the same blood of which Saint Paul says that God has made all Mankind Notwithstanding when we examine well that Call what it is to form a just Idea of it we shall find that properly it is but a Relation that results from the Agreement of three Wills to wit that of God that of the Church and that of the Person called for the consent of these three make all the Essence of that Call and the other things that may be added to it as Examination Election Ordination are Preambulatory Conditions or Signs and External Ceremonies which more respect the Manner of that Call then the Call it self In Effect in a Call we can remark but three Interests that can engage one to it that of God since he that is called ought to speak and Act in his Name that of the Church that ought to be Instructed Served and Governed and that of him who is called who ought to fulfil the Functions of his Charge and to Consecrate his Watchful Diligence Cares and Labours to it from whence it follows That that Call is sufficiently formed when God the Church and the Person called come to agree and we cannot rationally conceive any thing else in it But as to the Will of the called it does not fall into the Question for we all acknowledge that no one can be forced to receive the Office of the
submission and hindring them from entring upon any Examination of the Matters of Religion But blessed be God that notwithstanding all the endeavours they have hither to made on a subject that has exhausted all the subtilties of the Schools the Justice of our Cause which is the same with that of our Fathers has not receiv'd the least prejudice and we can even assure our selves that there has been nothing said the weakness and impertinency of which may not easily be display'd to the bare light of common sence For either those things which our Fathers rejected and which we reject with them are in deed Errors Superstitions and Inventions of men as we believe them to be or they are not If they are not we will be the first that shall Condemn the Reformation and when they shall let us see that on the contrary they are the Truths and right worship that belong to the Christian Religion we shall be very ready to receive them But if in deed they are Errors and Corruptions as we are perswaded they are with what Reason can any man demand by what right we rejected them since it is all one as to demand what right we have to be good men and to take care of our own Salvation We may see then from thence that all those Evasions are nothing else but vain wranglings and that we ought always to examine those Tenets that are Controverted for the Justice or Injustice of the Reformation intirely depends on their Truth or Falshood If we have right at the Foundation they ought not to raise a contention about the Form for to be willing to believe in God according to the purity of his word and to be ready to serve him sincerely are the things to which we are all obliged and which cannot be condemned in whomsoever they are found as on the contrary side to harden one's self in Errors to practise a false Worship and to expose one's self to the danger of Damnation under pretence of observing some Formalities is such a guidance of one's course as can never be Justified It will here be to no purpose that they say that in this Controversy concerning the Justice of the Reformation they do not suppose that we have any reason in the Foundation of it but that on the contrary they have a mind to let us see that we have no right at all in the Foundation since we have none at all in the Form and that they would only say that those things which we call Errors and a false Worship are not so indeed as we imagine them to be since they are the Institutions of a Church that can't Err and to whose Authority we ought absolutely to submit our selves This is in my judgment the course that not long since an Author has took in a Book Intitled Just Prejudices against the Calvinists For he pretends to conclude that our Religion is faulty in the very Foundation because there are Errors in the manner of our Reformation and that those things which we reject as Errors are the Truths that we ought to believe because we ought to acquiesce in the Authority of the Church of Rome But that can never hinder us from coming to a discussion of the Foundation it self separated from all Forms and from all prejudices for when these Gentlemen have reasoned against us after this manner You are faulty in the very Foundation because you have not had right in the Form we oppose to that this other Reasoning whose consequence is not less Valid as to the subject about which it is concerned We have not done wrong in the manner because we have right in the Foundation And when they tell us That which you call our Errors Transubstantiation Adoration of the Host Purgatory c. they are not Errors since we cannot Err we Answer them You can Err because the Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host the Pargatory c. that you teach are Errors And when they reply You ought to believe that which we teach you because you ought to acquiesce and rest in our Authority we rejoyn again We ought not to acquiesce in your Authority because you teach us those things which we ought not to believe In these two ways of Reasoning it is certain that ours is the more equal the more just and more natural For it is by far the more just and natural that the Judgment of those Formalities should depend on the highest Interest that can be in the World which is that of the glory of God and ourown Salvation then on the contrary to make the glory of God and our own Salvation to depend upon some Formalities It is far more reasonable to judge of the Infallibility that the Church of Rome pretends to by the things that she teaches then to judge of the chings that she Teaches by a pretence of her Infallibility But although these two ways were equally Natural and equally Reasonable they can not deny that that which at first drew nearer to the Examen of the Foundation were not more sure and that all good men who ought to neglect nothing conducing to their Salvation were not bound to enter into it in Order to the avoiding of Errors They Propose on one side for a Principle the Authority of the Church of Rome against which there are a thousand things to be said on the other side we Propose the Authority of God himself speaking in those Scriptures which all Christians receive and which the very Enemies of Christianity respect who will dare to deny that in this Opposition it were not more sure to side with that part which rules all by the Authority of God You may deceive your selves say they in taking that for the word of God which is not so And are not you answer we more liable to deceive your selves in taking that for the Church of God which is not so and in taking those for Infallible who are no ways so There is far greater Reason to hope that God will then assist you with the illumination of his Spirit when with humility you search out the sence of the Scriptures which you are so often commanded to do then when you search them through humane prejudices to submit your Consciences to a certain Orde of Men whom God has never told you that they ought to be the Masters of your Faith After all if they will make use of the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of our Reformation as an Argument sufficient to let us see that those things which we call Errors are not really so they can demand nothing more of us then to set down this proof in its order with the rest and maturely to consider it in its turn before we determine our selves But to pretend that that ought to hinder us from considering also the proofs on the contrary side by which we may see that those things that we call Errors are really so this were an injust
could not be a certain character of the Infallibility of that Council But why do we use Arguments in a matter in which experience has sufficiently instructed us The Fifth Council assembled at Constantinople on occasion of three Books published the one of Ibas Bishop of Edessa the other of Theodorus of Mopsuesta and the other of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus was it not held in spight of all the oppositions of Pope Vigilius did not that Council condemn those Writings as Heretical against the express prohibitions that Vigilius had made by a publick Decree to Condemn them and yet notwithstanding was not that very Council in the end approved by the Successours of Vigilius and in fine received throughout all the Church for a True and Holy Oecumenical Council Those Approbations therefore are only a juggle which wholly depend on the capricious humours of the Popes on their different Interests on their good or ill humours One Pope disapproves of a Council and makes it void to advance all that he does by that the Council is remote enough from Infallibility and ought not to be held for Infallible another Pope comes and receives and approves of it and behold on a sudden that Council changes its condition and becomes Infallible Besides that did not Pope Liberius approve an Arian Council held at Sirmium in subscribing an Heretical Confession that had been drawn up and which Saint Hilary calls the Arian perfidiousness the Heresie sprung from Sirmium for which he pronounced an Anathema against Liberius For what else was that Subscription in Consequence of which Liberius embraced the Communion of the Arians but a Ratification and real Approbation of the Act of an Erroneous Council and it signifies nothing to say That Liberius was in Exile when he committed that Error for without alledging here what he himself declared to the Eastern Arian Bishops That he was in Peace and Unanimity with them and all their Provinces in good earnest and that he had received that Catholick Faith with all his heart that he had never in the least contradicted it that he had readily given his consent that he followed and held it his Exile and Concern to get away from them does not hinder but that it should be true That he did approve an Infidel Confession nor