Fathers an Infallibility It is without doubt the Kings pleasure that we should submit our selves to his Officers and that we should obey them but he does not mean to advance them to be Infallible nor to ordain us to obey them if they shall happen to command us these things that are directly contrary to his service and to that Fidelity which we owe to our Soveraign It is then True that all those Exhortations to hear our Pastors and to obey their words are always to be restrain'd by this clause understood as far as their words shall be conformable to that of God that they can never go beyond that and that they cannot from thence draw any Priviledge of Infallibility 4. As these Gentlemen let slip nothing that may serve for their Interests so they ordinarily make use of that passage in the 18th Chapter of St. Matthew where Jesus Christ ordains that if any one receive an injury from another he is to reprove him between himself and him alone and if that first complaint signifies nothing then he must take witnesses with him and if he neglect to hear those witnesses he is to tell it to the Church and if he neglect to hear the Church he is to be unto us as a Heathen and a Publican All that that follows in the close of that discourse of Jesus Christ shews that he speaks there neither of Faith nor Worship but of some private quarrels that we might have against our Brethren to be taken away and of the use of that Discipline For the mind of our Lord is that before we break off absolutely with our Brethren we should observe all the Rules of Charity and that we should there make use of the Church but if he would refuse to hear the Church that in that case it was allowed us to treat him no longer as a Brother but as a real stranger Who sees not that if they would draw any thing of consequence from that passage they ought to pretend that the Church is Infallible not in matters of Faith for they are not medled with there but in matters of Fact and in the Censures that it gives upon private Quarrels in which nevertheless all the World agrees that she may be deceiv'd And therefore it is that these Gentlemen are wont to alleadge these last words Tell it to the Church and if he will not hear the Church let him be unto thee as the Heathens and Publicans and they alleadge them also as separated from the sequel of that Discourse because otherwise they could not but observe that they would signify nothing to them 5. In fine they produce those words of St. Paul to Timothy These things write I unto thee hoping to come unto thee shortly But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the Truth How can say they the Church be the pillar and ground of Truth if it is not Infallible in the Doctrines it proposes as of Faith and in the Worship which it Practises But what likelyhood is there that he would have established an opinion so important as that of the Infallibility of the Latin Church on such Metaphorical terms which St. Paul did not make use of upon the sight of any Infallibility which should respect no other but the Latin Church in particular and which should much rather have respected the Church of Ephesus or the other Churches of Asia where Timothy was then when the Apostle wrote to him which yet did not fail of falling into Error in Terms which may be explained in divers sences and which have been appli'd to divers particular Bishops without yet pretending to raise them up to be Infallible what colour I say is there that they can prove the Infallibility of the Church of Rome It appears in the end of that discourse of St. Paul that he never thought of making the Church Infallible for in all that Chapter he aims at nothing else then to set down the duties of Bishops and Deacons and after having markt out in particular some qualities with which they ought to be endow'd and from what Vices they ought to be more especially exempt after what manner they ought to govern themselves he adds in the close of all That he wrote all that to his disciple to the end he might know how to behave himself in the House of God which is the Church of the Living God the pillar and ground of Truth Who sees not that that Infallibility comes not in at all to the purpose in that close of the Discourse Let the Bishops says he and the Deacons take heed they be wise sober c. That they hold the Mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience that their Wives should be honest and faithful in all things that their Children should be well educated c. And that which I say in general I apply also to thee Timothy to the end thou mayst live unblameably in the House of God in the Church of the living God Add according to the Interpretation of these Gentlemen Which Church is Infallible and cannot err and there is nothing of any natural Connexion in it On the contrary that conceit of the Infallibility of the Church according to the Principle that our Adversaries makes use of in the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints would harden them in security for let them do as they will all would go well and after whatsoever manner the Pastors govern the Church could never be corrupted nor its Truth be lost Which would seem far more proper to inspire negligence into the Bishops then to animate them to do their duty In effect if they cannot tell how to exhort men by motives of that nature They ought then to confess the Truth to wit that these words The Pillar and Ground of Truth note the end and natural design of the Church that for which she is made and to which she is called which is to sustain and bear the Truth and to make it subsist in the World and so the discourse of the Apostle appears very just and well connected Behold says he after what manner the Bishops ought to frame their course and after what sort thou oughtest to live in the Church of God in behaving thy self in it so as remembring that God has appointed it to be the pillar and ground of his Truth Live therefore in that manner that may answer that end or that natural appointment of the Church Just as if the King exhorting one of the Officers of his Parliament to do his duty should tell him That he liv'd in a body that was the Pillar and Ground of Justice and the Rights of the Crown that is to say which is naturally ordain'd for the maintaining Justice in the State and to defend the Rights of the Crown But as that speech of the Prince would not establish any priviledge of
Scriptures And upon another occasion Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God If those of the Church of Rome were accustomed to the reading of the Holy Scripture they would find the proofs of this Truth in a thousand places but the far greatest part of our Controversies come from the neglect they have of that Divine Book and that neglect it self is one fruit of that excessive confidence they have in their Guides The End of the First Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE SECOND PART Of the Justice of the Reformation CHAP. I. That our Fathers could not expect a Reformation either from the hands of the Popes or from those of the Prelats WE may now methinks suppose it evident and proved That our Fathers had a right and were bound to examine by themselves the matters of Religion and not to refer themselves absolutely to the Conduct and Authority of their Prelats But from thence it manifestly follows that they had a right to Reform themselves For since they could examine only in order to discern the good from the bad and the true from the false who can doubt that they having a right to make that discernment would not also have had a right to reject that which they should have found to have been contrary to or alienated from Christianity which is precisely that which is called Reformation I acknowledge that it yet remains to be inquired into whether those things which they have rejected are indeed Errors and Superstitons as they are pretended to be and whether they did not deceive themselves in the Judgment that they made But who sees it not necessary for the deciding of that Question to go to the bottom and to enter upon that discussion which our Adversaries would avoid From whence it may appear as I have said in the beginning that all that Controversy which they raise against us about the Call of our Reformers is nothing else but a vain amusement and that to make a good Judgment of that Action of our Fathers and to know whether it be just or unjust we ought always to come to the bottom of the cause and to those things themselves which are Reformed for upon that the Question doth wholly depend whether they did well or ill Notwithstanding to shew that we would forget nothing that may serve for our Justification and that after the desire to please God we have not a greater then that of approving our selves to our Country-men and in general to all men we shall not fail to make yet some particular Reflexions upon the Circumstances of the Reformation which will more and more confirm the right of our Fathers and manifest the Justice of their Conduct and at the same time we shall answer to some Objections of the Author of the Prejudices That shall be the business of this Second Part. Our first Reflexion shall be on that deplorable State of the Latin Church in the days of our Fathers in respect of its Prelats for its Condition was such that there was no more hope of ever seeing a good Reformation to spring up by their Ministry In effect what could be expected from a Body that had almost wholly abandoned the care of Religion and of the Salvation of Souls which was plunged in the intrigues and interests of the World which kept the People in the ignorance of the Mysteries of the Gospel and in the most gross Superstitions and with which the whole body it self did entertain it self and was found to be possest by Ambition by Luxury and by Covetousness and engaged in the vilest manners and living in almost a general opposition to overthrow of all Discipline They will SEE then what a German Bishop says in a Book intituled Onus Ecclesiae who lived and wrote in the year 1519. that is to say near the very time of the Reformation but one who was no ways Luthers friend as it appears by his writings I am afraid says he That the Doctrine of the Apostle touching the Qualifications of a Bishop is but very ill observed in these days or rather that we are fallen into those Times which he noted when he said I know that after my departure ravenous Wolves will come among you not sparing the flock Where may one see a good man chosen to be a Bishop one approved by his works and his Learning and any one who is not either a Child or Worldly or Ignorant of spiritual things The far greater number come to the Prelateship more by underhand canvassings and ill ways then by Election and lawful ways That Disorder which may be seen in the Ecclesiastical Dignities sets the Church in danger of perishing for Solomon says There is one evil which I have seen under the Sun as an Error which proceedeth from the Ruler when a fool is raised to high dignity It is therefore that I said that the Bishops ought to excel in Learning to the end that by their Instructions and their Preaching they might govern others profitably But alas What Bishop have we now a days that Preaches or has any care of the Souls committed to him There are besides that very few who are contented with one Spouse alone that is to say with one only Church and who seek not to appropriate to themselves more Dignities more Prebends and what is yet more to be condemned more Bishopricks Our Bishops are feasting at their own Tables then when they should be at the Altar they are unwise in the things of God but they love the wisdom of the World they are more intent on Temporal Affairs say it may be that I suffer my self to be carried away by my Passion and that all these clamourous Accusations are but the effect of that Engagement in which we all are set against the Church of Rome But to leave no ground for that Suspicion besides what I have set down in general in the second Chapters of my first Part I will further produce here more particular Testimonies of that Truth by applying them to the Ages of our Fathers I will say nothing of my own head I will make their Authors that are not suspected by them to speak whose passages I will faithfully relate which they may see in the Originals if they will take the pains And as I hope that they will not lay to my charge what may appear to be too vehement in their Expressions so also I not do pretend to impute to the Prelats of these days that which those Authors censured in those of the former Times then on the work of Jesus Christ Their Bodies are adorned with Gold and their Souls defiled with filth they are ashamed to meddle with Spiritual things and their glory lies in their Scurrilous humor and carriage Whence it was that Catherine of
pretence and bordering on the greatest rashness For the Authority of the Church of Rome and the pretended faults of the Reformation whatsoever they be are not Principles so demonstrative and so evident among Christians that after them they ought to hear nothing more We ought then to yield to this proof its place in our discussion but without any prejudice as to those that may be drawn for or against the very Tenets that are contested which ought to be first examined as the more natural and most decisive That being so I hold that that which they have set before us will be to no purpose at all For if from the Examination that we shall make of those matters in themselves it results that those things are not Errors which we have rejected as such but Christian Truths we have no further need either of the Authority of the Church of Rome or of the prejudices against the Reformation The Reformation is sufficiently overthrown And if on the contrary it results that those are Errors all the Authority of the Church of Rome and all the prejudices in the World shall not be able to perswade men of good understandings that they are Truths and by consequence that the Reformation is not just for it is always just to extirpate Errors It seems to me to appear already that that debate which they have raised against us about the Justice of our Reformation and our separation from the Church of Rome is rather a field wherein they would busy themselves in subtilties and declamations to amuse the People then a just Controversy whence one might justly expect any profit Yet as those subtilties and declamations how vain and false soever they are fail not of finding applause in the World and always making some impressions on the minds of men we acknowledge the too great effect that they have produced which is that the greatest part of those of the Church of Rome look upon us as Schismaticks and think that we have disturbed the peace of the Family of God and violated the right of that Religious Society which had united us with them The Idea which they form of our Religion appears not half so odious to them After what manner they have disguised us the most equitable among them discern and fail not sometimes freely to confess the same that we have all Doctrines that are necessary to mens Salvation that our Worship as plain as it is has nothing which does not tend to nourish in their hearts a true Piety and a solid Vertue and that as to the Form of our Government it has nothing so remote either from prudence or from equity or from the Charity that Jesus Christ has recommended to us But it is a far different Idea which they Form within themselves of our Separation for it becomes insupportable to them when they compare it with the Specious name of a Church that ought to command the Veneration of all Holy men So that this is most ordinarily the matter of their reproaches which they the more exaggerate as a thing about which they imagine we have not the least shew wherewith to defend our selves I dare affirm that as to the far greater part that is the chiefest and almost the only matter that makes them appear so much Exasperated against us It is necessary then that we justify our selves and that we clear to their minds that honour which we have not only to live among them in the same civil Society but also to depend on their lawful Authority in respect of those humane affairs wherein we are engaged Our own Innocence commands it of us not to say that the inheritance which we have received from our Fathers is of a value sufficiently great to merit a defence after what manner soever they attack it We ought then to indeavour to let them see that that which they are made to believe concerning us is nothing but a false imputation that we have an infinitly greater respect for the Church then any of those who oppose themselves to hinder its Reformation that their Maxims tend to the Ruin of the Church where ours tend only to preserve it that our Separation from Rome is nothing else but an effect of that Love and Jealousy that we have for the Church and that it will be most unjust if they shall hate us upon an account that ought on the contrary to draw from them all their esteem and Love toward us It is then about this that we intreat that they would calmly hear us and judge us without passion and without interest in the fear of that God whom we all acknowledge for our Soveraign Judge Those who always act against us with a pride that hurries them away and who have resolved to condemn us and to the uttermost of their power to destroy us what ever we say will not possibly take our request to be just and in that Case we shall content our selves as to them with the Testimony of our Consciences which perswades us not only that God will not condemn us for having been Reformed but also that he certainly will if we do not in that follow the sence of our hearts But there are yet enough persons in the Church of Rome of too much equity to follow the Examples of such a sort of People these equitable persons are those of whom we demand that hearing and that same equity and moderation of which they make such profession and which the importance of the subject treated on challenges them to yield us We shall tell them nothing which shall not be founded either on matters of fact known to all or upon the inviolable principles of Religion or upon the light of Common sence To set down this matter in some order I propose to my self to make evident these four Propositions 1. That our Fathers had both right and obligation to examine the State of Religion and the Latin Church such as it was in their days 2. That the Reformation which they made was just and lawful 3. That in Reforming themselves they had right and were bound to separate themselves from the Church of Rome 4. That in Reforming and Separating themselves they had right and obligation to maintain among themselves a Christian Society by publick Assemblies and the exercise of the Ministry I do not pretend that in Treating of these four Propositions I have exhausted all my subject but yet I hope that there will be few Questions that have some Relation to it which I do not sufficiently touch upon and few Objections which I do not answer I will particularly answer to all those that are contained in that Book of Prejudices as the order of the matters that I Treat of shall present them to me none of which will begin to oppose themselves till the seventh Chapter because that Author having passed by in silence a great many things that belong to the Foundation of this Controversy it will be necessary to touch upon
follows not only that God had the same concern in the preservation of the purity of that Church as of that of the Latin Church but that he had yet a far greater For above this that Church had external help for the Conversation of its purity far greater than the Latin Church ever had For it was shut up in one only people and in one Country only It had one Language only one only Tabernacle one only Temple but one civil Government but one only Political Law and but one King where the Western Church had all those apart in many places And yet notwithstanding all that it could not be kept from Corruptions not only at one but divers times not only in matters of small Consequence but after a strange manner by a heap of depraved Traditions by false glosses on the Law by open Idolatries and by a multitude of other things wherewith their Prophets reproached them Had they not then very great reason to think that the Latin Church which had no peculiar promises that it should be kept from Corruption in being distinguisht from that of Israel was not more happy then that in the Conservation of its Purity 4. To this example of the Church of Israel our Fathers adjoyn'd that of the Greek and other Eastern Churches which God had at first honour'd with Christianity as well as the Latin and that the times had nevertheless so dissigur'd them that they did not any farther appear to be what they were heretofore Indeed into what errours and superstitions did not those Churches fall And in how many points does not the Church of Rome find it self to differ at this day from them Some of them observe Circumcision with Baptism others keep up the sacrificing of living creatures after the manner of the Jews some solemnly every Year Baptize their Rivers and their Horses others believe that the smoke of Incense takes away their sins others hold that the Prayers of the Faithful deliver from the pains of Damnation those Souls that are then in Hell others give Pass-ports in due Form to the dying to carry them to Paradise and a thousand other such-like impertinencies that are found to be establisht among those People Why might it not be possible that the Latin Church should have degenerated as well as those Churches Is it that their Christianity was from the beginning different from that of the Latin's or is it because the Latin Church had some peculiar priviledges beyond all others No certainly their Vocation was equal on one part and on the other and the nature of things being so if those Nations had corrupted themselves those of Rome might corrupt themselves as well as they 5. Our Fathers who were not ignorant of those Examples could not but represent all to themselves also in my judgment the times past wherein errours and corruption had visibly prevail'd over the Truth even then when those very Churches of the East and West were joyn'd together in one Body They knew that that had past in the Council of Antioch in favour of the Macedonians in the Councils of Sirmium of Milan of Ariminum at Selucia and at Constantinople in favour of the Arrians and in a Council at Ephesus in favour of the Eutychians without thinking of that which they said of those two Councils held at Constantinople in favour of the Iconoclastes or abolishers of Images the one under the Emperour Leo Isaurious the other under Constantine Copronimus That very thing was an evident token to them that the Latin Church might be very likely in their times fallen into other corruptions and that errour had triumpht over truth For it was not at all impossible that that which had hapned frequently in respect of some errours might not yet with greater success and longer duration happen in respect of other errours 6. Moreover They observed that Councils of a great name among the Latins as those of Constance and Basil had been rejected and opposed by other Councils and that in the most weighty points of Religion to wit in the Case of the Supreme Authority that ought to govern the Church upon Earth For some rais'd the Authority of the Councils above that of the Pope and others would have it that the Popes should have an absolute and an independent and perfectly Monarchical Rule over the Church what could our Fathers conclude from so manifest a contest if not that it had a vast confusion in it and that it was exceeding necessary to the quiet setling of their Minds and Consciences to enter on an examination of that which those men taught in the business of Religion 7. Our Fathers were confirmed in that design when they set before their eyes those obscure Ages through which the Latin Church had past For who knows not what the ninth tenth and eleventh Centuries were not to speak of those that followed them As for the ninth Baronius is forc't to conclude the History of it with saying That it was an Age of affliction to the Church in general and chiefly to the Church of Rome as well by reason of the complaints it had against the Princes of the West and East and the Schism of Photius as by reason of intestine and implacable Wars which had began then to be formed within the very Bosom of that Church That this Age was the most deplorable and dismal above all the rest because those who ought to have been watchful in the Government of the Church not only slept profoundly but the very same Persons laboured all they could intirely to drown the Apostolick-Ship For the Tenth as there are very few Persons but will acknowledge that it was buried in darkness more gross then that of Aegypt so it will be needless here to produce the proofs The eleventh was scarce happier and Baronius begins the History of it with a remark of so universal a Corruption of manners cheifly among the Church-men that it had made way says he for the common beleif of the near approach of Antichrist and of the end of the world How could it be possible that during such gloomy times Religion Faith and Worship should be preserved without any alteration Saint Paul has joyn'd together Faith and a good Conscience as two things that mutually sustain one another and has taken notice that those who cast off a good Conscience make Shipwrack of the Faith In effect saith Saint Chrysostome then when men lead corrupted Lives it is impossible they should keep themselves from falling into perverse Doctrines 8. To these considerations we might joyn that of the two sorts of Philosophies which successively had reign'd in the Church to wit that of Plato and the other of Aristotle to whose principles they had strove to accomodate the Christian Religion For it is scarce to be conceiv'd but that mixture of Platonic and Peripatetic Opinions with the Doctrines of Jesus Christ should have defaced the Faith and quite alter'd his true Worship It was for this
