visible p. 63 64. Rome not always the principal Seat of the Church p. 63. Avignon was for 70 Years where the Pope and the whole Court recided ibid. Several Popes Hereticks p. 64. Two Popes at once contending for the Chair and this for above 40 Years together and at one time 3 Popes p. 64. The Church of Rome compared with it self in reference to several Doctrines p. 65. What the Church of Rome now holds and what the Church of Rome hath held ibid. Her being the Mother-Church and the Pope being Christ's Vicar ibid. Concerning the Apocryphal Books ibid. Scripture and Tradition p. 66. Scripture in unknown Tongues ibid. Merit p. 67. Indulgences ibid. Purgatory p. 68. Prayers in an unknown Tongue ibid. Praying to Saints p. 68 69. Image-worship p. 69. Sacraments the Number of them ibid. Transubstantiation p. 70. Communion in one kind ibid. Solitary Masses p. 70 71. Auricular Confession p. 71. Extream Vnction ibid. Priests Marriage ibid. In all these Particulars Rome is not now what it hath been The Fourth Note Amplitude or Multitude and Variety of Believers THE Scriptures first gave us the Notion of a Church p. 73. A true Christian Church professes the true Christian Faith. p. 74. Instead of this the Church of Rome have invented several Notes and Characters of a Church which are not to be met with or are not plainly delivered in Scripture ibid. Of which this Amplitude or Multitude c. is one ibid. What Bellarmine understands by this Note p. 75. In Answer to him I. It is shewed this cannot be a Note of the true Church ibid. 1. Whether you consider the Members thereof under either the Notion of a great Multitude or 2. a great Multitude of Believers ibid. Satan's Kingdom more numerous than the Kingdom of Christ. ibid. The Worshippers of Mahomet exceed the Members of Christ's true Church in number since the Romanists make themselves the only Catholicks p. 76. The Kingdom of Christ not to be distinguished from the Kingdom of Antichrist by this Note ibid. This Note therefore no true Character of a Church p. 77. The several Places of Scripture whence Bellarmine pretends he fetches this Note of his ibid. This is so far from being a Note of the Church that it is no more than the variable State and Condition of it p. 78. This acknowledged by the Cardinal himself in his Explication of this Note ibid. The present State of the Church not to be compared with what it shall be before the End of the World. p. 79. Many plain Prophecies brought for the Proof of this ibid. The Cardinal's Citation of Vincentius Lirinensis for the confirming this Note considered p. 80 81. II. Supposing this to be a true Note of the Catholick Church it doth not advantage the Church of Rome as to that her pretention of being the true Catholick Church ibid. 82 to 85. III. Supposing again this Note to be true it doth the Reformed Churches a very great Service in demonstrating them to be true Parts of the Catholick Church p. 85. This demonstrated by two Arguments p. 86 87. 1. That in the first Ages of Christianity the Catholick Church then was more ours than now it is the Romanists p. 86. That there is a great Agreement between the antient Church of Rome and the present Church of England ibid. This is evident by comparing the Doctrine and Worship of each together ibid. 2. That upon computation the Churches subject to the Roman See exceed not the Reformed Churches in Amplitude or Multitude of Members p. 87 to 91. The Conclusion p. 92. The Fifth Note Succession of BISHOPS IN Examination of this Note Three Things are inquired into I. How far this Note may be necessary to any Church p. 94. True and Lawful Pastors necessary to the Constitution of the Church and this Pastoral Power Originally from Christ ibid. Power of Ordination entrusted with Bishops the chief Governors of the Church and ordinary Successors of the Apostles p. 94 95. The Government of the Church of England by Bishops and its Succession not interrupted in the Reformation ibid. 1. Obs Tho Succession of Bishops be necessary to the compleat constitution of a Church yet it may be doubted whether it is indispensable to the very being of it so as to unchurch every place that wants these 2. Obs It is not necessary for every Church which firmly presumes upon this Lawful and Orderly Succession even from the Apostles should be able to produce the Records of its conveyance thro' every Age and in every single Person by whom it hath past p. 95. The Antients contented themselves in delivering down to us the Succession of Bishops in the greater Sees and Mother-Cities As of Rome Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem c. ibid. 3. Obs Some irregularities and uncanonical proceedings in times of great Schisms or publick Disturbance have been interpreted for no interruption of this Authentical Succession p. 97. II. How far the Succession of Bishops may be granted to the Church of Rome p. 98. Little left upon Record of many of the first Bishops in the Church of Rome excepting their bare Names ibid. If Heresie breaks the Succession this is chargeable upon the Church of Rome p. 99. If Schismatical Intrusions can dissolve the order of Succession this chargeable likewise on the Bishops of that Church viz. Felix the 2. and Vigilius ibid. 1. The Case of the Roman Succession extreamly changed since the first time p. 101. No Supremacy to be found in the Church of Rome for more than the first 500 Years p. 101 102. 