by Consequence letting us see that it might very well happen That the Popes did Authorize the Acts of wicked Councils and that it ought not to be pretended that their Approbation makes Councils Infallible nor that it has any certain ground for declaring them to be such 6. That Example of Liberius encounters also all those who ascribe that Infallibility to the Popes for behold one in whom by the Testimony of St. Hilary and St. Jerom that Priviledge had no effect But as that Opinion is not generally received in this Kingdom and we need not to fear objections from any here so it is needless to refute them I shall only say that that Dispute that is in the Church of Rome about those to whom this Infallibility belongs whether to the Pope only or a Council only or to a Council approved by the Pope or to the Pope as the Head of the Council lets us see that that pretence in general has no ground for if in truth the Latine Church had that Priviledge it would never be so uncertain as they have made it but it would have been known a little more clearly where it resided However it be it plainly appears that the Latine Church does not pretend to it as a Law of Nature for she is composed of no different blood from the rest of men nor as a right joyned to the profession of Christianity nor as a meer quality of a Church for in that case the Greek and other Churches would have the same advantage but that she pretends to it as a peculiar priviledge whereby they were distinguished from other Churches as the Greek and Armenian c. It appears that they would not set this Prerogative before us as a first Principle which is evident of it self without needing any proof for in fine it is not so clear that the Latin Church should be Infallible as it is that one and one make two and that the whole is greater than any of its parts It is then certainly but very reasonable to demand that they would give us the proofs and grounds of so important a right I mean other proofs than those that are commonly taken from the same Authority of that Church For it will not be enough to confirm that Infallibility for her only to say I am so every Church may say the same and yet not be believed They ought to produce proofs and proofs that come from Heaven since there is none besides God that can confer so great a Right and they ought to shew them to us to the end we may judge of them and weigh their Cogency and Truth That being so I affirm that our Fathers were bound to use all sorts of Rational methods to examine that Question whether the Church of Rome was Infallible or no And to look to both sides to settle themselves in a good Judgment This is that which in my opinion none will contest But from thence these things will clearly follow 1. That our Fathers had right to examine one of the Tenets of the Latin Church which is that of her Infallibility 2. That they had right to judge of it according to the Nature of those proofs which presented themselves for or against it 3. That they might lawfully reject it as false if in their examination of it it appeared to be false 4. That it is neither absurd nor rash to maintain that every one has right to examine a Tenet of the Church and to judge of it 5. That all those General Objections which they have hitherto made against that Truth are false and frivolous such as these that if one give All that Liberty of examining every one may make a Religion of his own That there is no other way to keep men in the Unity of the Faith That he who examines makes himself a Judg above the Church That it is the ready way to bring in a private Spirit and other such like things all which are refuted by that one Example in the Point of Infallibility 6. That if it is no ways absurd that every one should have right to examine a Tenet of the Church that cannot be proved otherwise than by the Scriptures it is not also absurd to say that that right of searching out the true sence of Scripture belongs to every Christian 7. That it is not absurd to say that a Believer is Master of his own Faith by depending only upon God and independant on men 8. That if every Christian has right to examine one of the chief Articles of Religion it is no ways inconvenient to say that he has right to examine all for there is not less danger nor less
principle of Unity would they give us to settle all in the same thoughts in that search which they should make of the true Church The Jews would say We are the true Church of God the Mother Church from which the Christians have separated themselves The Pagans will say We are that Mother Communion for as well the Jews as the Christians came out of the midst of us The Mahometans will say That as Christianity was the perfection of the Law so their Religion is the perfection of the Gospel The Greeks would come foorth and maintain That they are the true Catholick Church and not the Latins the Copticks the Abyssines the Jacobites and Armenians maintain That as well the Latins as the Greeks departed from the Church when their Council of Chalcedon had made void the Council of Ephesus The Arians will say That if one latter Council could abrogate what had been done by a former as it appears from the Example of the Council of Chalcedon then that of Ariminum might very well correct and repair the Errors of that of Nice In fine every one would alledge his Reasons and concern himself to know which of all those Communions was the true and good one and which had the true Faith Tell us what means of Unity would you have beyond that to hinder men from dividing themselves For if it be true that in yielding men a right to examine the matters of Religion they open a Gate to let in Divisions and Heresies by reason of the Confusion of mens minds it is not less true that in leaving them a liberty to examine those Churches and Religious Societies to come to know which is the True you open the same Gate to Errors and Apostacies If you would further take from them that Liberty of searching out the true Church and if you say that they ought to suppose the Latin to be it without other reason besides that that is very absurd you introduce a Maxim that under a pretence of shutting the Door to all Divisions shuts it also to all Conversions For why should not every Society have right to say the same thing So the Jew without any other Reason would presume for the Jewish Communion the Heathen for the Heathen the Greek for the Greek and every one for that wherein he finds himself set That then would not be so much a Principle of Unity in the true Faith as a Principle of Confusion and Obstinacy a Principle that would be not so proper to keep men in the Unity of the true Faith as in that of any Religion whatsoever it might be without coming to know whether it were good or bad In the second place I say That with all that they do not yet make any thing of that which they would lay down if they would avoid those Heresies and those Divisions which may arise from the inequality of humane understandings when men are left to be Masters of their own Sentiments For to obtain that effect they must suppose that that Maxim of referring ones self absolutely to the Pastors of the true Church when they shall be so assured will be received and followed by all men But who can tell them that men will not divide upon that very Principle and that when they endeavour to make them receive it they can make them agree If they apprehend so much those Divisions and Errors in the matters of Religion what assurance can they have that there shall not be any upon that point of the Authority of the Church Is it because mens minds will less differ about that subject then about others or that that same Authority proves it self as the First Principles do Who has told them that those who shall once have received this Maxim will not be un-blinded in the end and that they will not be weary in fine of remaining slaves to men in respect of their Consciences which is the most considerable part of themselves and that which should give them the greatest Jealousie So that that pretended Remedy of Schisms and Divisions is null for you must always run upon that Rock you would avoid to wit of the humane understanding and wipe off its differences its inequalities its humors at the same time that you would have them give away that liberty of judging the points of the Faith Let us suppose since our Adversaries would have us that that Principle of absolute obedience to the Guides of the Church had had place from the birth of Christianity would it have hindred the Heresies of the Valentinians of the Gnostics of the Marcionites of the Montanists and the Manichees Would it have hindred the Arrians the Samosatences the Eutychians the Nestorians and so many others that in the first Ages of Christianity troubled the State of Religion To say that those men were presumptuous and rash is but to say what we would have which is that there can be no humane means that can stop that rashness and presumptuousness of men and that it is a folly to go about to do it They may by the force of Torments and Prisons by their Threats or their Promises hinder the external effects but that is not to contain men in the Unity of the Faith but it is to contain them in that of Hypocrisy and of Treachery A second Inconvenience is That they cannot give to the Church that is to say to the Body of the Pastors that respect which is due to them for where they should be set up to be Judges of Controversies private men would rise up against them and those private men would on the contrary become their Judges But that Inconvenience is not so great as that it should make us hazard our own Salvation How many Judges have in we our Civil Society to whom we yet give that respect that is due to them though still we are not bound to believe that all that they have judged is well judged The respect which men owe to their Pastors is not unlimited it has its bounds and its measures while they act as true Pastors in Teaching the pure Truth and acquitting themselves of their Duty they are worthy to be heard to be followed to be respected But when they come to be Deceivers if that in stead of Teaching the Truth they oppose it if they mix with Gold and Silver Wood Hay and Stubble to make use of the words of the Apostle they deserve in that regard neither the Hearing nor Respect For they are neither Pastors nor the Church but only as they Teach the Truth and follow Righteousness and when they withdraw themselves from it give us their own Fancies or when they follow their Passions then they are but private men who belye their Character and they can owe them nothing for those kinds of things but repulses and contempt or at the most but Indulgence if the Evil be yet tolerable that is to say if their word and their conduct do not destroy the Gospel or hinder a saving