could not be a certain character of the Infallibility of that Council But why do we use Arguments in a matter in which experience has sufficiently instructed us The Fifth Council assembled at Constantinople on occasion of three Books published the one of Ibas Bishop of Edessa the other of Theodorus of Mopsuesta and the other of Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus was it not held in spight of all the oppositions of Pope Vigilius did not that Council condemn those Writings as Heretical against the express prohibitions that Vigilius had made by a publick Decree to Condemn them and yet notwithstanding was not that very Council in the end approved by the Successours of Vigilius and in fine received throughout all the Church for a True and Holy Oecumenical Council Those Approbations therefore are only a juggle which wholly depend on the capricious humours of the Popes on their different Interests on their good or ill humours One Pope disapproves of a Council and makes it void to advance all that he does by that the Council is remote enough from Infallibility and ought not to be held for Infallible another Pope comes and receives and approves of it and behold on a sudden that Council changes its condition and becomes Infallible Besides that did not Pope Liberius approve an Arian Council held at Sirmium in subscribing an Heretical Confession that had been drawn up and which Saint Hilary calls the Arian perfidiousness the Heresie sprung from Sirmium for which he pronounced an Anathema against Liberius For what else was that Subscription in Consequence of which Liberius embraced the Communion of the Arians but a Ratification and real Approbation of the Act of an Erroneous Council and it signifies nothing to say That Liberius was in Exile when he committed that Error for without alledging here what he himself declared to the Eastern Arian Bishops That he was in Peace and Unanimity with them and all their Provinces in good earnest and that he had received that Catholick Faith with all his heart that he had never in the least contradicted it that he had readily given his consent that he followed and held it his Exile and Concern to get away from them does not hinder but that it should be true That he did approve an Infidel Confession nor by Consequence letting us see that it might very well happen That the Popes did Authorize the Acts of wicked Councils and that it ought not to be pretended that their Approbation makes Councils Infallible nor that it has any certain ground for declaring them to be such 6. That Example of Liberius encounters also all those who ascribe that Infallibility to the Popes for behold one in whom by the Testimony of St. Hilary and St. Jerom that Priviledge had no effect But as that Opinion is not generally received in this Kingdom and we need not to fear objections from any here so it is needless to refute them I shall only say that that Dispute that is in the Church of Rome about those to whom this Infallibility belongs whether to the Pope only or a Council only or to a Council approved by the Pope or to the Pope as the Head of the Council lets us see that that pretence in general has no ground for if in truth the Latine Church had that Priviledge it would never be so uncertain as they have made it but it would have been known a little more clearly where it resided However it be it plainly appears that the Latine Church does not pretend to it as a Law of Nature for she is composed of no different blood from the rest of men nor as a right joyned to the profession of Christianity nor as a meer quality of a Church for in that case the Greek and other Churches would have the same advantage but that she pretends to it as a peculiar priviledge whereby they were distinguished from other Churches as the Greek and Armenian c. It appears that they would not set this Prerogative before us as a first Principle which is evident of it self without needing any proof for in fine it is not so clear that the Latin Church should be Infallible as it is that one and one make two and that the whole is greater than any of its parts It is then certainly but very reasonable to demand that they would give us the proofs and grounds of so important a right I mean other proofs than those that are commonly taken from the same Authority of that Church For it will not be enough to confirm that Infallibility for her only to say I am so every Church may say the same and yet not be believed They ought to produce proofs and proofs that come from Heaven since there is none besides God that can confer so great a Right and they ought to shew them to us to the end we may judge of them and weigh their Cogency and Truth That being so I affirm that our Fathers were bound to use all sorts of Rational methods to examine that Question whether the Church of Rome was Infallible or no And to look to both sides to settle themselves in a good Judgment This is that which in my opinion none will contest But from thence these things will clearly follow 1. That our Fathers had right to examine one of the Tenets of the Latin Church which is that of her Infallibility 2. That they had right to judge of it according to the Nature of those proofs which presented themselves for or against it 3. That they might lawfully reject it as false if in their examination of it it appeared to be false 4. That it is neither absurd nor rash to maintain that every one has right to examine a Tenet of the Church and to judge of it 5. That all those General Objections which they have hitherto made against that Truth are false and frivolous such as these that if one give All that Liberty of examining every one may make a Religion of his own That there is no other way to keep men in the Unity of the Faith That he who examines makes himself a Judg above the Church That it is the ready way to bring in a private Spirit and other such like things all which are refuted by that one Example in the Point of Infallibility 6. That if it is no ways absurd that every one should have right to examine a Tenet of the Church that cannot be proved otherwise than by the Scriptures it is not also absurd to say that that right of searching out the true sence of Scripture belongs to every Christian 7. That it is not absurd to say that a Believer is Master of his own Faith by depending only upon God and independant on men 8. That if every Christian has right to examine one of the chief Articles of Religion it is no ways inconvenient to say that he has right to examine all for there is not less danger nor less
consequence for all than for one 9. In fine it will also follow from thence that our Fathers were bound upon that pretence of the Latin Church to examine all the Points of that Religion For firmly to assure themselves of the Truth of that Priviledge it was not enough to consider it in its Grounds and its Causes which are those Proofs that they call a Priori they ought further to look on it in its effects that is to say to see it in the Doctrines of that Church in its Maxims in its Voice and diligently to take notice whether they may see all the Characters of Infallibility resplendent in it or whether they may not discover some Error It was after this manner that the Disciples of Jesus Christ acknowledged and cleaved to him I have given unto them says he the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee To whom should we go Said they to him Thou hast the words of Eternal Life Our Fathers had so much the more reason to use theirs also when all the prejudices of Corruption which we have taken notice of in the foregoing Chapters presented themselves to their sight They observed there all the Characters of humane Weakness of Ambition Covetousness Interest Negligence of plotting Contrivances and of the Spirit of the World and all the other marks of Fallible men who can then blame them for holding so circumspect a course to come to the full and clear knowledge of the Truth So that that pretence of Infallibility was so far from driving our Fathers from the examining of those Doctrines which were taught in their days that the very same thing necessarily engaged and led them to it CHAP. VI. An Examination of the proofs which they produce to establish the Infalliblity of the Church of Rome LEt us see nevertheless upon what Foundations that pretended Prerogative of the Latin Church is built They produce on this Subject some passages of Scripture and some Arguments But as to the Passages of Scripture it is evident that there is not any one which respects more peculiarly the Latin Church then the Greek the Aegyptian the Aethiopian and others every one of which has as much reason to apply them to themselves as the Latin Yet we do not here dispute about a favour common to all Christian Societies but about a peculiar prerogative pretended to by the Latins For they are all agreed that all other Societies have err'd notwithstanding all those passages They ought then necessarily to alleadge something which belongs to the Latins peculiarly exclusively from all others or they ought to come to an acknowledgment that those passages do not at all establish the Infallibility of a visible Church since if they did so establish it being so general as they are they would have the same cogency in favour of the Greeks the Armenians and the Jacobites as well as the Latins 1. In effect one sort of those passages respect the true Church of Jesus Christ that is to say not that multitude of men who make profession of Christianity or who live in the same external Society of Religion but the truly faithful those holy men whom God has inwardly regenerated by his Spirit and whom he leads to life everlasting It is of that Church that it is said That she is the body of Jesus Christ That there is one Body and one Spirit That Jesus Christ is her head That she is his spouse It is only of the truly Faithful and no otherwise that these promises are verifi'd Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I will be with you always unto the end of the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter who shall abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth shall lead you into all Truth where two or three are gathered together in my Name I will be there in the midst of them These passages denote nothing less then an Infallibility either in the whole Body of the Visible Church or in the side that is strongest or in Councils or in the Decisions of Popes or in Traditions and Ancient Customs but they only signify that God will have always some truly Faithful upon the Earth even unto the end of the World and that he will accompany them with such a measure of the light and grace of his Spirit as shall in the end bring them to the Glory of his Kingdom 2. There are others which they yet make use of far less to the purpose because they signify only the Duty of Pastors and what they are appointed to do and not that that in effect they shall do Such as these Go Teach all Nations Baptising them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Son of man I have set thee for a Watch-man over the House of Israel The Priests lips shall keep knowledge and they shall seek the Law at his Mouth I have set watch-men upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastours and Teachers For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the Body of Christ These and some other like passages shew to what the Offices of the Ministry are naturally appointed and the Obligation of those that are called to it but they are very far from giving from thence a Prerogative of Infallibility 3. They alledge also some passages that recommend to the Faithful the having a respect for and an Obedience to their Pastors Such are these He that heareth you heareth me and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works But I cannot see what this last passage should let us see but that all those Exhortations that God makes to the Faithful to have a submission to the word of their Pastours denote very truly the Duty of the people in that matter but they do not in the least settle any Infallibility in their Pastours For is this that that Jesus Christ would say That the Scribes and Pharisees as long as they sat in the Chair of Moses were Infallible he that on the contrary accus'd them of having made void the Commandments of God by their Traditions and who elsewhere gave his Disciples such a Charge to take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees that is to say of their pernicious Doctrines How many times is that Obedience that Respect and that Submission recommended to Children to give to their Fathers in the Scriptures Is it that the Scripture in that ascribes to their
Infallibility in the Parliament so neither can that of the Apostle do it for the Church for Societies do not always follow their natural appointments we see that they often enough depart from them I confess that the Church does not always wander from its end nor in all things yet it cannot also be imagin'd that she never departs For the wicked are mingled with the good in the same Society the Dignities of the Church are sometimes to be found more possessed by the men of the World then by the truly Faithful the very best men themselves are subject to weaknesses and they sometimes commit faults of that importance that may consequently be dilated by continuance and all that cannot but produce Errors and Corruptions which it will be most necessary to reform Behold all those passages of Scripture upon which they seem to me to found that pretension of the Infallibility of the Latin Church To them they joyn some Arguments 1. If say they it be possible for the Church to err why do we call it holy as we do in the Creed I believe the Holy Catholick Church Such an Assembly that is united in the profession of an error is so far unfit to be called Holy That on the contrary it is Impious since it agrees in a Doctrine that is contrary to the Holy Truths revealed by God I answer That if this Argument were good it would follow not only that the Church should be Infallible as to matters of Faith but also that she should be impeccable in respect of manners for she is called Holy as well from that Holiness that regards good works as from that which regards the Faith The Church is Holy but yet after an imperfect manner while she is here upon Earth and she will never be perfectly so but in Heaven Furthermore they ought to remember that the Title of Holy and generally all other Titles of Honour and Glory that are given to the Church belong to it in truth only in respect of the true Believers and not in respect of the Hypocrites and wicked which are mingled with the good in the same visible Society and that it is but only on the same account of the Good that all that visible Body is called the Church For they are none but those whom God has called to his Salvation who only can be the true mystical Body of Jesus Christ When then it shall come to pass that the number of the wicked prevails in that Visible Society they will fill up the Pulpits they will be Masters of Councils and of Decisions of Faith of the Government and Ministry of the Church and will not fail to introduce Errors and a false Worship but when those persons should introduce and authorise them the Church would not cease to be Holy not in respect of those wicked men who waste it and corrupt it as much as it lyes in their power to do but in regard of the Faithful whom God will keep pure by the illuminations of his Holy Spirit and the methods of his Providence The Church of Israel in the midst of its greatest Idolatries did not cease to keep the Titles of a Holy Nation and a Kingdom of Priests which Moses had given her but she kept them not in respect of her Corruptors and those wretched men that would have seduc't her but in respect of those that were Holy For it is certain that God has always done that which he did in the days of Elias where he reserv'd seven thousand men who had not bowed the Knee unto Baal and it is in those that the Church is preserv'd and always kept Holy 2. But yet further say they If the Church may err and particularly the Church Representative that is to say the Body of Pastors why do the Councils pronounce Anathema's against all those who shall not consent to their Decrees Would it not be very unjust to bind men under so great a penalty to consent to things that are uncertain and which may be false I answer that the force of the Anathema's of those Councils depends altogether on their Justice If those Councils have lawfully decided controversies according to the word of God and if with the Truth they have kept Love and Charity according to the Precept of the Apostle their Anathema is very efficacious and all that they bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven But if they have decided any thing against the Truth or against Charity if they have abused their Places their Anathema's are vain and rash and will fall upon none but their Heads who pronounce them For God has never submitted his Righteousness to the Unrighteousness of any Prelats All the force of those Thunderbolts depends on those very things which have been decided We can do nothing says the Apostle against the Truth We ought not then to imagine that those Anathema's must needs be Infallible we ought not also to believe that they could not be rightly used if they had not that Infallibility Saint Hilary did not pretend to be Infallible and yet nevertheless he pronounc'd an Anathema against Liberius who was a Deceiver Saint Paul did not pretend to make us Infallible and yet notwithstanding he commands us to Anathematise even an Angel from Heaven and himself if he should Preach any other Gospel then that which he has preached unto us Cyril of Alexandria did not aspire after Infallibility and yet he thunders out his Anathema's against all the Errours of Nestorius The second Council of Tours never thought of being Infallible and yet nevertheless it Anathematis'd all those who after the third admonition refus'd to restore the goods of the Church In fine every private Person pronounces an Anathema against all Heresies The Anathema's of the Councils are not the Sentences of the Magistrate the force of which depends on the Authority of him who pronounces them they are only the Denuntiations that men make on Gods side as his Interpreters and his Ministers of the severity of his Judgments against the Unbeleivers the Wicked and the Hereticks And provided that those Denuntiations should be founded on the word of God as far as the light of the Pastors of the Church and their good Consciences could perswade them we ought not to doubt but that they would be just altho' they would not be Infallible For howsoever it be that good and lawful Councils assembled in the Name of Jesus Christ would never pretend that their Anathema's should bind any person any farther then their Decisions and their Canons were just and conformable to the Scripture 3. They add yet if it were possible for the Church to err it were possible for it totally to fall away after that manner that there should not be any longer a Church upon the Earth and yet notwithstanding how many promises have we in the Scripture that denote the Perpetuity of the Church God says in Hosea That he would betroth her unto him for ever
word mentioned either there or any where else And as to that passage Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church c. Whether they understand it of that Confession which Saint Peter had made or whether they refer it to his person I say that no one can understand it of his Successors since there is not any mention made of them either directly or indirectly For when the See of Rome was not when it had never yet been The Church did not fail of being built upon that Confession of Saint Peter comprehended Jesus Christ upon whom the Church is every way built but also because that Confession of Saint Peter or Saint Peter Confessing was as one of the Chief Stones in that mystical Building which is not left alone for Jesus Christ who is not only the Foundation but the Soveraign Architect has added many others in all Ages and will always joyn others to them till the Building be intirely finished that is to say till God fulfilled the Decree of his Election But to go on with our Discourse of the Visibility of the True Church I affirm in the third place that we ought to know very well what a True Church Visible is For we ought not to imagine that all those persons who compose that Visible Society should be that True Church None but those True Believers I would say those who joyn to their external Profession of Christianty a true and sincere Piety are really the Church of Jesus Christ and as for the others that is to say the worldly Prophane and Hypocritical they are but the Church in appearance only and not indeed For having no inward Calling which consists in Faith and Love they do not belong to the Mystical Body of our Saviour nor are they of his Communion Notwithstanding they do not fail to be mixt with the Faithful by reason of that external profession as if they really were in the same Religious Society with them What then is the Visibility of the True Church as to us It is not that we can distinctly and with any certainty affirm Behold these be the Truly faithful of Jesus Christ None but but God alone can know them after that distinct manner and and without a possibility of being deceived But this we may say of that Visible Society that Vnder that Ministry and in that Communion God preserves and raises the truly Faithful Whence we may from this Judgment with Solidity and Truth and I may say also without a possibility of being deceived that there is a True Visible Church In that sence I declare that there has always been some way or other a True Church Visible upon Earth not but that God can make it wholly disappear to the Eyes of men whensoever it shall please him to do so without doing men any wrong or any breach of his promises since he has without doubt extraordinary ways to beget Faith in the hearts of his Children and to keep them on in that course and to lead them in the end unto Salvation without making use either of the publick Assemblies or Ministry but only because we ought not to believe that there ever hapned since the first rise of Christianity an Eclipse so full and intire that one could not some way say There is a Society in which God does keep the truly Faithful I say after some way For as that Judgment depends on two things the one to be able to know a Society and a Ministry and the other to know that under that Ministry and in that Society a Man may work out his own Salvation in respect of the first it is necessary to distinguish between two seasons the one of Liberty and Prosperity where the Church has its Assemblies and exercises its Ministry openly in the face of all the World For then she is much more visible then she would be otherwise that is to say it is far more easy to be known what Society and what Ministry that is Such was the State of the Church under Constantine and other Christian Emperours and it is in such times as those that the promises of Its outward splendour if there are any such in Scripture are accomplished The other season is that of its Afflictions and Persecution such was that of the first Century of the Church under the Pagan Emperours and the Enemies of Christianity For none can deny that then the Church was less discernable by its Assemblies not only because they were more private and less exposed to the publick view but also yet further because the name of Christian had been defamed by a thousand calumnies and charged with a thousand false imputations which made the knowledge of the Church to be far more difficult And it will be to no purpose to say That then the Church was visible and illustrious by the blood of its Martyrs For the blood of its Martyrs did not in the least hinder the accusing of the Christians of most odious crimes that which hindred its being liable to be easily known Those Accusations were as a Cloud before the eyes of the Common people which was necessarily to be discipated before they could come to know what Christianity was So that the True Church is more or less Visible according to the difference of its Seasons As to the second thing which is to know that one may be saved in that Society and under that Ministry it is necessary that we distinguish of the two States or Conditions wherein that Society may be found The one is a more pure State then when the word of God is preached without mixtures of the Doctrines of men when the publick Worship is perform'd without superstitions and the Sacraments plainly administred according to their Primitive Institution and when generally Religion is established taught and observed after the same manner wherein Jesus Christ and his Apostles left it to the World In that Condition it is certain that the True Church in very visible and very discernable for it is easy to behold all the Characters of its Truth which only consist in its Conformity to that lively primitive and natural Image of Christianity which God has left us in his Holy Scriptures But it is not less certain that a Church may fall into a quite contrary Condition that is to say into a State of Corruption then when it adds to divine Truths strange and adulterate Doctrines when it mingles superstitions with the true Worship of God and when in stead of a just Government it exercises an insolent and absolute Dominion over Mens Consciences in one word then when all things appear so confused and in that disorder that one can scarce any more see any traces of that beautiful and glorious Image of Christianity which I have before spoke of to shine forth In that Condition I affirm that True Church is very hard to be known for howsoever it were most Visible in quality of a Church because its Assemblies might be