2. The Church of Rome not very favourable to the Order of Bishops ibid. The Divine Right of Episcopacy disputed in the Council of Trent ibid. 3. Their Catechism makes this no distinct Order but only a different degree of the same Priesthood p. 103. III. How insufficient a proof this will afford them of any great advantage ibid. 1. Succession is no sufficient evidence of the Truth of the Doctrine of any Church p. 104 105. 2. An unintterrupted Succession of Bishops is no warrantable ground of the Claim of Superiority over another Church which hath not so clear evidences thereof p. 105 106. The Cardinals Testimonies out of St. Augustine Irenaeus Tertullian and Epiphanius examined p. 107 108. His Inference from these citations about Succession considered p. 109 110. The Conclusion The Sixth Note Agreement in Doctrine with the Primitive Church THis is acknowledged a True Mark of a Church p. 113. The Infallibility of the present Church is to be laid aside till it be first known whether it agrees with the Primitive Church or not p. 114. The True Chuch only to be discovered by the True Faith. p. 115. Those matters of Faith in Controversie betwixt us are to be determined by the Doctrines and Practices of the Primitive Church p. 116. The Church of Rome waving Particular Controversies that may be made plain and evident to most capacities delights rather to run out into General Controversies
modern Controvertists make short work in appealing to this last only effectual way of Decision had it then been received and known for so fundamental a Principle of Christianity as is now pretended 2. As this uninterrupted Succession of Bishops where yielded is no sufficient Proof of the Truth of the Doctrine of any Church so neither is it a warrantable Ground of the claim of Superiority over another Church which hath not so clear evidences thereof And if these two fail those we have to deal with they will gain very little by this Note For as the Succession may yea ought to be supposed good when sufficient Proof appears not to the contrary So where there really appears Want of this Succession and need to to fly to other Churches for the Relief thereof yet this charitable Assistance which all ought most freely and willingly to offer or lend to each other does not presently give one the Power over the other for ever after The Apostles themselves seem not to derive their Power over the Churches by them planted so much from the Success of their Labours as from their immediate Divine Commission intimated in the Beginning of their Epistles though the one was a great Endearment and Enforcement to the others and so it ought to be We may suppose sometimes greater Churches converted by the Ministry of the less who were so happy as to receive the Faith before them Younger Churches have many times leapt over the Heads of much Elder and the Inferior having gained some considerable Advancement in a Civil Account have soon arrived at a proportionable Promotion in the Ecclesiastical as particularly the Church of Constantinople And somewhat like may be observed in the Changes of other Cities Superior Bishops are ordained by those over whom they after have some Authority For if not only Priority of Order but also Superiority of Jurisdiction be unalterably entailed upon the Eldest I doubt the Church of Jerusalem which was certainly the Mother-Church must be also the Mistress of all And if that Line be extinct I believe there are many other Branches it must descend to before it come to the Roman Some have disputed whether Britain it self had not a Church as soon And that they should ground a claim from what they will not yield to others sufficient for the same purpose seems very unequal But surely the Designs and Effects of this Spiritual Warfare are not like those usually of the Carnal meerly to inlarge the Dominions of their Leaders and advance the Power of their Governors The Churches conquests consist in the multitude of Souls gained to Christ in the new Plantations or farther Growth and Emprovements of all Christian Graces and Vertues in Mens Winds in fastning some Good and Benefit on them and not in gaining new outward Dependances to our selves any farther than the needful Preservation of Peace and Order in every distinct Dominion What is more smells too strong of Worldly Policy Temporal Gain or Secular Ambition to have any true Place here When Men are more industrious to promote and encourage every where sincere Piety and Probity and less concern'd in the claims of unlimited Soveraignty and Power then may we think true Religion and not other Interest to be the first Mover with them But to consider a little the Cardinal's Testimonies here The Second out of St. Augustin Psalmo contra partem Donati being the fullest and alone pertinent to their purpose I single out Numerate inquit Sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Sede Petri in ordine illa Patrum quis cui successerit videte Ipsa est Petriae quam non vincunt Superbae Inferorum Portae As to the latter part of it where the stress lies we have this Argument that it must be interpreted only as an occasional Allusion that in many places where he purposely expounds that Passage of the Gospel he