whole Scripture is full of this Doctrine that the Spirit of God is immediately given to every Believer even down to that place where St. John tells them That they had an Vnction from the Holy Spirit and that they knew all things that the anointing which they had received of Jesus Christ abode in them and that they needed not that any man should teach them but that that anointing taught them all things From whence these two Truths result the one That every faithful one in particular has Fellowship with the Holy Spirit which animates and governs him immediatly and the other That that Spirit is not a meer Spirit of Docility and resting in what is taught them to make the Faithful receive the words of their Pastors but a Spirit of discerning which makes them capable of knowing things by themselves and to judge of them For this is that St. Paul means by that Spirit of Wisdom and of Revelation and St. John by that Vnction which teaches all things and frees us from the necessity of being taught by men that is to say of depending absolutely on their Authority as those men would do who should not be capable of discerning by themselves and there is this thing very considerable in that Discourse of St. John that he makes the subjects of it those false Teachers who laboured to seduce the Faithful I have says he wrote these things concerning those who seduce you But the anointing which you have received abideth in you and you have no need that any man should teach you c. Which lets us plainly see that he meant that that Unction was sufficient to secure them from that Seducing and by Consequence to make them discern by themselves the true from the false As to all the rest they do but mock when they call that Spirit a private Spirit under a pretence that it is given to each Believer for it is the same Spirit that animates the whole Mystical Body of our Saviour that Regenerates and Sanctifies them it is in one word the Spirit of the whole Church It may with far greater reason be said that they introduce a private Spirit who restrain to the Pastors alone the right of discerning the good from the bad and who would not that any Laymen should interpose For if the whole body be animated but by one only and the same Spirit why should not all the Faithful have the same right with the Pastors since they all partake of one same Light though in a different measure In fine if they would have it that to yield to every one a right to examine the matters of Religion would be to bring in a private Spirit let them tell us by what Spirit they would have one examine the question of the Church by what Spirit they would have every one know and rest assured that the Latin Church is the True Church of Jesus Christ by what Spirit they would have the Faithful chuse that side where they should refer themselves to their Pastors for in all those points they cannot deny that men ought to follow their own light since they cannot in the least make those judgments by the Eyes of their Prelates as we have noted before Behold then that private Spirit since it pleases these Gentlemen to call it so which they themselves are constrained to admit which shews us the nullity of that inconveence that they would pretend to remedy We ought then to go higher yet and to examine that great Argument which the Author of those Prejudices has chose above all others as being alone sufficient to make us acknowledge the necessity of referring ones self blindly to the Church It consists in letting us know That all the men in the world may deceive themselves that the darkness of our Vnderstandings our Prejudices and our Passions engage us to that And if M. Claude says he can propose evident falshoods as proofs of the highest certainty who can assure us that we are not in the number of those who deceive themselves and make an ill choice in the matters of Religion and that the persuasion that we have well chosen is not any effect of our Prejudices and our Passions and other secret obstinacy in our Opinions from whence he concludes that it must be a thing to be despaired of ever to be able to distinguish the true Religion amidst so many Sects who all lay claim to it or to chuse among so many Opinions which they propose as Authorised by the Scripture those which one ought to believe from those that one ought to reject unless that same impotence that lies upon us to discern the Truth by our own light and which would not open a way to find it should make us go from the way of Reason wherein we should see nothing but uncertainty to that of Authority which would draw us out of that confusion and in the end he advertises us that that Authority is that of the Catholick Church that is to say the Latin Prelates We see then that thanks to the Philosophy of this Author all must be good Pyrrhonists to become good Catholicks we ought to doubt of every thing if we would be assured of any thing But to speak what appears to me that Argument cannot make any impression on the mind because it destroys it self as usually those false subtilties do For if we cannot be assured in those judgments that we make by our own Light because that may deceive us who can assure us that that Authors Argument will be good and concluding since we cannot judg of it but by that same Light which will not give according to him any certainty If the use of our Reason produces nothing but doubts why would he yet give us a Reason the Consequence whereof can be no other than doubtful and by which he cannot also gain any thing over us It may be it is good it may be it is not so our Light deceives us in other things it may very well deceive us in that What likelyhood then is there that we should be persuaded by an Argument that combates it self and which takes away from it self the force of persuading Moreover That Argument destroys the design of the Author of those Prejudices and overthrows the Cause it would Establish For if there be no certainty in the judgments that we make by our own Light who shall secure us that we do not deceive our selves in chusing the way of Authority since we cannot make choice of that but by that same Light which is says he so deceitful We cannot less fear in that very thing the obscurity of our Understandings our Prejudices and Passions the inclination that we have to Error and who shall assure that Author who shall assure us our selves that that persuasion where it is and which he would communicate to us is not an effect of his Prejudices of his Passions or of some obstinacy in his Opinions Who shall warrant
us that we do not deceive our selves in that particular choice that we make of the Authority of the Latin Church to refer our selves to her For we must in that choice rely on our own Reason Who shall secure us that the Lain Church herself does not deceeive her self in the discerning that she makes of the Tenets of Religion That Church is composed of the People and Prelates those people have not more Light than other men and those Prelates are not less subject than the others to that darkness of understanding to Negligence to Prejudices to Passions to a secret Obstinacy in their Opinions and beyond all that they have not a peculiar Interest to favour mens Errors and Superstitions to retain them the more easily in their obedience But those People and those Prelates are a very great number What does that signifie The Heathens and their Guides are yet a far greater number than they and yet they fail not to deceive themselves They are say they rich and powerful and raised in dignity The Heathens and the Mahometans are not less They have external marks but who knows whether those marks are good and whether they do not abuse themselves in the Consequence they pretend to draw from them They assure you that they do not deceive themselves they condemn you if you do not believe that which they believe and they live as to themselves in a perfect peace of mind But the Author of those Prejudices has taught us to answer That all those who compose other Societies appear to have the same assurance with us that they are in the Truth they do not condemn the Latins with less confidence than the Latins condemn them with they are not less exempt from the fear of deceiving themselves they live also in as great a Peace and Tranquillity That assurance also and that confidence that freedom from trouble and fear that Peace and that Tranquillity grounded upon the belief that they are in the right way and that they walk after their Light are marks so ambiguous and so deceitful that they may be found most frequently to be joyned infinitely more frequently with Errour and the way of Hell than with Truth and the way of Salvation These are the very words of the Author of those Prejudices whereof we change only the Application But say they yet farther Do you not believe that the Latin Prelates have a more clear light than you We cannot know any thing by that and they do not know anything themselves from thence since no person can make himself certain by his own light according to the Author of Prejudices They may from thence methinks see of what Nature that Argument is but they will be more apt to be distasted with it if they will but consider that their Principle tends to confound all Religion and to render the very existence of a Deity suspected For if there be nothing of certainty in