Prejudices is Will they say to defend themselves that their is a very great difference between the Jewish Visible Church and the Christian that this has its Rights Priviledges and Promises which the other had not For she has a Soveraign Authority over the Faith of her Children a priviledge that she can never err and promises of a perpetual visibility But to come to that they ought first to renounce all those general proofs upon which they found that Absolute Obedience to the Latin Church They need say no more as the Author of the Prejudices has done that the darkness of our minds our personal Prejudices the uncertainty wherein we are of being deceived in our Judgments the being overwhelmed with a thousand cares and a thousand Temporal necessities which almost wholly take us up and which will not allow us to give more then a very little Time to the Examining the Truths of Religion the want of necessary helps the ignorance narrow and limited understandings of the greatest part of mankind constrain us to refer our selves to the Church All that would be to no purpose if they restrain it to a priviledge of the Christian Church For these very same general reasons had place in the time of the Jewish Church men saw not then more clearly then they do in these days they were not more assured in their Judgments they were not less cumbred with worldly affairs they were not less unprovided of necessary helps for the Examination of the Truths of Religion they were not then less ignorant and their minds less narrow then men are now in these days and yet notwithstanding all that did not make it their duty blindly to follow their Pastors or Ordinary Guides These are then nothing but shadows and frivolous pretences which having been of no force then cannot have any weight now We need not further say as the Author of Prejudices has done That it is certain that God can save men and even the most ignorant and simple That yet he does not offer them any other way to Salvation then that of the True Religion That it is therefore necessary that that should be not only possible but easy to be known that yet notwithstanding it is clear that there is no way more difficult more dangerous and less fitted to all capacities then that of examining all its Tenets One may equally apply all those propositions to the Times of the Old Testament as well as to those of the New God could save men there He made no other way to Salvation then that of the True Religion That ought then to have been easily known and that way of Examination was not less dangerous nor more fitted to all sorts of capacities then it is now Notwithstanding all that had not any force to hinder the Faithful from Examining it They cannot then in these days draw any consequence from what they so propose I affirm the same thing of all those other inconveniences which they invent to take away from every one that right of Examining the State of Religion by the Scripture and not wholly to believe their Pastors as that it would be to introduce a Principle of Schism and Division that every one might make himself a Judge of the Church that every one might make a Religion according to his Fancy that it is a great rashness for private Persons to imagine that they have more Understanding and more Wisdom than the whole Church and other such like things They may see that all those arguings are brought in vainly and to no purpose for if they were good and solid being so general as they are they would serve for all Times and all Places and would have their Force in favour of the Jewish Church as well as they would have them conclude in Favour of the Latin In the second place those Rights Priviledges and Promises which they would ascribe to the Christian Visible Church in exclusion of the Jewish are evidently null if they would make them depend precisely on Christianity For as I have before noted the Greek Church the Armenian the Nestorian and Aethiopian might pretend to them as justly as the Latin and yet the Latin applies them to her self in particular to the prejudice of all the others They ought then either to shew us what reason she has to appropriate those Rights Priviledges and general Promises and to make that that regards the Body of the Universal Church become particular to her or it is necessary they shew us that indeed they are not those Rights Priviledges and Promises that are common to all Christian Societies and that they are peculiar to the Latin Church But they know not how to do either the one or the other For neither Nature nor Grace have given any of those Priviledges or Rights to the Latins in exclusion from all other Christians They are neither more Lords of our Consciences nor more Infallible than others Christianity is Uniform throughout The Scripture also does not contain any one particular promise for them On the contrary Saint Paul says That in Jesus Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek nor Barbarian nor Scythian nor Bond nor Free but Christ is all and in all So that the Latin Church has no reason to draw that to her self which is a common Right nor to pretend any peculiar Priviledges But in the summ of all we have made it appear in the foregoing Chapters that those pretended Priviledges of Infallibility which they ascribe to the Christian Church Visible and those promises of perpetual Visibility in that Sence of Visibility wherein they understand it are Chimaeras which have not any Foundation either in Scripture or Reason And as to that right of Soveraign-Authority it cannot here be alledged but to very ill purpose For it is that which is yet in Dispute and whereof we have shewn the falsity from the example of the Jewish Church But they may draw from that example a consequence against the Latin one because that if that pretence would have been heretofore pernicious and destructive to Religion and the true Church as they may see it would have been it follows that it will be so yet in these days If then they cannot set before us any other difference between those two Terms and those two Churches which hinders my Conclusion the Argument will hold intire for it will not be enough to overthrow it meerly to say that the Christian Church has that Authority and that the Jewish had it not but they ought to give us a reason for it 3. But to proceed with our Reflexions If that Maxim whereof we treat were true that is to say if men were bound to give to their ordinary Pastors a blind obedience in the matters of Religion to see with their Eyes to tread in their Steps and to devest themselves of their own conduct to rest upon theirs the Jews who rejected Jesus Christ and his Doctrine during the time of his Preaching
things In fine that there was no way more dangerous more difficult and less fitted to all sorts of Capacities then that of a particular examination of its Tenets That the cutting off of that way led of it self to that of the Authority of the Church since every man is bound to know the truth of something and he that could not learn by himself must necessarily learn it of another They will then have no reason to doubt whether they shall take the Catholick Church for their Guide and borrow its Eyes to discern the Truths of the Faith and they will believe themselves a thousand times more assured in following that than if they were left to the weak ef-forts of their own Reason Tell me I pray whether that discourse would have been very proper for the Conversion of that Jew and whether he might not justly have answered That he was also uncertain whether he should not deceive himself and take the wrong side from the very same Reasons that he had alledged from whence he might as well conclude that he was bound to yeild himself to the Authority of the Jewish Church which had been the most eminent one that was ever in the World because that although it had Sects among it who disputed the Truth of its Tenets yet it had nothing that could make that high Authority which arose from external signs to be opposed with any colourable pretence To speak in the same Language that the Author of Prejudices uses That he sought then to take her for his Guide and to believe himself a thousand times more assured in following her than if he had been left to the weak ef-forts of his own Reason Furthermore he might think it very strange that the Apostles of Jesus Christ should go about to violate in respect of the Jewish Church a Principle which in the end they had a design to establish for the preservation of their own that they should then plead for that Maxim that every one ought to examine the Tenets of the Faith and search out the true Religion by himself without absolutely trusting to his ordinary Pastors since that they would have them to hear them notwithstanding the condemnation that their Church had pronounced against them But that afterwards they should quickly change that Maxim towards those whom they should have converted and have bound them to have depended blindly on their Guides That Inequality would not have appeared fair Tell me I pray yet once more whether the Jew had not had some Reason of his side and whether that Maxim of the Authour of Prejudices is not far more destructive of the Interests of Christianity than can be easily conceived It opens a Gate to the Jews to defend their Unbelief to justify all their bold attempts and to calumniate Jesus Christ himself and his blessed Apostles 6. What might not those unbelievers have said against those who were Converted They might have treated them as rash presumptuous as Rebels and Schismaticks as disturbers of Order as a sort of men of a private spirit who would make themselves Judges of the Church and despoil it of its lawful Authority to invest themselves in it But that which is most scandalous is that as that Principle which we oppose opens the mouths of the Enemies of the Gospel so it shuts up those of the new Christians and deprives them of the means of justifying themselves For what could they have said to which those others might not immediately have repli'd by the meer application of that Principle Could they have said that they had known out of the Scripture out of Moses and the Prophets that Jesus was the true Messiah But they might have answered them that it belonged to the Church and not to them to judge of the true meaning of the Scripture Could they have said that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had an extraordinary Call But they might have told them also That it was not for private men to judge whether those who said they were extraordinarily sent were so indeed that that would be to give way to impostors that the Church ought to make that discernment and that she had loudly declared that they were no other then such Could they have alleadged the Miracles of Jesus and his Apostles But they might have given them the very same for an answer that seeing there were true and false miracles it was not for the common people who ow'd an absolute obedience to their Guides to undertake to discern between them but for the Church which had then explained them when she said that Jesus cast out Devils by the Prince of Devils Could they have complained of the Disorders and Corruptions that then reigned in the Jewish Church But they might have told them That they were ingrateful and unnatural Children who lifted themselves up against their Mother and thought of nothing else but dishonouring her and that whatsoever they might say they ought to borrow her eyes for the discerning the Truths of the Faith and to rest assured in following of her In fine that Principle seems to do nothing else but to give a compleat Victory to Judaism over Christianity 7. But there is more in it yet for the Heathens might so have prevailed against the first Preachers of the Gospel and have stopt its Progress I confess that the Heathens did not call their Religious Society by the name of the Church But what does the Name signify Were they not all united in one Religious Society Had they not all their Guides their Priests those that offered up their Sacrifices and their high Priests Put into their hands then that Maxim of the Author of Prejudices with the grounds upon which it is established the obscurity of mens understandings that doubt of being deceived the cumbrance of worldly affairs the want of necessary helps and all those other pretences which they propose to us to make us blindly follow their conduct and it will work the same effect as it did in the hands of the Jews The Heathens would not have failed to have made use of it for the hindring their hearkning to those Preachers to justify that obstinacy with which they resisted the Gospel to elude those Miracles to condemn the Apostles themselves and those who had been converted by hearing them as a sort of men who had broken that Order which they themselves acknowledg'd so necessary to be kept They might very well have told them You have not the True Religion you are not that Church to which we ought to give an absolute submission we have a Heavenly and an extraordinary Call and we prove it by Miracles The Heathens might have answered them out of the Instructions of the Author of these Prejudices All those things are in question between our Guides and yours we cannot of our selves decide them the darkness of our understandings the little assurance we can have that we are not deceiv'd the just fear that that doubt must infer
if you would give to the simpler sort to those Babes for Example whereof Jesus Christ speaks that his Mysteries have been revealed unto them if you give them I say that right and liberty to judge of that important and fundamental Question to wit Whether the Call of a man be Extraordinary and Divine or whether it be not so whether his Miracles are those of a true Minister of God or of a false Prophet whether it be a true Angel of Light or a disguised Angel of darkness and to judge of all those things after the Church and against the Church I see no Reason why they should refuse them the right and liberty of judging also of its Doctrine and the points of Religion whereof the true knowledge is by nothing near so difficult God had forewarned his People that they should not give themselves over to be deceiv'd by the first appearances of Miracles and he had appointed that they should judge of them by the Doctrine they accompanied Whence it follows that the discerning of Miracles and judging of that Doctrine are two inseparable things and that their right belongs to the same persons If there arise saith God among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder And the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying Let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that Prophet or that dreamer of dreams For the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart It appears from thence that the way for men to judge well of Miracles is to examine the Doctrine of him that works them So that if they will a gree to give the people a right to discern Miracles they cannot take away from them that of discerning that Doctrine they uphold Jesus Christ supposes the same thing when he says that there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and that they shall work great signs and wonders to seduce if it were possible the very Elect. For how could they otherwise discern those Miracles of the false Prophets but by examining their words So a famous man of the Roman Communion has not scrupled to write that we are bound to reject Miracles and those men who make use of them then when they are joyned with a Doctrine which the Church has condemned his words are considerable and very well deserve to be transcrib'd The Application says he and direction of a miracle to prove the Truth of a Doctrine is an enterprise so rash and so scandalous that it deserves to be punished There is not any Catholic in the World who knows his Creed and understands it that can be capable of such a persuasion What if the appearance of a Miracle is contrary to the definitions of the Church can any one hesitate or doubt whether it would be better to adhere to the Church supported by the truth of a Miracle or to deny the truth of a Miracle founded upon the Authority of the Church Saint Peter has taught us a great while since what we are to do on that occasion He had been an eye Witness of the Transfiguration of our Saviour and of that glory that lay hid under the Vail of a Suffering and Mortal state and yet nevertheless he trusts more in the obscurity of Prophets than to the clear and manifest experience of his Eyes we have a more sure word of Prophesie The Authority of the Church which is in nothing less than that of the Prophets breaks in pieces all those reasons that oppose it and we ought to take to our selves in regard of the Church that which Saint Peter says with respect to the Prophets To which we do well that we take heed gathering together all our attention to know the true sence of the Church and turning aside from all the Miracles and all those Reasons the men propound to us to make us call into question that which we know the Church to have determined We may see clearly by that passage how far one may carry that Principle of the Authority of the Church in the thoughts of those that admit of it that is to say even to make Miracles themselves submit to it He says that we ought to Collect all our attention to know the true Sentiments of the Church and to turn aside from all those Miracles which would make us call into question that which the Church has determined He says that to go about to make use of Miracles for the proving of a Doctrine that is condemned by the Church is a rash and scandalous enterprise and such as deserves to be punished In effect if they suppose that Maxim that we ought to give to the Church an absolute obedience to see with her Eyes and to rest upon her Conduct those Miracles could not make them be heard whom the Church should have condemned and by which they should have been looked on as false Miracles the Consequence is good and just But because that very thing applied to the times of the first rise of Christianity justifies the Unbeleivers condemns the proceedings of Jesus Christ and his Appostles accuses those of rashness who have believed on their preaching destroys the Gospel and overthrows the Christian Church it is a manifest proof that that Maxim it self is false and rash since those Consequences that arise from it are so detestable that they leave neither to Jesus Christ nor to the Apostles any way to make their Gospel to be heard by men with a good Conscience and the care of their Salvation 8. They must give me leave to speak a little earnestly for the interest of our Lord Jesus Christ The more I consider these inevitable Consequences of that Maxim the more I am astonished If those first Christians who had been Jews could not hear the Doctrine of the Son of God nor receive his Miracles without violating of their Duty toward the Church that had condemned them what scruples might not all that cast into all the Christians that are at this day in the World For in fine we are the Successors of that people our Fathers were not Converted but by their Ministry If then we cannot see clearly that they themselves had a right to be Converted if they laid down on the contrary a Principle which of right ought to have hindered their Conversion where then are all we as many as we are The Reasons that the Author of those Prejudices produces to make us devest our selves of our own guidance in favour of the Church that we should see with her Eyes and tread in her steps had as much place with the Jews as they have with us they could not doubt but that their Church was the Church of God none can dispute with them that eminent Authority which had so many external marks To her belonged the Adoption the
Glory and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises of whom were the Fathers and who had the Oracles of God committed unto them and in whose bosom Christ according to the flesh was born If that Maxim of the Author of Prejudices were good it must necessarily have been good for that Church which had condemned Jesus Christ his Person his Call his Miracles his Doctrine and what right then had his Disciples to hear and follow him We have seen them from Reason and from the Testimony of a very considerable person of our Age and to whom one of the greatest Kings has given the honour of committing the concerns of his Conscience to him that if that Maxim had place that we ought entirely to refer our selves to the Authority of the Church we could not any more regard those Miracles when they were opposite to that Authority Let them tell us then what right the Disciples had to follow Jesus Christ by what right did the first Converts and those who were afterwards Converted by others embrace the Gospel And if they did it without any right and against their duty into what Labyrinths we cast you What would become of the Christian Church what would become of you your selves You form prejudices against us drawn from the faults that have say you appeared in the persons of our first Reformers You tell us of a pretended precipitancy by which the Magistrates of Zurich Reformed themselves you conclude from thence without entring upon the points in dispute that we ought to renounce the Reformation of our Fathers Answer then your selves to the Prejudices that according to your Maxim the Jews may form against the first Disciples of Jesus Christ and to the Consequence that they may draw from thence that without entring any further into a Discussing of the Points of that Religion without examining either the Miracles or the Antient Prophecies or the success of the Preaching of the Gospel or all the other things that we could alledge in our favour we ought to renounce our Christianity You your selves Authorise their Principle by one that is altogether like it which you lay down and which you know not how to make use of against them without overthrowing your selves in a word you draw the same Consequence from it with them shew us then by what secret Art both you and we may get out of that Abyss whereinto you have plunged us If your Fathers say you have Reformed themselves with an ill design you ought without farther examination to renounce their Reformation If the chief Authors of your Religion a Jew will say have adhered to Jesus with an ill design against the obligation which they had to cleave to the Church you ought to renounce their Christianity Answer if you can to those Arguments and set our Consciences in quiet As for us indeed we are not in pain for we know that that Principle which you urge to those unbelievers is false There is not any person who has not right to examine the points of that Religion and to discern by himself the true from the false the good from the bad that which is from God from that which which from men The Authority of the Church never goes so far as to hinder us with any justice from it and so there is nothing to reproach the first Christians 9. But we ought not to give over these reflections without making one upon the state of the Church in the times of the Councils of Sirmium of Milan and of Ariminum whereof I have spoken before There is no person who knows not that the Arrians were then Masters of the Ecclesiastical Ministry which they called the Catholick Church treating the Orthodox as Hereticks and Disturbers of its Peace deposing them and sending them into banishment The Poyson of the Arrians says Vincentius Lirinensis had not only infected one part but almost all the world and almost all the Latin Bishops some by force others by simplicity giving themselves over to be deceived found themselves engaged in the darkness of Error We are in that condition said Phaebadius that if we would be called Catholicks it is necessary that we embrace Heresie and yet nevertheless if we do not reject Heresie we cannot be truly Catholicks God did yet keep to himself notwithstanding some Bishops few in number but great in Courage and that small remnant in the end serv'd for a spark to rekindle the Fire of the Faith in the Church Apply then to them that Maxim which we have before opposed and weigh those Consequences that may be drawn from it against those and against the Faithful who Heard them and Read their Writings The least is that they were Schismaticks and Corruptors of the people who after having themselves broken off that obedience which they owed to the Church sollicited others to do the like They might have very well urged that they had the Scriptures on their side that they had the Council of Nice for them but they would have answered them That it was no longer time to dispute that they ought to submit themselves to and acquiesce in the definitions of the Church Since it was the duty of the Faithful to strip themselves of their own Conduct to rest upon that of the Church Nevertheless they did not fail generously to maintain the Truth to dispute and write for it to address themselves not only to the Bishops but to the people and to defend it against that specious name of a Church which they set before them and the words of Saint Hilary upon this subject are worthy of a particular consideration The Church says he terrified men by Banishments and by Prisons and constrained them to believe what she tells them she that her self had never been believed but by the Exile and Prisons which she suffered She which had been only Consecrated by the Persecution of men Bene a dignatione Communicantium She drives away the Priests forgetting that by the Banishment of her Priests she increased She boasts that she is beloved by the world but she could not belong to Jesus Christ unless the world hated her Haec de comparatione traditae nobis olim Ecclesiae nunc quam de perditae res ipsa que in oculis omnium est at que ore clamavit Can any one be rash enough to maintain that he was bound then to refer himself to the Authority of that Church to see with its Eyes to tread in its Steps and to rest himself upon its Conduct Will any say that that handful of good men who have since re-established Christianity was nothing else but a company of Rebels and of presumptuous minds Will they charge their Writing and their Letters to the people with Forgeries and Subornations Will they justifie their being Deposed their Banishments the Persecutions which they so constantly suffered Will they say that the Faithful that heard them were rash and
