one might make a large Volum of them if these Antient Disorders were not so publickly known One has publisht not long since a Book of the Rates of the Apostolick Chamber and the Taxes enjoyned for Penances which alone declares more then it will be necessary for us to stay upon for our Edification There not only every dispatch of business but every sin also every crime has its set Price and as there is nothing to be done without Money so there is nothing which Money cannot do 19. I could add to all that I have said a multitude of other things that could not but have been very proper to have raised those prejudices in the minds of our Fathers whereof we have spoken For those unjust ways which Rome has made use of to draw all affairs to it self with all the Riches of the West all the underhand Canvassings and strange Practices it has used in the Elections of Popes the Scandalous Schisms that have sprung from the Divisions of Parties and Differences of Elections The Bloody Wars that the Popes are accused to have divers times kindled among Christian Princes the Intrigues the dishonest ways whereby they are said to have served themselves to engage the Kings and Grandees of the World in their Interests the endeavours they have always used to elude the demands of a Reformation all these things sufficiently discover more of the Spirit of the World then of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and will easily perswade all those who are not wholly deprived of their Reason that there must needs have been latent at the bottom an extream Coruption But we ought to make an end of this Chapter and to leave a matter so ungrateful into which we had not at all entred if we had not been obliged by the necessity of a just defence as I have before declared It only remains that we shut up in the Close of all those things which we have represented by concluding that they cannot at least without renouncing all equity any more condemn our Fathers either of rashness or presumption if they durst perswade themselves that the Church and Religion were fallen into the very worst hands and if they judged from thence that they ought to enter upon a more particular scrutiny of those Doctrines that they taught and of those Laws whereby they would bind their Consciences That Consequence which they drew from thence was but the just effect of a Reason animated by the fear of God and a desire which they had of their own Salvation for what colour or pretence could there be that a Disorder in the Government of the Church so great so antient so general should not be accompanied with a multitude of other Errors contrary to the word of God and prejudicial to the Salvation of men CHAP. III. That the External State of that Religion it self had in the times of our Fathers signs of its Corruption sufficient to afford them just motives to Examine it ALthough these Reflections that I have already set down drawn from the Government of the Church were very weighty and by themselves capable of making the most just impressions on the Minds and Consciences of those who would set themselves to work out their own Salvation according to the Exhortation of the Apostle with fear and trembling yet we ought not to imagine that our Fathers were determined by those considerations alone They yet made others which they had that we may yet be more sensibly touched by them since they had for their object not the outward Form or State of the Ministry nor the persons who possessed the Offices and Dignities of the Church but their Religion it self in that State in which it was in their days For it is most true that it was scarce possible for those who did the least in the World fix their Eyes on that Religion to consider its Draught and its External Form without discovering or at least without discerning infinite Characters of its Corruption And this is that which I design to treat of in this Chapter 1. One of the chief Objects that presented it self to our Fathers was that of the great Number of Ceremonies with which they beheld that Religion either shrowded or overwhelmed It matters little which of the two we affirm for which way soever we take it it was always a true Pourtrait of the old Oeconomy of Moses which seem'd to be reviv'd in the World They took special notice of their external sacrifices their solemn Feasts distinction of Meats of their Altars of their Tapers of their sacred Vessels of their Censings of their set Fasts throughout the Year of their mystical Figures and a multitude of particular things altogether resembling those that were enjoin'd under the Law and in general a great Conformity to that Antient-Worship consisting in such a Love and Excessive usage of Ceremonies This was without doubt a Character very opposite to that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ where the Spirit Rules and not the Letter and which is made free from all that great cumbrance of External Observations St. Paul calls these Observances weak and beggerly Elements a Yoak of bondage the rudiments of the World the shadow of things to come whereof the body is Jesus Christ and St. Peter a Yoak which neither the Jews in his days nor their Fathers were able to bear Jesus Christ himself told the woman of Samaria That the time was come when the true worshippers of his Father should worship him in Spirit and in truth What likelyhood was there that they would have spoke after that manner if the Church of Christ her self should be burthened with as many or more Ceremonies then the Synagogue And if as Tertulian speaks God had not removed the difficulties of the Law to substitute in their places the easy Rules of the Gospel They would have Preached to us the Spirit and Liberty only to have us subjected again to the Letter and to have placed us under a servitude far more insupportable then the Former 2. Moreover as our Fathers saw one part of those Ceremonies taken from the Jews so they preceiv'd a multitude of others that were drawn from or imitated the Heathens by their approving of the same which they either Authorised or practised For we might put into this rank the use of holy water or water Consecrated for sprinkling in the entrance into Churches as well as private Houses and the Funerals of the dead the blessings and the sprinklings the using of Spittle in the Baptism of little Children the Invocation of Saints their Canonization their Patronages and ordering of their Charges and Imployments Their Images and Pictures their Agnus Dei's their Feasts for all the Saints for the deaths of St. John and many others their usage of Processions of Rogations their visiting the Shrines or Reliques of Saints of setting up the sign of the Cross where four ways met of Anniversaries for the dead of swearing by their Reliques and
efficacy But if they may see their Ministry to become so corrupted that their is an eminent danger of loosing their Salvation who can doubt that they ought not to be lookt on only as the Enemies of God and the Church rather then the Ministers and their Pastors and that they should not fail to take heed of them and their Doctrine as pernitious leaven in stead of blindly following them The Duties are then reciprocal between the Pastors and the People The Pastors ought to guide their Flock well to give them good pasture and the people owe them Respect Obedience Teachableness and Love on supposition that the Pastors well acquit themselves of their duty those who are under them will become guilty before God and Men of the Crimes of Rebellion Profaneness and Ingratitude if they do not acquit themselves of theirs But if the Pastors abuse their charges if they overturn the Gospel or if they do any thing coming near to it if they abuse their Titles their Sees their Dignities their Sacerdotal Ornaments all that will signify nothing they owe them no more in that regard either that Respect or that Obedience The Reason is manifest because they ought to respect nothing but the cause of God and upon the Consideration of its saving Truth when then they may see that they withdraw themselves from God and that Truth that respect also which ought to be given to God and his Truth should be withdrawn from them And as to what they say that private men would become Judges of their Pastors where of right those Pastors ought to Judge of Controversies who are above private men this is nothing but a playing with words How many of our Judges are there who Judge us every day without our finding any inconvenience or ill in it They Judge us with a Judgment of Indictment which is a publick Judgment and they Judge us with a Judgment of Distinction which is a private Judgment For they do not bind us blindly to believe that all that they declare is equitable because they so declare it we have in that respect a full liberty to examine those things as they are in themselves though we fail of always presuming in their favour But say they whatsoever liberty we have to examine their Judgments their Judgments must be executed notwithstanding when we our selves believe them unjust I confess it but it is because their Execution consists only in those things or in those external Actions which leave the thoughts of the mind always free and not in an inward acquiescence And this is that that puts a difference between their Sentences and the decisions of Pastors concerning the matters of Religion for the Execution of these latter consists in an acquiscence of the Soul and the Conscience which cannot but examine them in the end and be decided but by the knowledge we have of the Equity and Truth of those Doctrines The same thing may sometimes happen in the Civil Society where in stead of putting in Execution the Commands of Superiours one shall be bound formally to oppose and resist them as when the Sates of a Province or a Governour shall command things prejudicial to the Obedience that one owes to one's Soveraign and which would engage the