those Judgments that we make by our own light why do we follow the Christian Religion more than the Pagan or the Mahometan Is it because that the Church has bid us do so This is but a very bad reason for the Church would never tell us that its Religion was bad when it would be so in effect there is no Society whatsoever but would say that its Religion was good and better than all others Is it because our Birth our Education Interest Reputation or the the friendship that we have with some persons or the Laws of the Country wherein we are will not suffer us to embrace any other Religion and such-like motives that engage us These are yet but the very worst Reasons and those who are not Christians but from thence though possibly they may not be a small number may say that they are not at all such for if those very tyes had been applyed to Paganism they would have been Pagans as they are now Christians How then ought we to be Christians It is necessary that we should be so from out of a Love and Approbation of that Religion it self But that Love and that Approbation ought to be the effects of our own Light and not of that of other men and our own light ought to dictate to us what is the Religion of God and to make us approve of and love it under that quality Should we then have nothing of certainty in that matter should we be always in doubt under a pretence that our Light might deceive us and those admirable effects that Religion produces in our souls that confidence quiet joy that tranquillity hope freedom from trouble and from fear would they be nothing but ambiguous and deceitful marks which are most frequently to be found more joyned with error and the way of Hell then with the Truth and way of salvation thither it is that that Principle of the Author of those Prejudices leads us Besides how do we come to believe there is a God Is it because the Church tells us so That would be a very ill reason for we believe on the contrary that there is a Church but by the belief that we have that there is a God we believe it without doubt by the impression of a thousand Characters of the Deity in our minds and on our hearts that appearin the Fabrick of the World in his Government or his ordering the Affairs of it and particularly in man himself and in his most pure and most natural inclinations Our Reason it self is a lively Image of it But that impression is wrought but by our own Eyes which make us see a Deity in things it is not by others Eyes that we see it but by our own Is it necessary then that we should doubt whether there be a God or not Must we never be certain because our Eyes deceive us somtimes and because we are not Infallible The Author of the Prejudices will say without doubt That we urge his Principle too farr that he never pretended to shew that we could not be assured by our own light without the Authority of the Church that there was a God and that the Christian Religion in opposition to that Religion which the Jews now profess or to all those Fantastick Religions that reign in the World and are the meer effects of the impostures and humours of men cannot but be the true Religion That that discernment is not hard to be made the advantage of the Christian Religion above all those others being most clear and manifest Indeed so he has explained himself from the very beginning of his Preface whence it appears that he would not hinder the examination of the matters of Religion but when particular controversies that divide the divers Sects of Christians shall be treated of I may say then if I am not mistaken That there are two parts in his Hypothesis that in the first he yields to every one a liberty to judg by his own Light of the Truth of the Christian Religion
Ministers instead of correcting them severely and repressing them They thought of nothing but their own Interest and not to let slip any occasion that might be offered to heap up money without having any regard either of the Honour of the Christian Religion or of the Salvation of Souls They thought of nothing but how to settle more and more the Soveraign and Monarchical Power of the Pope of Rome where they should have wholly applied themselves to make Jesus Christ Reign in the hearts of men They thought of nothing else but putting a stop to the happy breakings out of those first bright Beams of the Truth which came out of Luthers Mouth and Pen where they should have received them and made use of them to obtain from God a further and greater Light They made it a Fundamental matter to get Luther to recant and not being able to compass that they thought of nothing but how to ruin him by all the ways they could use They raised a strife and process about a matter of Faith of Religion and of Conscience and a process that was unjust and that could not be defended in the very Form of it For what kind of proceeding was that openly to cite a man to appear at Rome who had done nothing but only proposed some Theses to dispute of on a matter upon which there had not yet been any thing defined What manner of proceeding was it to give him a party himself to be his Judge and to declare him a Heretick before ever he had heard him as the Pope did in his Letter to Cajetan to stir up Kings Princes and the People against him and to shew it was his mind to begin to Treat of so weighty a matter with his Imprisonment without any regard had either of the Protestations which he made or of the Reasons he alledged or of his respectful Submissions towards the Pope and his Legat Who may not see in all that an inflexible Resolution always to retain the Latin Church in that deplorable condition wherein it was found to be then and even to make its Yoak heavier if it had been possible So far were they from having any design to Reform it and to free it from those Enemies and Superstitions under which it groaned I am not ignorant that some way to excuse so violent a proceeding one has said That almost at the same time wherein Luther had wrote his first Letter to Pope Leo full of respect and submission he had caused to be Printed two little Books against the Epitome of Sylvester Prieras wherein he spake of Rome and its Bishops in terms extreamly injurious that which says one evidently discovered a wicked and deceitful Spirit that should send forth nut of the same mouth sweet and bitter But all that is nothing else but a discourse of a certain Vlemburg full of falshood and calumnies a sworn Enemy of Luther and his Doctrine For it is manifest that the first Letter of Luther to Pope Leo which is that that is treated of was wrote in the beginning of the Year 1518. when he had not as yet any other dispute then with the Questors and Preachers of Indulgences and that those little Books that Vlemburg speaks of which served for an answer to that Epitome of Sylvester were not wrote till the Year 1520. after the Pope and his whole Court had openly declared themselves against Luther after Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council and after the Pope had made his Doctrine to be condemned as Heretical by the Divines of Lovain and Cologn which evidently appears from that very Epitome of Sylvester which makes mention of that Appeal of Luther to a Council and from the Marginal Notes that Luther made upon that which also make mention of those decisions of Lovain and Cologn It is then a false report of an Enemy of Luther who not being able to find any thing till then blameable in his Conduct has on purpose confounded those times to render him odious and to justify after some manner a proceeding that cannot be defended They know not how to deny that the violence which they used against him was not openly condemned not only by the common people but by the more wise and knowing Persons themselves He complained says Coclaeus that is to say one of his most fiery Enemies that he was unjustly oppressed by his adversaries whom he openly produced and gained to himself in a little time the favours not only of the simple people who easily believed him and who listned after all sorts of Novelties but that also of divers grave and learned men who giving credit to his words through an ingenuous simplicity thought that that Monk had no other end than defending the Truth against the Questors of Indulgences who as Luther accused them appeared to have a greater zeal for the drawing of Money to themselves then for procuring the good of Souls He adds That the Learned men Poets and Orators defended him and charged the Pretats and the Divines with Covetousness Pride Envy Barbarousness and Ignorance saying that they only persecured Luther for his Learning because he appeared to be more Learned than themselves and more free in speaking the Truth against the cheats and impostures of Hypocrites Some time after that Luther had appealed from the Pope to a Council the Emperour Maximilian dyed which obliged Leo to send Charles Miltit into Germany in the Quality of his Nuntio He presented a golden Rose to the Elector of Saxony which the Pope had sent him as a Token of his particular Friendship but that Present was accompanied with Letters which were sent both to the Prince and his Council in which the Pope all along requested them that they would give up Luther into his hands as an Heretick and a Child of the Devil Luther has wrote in some part of his works that Miliet was loaden with sixty six Apostolick Breves to cause them to be stuck up from place to place and by that means to conduct him more securely to Rome in case that Prince Frederick should give him up into his hands But all those Breves and all those Letters were to no purpose for that Prince would not leave Luther to so unjust a Passion This oblig'd Miltit to betake himself to other measures He thought that to make up that business he ought to take a course contrary to that of Violence and Authority He would then have some private conferences with Luther to reconcile him to the Pope he highly blamed the lewd conversations of the Sellers of Indulgences and perswaded Luther to write yet once more to the Pope with respect and submission and yet notwithstanding it was agreed that he should impose silence on both Parties and that the whole business should be committed unto some Bishop of Germany as to him of Treves or to him of Saltzburg Luther performed on his part in good earnest all that was agreed on he