Sacrilegious and that those on the contrary who submitted themselves to the decisions of the Church were those good men who did nothing but their duty and that we our selves at this day who have received our Christianity from the hands of that small number are but the followers of Rebels and Schismaticks Yet all that they must say if they lay down that Principle of absolute Obedience It appears then that that Principle is false and unjust and invented for the ruin of Religion 10. In effect an absolute obedience and an intire resigning of ones self to the Conduct of another as to those matters that regard the Faith and the Conscience is a duty that we can render lawfully to none but God who is the first Truth the first Principle of all Justice A man cannot submit his understanding and his heart to the word of any one so as to believe blindly that which he says without giving him a kind of Adoration for there can be no homage greater than that of an inward blind submission It is an infinite act according as a creature may be said to act infinitely that is to say without bounds without reserve without measure It is then an act that can belong to none but God immediately that we ought not to transfer to the Church if we would not adore the Church and to which by Consequence a Church can never pretend without usurping the just rights of God 11. God himself has so far forborn his right that he does not very often absolutely make use of it but leaves it to our minds to judge of the Truths that he propounds to us For there are often in those things that he teaches us Characters that equally note their Truth and their Divinity so that at all times we may draw these two conclusions from them This Doctrine is true this Doctrine is of God without their depending one upon the other We may say the same of his Commandments they bear most frequently Characters of their Natural Justice as well as those of their Divinity and they give us leave to receive them not only by an Act of Obedience but by an Act of Judgment also As it is from him that we hold that admirable faculty of distinguishing the true from the false the good from the bad by Characters imprest in those things themselves so he would not take a way the use of it in matters of Religion On the contrary it is ordinarily by the using of that that he draws us that he convinces us first of all of the Truth of some Doctrines that he makes us afterwards acknowledg the necessary connexion that they have with others which he has revealed to us the Truth whereof appears not so clearly abstractly considered at first and by that connexion he makes us receive them He shews us the equity of his Precepts the horror of those Vices that are contrary to them and in that manner he gains our Hearts by making use of our own Reason Not that we may lawfully reject any of those things which he teaches us we have no right for that without doubt because where our Understandings are wanting to discover those Characters of Truth or of Equity in those things which he teaches us there he has ordained that his Authority shall help us It is God that says it it is God that commands it but it is not the same with respect to the Church the Church is not God she is but an Interpreter and Servant of God she ought then to shew us in all that she teaches us as matter of Faith or that she commands the Conscience to submit to those Characters of Truth and Equity in the things themselves or else those of their Divinity when she fails in that she cannot supply that defect by her Authority for in that case her Authority is purely no other than Humane and an Humane Authority is not sufficient either for the Faith or for the Conscience so that every man has right to examine that which she teaches and to reject that that is beyond the word of God 12. In fine Let those Gentlemen tell us if they please whether in this same Question concerning the Soveraign Authority of the Latin Church and the Obligation that lies upon every one to hold himself to its decisions they mean that every one should refer himself to the Latin Church and believe also meerly because that she says so without any other examination or whether they would grant that every one may have right to examine of what nature of what extent and of what force that Authority is and how far that Obedience goes which he ought to render to it There is no likelyhood they will say the former for that Authority cannot establish it self when it shall be establisht a man may refer himself to it for other things but while her own establishment is disputed it is requisite it should come from somewhat else and that there should be for that proofs capable of perswading us To what purpose do they tell us of its external marks which makes us says the Author of the Prejudices discover without any difficulty that height of Authority which is in the Catholick Church if they would not leave the Faithful a right to see those external marks and to examine them not any farther by the Eyes of the Church but by their own That being so they may see that they ought always to give men a right of making a Judgment by their own light and to give them in that Question the most important matter of all to wit that of choosing a Rule and a setled Principle for their Guidance and their Faith an Authority upon which their Minds and Consciences may rest and lye down in perfect Peace They must give them that in that Question which it is no ways easie for them to decide For besides that they ought to see those external marks of the Latin Church which say they gain her so great an Authority they ought also to see whether there are not others which they take away more reasonably from her then those that they give her they ought to see whether those marks are not common to other Religious Societies that may by that means dispute with the Latin Church that Authority they ought to see whether those marks when they shall become peculiar to the Latin Church may be capable of giving her so Soveraign an Authority over mens Faith and Consciences which seems naturally to belong to none but God And because in that Question we treat not of the whole Body of the Church but only of the Prelats and those who take up the Ecclesiastical Function they ought to know whether those external marks can hinder them from believing that those Prelats have abused their charges and brought in or suffered to be brought in divers Corruptions into the Church All that is not so easie as the Authour of the Prejudices tells us it is There is some
difficulty to get thither and yet that belonging of right to the examination of all men the darkness of the understanding the easiness wherewith men may deceive themselves the want of necessary helps the ignorance and simplicity of the greatest part of men would not hinder it Those are then no other than frivolous Reasons which cannot take away from men that right that God and Nature have given them They ought therefore to enjoy it at least in some respect to wit for the deciding of the question whether they ought to lose it or no. 13. But it is certain they can never so enjoy it in that regard nor decide that Question without entring upon an examination of all their Doctrines which lets us see yet more and more the absurdity of our Adversaries Principle For there is not any Principle more absurd than that which destroys it self which cannot be established but by making use of a contrary Principle and which precisely can have no place but there where it cannot be of any use But all that may be said of that Principle of those Gentlemen since it is most true that to establish it one must necessarily proceed to examine their Doctrines and that they can never know whether they ought to refer themselves to the Latin Church or examine that Doctrine by themselves till they have made that examination that is to say till there shall be no farther occasion to refer themselves to that Authority of the Latin Church which makes pleasant sport enough This is that which is evidently manifest if one consider it that before one can acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church it must be supposed that one is assured that among all the Religious Societies that are in the World the Christian is the only one in which one ought to place himself and that can never be known but by one way only which is that of examining its Doctrine and its Worship In effect there is not any one of those external marks that can make that difference The Jews had their Miracles Antiquity Succession an uninterrupted Duration the Holiness of their Patriarchs the Light of their Prophecies the Majesty of their Ceremonies we do not dispute these marks with them and as to Temporal Prosperity they had it heretofore and we are not assured that we have always had that whereof we make such boasting which nevertheless is not very great The Mahometans glory that they have the same things with the consent of the People and the admirable success of their Arms and as for Antiquity which they fail in they say that as Jesus Christ did but succeed Moses so Mahomet also has succeeded Jesus Christ As for the Heathens they had as I have said their Miracles their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies their Succession their uninterrupted Duration their Temporal Prosperities and if we strive with them about Antiquity and Multitude the advantage will not lye on our side There is then nothing more deceitful than those external appearances separated from their Doctrines they are as proper to make a Jew remain a Jew a Heathen a Heathen and a Mahometan to remain a Mahometan as to make a Christian to remain a Christian whence it follows that to form well that difference and to be assured that the Christian Communion is the only good one one ought to examine its Worship and its Doctrines Moreover before they could acknowledge the Authority of the Latin Church they must suppose that a man is sure that among all the Christian Sects the Latin only is the true Church and that cannot be known but by the examination of its Doctrines Those external marks can be no ways proper for it The Greeks the Abyssines the Nestorians ascribe to themselves Antiquity Succession Miracles an uninterrupted Duration as well as the Latins They have their Saints their Prophets their Ceremonies and their Multitude which is not less considerable and as to worldly Prosperity the Abyssines may boast of it and the Muscovites also who make a part of the Greek Church and who knows whether that of the Latin Church shall never change It is then manifest that they can conclude nothing from those marks separated from their Doctrine they are so ambiguous and uncertain that they cannot fix any setled Judgment upon them concerning the truth of the Latin Church But supposing that they could by those external marks or by any other ways which they would take be assured that the Latin Church was the true Church I say it must necessarily be understood in this Sence to wit that in that visible Communion God brings up and preserves his truly Faithful ones For it is in those only that that name of the visible Church is verified and not in the prophane the wicked and the worldly who are mingled with them and who are none of that Body that is the Spouse of Jesus Christ They must then be assured before they can know whether they ought to refer themselves absolutely to that Body of Pastors that governs the Latin Church that the prophane and the worldly do not prevail in that Body and that they never have prevailed for if they do prevail or if they ever have prevailed they may introduce errours into the publick Ministry and false Worship or suffer them to come in through their negligence or otherwise or scatter abroad the ill Doctrines of the Schools amongst the People favour ill customs and in a word corrupt that Communion as it appears that that did come to pass in the Jewish Church and sometimes in the Christian But how can any be fully assured that it may not be so at present otherwise then by the examining of her Doctrine They ought then to give up that point of external marks our Fathers have gained their cause without going any farther by the Prejudices of Corruption which I have set down in the second and third Chapters But if you take them only as meer conjectures and if you will reckon them to be nothing it is certain that to be assured that there is nothing corrupted in a Communion where God brings up and preserves his true Faithful people that the publick Ministry is pure in all its Doctrines and in its Worship one must of necessity take that way of examination and that examination must be very exact So that before we can enter only upon that Question whether we ought to give to the Latin Church a Soveraign Authority over our Faith and Consciences the discussing of which they know not how to avoid all must be examined from whence it follows that that Principle which I have opposed is absur'd because it destroys it self and none can ever practise it till it cannot be any more of any use and more absur'd yet in that when it would hinder us from examining it constrains us to make an examination as exact as can be thought of CHAP. IX An Examen of those Reasons they alleadge to Establish that Soveraign Authority
of the Prelats in the Latin Church TO defend in some manner a Principle that Scripture Reason the Interest of the Antient Jewish Church and the Christians do so loudly condemn they propound some Inconveniences which arise they pretend from that of the Contrary Principle But it is certain that if it were enough to alleadge those Inconveniences to overthrow those Rights which are found to be so solidly established there is nothing in the world sure since there is nothing so just so reasonable or so necessary which the weakness or the malice of men may not abuse It is necessary to yield to men the right of eating and drinking of Cloathing and Marrying themselves of selling and buying of holding Commerce between themselves of building Houses and Towns and to distinguish themselves by their several Arts and Professions And yet how many Inconveniences are there that arise from all those things It is the same in the usage of the most holy and inviolable things as of Religion it self of which a Libertine says in General because of the Abuses that were made of it Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum If all must be abolisht that is subject to Inconveniences one must abolish every thing Gold and Iron Night and Day Fire and Water would be criminal and the very Air it self which makes us live causes sometimes our death They cannot then take a worse way then that of those Inconveniences to cry down a Right founded upon Nature and upon Grace and Authorized by Jesus Christ by the Prophets and Apostles Let us see nevertheless of what nature those Inconveniencies are One of the most Considerable is That if they allow those who are subject to the Church to Examine the matters of Religion there will be no more any way to keep men in the Unity of the Faith that every one will have a Religion by himself and that by this means they should open a way for Extravagancies and Heresies and by consequence for the intire ruin of the Church since the minds of men are so different and confused that that which pleases one will not please another To Answer to that Objection I would demand of those Gentlemen whether they propose to themselves to find out any humane and efficacious way which shall go so far as actually and effectually to hinder those Extravagances and Heresies or whether they would only establish a Maxim which in supposing that it should be followed and that all men would receive it should contain all in the Unity of the Faith Let them take which of those two sides they please they cannot rationally say any thing The first contains a rash and absurd pretence for to go about to seek a humane means that shall actually hinder all Errors and Heresies is to seek for that which they can never be able to find To retain men in the Unity of the Faith and of True Piety two things are necessary the one That they teach all the pure Truths of God and the other That they give them all a right understanding to the end they should follow it Their Pastors might very well do the first but the second which does not depend on them none but God alone can do And that also he does in regard of all his Elect and truly Faithful for whose sake only there is a Church and Pastors in the World For he bestows on all those his Holy Spirit in that measure that shall suffice to unite them in the same Faith and to hinder them from falling into Errours wholly inconsistent with their Salvation As for the others as he has not ordained their Salvation so he would not actually hinder them from casting themselves into Heresies or into Errors On the contrary he has resolved to permit those strayings the better to distinguish them from his True Children There must be also saith St. Paul Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you And elsewhere he says That God should send strong delusions to them that perish that they should believe a lye So that God who alone is Lord of the hearts and minds of men not having propounded that end to himself in establishing his Visible Church to hinder any Heresies from being in the World nor that they should not arise within that very Church it self but only that his Elect and truly Faithful ones should not be infected with them it is a great rashness for those men who cannot dispose hearts as he does to extend not only their desires but their pretensions also farther and to search out a way by which there should not be in effect any Heresie I confess that we ought to desire the destruction of all Heresies that we ought to labour for their Extirpation and that as the Elect and true Children of God are not distinctly known the cares that we should take for them ought to be extended indifferently to all But I say that we cannot make use of any thing for so great a work but those external means which are the pure Preaching of the Truth and Confuting the contrary Errors When their Pastors shall acquit themselves well in that duty they may rest assured that God will bless their conduct and their word not to all men but to the persons of his true Children If their Pastors would urge their pretensions from thence and would find a human expedient that might absolutely hinder those Heresies from touching them and from actually and effectually springing up as well among the good as the wicked I affirm that they would be wiser then God that they would encroach upon his rights that they would hunt for a Chimaera and that by that very means they would change the Ministry into a Tyranny for under that pretence of rooting out those Heresies they would come to be Soveraign Lords over mens Souls and Consciences which cannot nor ought to be suffered and which is so far from being a means to avoid them that it would fill the Church with Heresies If they say they intend only to establish a Maxim which supposing that it would be followed and that all men would receive it would contain all in the Unity of the Faith and that Maxim is That they ought to refer themselves absolutely to their Pastors I say in the first place That that Maxim is as proper to contain men in the Unity of Heresie and of Schism as in the Unity of Faith For the Hereticks and Schismaticks have their Church and their Pastors to whom they should absolutely refer themselves So that they could never discern whether they are in Unity of the Faith or in that of Error and wandring from the Truth if they were not before all things assured that they were in the true Church But who shall warrant us that when they would be so assured of the true Church that men would not divide themselves by different sentiments and that that which pleases one should not displease another What