people in a Rebellion Then we may not only Judge our Judges by a private Judgment but our private Judgment is a thousand times more general and publick then that of those Judges yea though it shall not be accompanied with any formality For those formalities signify nothing when the fidelity which we owe to our Prince is concerned Then neither respect of Magistrates nor consideration of Order nor the Authority of our Governours ought to turn us aside but they must all give place to that Great and Fundamental Duty It is the same thing in a Religious Society God and our Salvation are to be preferred before all things and if it fall out that the Pastors either in their Pulpits or in their Writings or in their Councils would plunge us into errors and into a worship that dishonours God and corrupts his Christian Religion we may not only judge them by a private judgment but we ought also at the same time to labour to make that private judgment to become publick and as general as it can be made and howsoever we do it we do not in any thing withdraw our selves from that fidelity which we all owe to God The Inconveniences that arise from that Conduct ought to be imputed not to private men who do but what they are obliged to do but to the Pastors who abuse their Charge and pervert the rule and natural design of their Ministry But say they Is not this to introduce a private spirit into the Church where we all ought to have but one same spirit which is that of the Church There is saith St. Paul but one Body and but one Spirit and therefore it is that he himself exhorts us to abide all in the same spirit and to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace I answer that there ought to be in the Church in effect but one and the same Spirit but that that ought to be the Spirit of God the Spirit of Truth the Spirit of Wisdom not the spirit of the World not the spirit of Errour God gives his holy Spirit immediatly to all his truly Faithful ones whether they be Pastors or whether they be Lay-men which is in all but one same Spirit though the measure according to which each receives may be different Grace says the Apostle is given unto every one of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ And in that Description of the State of the Church under the new Testament which is set down by the Prophet Joel God says That he will purer out his Spirit upon all flesh that their Sons and their Daughtes shall Prophecy and that he will give this Spirit to his Servants and to his Handmaids Elsewhere God promises his Children That he will give them a new heart and a new spirit and that he will put his Spirit within them Saint Paul teaches the same thing By one Spirit says he we are all Baptized into one Body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one spirit Because ye are Children says he to the Galatians God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts and in the Epistle which he addresses to the Saints and Faithful of Ephesus he tells them That they were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise and desiring that they might receive a more abundant measure of it he prayed God to give them the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation St. Peter tells the faithful of his age who were persecuted for the name of Jesus Christ That the Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God rested upon them In fine the
points that they could not carry on their side at one time and to pass over to other matters to busie the Prelates with and to have time notwithstanding to advertise the Court of Rome and to gain the chief to the contrary party We ought to place here also the ordinary artifice of the same Legates to put off the Sessions to make many difficulties arise about matters and after divers circuits to cause in the end the Articles to be sent to the Pope which they could not make an end of by reason of the great insisting of the Nations In one word they used in the management of this Assembly all that was most refin'd most forcible and profound in humane policy promises threats secret negotiations canvasings diversions delayes Authority and in General nothing was forborn that could turn and corrupt mens minds there The Pope and his Court had a great many difficulties to overcome and oppositions to surmount which often put them into great troubles and inquietudes and fears but in the end they were so well served and they remained Masters and saw all things succeed according to their desires See here after what manner things went at Trent and by what degrees they tended to make an entire breach of Communion between the Roman and Reformed party Let any now judge if in all this conduct our Fathers had not just and lawful causes for a Separation 1. They saw in the contrary party an invincible resolution to defend and preserve the Errors and Superstitions whose amendment they demanded 2. They saw that resolution go so high as to constrain them to fall back again into those errors against all their knowledge and the motions of their own consciences 3. They saw that this violence which they offered to them had no bounds for it went not only as far as disputes not only so far as the Ordinances and Decrees but even to Excommunications and Anathema's that is to say to a Separation and Schism with a curse 4. They saw that they joyned to all this punishments not in one or two places but in all not by popular heat but in cold blood and in the usual wayes designed for the punishment of the greatest Villains 5. They saw that those punishments came from the perpetual and general inspiration of the Court of Rome which did not cease persecuting of them in all places and which proceeded so far as to search for them in their most hidden retreats 6. They saw that they refused the most equitable and necessary conditions without which they could not proceed to a just examination of Religion nor to a holy and Christian Reformation and that in stead of that the Court of Rome would alwayes remain sole Mistress and Arbitress 7. They saw lastly that instead of returning to the purity of Christianity by taking away out of the field of the Church so many corruptions that defaced it so many false opinions that destroy'd it so many kinds of Worship contrary to true Piety that dishonour'd it and destroyed the salvation of souls these Prelates on the contrary would establish things that custom only and the tradition of some Ages had for the most part introduc'd that they would establish them I say for the future in force of a Law to be incorporated into their Religion as essential and indispensable parts of it to which they would subject the minds and consciences of men which they ordain'd the practice and belief of under penalties of Anathema cutting off and separating from the body of their Society all those who should hold a contrary opinion and practice Let any judge whether our Fathers could yet after that preserve Church Communion with a Party in which they could see nothing either of the Spirit of Truth and Christian Purity and Charity resplendent and whether all hope being taken away of ever reducing them to the right way of the Gospel or even of being able to live with them without wounding their consciences by a detestable hypocrisie in pretending to believe that which they did not believe and to practising a worship which they held unlawful there not remaining any further means for them to remain in that Communion without partaking of their Errors without exposing their Children and without rendring themselves culpable before God let any I say judge whether they did not do well to separate themselves I confess that when a man is joyned with others in one and the same Body he ought not lightly to proceed to a rupture there are measures and behaviour to be observ'd that Prudence and Christian Charity require of us and as long as we have any hope of procuring the amendment and healing of our Brethren or where there is at least any way for us to bewail and to mourn for their sins without losing our own innocency and their constraining us to partake in their crimes we ought not to forsake them But when that hope is lost and when that means of preserving our own purity is taken from us when instead of being able to reduce them we see on the contrary that their Communion does but make us to cast our selves into an unavoidable necessity of corrupting our selves it is certain that we ought to withdraw our selves from them lest in partaking with their sins we should draw the just condemnation of God upon our selves Be not partaker with other mens sins sayes S. Paul but keep thy self pure CHAP. IV. An Examination of the Objection of the Author of the Prejudices taken out of the Dispute of S. Augustine against the Schism of the Donatists IT seems to me that what I have laid down hitherto le ts us clearly enough see that the only way to decide the Question of our Separation to know whether it is just or unjust is to enter into the discussion of the foundation of our Controversies and that it would be the highest injustice to go about to condemn us without ever hearing us Notwithstanding whatsoever we may have to say and how strong soever our Reasons should be the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have found out a certain way to convince us of Schism without entring upon any other examination and for this he employes the Eighth and Ninth Chapters of his Treatise I would sayes he go farther and convince them of Schism without entring upon any discussion of either their Doctrine or their Mission by their separation alone All that he sayes upon that subject may be well near reduc'd to this That there is a Church from which one ought never to separate under any pretence whatsoever and from which all those who separate themselves are Schismaticks and out of the state of salvation That the infallible and perpetual mark to know this Church according to S. Augustine and the other African Fathers is visible extension throughout all Nations because that visible extension according to them contains the Church at all times and that it is a Negative mark that is to say