Fashion as far as we can without wounding our Consciences and if we happen to speak or write of them it ought to be done in a gentle and prudent manner with a regard had to the Times and the dispositions of Men always remembring that the Church of God will never be in a State of compleat perfection upon Earth and that God himself bears with the defects of his Children through his mercy But we ought also to take heed how we stretch the keeping of that silence too far for there are certain Seasons wherein one cannot hold one's peace without betraying of God without weakly abandoning the true interests of the Church and without falling into that detestable Sin which Saint Paul calls holding the Truth in unrighteousness Such was the Time of the Triumph of Arrianism in the fourth Centuey for there the matter being a capital Heresy which had then took hold of the publick Ministry there was not any more place for silence there was a necessity on the contrary of crying out and of crying very loud without any regard had either to the compleasance which they owed to their Brethren or to the Love of peace or the Dignity of the Prelats or the Authority of Councills or to all those false reasons of silence which humane prudence ordinarily suggests Therefore it was that a simple Monk of those Times called Aphraates although he neither had any other Call or Office then that of the concern that every one has for the Conservation of the Truth yet could not contain himself within his Cell nor be hindered from opposing himself with all his might to that Heresy and the Emperor Valens who favoured the Arrians having check't him for that boldness in telling him that he ought to have kept himself in his Cell and to have applied himself only to pray to God according to the Conditions of that Religious Life into which he had entred Aphraates answered him If I were a maid and should keep my Chamber with my Father and if I should see Fire take hold of the House should I not be bound to go out of my Chamber and run on every side to bring water to put out the Fire Meaning by that That when the safety of Christianity was in danger of being destroyed it was a Crime to hold ones peace and sit still in quiet But this is exactly the Case wherein our Fathers found themselves For they beheld the Christian Religion and by consequence The Latin Church ready to be Ship-wrackt as a Vessel that takes in water on every side They saw in that miserable Church Divinity falsified and corrupted by a thousand vain and ridiculous Questions The Schools infected with the Art of Sophistry and Cheats the Pulpits prostituted to Tales Jests and Legends Benefices filled with persons unworthy and uncapable Church Dignities sold to those who bid highest good Learning banisht and persecuted Religion loaded with a rabble of childish Ceremonies the People abused by a thousand Follies Church-Government changed into an intolerable Oppression The Worship of God transferred to Creatures and even to those Creatures that were dead and insensible the saving Truths of the Gospel neglected Errors and Fancies of Mens minds Preached up in stead of them The Study of the Holy Scripture abandoned the Actions of true Piety altered by false Ideas the Commands of God broken his Soveraign Authority usurped his mercy set in partnership with Satisfactions of men his Laws associated with the Laws of men and his Grace with our Free-will the only Sacrifice of his Son multiplied the Vertue of his Intercession communicated to Saints and Angels The Substance of Bread adored as his Divine Body his Soveraign Prophetick and Kingly Offices Transported to the Pope and his Priestly to the Priests his Sacraments altered his clearest words eluded by their Glosses and rash Distinctions and his Ministry changed into a Despotick Empire over mens Consciences In a word they saw nothing that remained intire in that Religion Whether their Sentiments in that regard were just or unjust Reasonable or ill grounded it is what a discussion will justify when they will seriously come to consider it But nevertheless our Fathers were perswaded of all that which I have mentioned and under that perswasion who can doubt that they ought not to have loudly declared themselves and that a deep silence would not have rendred them Criminal before God and men And they were the more Obliged to speak in that as we have shewn in the foregoing Chapter they had nothing more to look for from their Prelats and in that the injust and violent Proceedings of the Court of Rome against Luther made them sufficiently know that the Evil was not to be Remedied on that side and that the Time for each man to Reform himself was already come CHAP. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and Sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to Labour to Reform others ALthough this Question about the Call of our Fathers for a Reformation is already sufficiently decided by what I have before Represented since they cannot require a more lawful Call then that which is founded upon the indispensable Obligation of our Salvation I shall not fail notwithstanding to Treat of this matter yet a little further to omit nothing that may serve for our Justification I say then that the chief thing that ought to be done to make a right Judgment of a Call in the business of Religion is to search into what nature those Actions are of about which it is engaged whether they be just or unjust good or ill in themselves for there cannot be the least lawful Call for that which is ill but there is always one naturally for what is good which I shall name a Call of things to distinguish it from that Call of persons whereof I shall speak in the sequel But now upon this Principle which to me seems indisputable we have little else to do then to demand of our Adversaries whether they do not believe that as it is naturally just to embrace and to defend the Truth so also that 't is as just to reject and oppose Errors and to banish them not only out of that Society wherein a man is but even out of the world it self as much as it lies in his power to do We need I say but only to demand of them whether they believe not That a Falshood has not in its own nature any right to be believed or to be taught and that it is for that Reason that she makes use of the Colours of Truth to make her self to be received under another Name then her own because that when she appears in her natural dress it excites or at least it ought to excite the hatred and aversion of men I know very well that all Falshoods do not equally deserve that Aversion and that there are some that may appear indifferent enough in comparison of others but I say that there are also some of which one
matter of this importance we should take the greatest care to avoid dazling our sight with words that would have more of shew then Solidity it will be good to inform our selves more exactly whether this way is so easy as they represent it whether there do not occur some Obstacles that hinder our passing further and whether it be not of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence we use whether it be fitted to all the World and whether there be not any person who may not going on faithfully in it arrive to the end whether it leads Behold here another Conclusion against our way inwraped under a so to wit that it is of a length so excessive as we ought not rationally to hope ever to get to the end whatsoever diligence we use and that at least it is not fitted to all the World In what follows he fills his Chapter with the Objections and difficulties that tend to turn away men from the Scripture and to make them conceive that in effect it is that infinite way which has no issue at all of which he had spoke and that way of so excessive a length that we could never come to the end of whatsoever Diligence we should use But the meaning of that is that according to him the way to be assured of the Articles of the Faith by the Scripture is absolutely unprofitable to all men of what order soever they be and for what Truth soever it be For an infinite way which has no issue and the length of which is so excessive that we could never with all the diligence we should use come to the end of it is equally unprofitable to all as well to the Learned as the Ignorant And moreover the greatest part of the difficulties that render it infinite according to him being not to be found in some private passages but in the Scripture in general it follows that we can never be assured by that means of any Truth So that behold here according to the Author of the Prejudices the Scripture absolutely unprofitable and that for all sorts of men and all sorts of Truths In one word as the Tilte of his Chapter bears it is a ridiculous way and impossible to instruct men in the Truth Whatsoever Prejudice there has been in the Church of Rome against the Reformation I cannot believe that it would not be shaken at so scandalons and un-Christian a Proposition For to treat the holy Scripture which is the Oracle of Christians and the word of God as a ridiculous way and to reject it as absolutely unprofitable and improper to instruct men in the Truth without distinction without Limitation as much for one sort as for another as much for one truth as for another is methinks a new Gospell which we have not yet heard spoken of for there was never any thing spoke so high till this or to say better none were ever yet carried out to such Excesses We have read in Pamelius and some others with Indignation and Horrour That the Scripture is a nose of wax which may he turned which way we please and that it is far more easy to wrest it to Profane and Impious things then it is to make use of half the verses of Virgil to Compose Epithalamiums We have seen in Pighius and elsewhere that the Scripture