principle of Unity would they give us to settle all in the same thoughts in that search which they should make of the true Church The Jews would say We are the true Church of God the Mother Church from which the Christians have separated themselves The Pagans will say We are that Mother Communion for as well the Jews as the Christians came out of the midst of us The Mahometans will say That as Christianity was the perfection of the Law so their Religion is the perfection of the Gospel The Greeks would come foorth and maintain That they are the true Catholick Church and not the Latins the Copticks the Abyssines the Jacobites and Armenians maintain That as well the Latins as the Greeks departed from the Church when their Council of Chalcedon had made void the Council of Ephesus The Arians will say That if one latter Council could abrogate what had been done by a former as it appears from the Example of the Council of Chalcedon then that of Ariminum might very well correct and repair the Errors of that of Nice In fine every one would alledge his Reasons and concern himself to know which of all those Communions was the true and good one and which had the true Faith Tell us what means of Unity would you have beyond that to hinder men from dividing themselves For if it be true that in yielding men a right to examine the matters of Religion they open a Gate to let in Divisions and Heresies by reason of the Confusion of mens minds it is not less true that in leaving them a liberty to examine those Churches and Religious Societies to come to know which is the True you open the same Gate to Errors and Apostacies If you would further take from them that Liberty of searching out the true Church and if you say that they ought to suppose the Latin to be it without other reason besides that that is very absurd you introduce a Maxim that under a pretence of shutting the Door to all Divisions shuts it also to all Conversions For why should not every Society have right to say the same thing So the Jew without any other Reason would presume for the Jewish Communion the Heathen for the Heathen the Greek for the Greek and every one for that wherein he finds himself set That then would not be so much a Principle of Unity in the true Faith as a Principle of Confusion and Obstinacy a Principle that would be not so proper to keep men in the Unity of the true Faith as in that of any Religion whatsoever it might be without coming to know whether it were good or bad In the second place I say That with all that they do not yet make any thing of that which they would lay down if they would avoid those Heresies and those Divisions which may arise from the inequality of humane understandings when men are left to be Masters of their own Sentiments For to obtain that effect they must suppose that that Maxim of referring ones self absolutely to the Pastors of the true Church when they shall be so assured will be received and followed by all men But who can tell them that men will not divide upon that very Principle and that when they endeavour to make them receive it they can make them agree If they apprehend so much those Divisions and Errors in the matters of Religion what assurance can they have that there shall not be any upon that point of the Authority of the Church Is it because mens minds will less differ about that subject then about others or that that same Authority proves it self as the First Principles do Who has told them that those who shall once have received this Maxim will not be un-blinded in the end and that they will not be weary in fine of remaining slaves to men in respect of their Consciences which is the most considerable part of themselves and that which should give them the greatest Jealousie So that that pretended Remedy of Schisms and Divisions is null for you must always run upon that Rock you would avoid to wit of the humane understanding and wipe off its differences its inequalities its humors at the same time that you would have them give away that liberty of judging the points of the Faith Let us suppose since our Adversaries would have us that that Principle of absolute obedience to the Guides of the Church had had place from the birth of Christianity would it have hindred the Heresies of the Valentinians of the Gnostics of the Marcionites of the Montanists and the Manichees Would it have hindred the Arrians the Samosatences the Eutychians the Nestorians and so many others that in the first Ages of Christianity troubled the State of Religion To say that those men were presumptuous and rash is but to say what we would have which is that there can be no humane means that can stop that rashness and presumptuousness of men and that it is a folly to go about to do it They may by the force of Torments and Prisons by their Threats or their Promises hinder the external effects but that is not to contain men in the Unity of the Faith but it is to contain them in that of Hypocrisy and of Treachery A second Inconvenience is That they cannot give to the Church that is to say to the Body of the Pastors that respect which is due to them for where they should be set up to be Judges of Controversies private men would rise up against them and those private men would on the contrary become their Judges But that Inconvenience is not so great as that it should make us hazard our own Salvation How many Judges have in we our Civil Society to whom we yet give that respect that is due to them though still we are not bound to believe that all that they have judged is well judged The respect which men owe to their Pastors is not unlimited it has its bounds and its measures while they act as true Pastors in Teaching the pure Truth and acquitting themselves of their Duty they are worthy to be heard to be followed to be respected But when they come to be Deceivers if that in stead of Teaching the Truth they oppose it if they mix with Gold and Silver Wood Hay and Stubble to make use of the words of the Apostle they deserve in that regard neither the Hearing nor Respect For they are neither Pastors nor the Church but only as they Teach the Truth and follow Righteousness and when they withdraw themselves from it give us their own Fancies or when they follow their Passions then they are but private men who belye their Character and they can owe them nothing for those kinds of things but repulses and contempt or at the most but Indulgence if the Evil be yet tolerable that is to say if their word and their conduct do not destroy the Gospel or hinder a saving
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
wrote to Leo with all the respect imaginable and let him see that the Questors and those who had till that time upheld them had dishonoured his See and his Church that as to himself he found himself very unhappy to see that their Calumnies should have prevailed over his Innocence and he further offered to give over that matter of Indulgences and wholly to be silent in it provided that his Adversaries should do the like But whether it was that all that Negotiation of Miltit was but feigned on his part or that in effect his counsel was not approved by those of his Party as Luther himself insinautes it is certain that from the time that that Letter had been drawn from him George Duke of Saxony a Prince that stuck very close to the Interests of the Pope desired that he would make a publick Disputation at Leipsic upon the matters in controversy the dispute was managed the beginning between Eccius and Carolostad concerning Free-will and Grace but they drew in Luther himself upon the subject of Indulgences of Purgatory and the Power of the Pope And they procured almost at the same time from the Universities of Cologn and Lovain a condemnation of divers Articles drawn out of his Books He defended himself against these new Adversaries and made the World see by his publick writings the truth of his Doctrine and the injustice of those Condemnations But within a little after Pope Leo being unwilling to try any thing further published his terrible Bull of Excommunication against him which they call the Bull Exurge There after having earnestly importuned Jesus Christ Saint Peter and Saint Paul with all the Saints in Paradise to come to the succour of the Church of Rome he sets down in particular one and forty Articles of Luthers Doctrine which he declared to be respectively pestilent destructive scandalous false heretical offending pious Ears seducing Souls and contrary to the Catholick Truth and to the Charity to the respect and obedience that was owing to the Church of Rome which is the Mother of all the Faithful and the Mistriss of the Faith and as such severally he condemned them disproved them rejected them and declared that they ought to be rejected by Christians of both Sexes He forbad all Bishops Patriarchs Metropolitans and generally all Church-men and Kings the Emperour the Electors Princes Dukes Marquesses Earls Barons Captains c. and in a word all sorts of men to hold those Articles or to favour them in any manner what soever under the penalty of Excommunication and being deprived of their Lands and of their Goods and treated as infamous Hereticks favourers of Hereticks and guilty of High Treason And as to Luther he complained of him that he would not come to Rome where he would have let him have seen that he had not done so much evil as he believed and he agravated it as a great rashness in him to have appealed to a Council against the Constitutions of Pius the Second and of Julius the Second who would have those punished as Hereticks that made such appeals That therefore he condemned as Hereticks him and all his Adherents if in the space of fifty days they did not renounce all their Errours he forbad all Christians to have any Commerce or Conversation with them or to yeild them any necessary things and gave his Orders to the Emperour to Kings and Princes c. to seize their Persons and to send them to Rome promising great rewards to those who should do so good a work Luther some time after wrote against that Bull and appealed afresh to a Council lawfully called notwithstanding he justified himself with great solidity about all those condemned Articles And it is pertinent to note that among those Articles that the Pope Anathematized as Heretical or Rash or Scandalous and contrary to the Catholick Truth these following Propositions might be found That that Proverb was most true that said That the best Pennance is a good Life that it would be very well if the Church in a Council should ordain that the Laity should receive the Communion in both kinds That the Treasure of the Church from whence the Pope drew his Indulgences is not the Merits of Jesus Christ and the Saints That the Bishop of Rome the Successour of Saint Peter is not the Vicar of Jesus Christ over all the Churches of the world nor that there was any one established by Jesus Christ himself in the Person of Saint Peter That it is not in the power of the Church or of the Pope to make Articles of Faith nor to establish new Laws for Manners or for good Works That tho' the Pope should hold with a great part of the Church an opinion which should not it self be erronious yet it would not be a sin or an heresy to hold a contrary opinion especially in things not necessary to Salvation until a General Council should have disproved the one and approved of the other that the Ecclesiastical Prelats and Secular Princes did not do ill when they abolished the Order of begging Friers That Purgatory could not be proved by the Holy Canonical Scripture These Propositions are declared to be either pestilent or pernicious or scandalous or heretical without specifying any one in particular for the Pope speaks of them only in the whole that they are such So it was that Leo and all his Court managed those matters To affirm that a true amendment of Life a holy and sincere return from Vice to Vertue is the best of all Pennances appeared to be a detestable crime to them To wish that a General Council might establish the Communion of the Eucharist according to the Institution of Jesus Christ and the Custom of the Primitive Church was such an abomination with them as was thought sufficient to deserve the Flames Not to beleive that the Merits of Jesus Christ and of the Saints made up a certain Treasure which neither Faith nor Holiness nor Repentance could give the Faithful any part of but which were to be dispenced only by the way of Indulgences for money pass'd in their Judgments for a Hellish Heresie To hold that our Faith has nothing else but the Word of God for its object and not that of men also and that God alone can impose moral Laws on the Conscience was in their opinion an astonishing wickedness To believe that one may without Herefy hold an opinion contrary to that of the Pope in matters not necessary to Salvation and not determined by any Council was a pestilent errour To give the least blow to the interests of Monks or the Fire of Purgatory was an horrible sacriledge for which there was not any remission After that condemnation the Pope wrote to John Frederick Elector of Saxony earnestly entreating him not to give any more protection to Luther and he sent Hierome Aleander his Nuntio into Germany to cause that condemnation to be executed But Aleander not being able to obtain of
into a inevitable Damnation and to have precipitated others by their Example to consent to the Ruin of the Christian Religion and utter extinction of the Church and that lest they should have been wanting in that respect and blind Obedience that the Court of Rome and its Prelats require of all the World This would be in Truth to set that obedience at two high a price and it would cost us very dear but they will find but few persons of good understanding who will not confess that that would be to push on things a little too far They will say it may be that we ought not also to suppose a thing so much in Question that that prodigious corruption of the Latin Church whereof we speak and those pretended Interests of the Christian Religion and Mens Salvation which according to us obliged our Fathers to Reform themselves without having any regard of the Court of Rome or its Prelats were nothing else but Chimaera's that we our selves have formed at our pleasure or specious pretences that our Fathers took for occasions to separate themselves and that we take after them to defend them with To answer to this Objection I will not say that there is no appearance that our Fathers made use of those motives as a pretence to cover their other Interests with They can scarce know how to imagin any interests interwoven in a business that evidently drew after it a Thousand persecutions and a Thousand afflictions and wherein they were necessarily to go through the most violent storms as the sequel will justify In effect let them say as much as much as they will that Luther was hurried away by his resentments it belongs to those who Treated him with so much injustice to dispute that matter with him before the Tribunal of God who will one day render to every man according to his works But as to our Fathers who had no part in those personal Quarrels they can no ways be suspected to have had an interest of Passion or Animosity I will not likewise say that if our Fathers themselves had had other interests then those which they have set before us which is contrary to all appearance that yet it cannot be said in respect of us that we do not follow them in the True Faith since we have had leasure enough to acknowledge what our Reformation has drawn along with it and what it has cost us But I will only say that I make that supposition only to let our Adversaries see that without amusing us any more with those formalities and those perplexing ways which they make use of continually which are proper for nothing but to defend Errors and to destroy the Church by the Tyranny of those who govern they ought to come to the bottom and to Determine with us those Fundamental Articles upon which we ground the right that our Fathers had to Reform themselves I do not then prejudge any thing by my supposition I explain only the sentiment of the Protestants and the perswasion that they entertain If what they say is not true it is certain that they have had Reason to Reform themselves for without any more Reasoning a man ought always to prefer God and his own Salvation before a hundred Popes and before ten Thousand Bishops We ought then to come to an Examination of those Matters This is what the Author of those Prejudices as hot as he is in his Controversy has been forced to acknowledge For to disintangle himself from an Argument to which he says the whole Book of the Apology of Mr. Daille is reducible and which he represents in these words We ought not to remain united to such a Communion as binds us to profess Fundamental Errors against the Faith and to practise an Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship But the Church of Rome binds us to profess divers fundamental Errors and to practise Idolatrous and Sacrilegious Worship diverse ways as in the Adoration of the Host c. Therefore we ought not to remain in her Communion c. He distinguishes between two sorts of Separation one of which he calls simple and Negative which says he consists more in the Negation of certain Acts of Communion then in Positive Acts against that Communion from which we separate The other he calls a Positive Separation which includes the Erecting of a separate Society the Establishing of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Communion to which it had been Vnited Upon that Distinction he says That it is to no purpose that the Calvinists say That their Consciences will not any more allow them to be united with the Catholicks sheltring themselves under that Ambiguous Term of Vnion That their Consciences cannot any further hinder them from taking part in some Actions which their false Principles make them look upon as criminal but they would no ways engage them to all those excesses to which they are carri'd out That in fine if it were true that without betraying your Consciences they could not give that honour which we pay to the Saints and their Relicks they ought to content themselves not to give it But that it will in no wise follow from thence that they ought to go about to set up a body apart That it is this latter sort of Separation whereof they accuse us and that it is that kind of it that we ought to justify our selves from And a little lower If says he the Calvinists should make what suppositions they pleased upon the State of the Church of Rome if they should as much as they had a mind to do accuse it of Error and Idolatry it would be enough to Answer them in one word That if those pretended Errors should give them any right to refuse to profess them and to practise those actions which should include them yet they no ways gave them any night to set up themselves against the Church of Rome to anathematize her to set up a body a part and to take to themselves the Quality of Pastors although they had neither Authority nor Mission I do not now meddle with that positive Separation which the Author of the Prejudices makes so great a Crime in us We shall shew in the end that our Fathers did nothing in that respect but what they were bound to do in their Consciences and with the neglect of which they could not dispence without Sin But this we shall come to consider in its proper place it may be enough for us at present to know that with the consent of the Author of Prejudices we may suppose it as a thing indisputable That our Fathers obeying the Dictates of their Consciences had right to resuse to profess those Errors in which they believed the Church of Rome to be entangled and no more to take any part in certain actions that involved those Errors I profess it were desirable that the Author of Prejudices had told us a little more clearly his
Fashion as far as we can without wounding our Consciences and if we happen to speak or write of them it ought to be done in a gentle and prudent manner with a regard had to the Times and the dispositions of Men always remembring that the Church of God will never be in a State of compleat perfection upon Earth and that God himself bears with the defects of his Children through his mercy But we ought also to take heed how we stretch the keeping of that silence too far for there are certain Seasons wherein one cannot hold one's peace without betraying of God without weakly abandoning the true interests of the Church and without falling into that detestable Sin which Saint Paul calls holding the Truth in unrighteousness Such was the Time of the Triumph of Arrianism in the fourth Centuey for there the matter being a capital Heresy which had then took hold of the publick Ministry there was not any more place for silence there was a necessity on the contrary of crying out and of crying very loud without any regard had either to the compleasance which they owed to their Brethren or to the Love of peace or the Dignity of the Prelats or the Authority of Councills or to all those false reasons of silence which humane prudence ordinarily suggests Therefore it was that a simple Monk of those Times called Aphraates although he neither had any other Call or Office then that of the concern that every one has for the Conservation of the Truth yet could not contain himself within his Cell nor be hindered from opposing himself with all his might to that Heresy and the Emperor Valens who favoured the Arrians having check't him for that boldness in telling him that he ought to have kept himself in his Cell and to have applied himself only to pray to God according to the Conditions of that Religious Life into which he had entred Aphraates answered him If I were a maid and should keep my Chamber with my Father and if I should see Fire take hold of the House should I not be bound to go out of my Chamber and run on every side to bring water to put out the Fire Meaning by that That when the safety of Christianity was in danger of being destroyed it was a Crime to hold ones peace and sit still in quiet But this is exactly the Case wherein our Fathers found themselves For they beheld the Christian Religion and by consequence The Latin Church ready to be Ship-wrackt as a Vessel that takes in water on every side They saw in that miserable Church Divinity falsified and corrupted by a thousand vain and ridiculous Questions The Schools infected with the Art of Sophistry and Cheats the Pulpits prostituted to Tales Jests and Legends Benefices filled with persons unworthy and uncapable Church Dignities sold to those who bid highest good Learning banisht and persecuted Religion loaded with a rabble of childish Ceremonies the People abused by a thousand Follies Church-Government changed into an intolerable Oppression The Worship of God transferred to Creatures and even to those Creatures that were dead and insensible the saving Truths of the Gospel neglected Errors and Fancies of Mens minds Preached up in stead of them The Study of the Holy Scripture abandoned the Actions of true Piety altered by false Ideas the Commands of God broken his Soveraign Authority usurped his mercy set in partnership with Satisfactions of men his Laws associated with the Laws of men and his Grace with our Free-will the only Sacrifice of his Son multiplied the Vertue of his Intercession communicated to Saints and Angels The Substance of Bread adored as his Divine Body his Soveraign Prophetick and Kingly Offices Transported to the Pope and his Priestly to the Priests his Sacraments altered his clearest words eluded by their Glosses and rash Distinctions and his Ministry changed into a Despotick Empire over mens Consciences In a word they saw nothing that remained intire in that Religion Whether their Sentiments in that regard were just or unjust Reasonable or ill grounded it is what a discussion will justify when they will seriously come to consider it But nevertheless our Fathers were perswaded of all that which I have mentioned and under that perswasion who can doubt that they ought not to have loudly declared themselves and that a deep silence would not have rendred them Criminal before God and men And they were the more Obliged to speak in that as we have shewn in the foregoing Chapter they had nothing more to look for from their Prelats and in that the injust and violent Proceedings of the Court of Rome against Luther made them sufficiently know that the Evil was not to be Remedied on that side and that the Time for each man to Reform himself was already come CHAP. IV. That our Fathers had a Lawful and Sufficient Call to Reform themselves and to Labour to Reform others ALthough this Question about the Call of our Fathers for a Reformation is already sufficiently decided by what I have before Represented since they cannot require a more lawful Call then that which is founded upon the indispensable Obligation of our Salvation I shall not fail notwithstanding to Treat of this matter yet a little further to omit nothing that may serve for our Justification I say then that the chief thing that ought to be done to make a right Judgment of a Call in the business of Religion is to search into what nature those Actions are of about which it is engaged whether they be just or unjust good or ill in themselves for there cannot be the least lawful Call for that which is ill but there is always one naturally for what is good which I shall name a Call of things to distinguish it from that Call of persons whereof I shall speak in the sequel But now upon this Principle which to me seems indisputable we have little else to do then to demand of our Adversaries whether they do not believe that as it is naturally just to embrace and to defend the Truth so also that 't is as just to reject and oppose Errors and to banish them not only out of that Society wherein a man is but even out of the world it self as much as it lies in his power to do We need I say but only to demand of them whether they believe not That a Falshood has not in its own nature any right to be believed or to be taught and that it is for that Reason that she makes use of the Colours of Truth to make her self to be received under another Name then her own because that when she appears in her natural dress it excites or at least it ought to excite the hatred and aversion of men I know very well that all Falshoods do not equally deserve that Aversion and that there are some that may appear indifferent enough in comparison of others but I say that there are also some of which one