and that he does not take away from them in that respect the certainty of their Judgments but that in the second he takes it from them over other particular matters but all that is but an Artifice whereby he would prevent and elude if he could those just and natural Consequences which he foresaw might be drawn from his Principle For the very same Reasons which he proposes to hinder us from the examining the particular points of Religion and the very same grounds upon which he builds his Conclusion have place also in the comparing the Christian Religion with other Religions So that one may say that the second part of his design destroys the first and that he himself overthrows that that he had establisht For tell me if the uncertainty of our Judgments founded upon this that we see that others deceive themselves by the darkness of our understanding by our Prejudices by our Passions and by those secret Attacks that we have of our thoughts tell me if that has not place as well in the Judgment that they make That there is a God and that the Christian Religion is alone from God and the only True one as in that that we make That their Purgatory is but an imaginary Fire that their Transubstantiation is but a human invention and that the Sacrifice of the Mass is no where to be found in the Scripture Are there no Profane or Atheistical persons in the World Are there no Jews nor Pagans nor Mahometans As we are persuaded that they deceive themselves so are they persuaded that we deceive our selves but may not they demand of us what assurance we have that the darkness of our Understandings our Prejudices our Passions or some other secret tye that lyes upon our thoughts have no part in our persuasion What will the Authour of the Prejudices answer to them Will he say That the advantage that the Christian Religion has over all other Religions is most clear and manifest I may say to him the same that the advantage that the Protestant Religion has above the Roman is most clear and manifest and in saying so I shall affirm nothing whereof I am not well convinced If he replies to me that I ought not to be so confident of my own Light that that which appears to me to be most clear and manifest does not appear so to others that the darkness of the Mind Prejudices Passions c. make men deceive themselves and that I have no assurance that I am not of that number The Jew the Mahometan the Pagan the Libertine the Atheist who shall come behind him will exclaim as often as they shall have occasion after the same manner This is justly what we have to say this Author pleads our cause admirably well After all That Principle of the Author of those Prejudices was so far from turning aside our Fathers from examining by themselves the matters of Religion that on the contrary it bound them to do it the more For being concerned for their own salvation there was no person more intrested than themselves and being so easily apt to deceive themselves in the choice of those Opinions that they were enjoyned to believe and of that Worship which they were to practise they ought not naturally to have trusted any but themselves They might it is true deceive themselves but their Prelates might deceive themselves as well as they and if in the Church the people must refer themselves to their Prelates and each of those Prelates in particular must refer themselves to the whole body of the Church they will find that neither the one nor the other will be cured and that that Church to which they should all refer themselves would be but an Ens Rationis as they speak in the Schools and a Platonic Idea Prudence then bound our Fathers to examine that which they should know both from the imperfections of the Minds or the Hearts of men and from the examples of those before them who fell into error together with the danger which men are in on the account of their Prejudices their Passions and their Interests all that could produce no other effect in them than to excite them to make an examination the most exactly and diligently that it was possible for them to do cleansing their Hearts from every evil thought and imploring the Grace and Blessing of God upon them For they were assured that if they did the Will of the Father they should know his true Doctrine and that if any did lack Wisdom begg'd it of God that he would give it them since he gives to all liberally and upbraideth not Those are the promises of the Gospel Those to whom God grants that Grace which inlightens the mind and opens the Heart do not only not deceive themselves in the choice of Saving Doctrines and in the rejecting of those that are Damnable but they have for that all the assurance that they can reasonably wish for for the Truth makes it self to be perceived by far other Characters than those of a disguised falshood The Invocation of Saints the Worshipping of Images the Adoration of the Host the Conceit of Purgatory have never produced in the souls of the Devout Persons of the Church of Rome that sweet joy that Peace and that Contentment of the Soul which the Protestant rejoyces in when he calls upon God alone when he Worships him without Images as he has commanded him when he Adores Jesus Christ sitting at the Right Hand of his Father and when he places his only Confidence in his Satisfaction and in his Merit a deceived Conscience may be sometimes in Security but that security is never enjoyed like a true Quiet It is the Rest of a Lethargy where a mans feels no pain because he has no feeling which is very different from that Rest that gives a perfect Health besides that the security of a deceived Conscience is not long continued inquietudes return from time to time chiefly in the Affections and at the time of Death where that Tranquillity that the True Religion gives is solid and well grounded and displays its vertue peculiarly in the most grievous Accidents of our Life and in the very Agonies of Death it self Such are those Divine impressions that David felt when he said The Law of the Lord is perfect Converting the soul the Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple The statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart his judgments are more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey And elsewhere Thy word has been sweet unto my taste yea sweeter than honey to my mouth And yet further in another place The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his covenant The Disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ felt them when they said Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the
the point of the Real presence and about some Questions of the Schools which we cannot yet impute to their whole Body and as for the rest they reject with us the Invocation of Saints Religious Worship of Images humane Satisfactions Indulgences Purgatory worship of Reliques the publick Service in an unknown Tongue the merit of good Works Transubstantiation the sacrifice of the Mass the Monarchy of the Pope the opinion of the Infallibility of the Church and the principle of blind obedience to the decisions of Councils They acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only Rule of Faith they carefully practise the Reading of them they own their sufficiency they believe their Authority independant from that of the Church in regard of men They distinctly explain the Doctrine of Justification and that of the use of the Law and its distinction from the Gospel they do not conceive amiss of the nature of Faith and that of good works and as for popular superstitions we can scarce see any reign among them Would to God the Church of Rome were in that condition and that we could purchase it at the price of our Blood and our Lives But alas We are very far from seeing any likely-hood of success to that wish all those points that I have set down are so many differences which we have with her and in our Judgments there are so many Errors and so many abuses in her and we are so far from any reasonable hope of their Correction that we see on the contrary that they strengthen themselves in them every day and that they discover every day more and more signs of their aversion for or contempt of a Reformation Who therefore can think it strange that upon the business of Religion we place a great difdifference between those of the Roman Church and those who are called Lutherans the one appears to us as a Body spread all over with a great many boils which all together put a stop to the Functions of Life and the others as a Body that has only one or two which do not hinder its Life or its Action In a word we do not believe that those who have imbibed the Tenets of the Roman Church where we differ from them and who practice them are in the way of Salvation as well by reason of the Quality of the greatest part of those Tenets as by reason of their number But as to the Errors which remain yet among the Lutherans we do not pass the same Judgment either as to their Quality or their number I say as to their Quality and the reason that we alledge is is very solid whatsoever endeavors they have used to elude it for although the opinion of the Lutherans about the Real presence be erroneous though we are so far from approving of it that we oppose it as much as possibly we can yet while they shall make a profession as they do to distinguish in the Sacrament the substance of bread from that of the Body of Jesus Christ we cannot say that their Error compels them actually to adore the meer creature of Bread for the same Body of Jesus Christ that is hypostatically united with the word We can very well say that they deceive themselves in imagining that the Body of Jesus Christ is in a place where it is