is a dumb Rule a dumb Witness a dead and lifeless thing a Sword that cuts with both edges and such other Expressions injurious to the Scripture But no body that I know of ever went so far yet as to make it a ridiculous way for the Instructing of men in the Truth There are enough in the world who know that these Gentlemen of whose number the Author of the Prejudices is write nothing but for one and the same Intrest and with the same Spirit I may therefore methinks with very good reason make use for this occasion of what the Author of the Translation of the New Testament of Mons has wrote in his Preface to oppose it to the Author of the Prejudices to shew him that the Spirit that animates them is an unequal Spirit that blows both cold and hot For behold what that Preface carries in it We hope that not only the Souls of the more learned but even of the Simpler sort may find here that is to say in the Translation that which shall be necessary for their instructtion provided that they read at with an intire Simplicity of heart and Address themselves humbly to the Son of God in saying to him with Peter Lord to whom should we go It is thou who hast the words of Eternal Life and it is thou alone who canst make us learn They must goe to him as those in the Gospel of when it is said that they came to hear him and to be healed of their Diseases And a little lower The Holy Scripture is like to a great River saith Saint Gregore which has always slid 〈◊〉 and which will do so 〈◊〉 the end of the world The great and the small The mighty and the feeble may find there that living water which rises up even unto Heaven it â—ffers it self to all and is fitted to all it has a simplicity that descends even to the Souls of the most simple and a height that excercises and elevates the most raised all may draw there indiffirently but it will be farr from being able to be drawn dry by filling us we may always lose our selves in the bottomless depths of learning and wisdom that we may adore without being able to comprehend But that which ought to comfort us in that Obscurity is that according to Saint Augustine the holy Scripture sets before us in an Easy and Intelligible manner all that which is necessary to us for the Conduct of our Lives which she explains and makes clear her self in telling us clearly in some Places that which she said obscurely in others This Language is very different from that which they hold in the Book of the Prejudices The one says That we shall find in the Scripture all that which is necessary for our Instruction and the other assures us that the way of the Scripture is Ridiculous and Impossible to instruct men in the Truth The one declares that the Scripture propounds to us after an Easy and Intelligible manner all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives which it explains and makes clear her self and the other says that it is a way of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope ever to come to the end whatsoever dilligence we should use The one makes it a means of Instruction proper not only for Inlightned Souls but even for the Simpler sort for great and small for strong and weak and the other in making it an Infinite way which has no Issue makes it improper not only for the simple but even for the most
Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE THIRD PART Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHAP. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had right at the bottom in the controverted Points WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
there is reason for that or no it is sufficient that he consents that they should not any more have had those for their Pastors which were so before and that they should have withdrawn themselves from their communion and external worship we demand no more at present We ought now to pass on to the second Proposition upon which the Objection is grounded that I have propounded in the beginning of this Chapter and to examine whether the Priviledge of the Church of Rome is such that one ought not upon any pretence whatsoever to separate ones self from her communion All the world knows that this is the pretension of that Church and that it is for that that she makes her self the Mother and the Mistress of all others and that she has also made it to be defined in her Council of Trent It is upon that account that one of her Popes Boniface the Eighth formerly determined That it was necessary to the Salvation of every creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome But clearly to decide so weighty a Question there seems to me to be only these two wayes The first is to enquire whether that Church can or cannot fall into Error and cease to be the True Church of Jesus Christ for if it be true that she can never fall into Errors nor lose the quality of a true Church we must conclude that we ought alwayes to remain in her Communion But if on the contrary she may erre and cease to be a true Church we must also conclude that we may and ought to separate our selves when there shall be a just occasion there The second way is that laying aside the Question Whether she may err or not we examine whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches as she pretends whether he has established her to be the perpetual and inviolable Center of the Christian Unity with a command to all the faithful not to fly off from her For if it be an Order that God has made we cannot resist it without destroying our selves but if it be only an ill-grounded pretension of that Church her communion is neither more necessary nor more inviolable than that of other particular Churches But as to the first of these wayes I have already shewn that it engages those who will follow it in the examination of the foundation and in effect the proofs that they set before us to establish the Infallibility of the Roman See are neither so clear nor so concluding that it should not be necessary to see whether the Doctrines that the Church of Rome teaches answer that pretension which she makes to be infallible and unable to fall away or to say better those proofs are so weak and so trivial that they themselves bind us to have recourse to the examination of the Doctrines of that Church to judge of her pretension by them These two Arguments are equally good as to their form The Church of Rome cannot err in the Faith therefore the things which she teaches us of Faith are true And the things which the Church of Rome teaches us are not true therefore the Church of Rome may err I do not here examine the question which of these two wayes of reasoning is the more natural I yield if they will that they should chuse the first but when they shall have chose it good sense would also require that if the things which they shall set before us to prove this Proposition The Church of Rome cannot err in the faith do no wayes satisfie the mind if instead of assuring us they plunge us into the greatest uncertainties we must pass over to the other way and by consequence we must enter into the examination of the foundation But to judge of what nature those proofs are which they give for the infallibility of the Church of Rome we need but a naked view of them For they are not the express declarations of the will of God although it should be very necessary that they should have such a one for the establishment of so great and peculiar a priviledge the knowledge of which is so very important to all Christians They are not evident consequences drawn from some passages of Scripture or some actions of the Apostles they are neither clear and convincing reasonings nor even strong presumptions and such as have much likelihood They are strained consequences which they draw as they are able from two or three passages of the Scripture and which a man that should have never heard them speak of that Infallibility with all his circumspection would not have gathered They produce the Testimony that St. Paul gives to the Church of Rome in his dayes That her faith was spoken of through all the world and they consider not that he gives the same testimony to the Thessalonians in far higher terms than to the Romans for he tells them That they were an example to the faithful and that the word of the Lord sounded from them not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place also Although they do not conclude the infallibility of the Church of Thessalonica from thence They do not see that he renders well near the same testimony to the Philippians in adding a clause that seems much more express to wit That he is assured of this very thing that he which had begun a good work in them would perform it until the day of Jesus Christ Although they cannot notwithstanding conclude infallibility from thence in the behalf of the Church of Philippi In effect these testimonies only regard the persons who at that time composed those Churches and not those who should come after them and do not found any priviledge on them They produce the passages of the Gospel that relate to S. Peter as this Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it and this I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven c. and this I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not when therefore thou art converted strengthen thy brethren and this Feed my sheep But to perceive the weakness of the consequence which they draw from these passages we need but to see that which is between two things of which it is necessary that we should be assured before we can conclude any thing First of all we must be assured that S. Peter was at Rome that he preached and fixed his See there for these actions are not so evident as they imagine they are inveloped with divers difficulties that appear unconquerable and accompanied with many circumstances that have no appearance of truth and which make at least that whole History to be doubted I confess that the Ancients did believe so but they have sometimes readily admitted Fables for truths and after all these