makes Christ himself confessed by St. Peter to be the Rock on which he built his Church as Retract l. 1.21 Tom. 1. p. 30. and in cap. 21. Sti. Johan Tom. 9. p. 572. Super hanc Petram quam confessus se c. And indeed asserts no more but matter of Fact in a single case that the Seat of St. Peter to which the Donatists when condemned by the African Bishops upon their Appeal to the Emperour were referred was as a Rock which the proud Gates of Hell so he resembles their Presumptions doe not prevail against That is the cause was given against them by the Roman Bishop and others joyn'd with him Where though some Allusion may be made to the Place in the Gospel yet it is not fair to strain an Argument thence against the plain and expresly designed Exposition of if especially among such short Strictures of which that Tract is made up And for the other Testimonies in Irenaeus Tertullian and Epiphanius We acknowledg their Arguments good against upstart Teachers of new Doctrine But they expresly joyn Succession of Doctrine with that of Persons otherwise it had been of no Validity unless by referring their Adversaries who were not much moved by Authority to the evidences of the conveyance of the opposite Opinions to them from the first Originals The other two places in St. Aug. and that of Optatus against the Donatists imply no more to those presumptuous Inclosers of the whole Church within their own narrow Bounds and Beginners of it from themselves than a Challenge for them to shew any thing of the Apostolical Original thereof or after-conveyance like other Churches and particularly the Roman wherein St. Augustin Epist 165 after a Catalogue of the Bishops thereof thus closes In hoc ordine successionis nullus Donatista Episcopus invenitur And in all his Disputes with them lays the charge of the Guilt of their Schism upon the separation from all the Churches dispersed over the World according to Prophetical and Evangelical Declarations No Person or Place to prejudicate to all others it follows in the fore-mentioned ut certa sit spes fidelibus quae non in Homine sed in Domino collocata All which and more to any that consult the References throughout rather confirm our Claim We have as good Evidences and Conveyances as our Adversaries can challenge we pretend not to any new Doctrine But for the main ours are what themselves dare not but own What we reject among them are not only as Additions which none must make to the first Principles of Religion but over and above very dangerous and destructive to the common Faith of both For the Proof of such Doctrines or continuance of it we need no new Miracles or new Authority from Heaven but an orderly conveyance of the old and that we still Thanks be to God retain And truly Bellarmin's Inference from the mentioned Citations will carry in it little or no force but seems rather to incline the contrary way If they says he made so much of the continued Succession of 12 20 or 40 Bishops how much may
of this for all those Articles which are before the Holy Catholick Church must in order of Nature be known before it That there is a God who made the World that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried and descended into Hell that he rose again the third day from the dead and ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the Right-hand of God the Father Almighty and from thence shall come to judg the Quick and the Dead I believe in the Holy Ghost and then we may add the Holy Catholick Church and not till then For the Church is a Society of Men for the Worship of God through the Faith of Jesus Christ by the Sanctification of the Holy Spirit which unites them into one Mystical Body So that we must know Father Son and Holy Ghost before we can know what the Catholick Church means And is it not strange then that our Faith must be founded on the Authority of the Church when we must first know all the great Articles of our Faith before we can know any thing about a Church This inverts the order of our Creed which according to the Principles of the Church of Rome should begin thus I believe in the Holy Catholick Church and upon the Authority of that Church I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost and no doubt but the Apostles or those Apostolical Men who framed the Creed would have put it so had they thought the whole Christian Faith must be resolved into the Authority of the Church This short Discourse I think is enough in general concerning the Notes of the Church and I shall leave the particular Examination of Cardinal Bellarmin's Notes to other Hands which the Reader may expect to follow in their order The End. BELLARMIN'S First Note of the Church concerning the name of Catholick EXAMINED Prima Nota est ipsum Catholicae Ecclesiae Christianorum nomen Bellar. cap. 4. de notis Ecclesiae p. 1477. IMPRIMATUR Apr. 8. 1687. Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. a Sacr. Domest THat the sincere Preaching of the Faith or Doctrine of Christ as it 's laid down in the Scripture is the only sure Infallible Mark of the Church of Christ is a Truth so clear in it self so often and fully prov'd by Learned Men of the Reformation that it may justly seem a Wonder that any Church which is not conscious to her self of any Errors and Deviations from it should refuse to put her self upon that Tryal This gave Being to the Church of Christ at first makes it One and makes it Catholick According as this fares in any Part or Member of it is that Church distinguish'd and denominated it will be True or False Pure or Corrupt Sound or Heretical according as the Faith it holds bears a conformity or repugnance to the written Doctrine of our Saviour An Orthodox Faith makes an Orthodox Church but if her Faith becomes Tainted and Heterodox the Church will be so too and should it happen wholly to Apostatize from the Faith of Christ it would wholly cease to be a Christian Church This may seem to be the Reason that the present Church of Rome being notoriously warp'd from Truth declines the being examined and measur'd by this Rule having indeed some reason to be against the Scripture that is so evidently against her and endeavours to support her self with great Names and Swelling Titles Hence it is that we so often hear of the Name of Catholick Antiquity Amplitude Vnity Succession Miracles Prophecy and several others that their great Cardinal sets down as so many perpetual and never-failing Marks and Characters to find out the True Church and to Assert his own I shall in this short Tract examine the first of these and that I may give it all the fair play imaginable endeavour to represent it in its full force and to its best advantage Bellarmin makes it thus to speak for it self The Apostle in 1 Cor. 3.4 makes it the Sign and Mark of Scismaticks to be called after the Name of particular Men tho' of the Apostles themselves whether of Paul or Apollos or Cephas And in the Writings of the ancient Fathers the Orthodox Churches were known and distinguish'd by the name of Catholick and the Conventicles of Scismaticks and Hereticks by the Names of their first Authors And therefore since the Church of Rome is by all even her bitterest Adversaries called Catholick and the several Sects of the Reform'd after the Names of their particular Doctors as Luther Calvin Zuinglius and the like it follows that the Name of Catholick is not only a sure undoubted Mark of the true Church but also that this Church of Rome is that Church This is his Argument and as much as he values his Church upon it I can see no more in it but this that because Churches professing the true Orthodox Faith were anciently styl'd Catholick therefore all that have been styled Catholick since be their Faith what it will must be True and Orthodox Churches And because the Apostle forbids Christians to be call'd after the Name of particular Men tho of never so great Eminency in the Church And those mentioned in the Works of the Ancients were really Scismaticks and Hereticks that were so call'd as the Valentinians Marcionites Montanists and others Therefore all that in after-Ages shall be so nick-nam'd tho out of Malice and Ill-will by their Enemies whilst they disown it themselves must go for Scismaticks and Hereticks This is so weak a Topick that I might justly break off here having expos'd it sufficiently by a bare Representing of it Yet for the Reader 's farther Information and Satisfaction in this matter I shall proceed to shew these three Things I. In what Respect the name of Catholick was esteemed by some of the Fathers in their Time a Note of a Catholick Church and in what Respects 't will ever be a standing Note of it II. That from the bare name of Catholick no Argument can be drawn to prove a Church to be Catholick III. That the Church of Rome having egregiously corrupted the true Catholick Faith neither is nor deserves the Name of a Catholick Church I. In what Respect the Name of Catholick was esteemed by some of the Fathers in their Time a Note of the Catholick Church and c. And this as evidently appears from their Writings and even from those Testimonies cited by Bellarmine was upon the Account of the Catholick Faith that in their Time was generally and for the most part in conjunction with the Name of Catholick and when ever it is so 't will be an Infallible Note of a Catholick Church The Catholick Faith is that which was deliver'd by Christ himself to his Apostles and by them to the Church contain'd in those Writings which they by
us return to our Lord 's Original the Evangelical Beginning the Apostolical Tradition And hence let the Reason of our Act arise from whence Order and the Beginning arose If therefore Christ alone is to be heard we ought not to regard what another before us thought fit to be done but what Christ who is before all first did For we ought not to follow the Custom of Man but the Truth of God since God himself speaks thus by the Prophet Isaiah In vain do they worship me teaching the Commandments and Doctrines of Men. Which very Words our Lord again repeats in the Gospel Ye reject the Commandments of God that ye may establish your own Tradition Thus S. Cyprian †Epist lxiii ad Caecilium fratrem lxxiv. ad Pompeium Ed. Oxon. With whom Tertullian ‖ L. de Veland Virg. c. 1. whom he was wont to call his Master agrees in many memorable Sayings No body can prescribe against the Truth neither Space of Times nor the Patronages of Persons nor the Priviledg of Countries From which things indeed Custom having gotten a Beginning by Ignorance or Simplicity and being grown strong by Succession pleads against Truth But our Lord Christ calls himself the TRVTH not CVSTOM Nor doth Novelty so much confute Heresy as Truth Whatsoever is against Truth that will be Heresy even old Custom Truth doth not stand * L. de Anima c. xxviii in need of old Custom to make it be believed nor doth Heresy fear the Charge of Novelty That which is plainly false is made generous by Antiquity For why should I not call that false whose Proof is false Why should I believe Pythagoras who tells Lies that he may be believed I omit all the rest having said enough to shew that if Antiquity it self be to be credited we ought not to depend upon Antiquity alone but seek for ancient Truth Which leads me to the second thing I undertook to shew that the present Church of Rome vainly pretends to true Antiquity i.e. to ancient Truth II. The Antiquity of a Church doth not consist in the Antiquity of the Place where it is seated For a new Worship may come into an ancient Place of Worship as the new Altar of Ahaz was introduced into the Temple at Jerusalem where he sacrificed to the Gods of Damascus 2 King. xvi 2 Chron. xxviii 23 Nor doth it consist meerly in the Antiquity of its Founders For the Apostles founded many Churches which had all the same Title to Antiquity in this regard and yet continued not such Churches as they left them but decayed some of them so fast that what Truth and Goodness remained among them was ready to dye even before all the Apostles were dead Rev. iii. 2. But it 's true Antiquity consists in the Preservation of the ancient Truth entire and uncorrupted which it received from the Apostles and which made it at first to be a Church Those things are truly ancient which persist in the same State after a long Tract of Time wherein they were at their beginning For if they have suffered any Change in that which belongs to their Being and Constitution they have lost their Antiquity and become another thing than they were at the first Now to know this we must enquire into the Nature of the thing it self and understand for instance what it is that makes a Society to be the Church of God. And all agree it is the Christian Truth In which if it have suffered Alteration that is doth not hold the same Christian Doctrine it did at the beginning but hath introduced Errors and Lies under the pretence of ancient Truth it is not the same Church it was at first and therefore hath not that Mark of true Antiquity which will prove it to be such as it pretends Now that this is the Case of the present Church of Rome is evident by that Alteration they have made in the ancient Creed Unto which they have added as many more Articles as there were at the first and thereby made such a Change in their Church for a Change is made by adding as well as taking away as makes it not to be the same ancient Church which the Apostles founded at the beginning This Charge they have no way to avoid nor can by any other means maintain that they are such an ancient Church as Christ and his Apostles setled but by this Ratiocination as Bellarmin calls it That in all great Changes of Religion these six things may be ever shewn 1. The Author of that Change. 2. The new Doctrine that was brought in 3. The Time when it began 4. The Place where 5. Who opposed it 6. And who joyned themselves to it None of which can be shewn in the Church of Rome since the Apostles times and therefore there hath been no Change at all made in it but it remains the same it was at first without any Alteration Which is a reasoning built upon grounds so notoriously false that it scarce deserves the Name of a poor Piece of Sophistry 1. For first it is contrary to all History and Experience which shews us there have been great Changes the Authors and the Beginnings c. of which cannot now be known Though no Man can doubt there hath been an Alteration made For the Body Spiritual and Civil too is like the Body Natural In which as there are some Diseases which make such a violent and sudden Assault that one may say at what moment they began So there are other which grow so insensibly and by such slow Degrees that none can tell when the first Alteration was made and by what Accident from a good Habit of Body to a bad Thus we are sure a Man is in a deep Consumption when we see him worn away to Skin and Bone though no body can tell the precise time when nor by what means nor where and in what Company his Blood began to be tainted And thus we are sure there is a Gangrene as St Paul calls Heresy when we see it corrode the Body of the Church though it crept in so secretly at the first and so indiscernably that it was not suspected nor can alway be traced to its first Occasion and Original No the Tares in the Field which is another Example whereby our Lord himself illustrates this matter had taken root before they were espied for they were sown in the Night while Men slept and could take no notice of it so that all that could be known was this that his Enemy had done it That is the Tares were not from our Saviour nor were first sown but were of a later and quite different Original But by what particular Instrument the Enemy sowed them at what hour of the Night by what hand and when did not appear for the matter was carried so secretly and in the dark that the Servants who knew of the sowing of the good Seed in the Field wondred to see the bad and ask'd