not but we cannot tell them that they take another subject for the Body of Jesus Christ which really and in effect is not so They do not therefore deceive themselves in regard of the Object of their Adoration for they do not take the one for the other I would say they do not take the substance of Bread for the Body of Jesus Christ but they deceive themselves in regard of the place wherein they conceive the Body of Jesus Christ to be for they conceive it to be in the Bread and it is not there But this Error about the place how gross soever it be does not notwithstanding include Idolatry for as I have said they do not take one subject for another the substance of Bread for the Body of Jesus Christ But it is otherwise in the Church of Rome for if she deceives her self she does it not only as to the place wherein she conceives the Body of Jesus Christ but also as to the subject that she takes for the Body of Jesus Christ since it is in effect but the substance of Bread There is actually and really in the Sacrament but one only substance the Church of Rome does not distinguish it from the Object of her Adoration on the contrary she delieves it to be the Body of Jesus Christ and she Adores it under that Quality if she deceives her self it is manifest that in believing she adores the Body of Jesus Christ she adores that which is actually the substance of Bread It is to no purpose therefore that the Author of the Prejudices says That it is false that the Catholicks adore the Sacrament in taking that word for an external Vail That makes nothing to the Question Whether they adore or do not adore the accidents of Bread that is to say its figure colour roundness is a thing by it self whereof we do not now dispute we speak now of the substance which the Priest holds in his hands But it is yet nothing to the purpose what he further adds That although the Bread should remain there as the Lutherans hold yet we could not accuse the Catholicks of adoring it their adoration terminates upon Jesus Christ alone whom they believe to lie hid under those sensible species This is an Ordinary Fallacy of their Missionaries fit only to deceive Children I distinguish We cannot accuse those of the Church of Rome of believing that they adore the Bread or of being willing to adore it or of having an intention to adore the Bread I grant it for they believe that it is no longer Bread they believe that the substance of Bread is changed into that of Jesus Christ so that they can never be accused of believing that they adore or that they are willing to adore or that they have an intention to adore the Bread They defend themselves in that whereof no Body accuses them But if the bread remain in effect no Bread I deny that we cannot accuse them of adoring that which is actually and in the Truth of the thing Bread in believing that it is the Body of Jesus Christ and a man must be of a very bad faith not to see it For if I should imagine for example that a Tree that a Rock that a flower was a God hid under the form of a Tree a Rock a Flower and if I should adore it under that Quality of a God which my imagination gave it it would be past all doubt that I should adore a Tree a Rock a Flower in believing my self to adore God But besides that we are in regard of the Lutherans in very different Terms from those wherein the Church of Rome would
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
as Hereticks or the enemies of the Churches peace Therefore it was that Constance reproached Liberius that he was alone and that he opposed himself to all the world in the defence of Athanasius When so great a part of the world said he to him resides in thy person that thou alone shouldst take the part of a wicked man and dare to break the peace of the whole world I would be alone answered Liberius the cause of the faith is nevertheless weakned For heretofore there were but three found who resisted the Command of a King Liberius himself was banished from which he was not freed till after he subscribed to Arianism And as the West was then less infected with this Heresie than the East the Emperour caused a Council to assemble at Ariminum in which after specious beginnings the end was very unhappy For the Bishops renounced therein the Orthodox Doctrine which made the Son of God of one and the same Essence with his Father To this effect they rejected the word consubstantial which the Council of Nice had inserted into its Creed as a word that was scandalous sacrilegious and unworthy of God which was no where to be found in the Scripture and they banished it from the Church This appears by the Letter of that Synod it self to the Emperour Constance set down by S. Hilary in which they gave the Emperour thanks that he had shewn them what they ought to do to wit to decree that no body should speak any more either of substance or of consubstantial which are names unknown to the Church of God and that they rejoyced because they had acknowledged the very same thing that they had held before They add That the Truth which cannot be overcome has obtained the victory so that that name unworthy of God which was not to be found wrote in the Sacred Laws should not be for the future mentioned by any person and they declare That they intirely hold the same Doctrine with the Oriental Churches and that they have rendred unto them and him a full obedience It was that reason for which Auxentius Bishop of Millan an Arian said in his Letter to Valentinian and Valens Emperours That he ought not to endure that the Vnity of six hundred Bishops should be broken by a small number of contentious persons So that Vincentius Lirinensis makes no scruple to acknowledge That the poyson of Arianism had infected not some small parts only but almost all the world and it was to that sense that Phaebadius a French Bishop who lived in those times said That the subtilty and fraud of the Devil had almost wholly possessed mens minds that it perswaded them to believe Heresie as the right Faith and condemned the true Faith as an Heresie And a little lower having an eye to what had been done at the Council of Ariminum The Bishops saith he made an Edict that no one should mention one only substance that is to say that no one should preach in the Church that the Father and the Son were but one only vertue I might add to these testimonies that of Gregory Nazianzen in the Oration that he made in the praise of S. Athanasius There after having described the furies of George Patriarch of Alexandria and an Arian and the impieties of the Council of Seleucia he adds We may see one sort unjustly banished from their Sees and other put into their places after their having subscribed to the impiety which was required of them as a necessary condition Plotting never ceased on one side nor the Calumniator on the other This is that which has made many among us fall into the snare who were else invincible for although their error did not go so far as to seduce their minds yet they subscrib'd notwithstanding and by that means conspired with the most wicked men and if they were not partakers in their flames they were at least blackned with their smoak This is that which has made me often pour forth rivers of tears beholding wickedness spread abroad so wide and so much every where and that those themselves that ought to have been the defenders of the Word there have become the persecutors of the Orthodox Doctrine For it is certain that the Pastors have been carried away after an insensible manner and to speak with the Scripture divers Pastors have left my Vineyard desolate they have abused and loaded that desirable portion with shame that is to say the Church of God which the sweat and blood of so many Martyrs before and since the coming of jesus Christ had besprinkled and which was consecrated by the sufferings of God himself who dyed for our salvation If you except some few who have either been despised by reason of the obscurity of their names or who have resisted by their vertue for it is very requisite that there should yet have some remained to be as it were a seed and a root to Israel to make it flourish and revive again all were swayed by the Times There was only this difference among them that some were fallen deeper into the snare and others more slowly that some were the chief in wickedness and others held the second place Cardinal Baronius could not avoid making this reflection in setting down this passage So it was that Gregory deplored the ruine of the whole Eastern Church But if we would add the ruine that befell the Western Church which I have just before described we shall easily judge that there has not been any time since wherein the whole Christian World has been more disturbed than it was then since almost all the Preachers of the Churches were fallen into the precipice and that the face of the Catholick Church was never so dreadful But the second Action which we have propounded is not less certain than the former to wit that those among the Orthodox who had any zeal or courage separated themselves from the Body of their ordinary Pastors and would not own them for their Pastors while they remained in Heresie In effect that was the chief cause for which they suffered so many murders and banishments the Arians no wayes tolerating those who refused their Communion The perpetual Accusation wherewith they charged them was That they were the Schismaticks who had violated the Peace and Unity of the Church This is that which Auxentius reproached S. Hilary with and Eusebius of Verceille in the Letter which I have before cited They are said he men condemned and deposed who think of nothing but making of Schisms wheresoever they come for so it was that that false Bishop called the just Separation to which S. Hilary exhorted the faithful by his Writings as we have seen in the preceding Chapter Socrates the Ecclesiastical Historian relates upon this subject that the cruelty of the Arians proceeded to that height that they forced by all sorts of unjust wayes men and women to receive the Sacrament at their hands