in that of other Bishops Since the Popes were raised to that high Dignity wherein we behold them at this day each Nation has thought that it ought in some manner to participate in their Nomination because the business was about one common interest they would have the Protectors of their Interests in the Colledge of Cardinals and Princes themselves have interpos'd but they can see nothing like that in the Primitive Church Rome alone made her Bishops without the participation of other Churches 2. Victor Bishop of Rome having excommunicated the Churches of Asia who celebrated the Feast of Easter after the manner of the Jews S. Irenaeus with the Bishops of France opposed themselves to that Excommunication and wrote as well to Victor as to the other Bishops and in effect those Churches of Asia did not cease to remain in the Communion of the Catholick Church notwithstanding that action of Victor as it appears from the Testimony of Socrates who formally sayes that those who contended about the business of Easter did not nevertheless refuse communion with one another So that their Bishops were called and received in the Council of Nice without any difficulty for Eusebius notes expresly among those who were called by Constantine the Syrians the Cilicians and the Mesopotamians who were Quartodecumani he sayes that Constantine would conferr pleasantly and familiarly with the Bishops about matters that were in question and that he would bring them all by that means to the same opinion even about the matter of Easter and S. Athanasius testifies that it was to accord that difference that all the World was assembled at the Council of Nice and that the Syrians came to the same opinion with the rest and that they earnestly contended against the Heresie of Arius which shews us that they assisted at the Council without any notice being taken of Victor's Excommunication From whence it is no very hard matter to conclude what Aeneas Sylvius Cardinal of Sienna and afterwards Pope has acknowledged in one of his Letters That before the Council of Nice every one lived according to his own wayes and that men had but a very small regard to the Church of Rome 3. In the sixth Century a great trouble being raised in the Church upon the occasion of three Writings the one of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus the other of Ibas Bishop of Edessa and the third of Theodoret of Mopsuesta which had been read and approved in the Council of Chalcedon but whom the most judged to be Heretical Pope Vigilius openly took up the desence of those three Writings and vigorously oppos'd himself to the condemnation that the Emperour Justinian and the Eastern Patriarchs had made of them But in the end being drawn to Constantinople he changed his opinion and consented to that condemnation whither he was carried out to it by the complaisance which he had for the Emperour who had a great affection for that business or whether out of some other principle Howsoever it were that action appear'd so criminal in the eyes of a great number of Orthodox Bishops that they separated themselves and their Churches from the Communion of Vigilius and his Party and even the Church of Africa assembled in Council as Victor of Tunis an African Bishop witnesses who lived in those times Synodically excommunicated that Pope leaving him notwithstanding means to re-establish himself by repentance These Actions prove in my judgement very sufficiently that the faithful then did not look upon the Church of Rome as the Mistress of all others nor on the communion or dependance on its See as a thing absolutely necessary to the salvation of Christians There can nothing be said in effect more opposite to the Spirit of the Christian Religion than that Imagination God had heretofore fixed his Communion with that of the Israelites and established in Jerusalem and in its High Priests the center of Ecclesiastical Unity But when Jesus Christ brought his Gospel into the world he changed that order not by transporting the rights of Jerusalem to Rome nor those of the High Priests to the Popes but by abolishing wholly that necessity of Communion to a certain place and that particular dependance on a certain See This is what S. Paul clearly enough teaches in his third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians In the new man sayes he there is neither Greek nor Jew neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision neither Barbarian or Scythian bond or free but Jesus Christ is all and in all He had had no reason to express himself after that manner if that new man whereof he spoke had necessarily been a Roman and depending on the Communion of the Bishop of Rome So also the same Apostle setting that Evangelical Church that Jesus Christ had assembled in opposition to the ancient and earthly Jerusalem makes not that opposition to consist in this that the one is Jerusalem and the other Rome the one the head City of Judaea and the other that of the Empire but he makes it to consist in this that one is earthly and the other heavenly the one below and the other on high the one ty'd to a certain place from whence it cannot go and the other independent on all manner of particular places in the world and having no necessary dependence on any but Heaven For it is to this purpose that he calls the Jerusalem that is above the heavenly Jerusalem the City of the living God the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven It is in the view of that that Jesus Christ said to the Samaritan Woman believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father But the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth The Samaritans would establish the center of Religion on the Mountain where Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs had built an Altar to God the Jews on the contrary established it in the City of Jerusalem To all that Jesus Christ opposes not the Capital City as the new Mountain which he had chosen nor Rome as another Jerusalem but the Spirit and the Truth that is to say Faith and Piety alone abstracted from all those relations to particular places and independent on all Cities and Mountains The same thing is justified by the censure that S. Paul passed on the Corinthians in that one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollos and another I am of Cephas that is to say of Peter For we ought not to imagine that those men meant that they were so of Paul or of Apollos or of Peter as to be no more of Jesus Christ or that they would take Paul or Apollos or Cephas for heads equal to Jesus Christ They were Christians and they were not ignorant of the difference they were to make between Jesus Christ and his Apostles No without doubt they were not ignorant
Sentence and the Imperial Edict the people would have believed that it had been only made to overthrow the Truth of the Gospel and to maintain and defend their evils abuses and impieties That it was very well done of Adrian to acknowledge the disorders of the Court of Rome and that they earnestly intreated him for the glory of God for the salvation of souls and for the peace and tranquillity of the publick seriously to put his hand to reform them That they intreated him also to allow that the first fruits of Benefices which they had given to the Popes for them to employ against the Turks and which his Predecessors had turned aside to other uses should for the time to come be remitted into the publick Treasure of the Empire to be made use of according to their natural appointment And as for the remedies which he required of them to put a stop to the course of the Lutheran error that they saw none more proper than spedily to call a free and Christian Council in some Town of Germany wherein it might be allowed to every one as well of the Clergy as of the Laity to speak freely notwithstanding all Oaths and contrary Obligations and to take counsel together for that which they should judge to be good for the glory of God for the salvation of Souls and the advantage of the Christian Commonwealth That notwithstanding they would hinder Luther and his followers from writing any more and they would give order that the Preachers should teach nothing but the true pure and sincere Gospel according to the Doctrine and explication received and approved in the Christian Church This Answer extreamly displeased the Popes Nuntio he would not that they should speak of a free Council for it seemed to him he said That by that proposition they would give Laws to the Pope He approved yet less that they should touch upon the troubles of Germany and the abuses of the Court of Rome he required nothing but fire and sword against the Lutherans Therefore he gave them his reply in writing in which he insisted that the Sentence of Pope Leo and the Imperial Edict of Wormes which Ordained that they should overthrow all the followers of Luther should be executed according to their form and tenour without any diminution And as to the demand of a Council he said that they should have made it in terms more respectful which should have given no grounds of jealousie to the Pope and that by those clauses that the Council should be free and that men should be absolv'd from their Oaths they seem'd to go about to bind the hands of his Holiness The Princes would notwithstanding have nothing chang'd in their deliberation which they caused to be drawn up in the form of an Imperial Edict and sent their Grievances to the Pope to the number of a hundred Articles which they called Centum gravamina Raynaldus reckons up only seventy seven upon the testimony of Dolgastus However it were those Griefs explained one part of the disorders that reigned then in the Government of the Church and under which not only Germany but all the rest of the West groaned Thus it came to pass that the endeavours of the Court of Rome and its Partizans to raise a persecution against those who demanded a Reformation were to no purpose for that time But what they could not obtain at Nuremberg they obtained elsewhere for in that same year they caused two Augustin Monks accused of Lutheranism