Councils of Ariminum and of Constantinople which included all the East and all the West and if they had had no more but that they ought not to have separated from the body of their actually governing Pastors that they might have cleaved to a Synod which was past and gone It was therefore the importance of the Truth that was contested and that of the Error that was opposite to it which made the Separation and not the meer Authority of the Nicene Fathers and therefore it is that S. Augustine disputing against Maximinus an Arian would that they should set aside as well the Council of Nice as that of Ariminum and that they should only contend about the things themselves Not but that sometimes the Orthodox did set before them the Council of Nice according to the manner of disputes where one will neglect no advantage for its being ever so small but it was as a little help and not as the essential reason of their Separation which was alwayes taken from the thing it self and from the testimonies of the Scripture so that that difference is very frivolous If they say lastly that the point that was controverted then was one of a far greater importance than those upon which our Fathers separated themselves I answer that indeed the Article of the Consubstantiality of the Son is one of the chief and most fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion but that does not hinder that those that are controverted between the Church of Rome and us should not also be of the greatest importance to salvation and sufficient to cause a separation And when they would make the justice or injustice of ours to depend on that they must quit all that vain dispute of prejudices and go on to the discussion of the foundation it self The Author of the Prejudices must not take it ill that in endeavouring to decide the Question concerning the right of the Separation of our Fathers I make use here of his own proper testimony For it is a matter surprising enough that writing in his Eighth and Ninth Chapters in which he would he sayes convince us of Schism without entring upon a discussion either of our Doctrine or our Mission that he should not have remembred what he himself had just before said in the Seventh First of all he there proposes this difficulty as on our side If the visible Church were really fallen into Error as we suppose that it is possible for it to do if it drive away the truly faithful from its bosome if it persecute them must those truly faithful needs be deprived of all external worship in Religion must they needs cleave to the Church to perish with them since we suppose that it resides in them alone Is it not against the Divine Providence that the true worshippers of God the true heirs of Heaven cannot form a Church in the World and that God has not left any means to provide against so strange an inconvenience He answers plainly That indeed that inconvenience is exceeding great but that it is not necessary that God should have provided against it by remedies because he has resolved to hinder it from ever falling out in alwayes preserving the True Ministry in his Church So that it can never be in a necessity of being re-established and that very thing is a certain mark that that inconvenience can never happen in that God has not provided any remedy for it He sayes that so it is that our Ministers ought to conclude and not to conclude as they do in supposing that the visible Church may fall into ruine that there is a necessity of having recourse to the establishment of a new Ministry Since immediately after he adds But if the adhaesion which they have to their sentiments hinders them from coming to agree to this consequence they ought rather to conclude that those pretended truly faithful must remain in that state without Pastors and without any external worship and that they should rather expect that God should raise up some extraordinarily and with visible marks of their mission than to usurp to themselves a right of creating Ministers and Pastors and giving them power to govern the Churches and administer the Sacraments We have already shewn him and we shall yet further shew him in the end that it is not without reason that we suppose that the Ministry may be corrupted in the Church We shall shew him also that the consequence which we draw from it concerning the re-establishing of the Ministry is just and right and that a faithful people have a right in that case to create their Ministers and their Pastors and to give them power to govern their Churches and to administer the Sacraments But as we are only disputing at present about knowing whether we may separate our selves from the body of the ordinary Pastors when they are fallen into errors incompatible with our salvation and when they will force the people to profess the same Errors it shall suffice at present to take notice that the Author of the Prejudices comes to agree that when persons are perswaded that the body of those who possess the Ministry in the Church is fallen into Error and when it drives away from its bosome and persecutes those who maintain the Truth they may remain separated without acknowledging that Body for their Pastors and without assisting in their external worship provided that they do not make other Ministers But who sees not that this is precisely to acknowledge the right of that Separation about which the question at present is Who sees not that it is at least in that respect a discharging our Fathers from the Accusation of Schism and to declare them further innocent of that crime which he would design to lay to their charge at last Our Fathers did not collect that consequence of the Author of the Prejudices they did not conclude that the Ministry must be incorruptible in the Church in that which it had of humane in it This is not a place to dispute whether they adhered too much to their own opinions where because that in effect they judg'd well that manner of reasoning is pernicious Howsoever it were they have concluded quite otherwise they were perswaded that the body of those who possessed the Ordinary Ministry in the Latin Church were fallen not only into an Error but into many and into such as were contrary to mens salvation that it was guilty of opinionativeness in maintaining them that it did impose a necessity upon all to profess them that it drove away from its bosome those who refused that obedience It was upon this that they separated themselves from them not acknowledging them any more for their Pastors and assisting no further in their external worship Thus far the Author of the Prejudices does not condemn them he would only that they should have remained throughout without Pastors and without external worship We shall see in its place whether
Rights of that Society were so inseparably joyned to those who opposed the Reformation that that Society could not subsist without them and that separating themselves out of the motives of an ill-grounded Prejudice or in giving a Just ground to others to separate themselves from them they should have carried away all that Society with them This cannot be said For among all those persons who compose the Body of the Visible Church it is certain that there are none to how high Dignities soever they may be raised and whatsoever number of them there may be that are such Essential Parts as without which the Church cannot subsist while there are two or three remaining who may assemble together in the Name of Jesus Christ For Jesus Christ himself restrained himself to that Number When two or three of you are gathered together in my Name I will be in the midst of you Jesus Christ himself alone his Truth his Gospel his Providence and his Spirit are essential to the Church without which she can never subsist but she may without the Pope without the Court of Rome without the Council of Trent without the Bishops and without the people who follow Rome and in a word without that whole Party which refused the Reformation The Christian Society does not depend on their capricious humours nor on their Temporal Interests They are not the Soul of that Body They will be Members of it while they make profession of the True Faith or at the furthest while they do not oppose it but when they shall obstinately remain in Errors incompatible with the Communion of Jesus Christ and when they shall break by unjust Anathema's the bond of that Society We may very well say that the Body of the Visible Church is Lessened but we can never say that their withdrawing leaves the Faithful under a Dispersion The better to understand this Truth we must know That although that External Society be common to the good and the bad to the truly Faithful to Hereticks and the men of the World in a word to all those who are found to be externally mingled in the Body of the Church yet in effect the Right of that Society will not to speak properly belong to any but the truly Faithful For the wicked the Hereticks and those Worldly men who fill up their Assemblies are only associated here while they remain such in dishonouring God by the Contempt they have of his word and the Indignities they offer in receiving his Sacraments Therefore God said to the wicked in Isaiah When you come to appear-before me who has required this at your hands to tread my Courts And in the Fiftieth Psalm David assures us that God has said to the wicked What hast thou to do to Read my Laws and to take my Covenant into thy Mouth Since thou hast hated instruction and hast cast my Words behind thee It is certain then that the right of the External Society resides in the Faithful only who only are the Church of Jesus Christ his Mystical body for which he dyed the Seed which he sowed with his own hand against his harvest As to the rest they are in that Communion only by Accident and are the seed of Tares which the Enemy rising at night has thrown into the Field of the Son of God and which grows with the Wheat until the Time of the Harvest and it is also only by Accident that they are suffered there to wit because most commonly their wickedness is not known or if it be their Conversion may yet be Charitably hoped for or in fine it may fall out that in going about to pull up the Tares one must also pluck up the Wheat with it But being what they are they have not any part in the rights of that Society and of those Assemblies Therefore Jesus Christ has promised his presence to none but such as shall be assembled together in his Name And Saint Austin expresly Teaches that the Power of the Keys and that of binding and loosing was given to the Church of the Just and true Believers in opposition to the wicked to Hereticks and to the men of the World that are mixt with them And it is said of that Church only so considered in that same opposition what Jesus Christ has said in the Gospel If thy Brother sin against thee tell it to the Church and if he refuse to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and a Publican Which lets us see that he gave only the truly Faithful the Right to be in a Society for there those only have a Right to be in a Religious Society who have the power of binding and loosing and of hearing those private complaints to Judge concerning them But according to him the truly Faithful have only that power and it is only to those that Jesus Christ has given it They are then none but those to speak properly in whom the Right of being in an External Society and of making those Assemblies resides That being so laid down who sees not that when it falls out that the Body of that mixed Church is divided into divers parties about those important matters that respect either Faith or Worship or the General Rules of Manners all the Rights of that Christian Society remain in that Party which retains true Doctrine and Piety because it is on that side that the truly Just and Faithful place themselves There it is that the true Church of Jesus Christ is assembled in his Name to which he has promised his presence for as I have before said Error Superstition and Injustice give none a Right to be in a Society nor by consequence any to make those Assemblies But they will say if the Body of the Pastors be found in the other Party if External Splendor Multitude Extent Succession Authority of Councils are found there can any one forbear acknowledging it to be the Body of the Church There are seen amongst them the Pulpits Schools Churches Bishopricks Benefices Revenues Dignities and in a word all those advantages that mark out the Body of the Visible Church A Party that is in that condition cannot suffer that any should put its Rights in Question its Assemblies pass for lawful throughout all the World and the Assemblies only of the other Party are here Treated of who finding themselves spoiled of those advantages cannot be considered otherwise then as a Sect divided from the Body as a Branch separated from the Tree or as a Ray divided from the Sun according to the comparison of the Fathers I answer That those Divisions that fall out in a mixed Church may be of two sorts for sometimes they are founded only upon personal accusations or points of Discipline or light and less important Questions the Foundation of the Orthodox Doctrine and true Worship remaining intire in both Parties Of this sort were the Divisions of the Novatians the Donatists the Luciferians as it has
it should be True that the Right of being in an External Society That of making Assemblies that of Preaching That of Administring the Sacraments that of Binding and Loosing and the whole Ministerial Power should reside in the Faithfull only yet it must be Confess'd notwithstanding That all those Rights are to no purpose while they are Separated from their Pastors because that each person among them being but a meer private man they could not reduce those Rights into Act as they say that is to say They could not tell how to make any Actual Function They have none who could join them together into a visible Body none among them can Lawfully Assemble them none can Exercise the Functions of the Ministry among them none can either Preach or Administer the Sacraments or Exercise the Power of the Keys Whence it follows that whatsoever Right they have ascribed to them yet they do not cease to be in that Condition in a True Dispersion according to what is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepherd and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad And therefore Saint Paul says That God has given some to be Apostles others to be Prophets others Evangelists and others Pastors and Teachers for the Assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the Edifying of the Body of Christ The Church in as much as she is an External Society is as an Organical Body which has its noble parts necessary for Life without which it could not subsist for a moment and those parts are her Pastors who are not it may be absolutely necessary for the Subsistence of Faith and Piety in the Souls of particular men but who are at least absolutely so for the Subsistance of that External Society and the Publick Exercise of Religion If they overthrow this Order they change the Church into a rash Assembly made by Chance and Licentiousness and of whose Convocation there can be no Reason given Even the very name alone of the Church which signifies a called Assembly denotes that to assemble in a Body there ought to be a Lawful Call which can be in none but the Pastors The Pastors are then necessary to Bind an External Society but they are yet further so for the setting it in any Order for otherwise it will depend on the Capricious humour of each private man to usurp the Publick Functions each man will Imagine himself to have a Right to Preach the word of the Gospell to Administer the Sacraments and to do the other Functions of the Ministry which would turn the Church into an Anarchy These are to me the most specious Objections that they can make against what I have said concerning the Right that the Faithfull have to be in a Society even then when they are Separated from the Body of their Pastors and they cannot Complain that I have weakned them for they will not find any thing either in that Book of the Prejudices or it may be in all their other Controversial Writings that will appear to have as much Force and Likelihood of Truth as that which I have gathered together in these few words To Answer in some Order I shall in the first place affirm That that Objection does not any way touch the Body of the Protestants since it is evident not only that all their Pastors were not contrary to the Reformation but also that in the greatest part of those places wherein it was made those who were most ardently engaged in it were persons high in Office and Dignity in the Latin Church Who had as much a Call as they can reasonably desire to preserve the Bond of Society intire and to call Assemblies together It is as certain that in divers places the Reformation was made by the consent of the greatest part of their Pastors as in England in Scotland in Swedland in Denmark in Saxony in the Palatinate in Hessia in Switzerland and in many more Cities and Countrys in Germany So that we may say with certainty That the Reformed People Separated from the Roman Communion did not assemble of themselves but that they kept up an External Society under the lawful Ministry of a Considerable number of their Pastors who called them together into a Body or to speak better who hindred their dispersion and preserved the Bond of their Unity They had in that Number their Monks their Preachers Priests Curates Canons Doctors Professours in Divinity whole Universities and Abbies Bishops Arch-Bishops Cardinals and if the light of the Gospel had not been then inaccessible to the See of Rome they had had it may be Popes themselves for some of them were sensible enough of the Necessity of a Reformation Howsoever it be we may say That there was yet in the Body of the Pastors a Remnant according to the Election of Grace as there was in the Time of the Arrians according to the Remark of St. Gregory Nazianzen I confess that in some places the People of themselves Assembled to Chuse their Pastors but when they should have been guilty of any irregularity in that besides that they cannot impute it to all the Body it would have been rectified by the approbation that all the other Pastors made of that Election and by the right hand of Fellowship which they gave them finding themselves to be in the same Ecclesiastical Assemblies with them and acknowledging them for their Brethren and Companions in the Work of Jesus Christ And by so much the more as the Times of Persecution wherein the Faithful were then often forced them to pass over those Formalities which it was impossible for them to observe and as God himself seemed to have ratified the choice of those persons by the blessing which he spread upon their Labours as he did particularly upon the Ministry of John le Mason la Riviere whom the people chose at Paris in the Year 1555. But howsoever we are but a very little concerned in the Principles upon which that Objection is grounded yet we shall not fail notwithstanding to Examine them to know a little more distinctly of what necessity Pastors are for the subsistence of the Society or External Communion of the Church I say then in the first place it must not be thought that the Bond of the External Society of the Faithful absolutely depend on their Union or as Cardinal du Perron speaks on their Adherence to the Body of their Pastors It may fall out sometimes that the Body of the Pastors that is to say the greater number of them fall into Heresy and corrupt the Ministry in such a manner as the Faithful would be bound to Separate themselves from them If there yet remain some few Pastors who maintain the True Doctrine and oppose Error in that Case I say that the Faithful may most lawfully hold a Christian Society with them in the using of all their Functions assemble themselves under their Ministry hear the word of the Gospel from their Mouths and