to be burn'd alive who suffer'd that punishment with an admirable constancy and at Anvers they made a Covent of the Augustine Friars be pull'd down to the ground the Prior of which named Henry Suphanus had before suffer'd death in the preceding year for the same cause Adrian enjoyed the Papacy but one year and eight months or thereabouts for he was raised to it as I have said the eighth of January 1522. and he dyed the thirteenth of September 1523. his Successor was Clement the Seventh This man marching after the steps of his Predecessors was not well setled in the Pontifical Chair before he turned all his thoughts against those whom they called Lutherans and to that effect having been advertis'd that the Princes of Germany had bound themselves to meet again at Nuremberg he sent thither Cardinal Campeius in the quality of his Legate Notwithstanding he wrote to the Emperour who was then in Spain earnestly soliciting him to employ his Authority to make the Edict of Wormes to be put in Execution in his Empire and to dispose the Princes to it His Legate being arrived at Nuremberg vehemently insisted upon the Extirpation of the Lutherans and he made for that purpose divers Orations in the Assembly But the Princes would not follow his violent courses they on the contrary obstinately demanded a free Council in Germany and ordained that each Prince and each State should while they waited for that Council call together within their Jurisdictions their Learned Wise and Pious men to examine the new Tenets of the Lutherans and to separate the good from the bad in them and to examine also the complaints of their Nation against the Court of Rome and its Clergy They added nevertheless that each one on his part should do what he could to make the Edict of Wormes to be executed and that in fine that to conclude something firm the States of the Empire should meet together within a certain time at Spire This Declaration which was afterwards drawn up and publish'd in the form of an Imperial Edict extreamly provok'd the Pope and all his creatures They complain'd of this that in expectation of a Council they would submit the matters of Religion to the judgement of a few Wise Learned and Pious persons saying that it was the means to spread abroad every where the poyson of Heresie for thus Raynaldus relates it They could not endure the proposition of a free Council but above all things they loudly cry'd out of this that under that pretence they would defer the execution of the Popes Sentence and the Edict of Wormes against the Lutherans whose blood and destruction they only demanded Clement made great complaints to the Emperour by the Letters which he sent him into Spain wherein to animate him the more he perswaded him that that was a manifest breach of his Authority and a formed design to withdraw themselves intirely from his obedience and as these solicitations were extreamly vehement and urgent they forced the Emperour to write into Germany to the Princes and to all the States of the Empire that it was his intention that they should punctually execute his Edict of Wormes that they should make that of Nuremberg void and forbad them to hold the Diet of Spire But before his Letters came to Germany the Legat Campeius had drawn off one part of the Roman Catholick Princes for the most part Ecclesiasticks and having made them to meet at Ratisbon under a pretence
was the time whereof Hilary speaks in his Writings which you artificially make use of to elude so many Divine Testimonies which I have set before you as if the Church had perished throughout all the world You may as well say that there were no more Churches in Galatia when the Apostle said O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that after having begun in the Spirit you should end in the flesh for thus it is well nigh that you calumniate the learned Hilary under a pretence that he censured the negligent and the fearful for whom he has as it were so many birth-pangs till Iesus Christ should be formed in them Who is there that knows not that in the time of Arianism divers simple persons deceived by obscure expressions imagined that the Arians believ'd the same thing with themselves that others yielded through fear and dissimulation and consented in appearance to heresie not walking in integrity in the way of the truth of the Gospel you would see you Donatists that he had not pardoned those persons for you are not ignorant of the doctrine of the Scripture upon this subject Read what S. Paul has wrote concerning S. Peter See afterwards what S. Cyprian has thought was to be done on these occasions and you will find that it is to very ill purpose to blame the mildness of the Church which gathers together the members of Iesus Christ when they are dispersed instead of dispersing them when they are gathered together Howsoever it be there have been yet some firm ones who were sufficiently enlightned to know the snares of the Hereticks They were indeed very few in number in comparison of others but yet nevertheless some of them generously suffered banishment for the cause of the faith and others kept themselves concealed here and there throughout the earth Thus it was that the Church which increased in all Nations preserved within her self the good Wheat of our Lord and thus it is that she will preserve her self unto the end till she extend her self over all people and even over the Barbarians themselves The Church therefore consists in the good seed that the Son of Man has sown and of which it is said that it should grow up until the harvest amidst the Tares The field is the world and the harvest is the end of the world See here after what manner S. Augustine declares his opinion concerning the state of the Church and its subsistence under the Arians since coming afterwards to speak of a passage of S. Hilary which they had objected to him he sayes that we must understand that which he had said not in regard of the good Wheat which was yet mingled with the Tares but only in regard of the Tares or if his words had any relation to the good Wheat we must take them as only designing to enflame the zeal of the fearful by such answers And he adds that the holy Scripture it self frequently makes use of this way of expressing it self in general terms which at first seem to belong to the whole body but which notwithstanding regard only a part Habent etiam scripturae canonicae hunc arguendi morem ut tanquam omnibus dicatur ad quosdam verbum perveniat We may now see very clearly that we are so far from being like to the Donatists as the Author of the Prejudices layes it to our charge that we tread on the contrary in the footsteps of St. Augustine For first of all our Hypothesis touching the subsistence and obscurity of the Church is throughout conform to his We say as he does that God has alwayes preserved his truly faithful in the very communion of the corrupted Church We say with him that in the most violent entring in of Error and Superstition God has not left himself without witness since he has raised up not only persons but whole Societies that have openly and couragiously maintained the truth and withdrawn themselves from under the Roman Domination And as to the passages that the Author of the Prejudices objects to us out of Calvin and our Confession of Faith we give the same explication of it that S. Augustine gave to those of S. Hilary which the Donatists objected to him That is to say that that defection of all the world and that ruine and desolation whereinto the Church had fell that Eclipse of the truth and treasure of salvation are expressions that regard properly only the Tares that covered the Field of the Church and not the good Seed which was mingled with those Tares These expressions only regard the greater number of those who followed those Superstitions and Errors and not those who in the midst of that confusion kept their Religion pure and much less those who had the courage to oppose themselves openly to Error and to resist it even unto Persecutions and Martyrdom I know that he has accustomed himself to form some difficulties and Objections against our Hypothesis but we have this satisfaction to know that he can make none that does not equally regard the Hypothesis of S. Augustine and ours and to which by consequence the Author of the Prejudices himself would not be obliged to answer if he would not act the Donatist He confesses himself that S. Augustine had acknowledged that there might have been some Catholicks hid in Heretical communions and besides he cannot deny that the passage which I have set down is express upon that subject 1. If therefore he demands of us who those faithful were who before the Reformation kept their faith pure without infecting themselves with the publick errors and if he urges us to mark them out to him one after another to tell him their names and their Genealogy I will demand of him likewise who were those good seed of S. Augustine who under the Arian Ministry preserved their faith without being infected with Heresie and I will intreat him to mark them out to me by name and to give me their history 2. If he demands of us how we understand those persons could with a good conscience live under a Ministry where they taught Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the religious worshipping of Images which we believe to be fundamental errors I will also demand of him how he understands that the good seed of S. Augustine could live under an Arian Ministry where they taught that the Son of God was not consubstantial with his Father and that the Father was not the Father eternally which are errors that the Author of the Prejudices himself judges abominable 3. If he tells us that our Fathers ought not therefore to have undertaken a Reformation but that they ought to have left things in the estate wherein they were since howsoever corrupted the Latin Church was according to us we could yet be saved in her communion I shall tell him that by the same reason the Orthodox ought not to have taken care to have re-established the