the Form of her Government we cannot deny that in that respect she has not under-went divers changes I do not mention the Introduction of the Episcopal Order for that is a Question but I speak of those changes that have befel her through the Usurpations and Contests of the first See's and chiefly by the Usurpations of that of Rome which the greatest part of the World will own to have been very considerable Her Discipline and her Liturgies have also undergone many Changes and they cannot in that regard ascribe any Uniformity to the Church either in respect of Times or Places In fine she has sometimes beheld the Body of her Ordinary Pastors turned against her self she has seen a great part of her true Children scattered and dispersed here and there without being able to perform any Acts of an External Society and she has seen some of her Flocks deprived of their Pastors and forced to set up some among themselves in the room of those who had abandoned them For all that fell out in the days of the Arrians the Councils determined Heresy the greatest part of the Orthodox who opposed themselves to their Impiety were either banished or forced to fly into the Desarts and according to the Testimony of St. Epiphanius divers People who saw that their Bishops were turned Arrians in the Council of Seleucia looked on them as the miserable Desertors of their Ministry and set up themselves other Bishops The greatest part of those Changes that fall out in the Church come from two sources the one That she is mixed with the Worldly and Profane in the band of the same External Profession and the other That the Truly Faithful themselves who only are the Church of Jesus Christ as truly Faithful as they are fail not to have a great many other imperfections their knowledge is obscure their Righteousness is accompanied with its faults their Inclinations are not all right and even their most just Inclinations do not fail to have some farther irregularity These two Fountains produce an heap of evils and disorders the Worldly on their part bring thither Covetousness Ambition Pride Opinionativeness contempt of God his Mysteries and Worship Politick Designs Worldly Interests a Spirit of Grandeur Luxury Superstitions Heresies Love of Dominion Presumption Opinion of Infallibility Forgeries and all other Perversities of the heart of Man The Faithful they bring thither on their side their Ignorance their Negligence their Fearfulness their Simplicity and sometimes their Passions their Personal Interests and Vices From all which a Chaos is made up of darkness and Confusion a Mystery of Iniquity a Spiritual Babylon that perpetually makes war against the Church which reduces her sometimes into very strange Extreamities and which would without doubt destroy her if her Eternal Head did not keep her up above all I acknowledge that the Spirit of God fights against that Babylon on the Churches side and that he presides over that Chaos to expel those Confusions and to hinder the Churches Perishing But it must not be imagined under a pretence of that presence of the Spirit of God that there never happens any disorder in it He indeed always preserves the Essence of the Church but he frequently permits her State to be altered This is the Effect that that heap of Crimes Vices and Imperfections may produce which I have mentioned as well on the side of the Truly Faithful as on that of the Worldly They never go so far as to destroy her intirely but they go so far sometimes as to spoil her of her Ornaments of her External Advantages and even of her very Health if I may so speak and therefore Jesus Christ told his Disciples In the World you shall have Tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the World God has always preserved and he will preserve to the end of all Ages a Body of many persons united together in the Communion of his Son Jesus Christ This Body can never perish it can never cease to be nor lose any thing that is absolutely necessary to its subsistence but it may be deprived of its large Extent Temporal Splendor Worldly Glory Peace Rest and Visibility It may see its Ministry Corrupted in as much as it is in the hands of men it may see its External Worship dishonoured and Error and Superstition fill its Pulpits Possess its Schooles and diffuse it self over its Councils its true Members may be hindred from making external Assemblies and a Body of a Visible Communion and it may be abandoned by its Pastors and reduced to a Necessity of Creating others See here what the State of the Church is Upon all these Illustrations it will be no difficult matter to decide the Question concerning the Novelty and Antiquity of our Church For if we have made a Society essentially different from that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles formed at the first and which has all a long subsisted down from his Birth to this present if we cannot justly say That we are a Body of many Persons united together in the Communion of one only true God under one only Jesus Christ our Head and Mediatour if they can with any ground contest with us the Unity of the True Christian Faith Piety and Holiness in one word if we want any thing that is necessary to the Constitution of the Church and its subsistence or if there be any thing in us that hinders that that good which we have does not produce its effect to give us the Form and Nature of a True Church it is certain that we have made a new Church and by a Consequence a false and an Adulterous Church But if we can truly and justly glorify God for all that which makes up the Essence of a True Church if our Faith is sound if our Piety is pure if our Charity is sincere if we can upon good grounds maintain that God preserves and upholds in the External Communion of that Body which we compose the Truly Faithful and Just persons who only as I have said often are the Church it is certain also that there is nothing more unjust then that Accusation of a New Church which they charge us with There never was in the World any other Church of God then that of his truly just and Faithful Ones that Body only is in the Communion of the Father and of his Son Jesus Christ that alone is intrusted with the Truth that alone is animated by the Holy Spirit that alone is God's Inheritance his People his Vine his enclosed Garden his House and Mystical Family as the Scripture calls it that alone in fine has all the Rights of the Ecclesiastical Society the Right of External Assemblies that of the Ministry Sacraments Government and Discipline Let the Author of the Prejudices and his Brethren stir themselves as much as they please let them animate one another let them cry out write Prejudices and invectives never so much against us let
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
there over the Good that they would make themselves Masters of those Calls and that they could neither more nor less Communicate them to the wicked and the worldly then if there were no Believers in the Church I Answer That it is true that whether those Calls come from the Pastors only or whether they proceed from the Body of the Church we could have no certainty that they should be well made as to the choice of Persons for God has not promised his Faithful Ones even when they shall be a greater number then the worldly that they shall alwayes make good Elections they may without doubt be deceived in that respect although there may be a greater Likely hood that those Elections should be more just when they should be made by a Body in which one is assured that there are allwayes True Believers then when they should be made by a more particular Body whereof one cannot have the same Assurance But not to stay upon that I say that my Argument Respects not the goodness of that Election but the Validity of the Call in it self whether it be conferred upon a good man or whether on a wicked for the Call of a wicked man ought not to cease to be good although the Choice should be illmade My meaning then is that if the Call proceed only from the Body of the Pastors without the consent of the whole Church Intervening after whatsoever manner it may be so brought about as that it may proceed from a Body of impious and Prophane Persons who should all be really Separated from the Church and who would have no part in its Interests so that it would be to make the Divine Authority that ought to accompany that Call and the Validity of the Actions of the Ministry to depend on a Body of wicked men and to make the Enemies of God the fit Depositaries of his Will which to me seems no wayes conformable to the Order of his Wisdom especially when there is another Body where we know that he alwayes preserves and upholds his Faithful But they will say yet further If your arguing took place it would take away from the Pastors all the Functions of their Ministry to give them to the Body of the Church The Pastors would have no more any Right either to Preach or to Administer the Sacraments or to Govern the Church or to censure or to suspend or to Excommunicate For it we say that that Call would not depend upon them under a pretence that we have not any Certainty that God preserves and will alwayes Preserve True Believers amongst them we must say the same that the Government of the Church Preaching the Administration of the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline could not be committed to them since we have not any more Certainty for those things that there should be any truly Faithful among them then we have upon the matter of that Call so that all must be overthrown if that Reason take place I answer That the Donatists heretofore fell into that Extravagance to imagine that the Preaching of the Gospel the Sacraments and the other Actual Functions of the Ministry ought to be performed by Holy Pastors to become good and valid and not by the Wicked so that being moreover Prejudiced with this thought that the whole Body of those Pastors who retained Communion with Caecilianus were fallen off from their Righteousness and become Wicked they held that there was not any more a Church in the World besides the Party of Donatus But Saint Augustine shew'd them that their Principle was false and it is worthy the noting by what Way he made them see the falsness of their Opinion for it was neither by telling them that the Body of the Pastors when they all became Wicked failed not to be the Church of Jesus Christ nor in holding that Jesus Christ having at first put the Ministry into the hands of the Pastors it must necessarily follow by that very thing that he was bound to preserve their Righteousness or at least alwayes to preserve the truly just and Faithful Persons in their Body and those who should make the Sacraments to all the rest He says nothing of all that but he had recourse to the Body of the Church and he says that the Sacraments are not the Pastors nor the Power of the Keys nor that of Binding and Loosing nor any of the Functions of their Ministry but that all that belongs to the Church that it is that that Baptises when the Pastors Baptise that it is that that binds when the Pastors bind and that looses when they loose and that it is to her that Jesus Christ has given all those Rights But what will you say he understands by that Church The Truly Faithful whatsoever they be the Wheat of God the good Seed the good Fish as they are called in a word the Just the Children of God in Exclusion of the Worldly It is from that Fountain that the Validity of the Sacraments is drawn and the other Functions of the Ministry and not from the Body of the Pastors I say then the same thing All that which the Body of the Pastors does it does in the name of the Church and by Consequence in the name of Jesus Christ for the Name of Jesus Christ is in the Name of the Church it is the Church that preaches by them that administer the Sacraments by them that governs by them that censures that suspends that absolves that Excommunicates by them they are only its Ministers and the Dispensers of its rights Whether then they be wicked whether they be Prophane or Impious that hurts their own Persons but it does not hurt their Functions because their Functions are not their own but the Churches Furthermore that Hypothesis of St. Augustine concerning the source from whence the Validity of the Action of the Ministry proceeds furnishes us with another Argument which to me seems Demonstrative not only from the Authority of that Father but from the Nature of the thing it self For it is evident that we ought to refer that Call to the same Body to which God originally gave the Power of the Keys and which is exercised by the Pastors so that the Pastors are no more but the Dispensers of its Rights As that which makes Baptism the Communion the Government and the Acts of Discipline good and valid is not because they proceed from the Pastors only but because they proceed from the Body of the Church So the same must be said that that which makes a Call good valid and lawful is because it comes from the Church that is to say from the truly Faithful But it is certain that it is properly the Body of the Faithful that has received Originally the Power of the Keys that is exercised by the Pastors and upon which the Validity of all the Actions of the Ministry depends as being done in the Name and Authority of the whole Body and by
Consequence it is to that we must refer that Call If I had a mind here to set down all the passages of St. Augustine when he establishes this Truth I should engage my self in an excessive Tediousness It shall suffice to set down some few that may clearly let us see what his Doctrine was upon this matter Judas says he Represented the Body of the wicked and Saint Peter represented the Body of the good the Body of the Church I say The Body of the Church but the Church which consists in the good For if St. Peter had not represented that Church our Lord would not have said to him I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven For if that had been said but to St. Peter only the Church does not do it But if it be done in the Church to wit that the things that are bound on Earth are bound in Heaven and that those which are loosed on Earth are loosed in Heaven in as much as he which the Church Excommunicates is Excommunicated in Heaven and he to whom the Church is Reconciled is Reconciled in Heaven since that I say is done in the Church it follows that St. Peter receiving the Keys represented the Holy Chvrch. And as the good who are in the Church were represented in the person of St Peter so the wicked who are in the Church were represented in the person of Judas and it is to those that Jesus Christ said Me you have not always And further after having described the Church of the Truly Faithful in these Terms God has sent his Son into the World to the end that those who believe in him should by the laver of Regeneration be loosed from their Sins as well Original as Actual and that being delivered from Everlasting Damnation they should live in Faith Hope and Charity as Pilgrims in this World amidst Temptations and Labours and amidst the Corporal and Spiritual Consolations of God walking in Christ Jesus who is their way But because in that very way in which they walk they are not free from those Sins that arise through the Infirmity of this Life he has appointed them the saving Remedy of Alms to help their prayers which he has commanded them to make Forgive our Trespasses as we forgive them that Trespass against us After I say having described the Church of the Just in that manner he adds This is that which makes the Church blessed in Hope in this miserable life and it is this Church that Saint Peter represented by the primacy of his Apostleship Nam Ecclesiae gerebat figurata generalitate personam If you look upon Saint Peter in himself he was but a man by Nature a Christian by Grace and the first of the Apostles by the super-abundance of Grace But when Jesus Christ said to him I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven he Represented the whole Body of the Church that Church I say which in that Age was moved with divers Temptations as by so many Storms Torrents and Tempests and which yet does not fall into ruine because it is founded upon the Rock from which Saint Peter took his Name I say that Saint Peter took his Name from it for as the Name of Christian is derived from Christ and not that of Christ from that of Christian so that of Saint Peter is derived from the Rock and not that of the Rock from the Name of St. Peter and therefore Jesus Christ said to him Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church For Saint Peter having made this Confession Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God our Lord told him that he would build his Church upon that Rock which he had confessed For that Rock was Jesus Christ upon which Saint Peter himself is built according to what is said No man can lay other Foundation then what is already laid which is Jesus Christ It is that Church therefore that was founded upon Jesus Christ which received from him in the Person of Saint Peter the Keys of that Kingdom that is to say the Power of binding and loosing In the same sense he says elsewhere That there are some things said to Saint Peter that plainly seem properly to belong to him and which nevertheless cannot be so well understood if they are not referred to the Church that Saint Peter represented and of which he was the Figure by that Primacy which he had among the Disciples as are adds he these words I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Yet elsewhere Jesus Christ has given the Keys to his Church to the end that that which it should bind on Earth should be bound in Heaven and that whatsoever it should loose should be loosed that is to say to the end that he that should not believe that his Sins are pardoned in the Church to him they should not be pardoned and that on the contrary he who being in the bosom of the Church should beleive that his Sins were pardoned and who should be reduced by a holy correction should obtain pardon It is not rashly says he in another place that I make two Orders of men One sort are so much in the House of God that they are themselves that House that is built upon a Rock and that which is called the only Dove the Spouse without Spot and Wrinkle the Inclosed Garden the hidden Fountain the Wells of Living Water the Paradise where the Fruit of Apples is It is this House which has received the Keys and the Power to bind and loose and it is this to which he said That if any would not hearken to it when it Reproved and Corrected that he should be esteemed as a Heathen man and a Publican That House consists in Vessels of Gold and Silver in Precious Stones and Incorruptible Wood and it is to that that Saint Paul says Bear with one another in love keeping the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and again The Temple of God is Holy which Temple ye are It Consists in the good in the Faithful in the Holy Servants of God spread abroad every where joyned together in a spiritual Vnity by the Communion of the same Sacraments whether they know one another by sight or whether they do not But as for the others they are so in the House as not at all to belong to the Structure of the House and they are not in that Society that is Fruitful in Peace and Righteousness They are as the Chaff amidst the good Corn and we cannot deny that they are in the House since the Apostle says that there are in the