God to worship him purely and to remove far from them all that which they believed to be contrary to a Spiritual-Life and their own Salvation For they need not for that any other Call then the Obligation that lies upon every one to save himself and the necessity of beating back all that which would oppose it self to so just an Obligation There are not in a Civil Society any certain Select Persons who only have a right to Live to Act and to labour for others whilst those others should be dead or not able to move So also there are none in a Religious Society who ought to believe and to be good for others whilst those others should remain in ignorance or in sin and that Implicit Faith which some have invented by which a man is to believe in general that which the Church believes to go no further is in truth the most Commodious way of all others for those men who have something else to do then to serve God but it is also most proper for the Damnation of men Faith then is a thing so common as to belong to particular Persons she is so one in the whole Body of the Church as to distribute her self to each one and one could not be of that Body of the Church if one were not a believer as one could not be of the Body in a Civil Society if one were not a man and had not Life So each man has not only a personal Call but lies also under an Obligation to believe and to live as a good Christian whence it follows that each man has a Call to remove far from him all that he shall judge to be contrary to the Truth of his uprightness Faith and Piety as also that being under an Obligation to live Holily and Justly he has a Call to avoid Sins and to repent of them when soever he shall commit them But is not this some will say to rend the Church by Divisions and to make ones self guilty of a Schism so to reject out of self-will the common Sentiments and Customes without the consent of the whole Society No certainly for the true Union of the Church does not consist in holding of Errors how common soever they may be nor in any false-worship after what manner soever it be Established These things do not only not belong to a Christian Communion but they destroy it as diseases how popular and general soever they may be do bring nothing but desolation on a Civil Society instead of being the Bonds to Unite it So the Union of the Church doth not bind any person in that respect on the contrary it engages us to shew our Brethren a good Example in beginning to Reform by our selves For the greater Love any one has for the Church the more he ought to free it from those evils that press in upon it and especially then when those evils shall put it into a manifest danger of Ruin If it is so our Adversaries will yet further reply Is not that some way to break that Communion when those things that you renounce are Publick and common I confess that it is to break a Society but a bad Society which being against the right of Christianity gives no lawful Call to any person to enter into it or to defend it but on the contrary she gives a Call to all and binds them at the same time to break and oppose it A Corrupted Church has two bonds of its Communion the one consisting in what is good the other in what is ill the one of which makes it to be a Church the other a Corrupted Church the one binding not only men among themselves but with God also and the other that in Uniting men among themselves tends to divide and separate them from God The former of those bonds ought to be regarded and preserved intire as much as lies in our power but the Second is a mortal bond which no person has a right to make and which all men have a Call and Obligation to dissolve It is as certain that the first of those bonds gives us a right and Call to Act against the other for Truth and Piety Authorise us against Error and Superstition and it is the Love that we bear to the Church that opens our mouths against its Corruptions There can then be nothing further contested about the personal Call of our Fathers concerning their own Reformation But had they any Right to Labour in the Reforming of others Who can doubt it Charity would have bound them to procure that good for others which they had thought it their duty to procure for themselves That Christian Communion in which they lived among their Brethren did not less oblige them to it The Interest of the Glory of God which appeared to them to cry loudly for a general Reformation urged them on to it and their own Innocence exacted it of them that they should make it appear to the Eyes of the Publick in laying open the Foundations of those Errors which they were constrained to forsake which could not well have been done without exhorting others to imitate them Being then bound to all these Duties none can deny that they had not a sufficient Call to stir up their Brethren to Reform themselves with them That which I have said will appear more evident if we pass on to the Consideration of the Circumstances of the Reformation for we have already seen after a long and vain Expectation there could be nothing more hoped for on the side of Rome or its Prelats We have seen also that the evils whereof our Fathers made such Complaints and which they would have cured did not lye in things indifferent that were trivial or tolerable but in the very Essentials of Religion and these two Circumstances added to what I have just before represented let us see that our Fathers were not only in the right and not only under an Obligation but under a necessary and indispensable Obligation to do that which they have done I confess that if the Court of Rome and its Clergy would have laboured in good earnest for a Reformation it had been the Duty of our Fathers to have received it from their hands for how rude and corrupt soever their Call had been that Action had rectified it I confess also that if the Dispute had been only about things of small imporstance our Fathers had done better to have kept themselves quiet as I have acknowledged in the foregoing Chapter But they can alleadge neither the one nor the other for Rome and its Bishops were obstinate in the design to Reform nothing and matters were reduced to the very utmost extremity so that the Call of our Fathers appears yet more indisputable being grounded on these three Foundations of Right of Obligation and Necessity and that same Necessity was so much the greater as the evil was more inveterate and had spread it self almost over all the parts of the
to do and what he should not have done and by that means to raise himself so high as to be a Censor of God's Actions He ought at least to have called it to mind that Jesus Christ made no scruple to chuse married men out of whom to make his Apostles and Evangelists The Scripture mentions the Mother-in-law of Saint Peter that is to say his Wives Mother for that word in Greek can be taken in no other sence but that It speaks also of the four Daughters of Philip the Evangelist The Authour of the Commentaries upon the Epistles of Saint Paul under the name of Saint Ambrose assures us that all the Apostles had Wives except Saint Paul and Saint John and Saint Ignatius and Saint Basil say the same thing without any exception Virginity is not then an inseparable character of the Call of God as the Authour of the Prejudices would perswade us But after that first assault of the Authour of the Prejudices which was made with all the weapons that he first found in his hands he reproaches the Reformers with the little fruit that their Preaching wrought for the Sanctification of those people who followed them Their Ministers themselves says he have been constrained by the Evidence of the Truth to acknowledge That all their pretended Reformation did not produce any Renovation of the spirit of Christianity and that it had rather increased then lessened the disorders of those who embraced it and for that he produces the complaints of some Ministers as of Capito and Calvin himself and of Luther against the Vices of their Age. I acknowledge that if they compare our Fathers manners and ours with the Grace that God has given us in renewing his Gospel in the midst of us they would find but too much reason to make us cover our Faces with confusion that we were unworthy of so great a Favour I confess also that there may be many found among those who at first embraced the Reformation who instead of profiting by it abused it as the best things may be abused But I say that they ought not to insult over that Confession that we make in that regard for besides that a Doctrine is not the less found for not being so carefully observed as it deserves we can yet further say for our selves and say it to the Glory of that God whom we serve that he has poured forth a sufficiently abundant measure of his blessing on our Fathers and that if any compare their manners with those of the other Party who rejected the Reformation they will find reason enough to confess that God was in the midst of us It is true indeed that they might not see there those Pharisaical Devotions of which the hypocrites and superstitious make a vain shew They might not see there those men who publish to all the world their Mortifications and their Fasts who withdraw themselves out of the crowd to make themselves to be more taken notice of and who never enter into their secret retirements but with the greater ease to be able to mix themselves in all that that is common in the World But they may there behold a solid Piety plain and natural without Art and Affection a true fear of offending God with a free and open carriage which never sought to hide it self by distinctions and illusions but in good earnest to follow the dictates of Conscience without saying to hinder them from doing their Duty either what will become of us or what will become of our Brethren or Sisters Because they knew that those Events were in the hand of God and that poor worldly interest ought never to prevail over the love of the Truth As to the Wars that the Author of the Prejudices imputes to the Reformation it had been methinks his prudence not to have turned the Dispute upon a Matter on which he well knows that we have but too many things to say for our Justification If some Princes of Germany took up Arms to defend themselves against the assaults of their Enemies they thought that the Justice and Law of Nations authorised that defence and that being Soveraign in their States they were bound to protect their Subjects and to preserve that Trust that God had put into their hands And as for those Commotions that hapned in France in the times of the Reformation there is no person who is ignorant of their true Causes It is true that the Interest of our Religion had some part in them but it had at least the good fortune to be found joyned with that of the preserving of that great Kingdom to its just possessours against those pernitious designs which made but too great a noise afterwards and whatsoever sad Remembrances the Authour of the Prejudices has awakened by his undeserved reproaches yet we shall not fail to maintain that the blood of our Fathers was very well spent for so good a Cause Luther says he was not afraid of animating his followers to Murders and Blood by those horrible words which are to be found in his first Tome of his Works of Wittingburg Edition If we hang up Robbers on Gibbets if we punish Hereticks and Thieves with the Sword why do not we assault with all our Forces those Cardinals and those Popes and all that scum of the Roman Sodom that ceases not to corrupt the Church of God why do we not embrue our hands in their Blood It is certain that there can scarce be any passage related after a more invenomed and base manner than the Authour of the Prejudices relates that and this will appear if they well but make these following Observations 1. That he separates those words from the sequel of the Discourse to give them quite another Sence than Luther intended by them which is to speak Properly a kind of falsification more dangerous then that of corrupting the words of a Sentance 2. That he would make us imagine that those words are addrest to the followers of Luther to animate them to Blood and Slaughter which is a perfect Calumny 3. That he quotes them not as spoken upon a supposition but as spoken purely and simply which is further contrary to the Truth Behold then what the matter truly was Sylvester Prierias Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome having wrote against Luther's Doctrine concerning the Pope and in particular against his Appeal to a Council had peremptorily maintained That it was not lawful to Appeal from the Pope to a Council because the Pope was a Soveraign Judge and liable to no Appeal and that those who sued out such Appeals were cast out of the Church and Excommunicate That the Pope alone was the Infallible Rule of Truth whose decisions were certain and irrefragable without a Council where those of a Council were nothing without the Pope nor bound any person if they were not authorised by the Pope so that whatsoever should not receive the Doctrine of the Pope as the Infallible Rule
refers to things As to Persons I confess there may be found lively complaints in the writings of the first Reformers against the Abuses of the Court of Rome against the ignorance and negligence of the Prelats against the Scandalous lives of the Clergy against the Tyrannical Government wherewith they ruled the Church I acknowledge also that when they looked upon that Great Body of the Roman Hierarchy its Props its Pretensions its Maxims its Interests its Occupations they could not hinder themselves from speaking of it as an Empire very opposite to that of Jesus Christ but they ought to be so far from laying it to their charge that they said it out of a hatred or an implacable aversion toward the Church of Rome as the Author of the Prejudices does that they ought on the contrary to attribute it to a real compassion which they had for the People of God to see them so ill instructed so ill guided so ill governed and to an ardent desire to procure a good Reformation throughout the whole Body of the Latin Church And the greater their compassion was the more difficult it was to manage that matter without giving some touches to persons in whom the source of all that evil resided and especially in a Time which they saw overspread on all sides with injuries and Calumnies and exposed in diverse places to Rigorous Persecutions 14. Object To that Reproach the Author of the Prejudices adds another which he begins â—o express in these words Although they should have had a right to have drawn away from the bosom of the Church of Rome its Children they had certainly no right to make use of Impostures and Frauds for that purpose and if they did it is a visible conviction that it was the Devil that acted by them and that their pretended Reformation was his work He alleadges in the close a passage of Calvin's wherein he pretends that Calvin calumniated the Church of Rome in laying it to her charge that she had a far greater care of her Traditions then of the Commandments of God and that she reckoned it a lesser sin to be defiled with the debaucheries of the Flesh then not to be confessed or not to have fasted on Friday to have broken all promises then not to have fulfilled a Vow of Pilgrimage and upon this the Author of the Prejudices makes his Exclamation with his usual heat Answ I Answer that Calvin speaks in that Passage not of that which the Roman Church Dogmatically taught but of that which might be seen in the common Practise of his Time and unless they should deny the most clear Truths they cannot deny that the Idea which the Authors themselves of the Church of Rome give us of its deplorable State in the Age of the Reformation does not fully confirm the Testimony of Calvin That which I have set down upon this sad Subject justifies the too little care that the Prelats and other of the Ecclesiasticks took to root out Vices from the midst of their Flocks and settle in their places a True Holiness when they had then a far greater ardour to make mens Traditions to be observed and if we had need to urge this proof further it could be done without doubt with a great deal of ease 15. Object Another kind of Calumny is to lay to the Charge of the Church the Opinions which she either rejects or which she never Authorised as matters of Faith Examples of this may be seen in every Page of the Books of their Ministers as when they reproach the Catholicks with setting up as Articles of Faith the Corruption of the Greek and Hebrew Text the immunity of the Clergy to be of Divine Right the certainty of the Declarations that the Popes make of the Holiness of particular men which they call Canonization the efficacy of Agnus Dei's the Infallibility of the Pope his Temporal Power over Kings his Pre-eminence over Councils the Jurisdiction of the Church over the Souls in Purgatory and many other opinions of that nature that the Church does not prescribe to its Children that she does not insert into the Confession of Faith which she requires of those that return to her and which she never defined by the Voice of her Councils Answ If the Author of the Prejudices would be satisfied about all the Points that he has noted in that Objection he ought to cite those passages of the Ministers against whom he forms his complaints and not to make as he does a Captious heap of divers things wherein he may mix the false and true together Notwithstanding I shall not omit to say by the way something of my own head upon each of those Articles Upon the first I can easily believe that there have been some Ministers who have reproached the Church of Rome with the having Canonized the Corruptions of the Greek and Hebrew Text because that in effect there are a great many such Corruptions in the Vulgar Version which the Council of Trent has Canonized not only in declaring it Authentick and forbidding any to reject upon any pretence whatsoever but also in saying that they ought to be held under the penalty of an Anathema for the Canonical Books of the Bible prout in Ecclesia Catholica legi consueverunt in veteri vulgata Latina editione habentur All the Question therefore may be reduced to this to wit whether we ought to hold under pain of Anathema some ill Translations which are to be found in the Vulgar for the Corruptions of the Greek and Hebrew Text and for us we believe that they cannot rationally contest it As for the Immunity of the Clergy it may be also that some Doctors of the Church of Rome have been reproached for holding it as a matter of Faith because there are some among them that in effect ground it upon the Scripture and every one knows that all that which they hold as out of the Scripture ought to be held as a matter of Faith But they would have said nothing against the Truth when they should have maintained that Pope Leo X. in the Council of Lateran defined That there was none either Divine or humane right that gave the Laity any power over the persons of the Clergy which implies that the Clergy are excepted by Divine right from that general Rule that subjects all the Word to the Higher Powers We all know that our Kings opposed that rash decision but in the end it was a Council that did it which had the Pope for its Head and it belongs to the Author of the Prejudices to tell us whether he believes that that Pope and that Council erred As to the Certainty of Canonizations since there is no body in the Church of Rome that makes any scruple to invocate those Saints which the Pope Canonizes and that moreover they agree in that Maxim of Saint Paul that whatsoever in the matter of Religion is not of Faith
her by her common Practice which being open to the Eyes of all the World discovers much more clearly the true Sentiments of that Church when the decisions of the Councils do not and the Act of which the people scarce know any 2. Because the Council of Trent it self and the Act of the Profession of the Faith obliging as they do those who submit themselves to it to receive in general unwritten Traditions and those things which the Church of Rome Observes they engage them by consequence to receive and practise all that which is commonly observed and practised in that Church under a pretence of Tradition and observance although it should not be formally contained either in the decisions of Councils or in that Profession of Faith So that the Conscience of a man who is in that Communion binds him to believe and do all that others believe and do 16. Objection The Third kind of Calumny is not less ordinary in their Ministers nor less unjust in it self It consists in running down as blameable Errors certain Articles of the belief of the Church which not only were no Errors but about which they have been at last constrained to acknowledge that the difference between them and the Church consists more in words then in the thing it self whether they themselves have forsook their first thoughts to take up those of the Catholicks or whether by a blind rashness they had openly condemned them without understanding them To prove this Corruption the Author of the Prejudices lays down the point of Justification which he says the first Reformers took for the chief ground of their Separation and yet nevertheless he adds one of their Professors of Sedan named Ludovicus le Blanc who has made some Theses of Justification after having examined the Doctrine of the Catholicks and that of the Protestants and their principal differences about that matter concludes upon all the Articles that that of the Catholicks is good and that the Protestants are only contrary to them in name Answ I acknowledge that in this Controversy the Church of Rome takes the word Justification in one sence and that we take it in another and I do not deny but that has sometimes produced in that dispute ambiguities and differences or Words This is also that which M. le Blanc had a design to clear in his Theses of Justification which the Author of the Prejudices has abused But besides that in that very thing we have two advantages over the Church of Rome the one that we speak as the Scripture has done and that we take the words after the manner that Jesus Christ that Saint Paul and Saint James have taken them when they have Treated about this Doctrine whereas the Church of Rome gives them another sence and the other that in so taking the words in their true Signification that Idea that we give of Justification is distinct and clear where that of the Church of Rome is embroiled and confused Besides that I say it is certain that we have but too real differences upon that point which no ways consists in words but in the very things themselves and which make very weighty Controversies To Manifest this Truth we need but to cast our Eyes upon the four chief Doctrines that form the Idea of our Justification according as the Scripture has given it us The First is That it is an Act of the Soveraign mercy of God that pardons our sins and which by Vertue of the Satisfaction of Jesus Christ discharges us from the punishment we have deserved by them The Second is That God out of that same mercy in pardoning our sins adopts us for his Children and gives us a right to his Eternal Inheritance by the merit of Jesus Christ his Son The Third That we apply to our selves the satisfaction and merit of Jesus Christ by a lively Faith accompanied with a sincere Repentance and a Holy Recourse to the Divine Mercy and that it is this Faith that puts us into the Communion of our Redeemer And the Fourth That God in pardoning and adopting us imposes this Condition upon us that for the time to come we live Holily according to the Laws which he has given us and that this very thing is a necessary Consequence of that Communion which we have with Jesus Christ as well as of our Faith our Repentance and our Recourse to the Divine mercy There is not any one of these parts of our Justification upon which we have nor very considerable differences with the Church of Rome For in the First we differ 1. Concerning him who Pardons us The Church of Rome would have it not only that it should be God in the Quality of a Soveraign Judge but men also that is to say Priests and Bishops in Quality of inferiour and Subordinate Judges and that their Absolution is a Judiciary Act for so the Council of Trent has defined it to be But we believe that there is none besides God who can pardon our sins under the Quality of a Soveraign Judge and that the Pardon which we receive from the Mouth of his Ministers is a Ministerial Pardon which consists in a Declaration that they make to us of Gods Pardon as the Interpreters of his will revealed in the Gospel 2. We differ about the extent of that Pardon The Church of Rome would have it that God in pardoning the Sin retains the Punishment that is to say that he acquits us from eternal Punishment but that reserves to himself the inflicting of Temporal Punishments and we on the contrary hold that he remits all sorts of Temporal and Eternal punishments and that the Afflictions which he sends us are not the Punishments of his Justice but the Corrections and Chastisements of his Fatherly Discipline 3. From whence there arises a Third difference which consists in this that the Church of Rome believes that those Temporal Punishments wherewith God visits us are true Satisfactions to his Justice for our sins which we deny 4. There arises from thence yet another difference concerning that which they call those penal works which every one imposes upon himself or which their Confessors impose on their Penitents for they would that these should be also satisfactions to the Justice of God which we do not believe 5. The Church of Rome would have it that those satisfactory Punishments should go beyond this Life and it is partly upon this that they ground their Doctrine of Purgatory which we reject 6. It is also upon that very thing that the Indulgences of the Church of Rome are grounded which cannot be taken for meer Relaxations of Canonical Punishments since they extend most frequently very far beyond the life of man and sometimes even unto five and twenty and Thirty thousand Years 7. We may say also that it is a difference which we have with them by which we understand that first Act of the mercy of God that Pardons our sins which comes from the
difference which we have with them concerning the Opinion of the Necessity of Auricular Confession for that Opinion is partly founded upon this that Absolution of the Priests is a Judiciary Act and that in that respect the Church has a true Tribunal before which the Faithful are bound to appear and partly upon the Opinion that the penances which the Priest enjoyns are true Satisfactions to the Divine Justice which they are bound to undergo 8. Lastly it is from the same source that the difference proceeds which we have with them concerning the Super-abundant satisfactions of the Saints of which they will have it that the Faithful may partake and whereof in part they compose the Treasure of the Church Behold here Eight Controversies included in the Explication of the first Act of our Justification Upon the second we differ about the Foundation upon which the right that God gives us to life eternal is established or if you will about the proper and direct cause in consideration of which God gives us that right for we establish it alone upon the merits of Jesus Christ in Vertue of that Comunion which we have with him But the Church of Rome Establishes it upon the merit of our works also for she would have it that after God has given us his Grace by which we do good works we truly inherit not only an increase of Grace but Eternal life and even an increase of Glory and she Anathematizes those who do not believe it 2. We differ also about those to whom God gives that right for we believe that God gives it only to his Elect in whom he preserves it by his Grace and by the gift of perseverance but the Church of Rome believes that he gives it also to divers Reprobates whom his Grace abandons and who finally Perish in their Sins Upon the Third Doctrine we differ concerning the Nature and the Definition of Justifying Faith for as for us we look on it as an Act of the Soul that embraces or accepts the satisfaction and merit of Jesus Christ and which applies the promises of God's mercy made to us in the Gospel and we labour as much as we can to live according to that thought But the Doctors of the Roman Church frame an Idea of that Faith of a very great coldness and negligence for they content themselves to say that it is a consent that we yield in general to all the Truths revealed in the Word of God and there are some that go so far as to say that Faith fails not to Justify us although it should not have the least regard to the particular mercy of God towards us which is a thing that we cannot understand without horrour For the rest when I shall say that the Doctrines of the Imputation of the merit of Jesus Christ and his satisfaction are known but to a very few in the Church of Rome as that also is of the Application that we make of them to our selves by the internal Act of our Souls which receives them when I shall say that these Truths so important and so necessary to the practise of Christianity are almost stifled by that great Multitude of external Exercises with which they busy the People I shall say nothing in my Judgment that the more sincere persons will not acknowledge and of which God grant they may be able hereafter to convince me of a falshood in that respect In fine the last Doctrine that fully makes up the Idea of our Justification according to the Scripture produces of it self a considerable Controversy between the Church of Rome and us For as for us we limit our selves to the good works to which our Justification Obliges us and which God has enjoyned us without going any further But the Church of Rome extends them even to those which she her self Commands for the pretends that her Laws properly and directly bind the Conscience under pain of mortal Sin and therefore it was that Leo X. condemned Luther for having wrote that the Church had no power to make Laws concerning manners or good works All these Controversies that naturally arise from the different Explications which they give of the Tenet of Justification let us sufficiently see that the Author of the Prejudices is mistaken if he thinks that we should have no more upon this matter then differences about words and M. le Blanc is too sincere and too Learned to have pretended to deny any of those things which I have mentioned although he has Judiciously remarked that men may easily Equivocate upon the different Significations of the Terms It is therefore neither a piece of Rashness nor Impertinency that our first Reformers had such a regard to the matter of Justification as being a thing of the greatest importance in Religion and it is on the contrary most Just that having seen that Doctrine of the Salvation of Christians neglected obscured and depraved that they should have Judged it necessary to set themselves upon the re-establishing of it CHAP. VII An Answer to the Objections of the twelfth and thirteenth Chapters of the Prejudices TO understand well what is in the Twelfth Chapter of the Author of the Prejudices we must in the first place take notice of the design he propounds to himself and the means he makes use of to reach it As to his design he Explains himself in the very Title of the Chapter which bears this That the Spirit of a Politician every way Humane that appears in the differences that the Calvinists have had with the Lutherans gives a right to reject them without any further Examination as a sort of men without any Conscience He explains himself yet further in the beginning of his discourse after this manner It has been demanded says he of the Calvinists with good reason how it could come to pass that if Luther Zuinglius and Calvin had received a Mission from God and were the Instruments that he made choice of for the greatest work that ever was which is the Reformation of the Errors of sixteen Centuries they should not avoid being openly divided between themselves to dismember themselves from one another to persecute one another after so outragious a manner and to Treat one another as the declared Enemies of God and his Church He explains himself also in another place where he speaks after this manner The Innocence or the Crimes of Luther equally condemn the Calvinists either for having declaimed against an innocent person or for having given unjust praises to one of the most wicked men that ever was and that monstrous conjunction which they have made in his person of holiness with the most detestable Crimes is an evident proof that they have not the least Idea of Christian Vertue nor of the Spirit of Christianity See yet further how he speaks in the same Chapter If Luther were an instrument of the Devil a wicked person a Schismatick a violent and passionate man what will become of
how to Read What will become of those who have no understanding nor any readiness of mind How can all those People examine all those Points the Discussion of the least of which notwithstanding is evidently necessary to make them rationally determine It is easy to see that all that heap of Objections and Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices has proposed against the way of the Scripture tends only to lead men to the Authority of the Church of Rome to the end they should subject themselves to that as a Soveraign and Infallible Rule But as the Doctrine of the Soveraign Authority of that Church is not one of those first Principles which the light of Nature dictates to all men since of Thirty parts of our known World there are at least nine and twenty who do not acknowledge it and as they cannot also say that it is one of the first and common notions of Christianity since of all those who profess themselves to be Christians there are Three parts which reject it The Author may freely give us leave if he pleases that we should first demand of him upon what Foundation he would build that Doctrine to make us receive it as a point of Divine Faith I say of Divine Faith for if we should hold it only as a matter of human Faith he himself would see well that we could not believe the things which the Church of Rome should teach in vertue of its Authority otherwise then with a humane Faith since the things which depend upon a principle cannot make an impression in us different from that which the principle has made To the end therefore that I should believe with a Divine Faith that which the Church of Rome shall teach me by its Authority it is necessary that I should also believe its Authority with a Divine Faith Thus far methinks we should not have any Controversy Let us see therefore upon what Foundations of Divine Faith he would pretend to establish this Proposition The Authority of the Church of Rome is Soveraign and Infallible He can only do it by these Three ways The first is by a new Revelation that God should have made to us of this Truth the Second in shewing that it is one of the Articles that is contained in the Revelation of the Apostles and the Third in shewing us the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility impressed upon the Church of Rome even after the same manner as every thing proves it self by the marks that distinguish it and thus it is that we pretend that the Scripture forces the acknowledgment of its own Divinity The first of these ways is nullified since they agree with us that since Jesus Christ and his Apostles there has been no new Revelation and that there must not be any expected The second would be proper and necessarily supposes a recourse either to Tradition or the Scripture for there are but these two Channels in which we can seek for the Revelation of the Apostles But that of the Scripture is forbidden us by the Author of the Prejudices by reason of the unconquerable difficulties which he discovers there It is says he a way full of obstacles and difficulties and even those who profess to spend all their days in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their abilities He must therefore content himself with the way of Tradition But before he can make use of that he must be first assured and that with a certainty of Divine Faith that that which that Tradition contains is come down from the Revelation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles or at least that this particular point of the Authority of the Roman Church in the state wherein it is at present must have proceeded from thence that the Apostles must have Transmitted it viva voce down to their Successours and that their Successours must have received it and Transmitted it down to those who descended from them in the same sence and every whit the same as the Apostles had given it to them If he cannot be assured of that Transmission all that he would build upon it will be uncertain and if he cannot be assured of it with a Divine Faith that which he would build upon it will not be more so But how can he be assur'd of that He has no more that living Voice of the Apostles to represent it to us he must rely upon Testimonyes would it therefore be the Roman Church that must assure us But her Divine and Infallible Authority is as yet in Question and while it shall be questioned it remains suspended it cannot be believed any further then with a humane Faith Shall it be the Scripture that must give Testimony to that Tradition But there are so many Difficulties in that way says the Author of the Prejudices That it is Evident that it is not that which God has chosen to Instruct us in his Truths Must we learn it from that Tradition it self But to decide that point whether that Tradition came from the Apostles or no Tradition it self can be yet no other than a humane Testimony I mean that the Successors of the Apostles declare to us that they have received such and such Doctrines from the Apostles viva voce and that they have receiv'd them in the same sence in which the Apostles gave them to them we cannot at the most have more then a humane Faith for them for they are men as well as others Hitherto therefore there cannot be had a Divine Faith concerning the point of the Sovereign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church and nothing by Consequence that can assure the Conscience and set the mind of man at rest Let us therefore pass over to the third means which is that of examining the Characters of Divinity and Infallibility that may be seen in the Roman Church It is in my Judgment in the sight of this that they give us certain external Marks and we have already seen that the Author of the Prejudices establishes upon this that Authority about which we dispute The most eminent Authority says he that can be in the world is easily discover'd to be in the Catholick Church because though there are Sects that dispute with it the Truth of its Tenets yet there are none that can with any Colour contend with it for that eminence of Authority which arises from its External Marks But without entring here far into the Controversy touching those Marks I say that he is very far from being able to establish such a certainty upon them as we ought to have of a Principle of Religion And this will appear from these three Reasons The First is That the greatest part of those marks are common to false Societies and even to Schismatical Churches which not only are not Infallible but which are actually in Errour as I have shewn in the first part of this Treatise The Greek Church for example in
its greatest contests with the Latin was always a Catholick Church she was of as great Antiquity as the Roman she had an uninterrupted duration from many Ages ago she had her large extent and her multitude as well as the Roman she had a Personal Succession of her Bishops down from the Apostles she gloried in a Conformity to the Doctrine of the Fathers she had her members united among themselves and with her Patriarchs she did no less then the Roman affirm her Doctrine to be Holy and her word to be Efficacious and that her Authors were holy men she has yet at this day her Miracles which she boasts of she had her Prophets and Temporal Prosperity in a word she might propound all that which the Church of Rome alleadges The Aethiopian Church on her side may do it as much and yet nevertheless those Marks no ways conclude a Soveraign and Infallible Authority for them they do not therefore conclude it for the Roman Church The Second Reason is that of all those pretended marks some are disputed with the Church of Rome others are fallaciously attributed to it and others conclude nothing less then that which they pretend We dispute with her her Conformity to the Fathers the Unity of her Members between themselves and with their Head the Holiness of her Doctrine and the Efficacy of her Word It is true that she boasts of these advantages but if we should come to examine them we should find they would have nothing of Solidity in them she fallaciously ascribes to her self the name of the Catholick The Antiquity and Holiness of her Authors Miracles Prophecy and the Personal Succession of her Bishops For before they can make any advantage of those marks they ought to shew that she is a Catholick not only in name but in deed that she has chang'd nothing in the Antient Doctrine nor in the Antient worship that she has in nothing degenerated from her first Authors that she is conformable to her first Christians whose Miracles and Prophecys are beyond all question that her Bishops are the Successors of the Mind and Doctrine as well as of the Sees of the Antient Bishops and unless they do so those marks are an Illusion She produces others which conclude nothing less then that which she should conclude as the Multitude of her Children or the largeness of her extent and Temporal Prosperity which are wordly advantages more proper to denote a corruption then an Infallibility The third Reason is That there are contrary Characters in the Church of Rome which note not only that she has been and that she is yet subject to err but that she has actually err'd and we have propos'd some in the beginning of this Treatise which it may be deserve to be better consider'd No man can therefore establish any thing of certainty upon those pretended external marks and in general that principle of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Church of Rome cannot be a matter of divine Faith on which side soever he takes it nor by Consequence can any of those things be so which depend upon that Authority See here then the Obligation which lies upon those in the Roman Communion to the Author of the Prejudices for having thus Abolish'd all manner of Divine Faith for those things which that Church teaches by her Authority in shutting up as he has done the way of the Scripture with his Obstacles and unconquerable Difficulties he has reduc'd all to meer Conjectures or almost all to humane Testimonies Is it therefore after that manner that he would have us believe Transubstantiation the Real presence Purgatory The Sacrifice of the Mass Is it upon the Foundations of that nature that he would have us to Invocate Saints that we should worship Images That we should adore the Host and receive the Indulgences of the Pope and Absolutions of their Confessors But he has done yet worse for it is not only the Laity and private men from whom he has taken away a divine Faith he has torn it away even from the whole Body of his Church from her Prelats her Popes and her Councils since if this Point of their Soveraign and Infallible Authority is founded upon nothing but Conjectures and humane Testimonies They can neither have a Divine Faith for those Conjectures and those humane Testimonies nor for all those other things which depend upon them Have they a Revelation an immediate Illumination that instructs them There is no more either for the Popes or Councils Should they have it from the Scripture The Author of the Prejudices has told them that it is an Infinite a Ridiculous way to Instruct men in the Truth a path which we cannot know how to find an end of whatsoever Diligence we use But it may be he says that only for the Laity and not for the Clergy Let us see his words Even those says he who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity ought to judge that Examination to be above all their Abilities The Church of Rome the Body of her Prelats the Councils cannot at furthest but be made up of those men who profess to spend their whole Lives in the Study of Divinity and that Examination is above all their Abilities He ought not to say that they can altogether do that which it would be impossible for each one to do in particular For when they go about to decide the matters of Faith by their Soveraign Authority as they pretend that Councils should do each particular man ought to be assured by himself of the Truth and not to refer himself to the knowledge of his Brethren With what Conscience therefore can they exercise their Authority With what Conscience can they decide the points of the Faith and propose them to be believed as points of a Divine Faith With what Conscience can they retain men in their Dependance And with what Conscience can men remain therein The Author of the Prejudices may disintangle this Business with his Church as it shall please him we have no peculiar Interest in it but only to let him see more and more the Truth of that which I have said elsewhere that he does not sufficiently consider what he has wrote Let us grant him that there is no necessity of a Divine Faith for the establishing of that Article of the Soveraign and Infallible Authority of the Roman Church let us yield if he will have it so that he may be contented with the having a humane certainty such as he may have it is clear that whether he takes the way of Tradition or that of the Examination of the External marks we shall find the same Difficulties there thes me Obstacles the same Hindrances the same length that the Author of the Prejudices pretends to have discovered in the way of the Scripture And as the External Marks themselves cannot be otherwise justified then by Tradition it shall suffice to shew what I have
necessary to Salvation I will maintain to him that his proposition is impious that it manifestly tends to make Socinians and Arrians to be received into the Church and almost all Hereticks since it bannishes out of the number of the Articles of the Faith all the Tenets which those Hereticks dispute and which they do not see in the Scripture But it is not very difficult to satisfy that demand I speak of such a clearness as will convince a sincere person who does not blind himself either by passion or malice or interest or prejudice but lets his Reason and his Conscience act in good Earnest This is well near the Answer that the Author of the Prejudices would make if we asked him the same Question touching the clearness which he pretends there is in Tradition or in the infallible voice of the Church for his Justice is so great that he does never propose any difficulties of our Principle to us which are not common to the Principle of the Church of Rome and which by consequence he would not be bound to answer himself as well as we Notwithstanding I shall tell him that he grosly deceives himself if he imagins that we will only acknowledge those things for Articles of Faith which are clearly contained in the Scripture It is true that we acknowledging them only for the Articles of Faith which are necessary to the Salvation of the most simple does not hinder but that other things which are contained in the Scripture with less evidence may also be Articles of the Faith although not absolutely necessary for all that which is in the Scripture after what manner soever it be contained there is of Faith He does not less deceive himself if he imagins that although the Articles which the Socinians and Arrians and other Hereticks dispute were of the number of those which are not so clearly contained in the Scripture and the knowledge of which is not absolutely necessary to the Salvation of the simple yet that we ought to receive those Hereticks into the Church There is a great difference between simple persons who do not conceive a Fundamental Truth otherwise then under a general notion and indistinctly without going any farther and those going so far as a distinct Idea of the Truth expresly deny it and substitute a false and deceitful Idea in its place The former may be in a State of Salvation and ought to be received into the Church whereas the second sort ought to be banished as persons infected with a pernitious Error A Peasant may be made to believe in good earnest that Jesus Christ is God and that the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are but one only God without going any farther because he will not understand the terms of Nature Essence Person Hypostatical Union and others that are made use of upon that subject and he will also be ignorant of the subtil and frivolous distinctions of the Hereticks Who can deny that such a man holds the Truth under a General Idea And who will not yet place a very great difference between him and a Socinian who very well knowing what these Propositions mean Jesus Christ is God by his Essence The Father Son and Holy-Ghost are Three Persons and one only Divine Nature will deny them and substitute in their places these other Propositions Jesus Christ is God only by the dignity of his Office and Glory of his Exaltation The Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost being only so by Denomination It would be a very hard case in my Judgment to exclude the former from the Church but it would be a sin to admit the latter and this shews us by the way the falshood of the reasoning of the Author of the Prejudices But we ought to resume our discourse I say therefore the same thing of the Third condition as of the two Former The things whereof we treat perswade themselves and make themseves to be perceived as true and Divine as well by the weakest as the strongest For although the weaker are not in a condition to render a Reason exactly of their perswasion as a Learned man would do yet notwithstanding we must not doubt but they are rightly perswaded A Tradesman a Peasant a Labourer know not how to explain either the rules of right reasoning or the mediums that Logick affords to discover the faults of Sophistry or false reasoning and yet nevertheless they do yet apprehend a just reasoning and reject a bad It is the same thing of a good Doctrine and a false the weaker sort may receive the one and reject the other when it shall be presented to them and they would make that discernment by the meer Judgment of their Consciences though they should not be capable of Explaining their Reasons well For there are two ways of being perswaded of a Truth and knowing a falshood the one is by a simple apprehension and the other by reflection the first comes from a meer impression of the Objects that make themselves to be discerned by their very nature and the other comes from Meditation and Study through the application of certain Rules I confess that there is more confusion in the first but that has also sometimes more force and more certainty then the Second As for that which regards the Fourth Condition which is That the Faith should be pure and free'd from every damnable Error besides that which I have said that the meer sentiment of Conscience is enough for the weaker sort to make them discern the good from the bad and by Consequence to reject the false Doctrines that shall concern their Salvation besides that I say it is certain that damnable Errors that is to say those which are incompatible with a true and saving Faith have a natural repugnancy with the Truths that are Essential to Religion wherewith the simpler sort are endowed so that those Truths alone are sufficient for the rejection of Errors without any absolute necessity that they should have a greater stock of Learning For Example The principle of the Adoration of one only God in the Souls of the weakes sort in our Communion is sufficient to make them reject a Religious worship paid to Creatures without their lying under a necessity of entring further into the Controversy which we have with the Church of Rome upon that subject The Principle of confidence in God alone is sufficient to make them reject invocation of Saints and Angels and a confidence in their merits The principle of the one only Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross for the Expiation of our sins is sufficient to make them reject humane Satisfactions Purgatory and the Indulgences of the Pope The Principle of the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ is sufficient to make them reject the Intercession of Saints and Angels The Principle of the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ like unto us in all things except sin is sufficient to make them reject the Real Presence
Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE THIRD PART Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHAP. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had right at the bottom in the controverted Points WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
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
are matters of fact whereof we have not any Divine Revelation about which according to the very principle of our Adversaries all the whole Church may be deceived and which by consequence are not of faith nor can serve as a foundation for an Article so much concerning the faith as this is That the Church of Rome cannot err and that it is alwayes necessary to salvation to be in her communion Secondly We must be assured that the Bishops of Rome are the True and ordinary Successors of S. Peter in the Government of every Christian Church For why should not they be his Successors in the Government of the particular Church of Rome as well as the Bishops of Antioch in the particular Government of that of Antioch When the Apostles preached in those places where they gathered Churches and setled Pastors they did not intend that those Pastors after them should receive all the rights of their Apostleship nor that they should be Universal Bishops They say that there must have been one and that that could have been in no other Church but that where S. Peter dy'd But all this is said without any ground The Church is a Kingdom that acknowledges none besides Jesus Christ for its Monarch he is our only Lord and our Soveraign Teacher and after that the Apostles had formed Churches and that the Christian Religion had been laid down in the Books of the New Testament the Pastors had in those Divine Books the exact Rule of their Preaching and their Government Those who have applyed themselves only to that have alwayes well governed their Flocks without standing in need of that pretended Universal Episcopacy which is a Chimerical Office more proper to ruine Religion than to preserve it In the Third place we must be assured that S. Peter himself had received in those passages some peculiar dignity that had raised him above the other Apostles and some rights which were not common to all of them But this is what they cannot conclude from those forecited passages for granting that Jesus Christ has built his Church upon S. Peter has he not also built it upon the other Apostles is it not elsewhere written That we are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone Is it not written That the New Jerusalem has twelve foundations wherein the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb are written If Jesus Christ has prayed for the perseverance of the faith of S. Peter has he not made the same Prayer for all the other Keep them sayes he in thine own name that they may be one as we are If he said to him Strengthen thy Brethren is it not a common duty not only to the Apostles but to all the Faithful Let us consider one another sayes S. Paul to provoke unto love and to good works If he said to him Feed my sheep did he not say to all in common Go and teach all Nations If he 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 has he not said to all of them I appcint unto you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven In the Fourth place we must be assured that when there should be in all those passages some peculiar priviledge for S. Peter exclusive from the rest of the Apostles that it is a thing that could be transmitted down to his Successors and not some personal priviledge that resided in him alone and must have dyed with him For can we not say that the twelve Apostles being the twelve foundations of the Church the priviledge of S. Peter is to be first in order because he was the first who laboured in the conversion of the Jews at the day of Pentecost and in that of the Gentiles in the Sermon that he made to Cornelius May we not say that Jesus Christ has particularly prayed for his perseverance in the faith because that he alone had been winnowed by the Temptation that hapned to him in the Court of the High Priest That he said to him alone When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren because that he alone had given a sad experience of humane weakness That he said to him thrice Feed my sheep or my lambs because that he only having thrice denyed his Master by words full of horror and ingratitude our Lord would for his consolation and re-establishment thrice pronounce words full of love and goodness In fine when those Texts should contain a peculiar priviledge that might be communicated to the Successors of S. Peter we must be assured that that priviledge must be the perpetual infallibility of the Church of Rome and a certainty of never falling away from the quality of a True Church And this is that which they know not how to conclude from those passages for in respect of the first The Church may have been built upon S. Peter and upon his first Successors and remain firm and unshaken upon those foundations that is to say upon their Doctrine and Example although in the course of some Ages the Bishops of Rome have degenerated and changed the faith of their Predecessors and the words of Jesus Christ extended even to the Successors of S. Peter would not be less true when they should not extend themselves unto all those who bear that name S. Paul has called the Churches of Asia in the midst of which Timothy his Disciple was when he wrote his first Epistle to him he has I say called them the pillar and ground of Truth For although those Titles belong in general to every Church it is notwithstanding certain that they regard more directly and more particularly that part of the Universal Church I would say the Churches of Asia where Timothy resided when S. Paul wrote to him But the word of this Apostle does not fail to be true although in the course of many Ages those Churches have degenerated from their first purity and though the Successors of Timothy lost it very quickly after And as to the Prayer that Jesus Christ made to God that the faith of S. Peter might not fail when they would extend it down to his Successors they cannot conclude a greater Infallibility for them than that of S. Peter himself who preserving his faith concealed at the bottom of his heart outwardly denyed his Master three times and who according to the opinion of our Adversaries lost entirely his love and had fallen from a state of Grace being no more either in the Communion of God nor in that of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Let the Church of Rome therefore call her self infallible as much as she pleases in vertue of the Prayer of Jesus Christ that Infallibility will not
hinder but that she may externally deny the faith of Jesus Christ but that she may intirely lose her love and the communion of our Saviour and the quality of the True Church and by consequence that we should not be bound to separate from her while she should be in that state and till it should please God to re-establish her See here of what force those proofs are which they produce to ground this special priviledge of the Church of Rome upon It is not hard to see that a man of good understanding who would satisfie his mind and his conscience upon so weighty a point ought not to remain there but that he ought to pass on to the other way of clearing that doubt which I have noted which is to judge of the pretension of the Church of Rome by the examination of her Doctrines and her Worship For it is there principally that the characters of truth and infallibility ought to be found and by consequence he must come to the foundation and no further amuse himself with Prejudices As to the second Way by which I have said we might clear this Question Whether it be necessary to the salvation of Christians to be joyned to the Church of Rome it consists in examining whether it be true that God has made her the Mistress of all other Churches whether there is any particular order that binds us indispensably to her For if that be so the Separation of our Fathers must be condemned but if it be not so we must judge of that Church as of all other particular Churches and say that we cannot and ought not to separate our selves from her but when we have just and lawful causes so to do There is no person who does not judge that we cannot pass over lightly a point of so great importance which ought to serve for a general and perpetual Rule to all Christians and that if the Church of Rome would so set her self beyond a state of equality above other Churches it is necessary that she should produce some very express and indisputable Order of God for it But instead of that she does nothing but reverberate the same passages which I have mentioned She boasts her self to be the See of S. Peter and under that pretence she applyes to her self all that she can find in the Scripture in favour of that Apostle and particularly the Order that Jesus Christ gave him to feed his sheep as if the Office of the Apostleship in which Jesus Christ re-established him by those words could be communicated to his Successors or as if the foundation that Jesus Christ supposed and upon which he re-established him in saying to him feed my sheep to wit that he should love him more than the rest was not a thing purely personal in S. Peter and whereof it was not in his power to transmit any part to his Successors nor by consequence to invest them with his Office which was restored to him only upon a supposition of that love or lastly as if the office of feeding Christ's sheep included an absolute and indispensable necessity for the sheep to receive their death when they should give it them under the name of their food It must be acknowledg'd that there never was a higher pretension than this of the Church of Rome for what more could she pretend to then to make Heaven it self depend on her communion and to leave no possibility of salvation to any but those who should be in her communion and under her dependance But it must also be acknowledged that there never was any thing worse established than that pretension They alledge in its favour nothing that is clear and distinct and even the consequences which they draw for it are made after a very strange manner This is in my judgement the Reason why our Adversaries when they treat of this matter do not insist much upon Scripture but fly off presently to the Fathers and the usage of the Ancient Church For by this means they hope to prolong the dispute to eternity and that notwithstanding the Church of Rome shall be alwayes in possession of that Despotical Authority which she exercises over the Churches that remain in her communion In effect the life of a man would scarce suffice to read well and throughly examine all the Volumes which have been composed on one side and on the other upon this Question of the place that the Church of Rome and its Bishops have held among the Christian Churches during the first six Centuries and of the Authority which they had then But to say the truth there is too much artifice in that procedure for that the Church of Rome should be the Mistress of all others and that no one could be saved but in her communion that does not depend upon the order of men but only on that of God and when they should find among the Antients a thousand times more complaisance for the See of Rome than they had that may very well establish an ancient possession and make clear the fact but it can never establish the right of it To establish a right of that nature a word of God an express declaration of his will is necessary for it is a right not only above nature but even above the ordinary and common favour that God gives to other Churches and which by consequence depends only upon God And so it is but a wandring from the way to go to search for the grounds of it in the Writings of Men. It is no hard matter to conceive that those Bishops which were raised to Dignities in the Metropolis of the World and engaged in the greatest affairs might mannage matters so as to ascribe to themselves those rights which no wayes belonged to them nor to imagine that their flatterers and Courtiers might not have offered more incense to them than they ought nor that those persecuted ones who had recourse to their protection might not have helped the increase of their Authority nor that the Princes and Emperors who had need of them might not have given them those priviledges which they ought not to have had that which renders to a just title all that which they alledge in their favour suspected and to no purpose at all Notwithstanding there are moreover evident matters of fact that let us clearly see that the Ancient Church did not acknowledge that Universal Episcopacy that the Bishops of Rome pretend to nor that absolute and indispensable necessity to be joyned to their See to be saved nor that their Church should be the Mistress of all the rest 1. Every one knows that the Bishops of Rome were anciently chosen by the suffrages of the people and of the Clergy of that Church without any other Churches taking part in those Elections which is a mark manifest enough that they did not mean that those Bishops should be Universal Bishops nor that they should have a more peculiar interest in their creation than
of it but they would have subordinate heads humane heads on whom they might depend by an external dependance and that was necessary for them to be by that means linked to Jesus Christ after the same manner that they would have us at this day to depend on the See of Rome Wherefore did S. Paul say to them Is Christ divided Why did he not say to them that as for Paul and Apollos they had no reason to take them for their heads but that it was far otherwise as to Peter since God had set up him and his Successors for ever to be the heads of the Universal Church Why in stead of that did he conclude after this manner That no one should glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Is it not to let them understand that Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church that there is only his communion that is absolutely necessary and that as for other Ministers whosoever they were they were appointed for our use as all other things to serve us in as much as they lead us to Jesus Christ If the Church under the New Testament ought to be inviolably ty'd to the See of Rome how should the Scripture have been silent in so weighty a truth which could not be ignor'd without extream danger nor contested without evident damnation Notwithstanding we do not find any other head of the Church in those Sacred Books but Jesus Christ nor any other High Priest but him We do not find in the Scripture any Universal Bishop nor Ministerial head or subordinate or any particular Church the Mistress of all others We find there indeed that Jesus Christ being ascended up on high gave some to be Apostles others to be Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers for the assembling of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ How came the Apostle to forget in that Enumeration the chief of all Offices to wit that of the Ministerial Head of the whole Church and the Universal Vicar of Jesus Christ in the Government and conduct of his flock If the Christian Church ought in that to resemble the Synagogue and to have as that a Soveraign High Priest upon earth who should be the head of that Religion and who should have his Successors as the ancient High Priest had whence comes it that the Scripture has alwayes regarded that Ancient High Priest as a Figure of Jesus Christ that it alwayes referred it to him and never to the Roman Bishops nor even to S. Peter who was then alive and who should by consequence have exercised that pretended charge which they would make to descend from him There is therefore no lawful foundation in all that pretension of Rome and her See We ought to pass the same judgement on all other Sees and other particular Churches with which it is just we should hold communion while they teach good and sound Doctrine and that we should even bear with them when they should fall into some errors provided they constrain no body to believe them but from which it is also just to separate our selves when they shall fall into errors contrary to the communion of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and when they would violently force all others to believe the same If in a long course of Ages Rome has usurped by little and little the rights that do not belong to her if she has found it very easie through the ignorance or complaisance of men in the diverse intrigues of the World to raise her Throne as high as our Fathers beheld it and as we do yet at this day If her flatterers have not failed alwayes to raise her pretensions as high as Heaven and if she has been lull'd asleep with the sound of those sweet charms that enchant her we do not believe that that ought to prejudice our separation We have no other aversion for her communion than that which our conscience gives us and if it shall please God to re-establish her in her ancient purity she would not have so great a joy to spread forth her arms to us as we should have an impatience to demand her peace of her But as long as we shall see her in that bad state wherein we are perswaded she is we cannot but bewail and pray for her and yet notwithstanding no body can blame us for preferring our own salvation to her communion CHAP. III. That the Conduct of the Court of Rome and those of her party in respect of the Protestants has given them a just cause to separate themselves from them supposing that they had had right at the foundation BEfore we leave this matter of our Separation from the Church of Rome there yet remains two Questions for us to examine the one Whether our Fathers were not too precipitate in so great an affair whether they did not act with too much haste or Whether they had sufficient motives from the conduct of those from whom they separated to forsake in the end their communion The other Whether with all that they can say that they separated themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church spread over the whole World as the Donatists did heretofore and whether they did not fall into the same crime with those ancient Schismaticks against whom Optatus and S. Augustine so strongly disputed I will treat of this second Question in the following Chapter and this here shall be design'd to the clearing of the former To effect this methinks we need but freely to set before their eyes all that I have said in the second Part touching the necessity that lay upon our Fathers to reform themselves For since it clearly results from those matters of fact which I have set down that the Popes and those of their party were so far from applying themselves seriously to a Reformation that they studied on the contrary only how to stifle the truth from the very first moment they beheld it appear and to defend their Errors and Superstitions by all manner of wayes who sees not that that inflexible resolution which had not yielded either to the first or second admonition rendred from that time the separation of our Fathers just and exempted them from all reproach For when there are Errors capable of giving ground for a separation it ought to be defer'd only upon a hope of amendment and that hope seem'd to be sufficiently destroy'd by those Historical actions which I have already set down Notwithstanding to shew them more and more how the conduct of our Fathers was very prudent in that respect and full of circumspection it will not be besides our purpose to resume here the close of their story from the unjust condemnation of Luther and his Doctrine made by Pope Leo the Tenth
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
them from the Church because they brought in a new Heresie into it But why also did the same S. Augustine with the whole Church of God hold the Donatists to be justly excommunicated against whom these things are written and why did not they receive them into their communion but only after signs of repentance and the imposition of hands Jesus Christ who propounded the Parable of the Tares did not he clearly ordain excommunication elsewhere saying that if our brother would not obey the Church correcting him we ought to reckon him as a Heathen and a Publican That which manifestly shews us that it is one thing to excommunicate and another to pluck up the Discipline of the Church excommunicates but it does not pluck up See here precisely that which S. Augustine himself said non estis ad eradicandum sed ad corrigendum From whence the truth of that which I have said appears that according to this Father there is a bad separation and that is schismatical in its own nature and another that is not so and that although it is never permitted us to make the former yet it does not follow that we may not make the latter provided we do it upon just causes and observe the rules of Prudence and Charity in it We must therefore lay it down as a certain truth that S. Augustine thought that we might sometimes break the communion of the Sacraments and Assemblies we are only concerned to know in what case he thought that that separation should be made To make this point clear I shall say in the Sixth place that when S. Augustine considered the Church in the meer mixture with the wicked that is to say in the mixture with those whose manners are vicious and criminal he taught that those who are in office in the Church may proceed to the excommunication of impenitent sinners when those sinners are few in number and when there is ground to believe that they may disturb the peace of the Church but if the crime includes a whole multitude and that the Body in general is infected then he would that the good should content themselves to preserve their own righteousness without partaking of the sins of the wicked he would that they should groan under it and pray to God but he would not that they should separate themselves When the evil sayes he has seized the greater number nothing remains for the good to do but to groan and lament And a little lower If the contagion of sin has invaded the multitude then it is necessary that Discipline should be used with mercy for the counsels of Separation are vain pernicious and sacrilegious But when he considers the Church not only as a mixture of good and wicked but also as a mixture of the truly faithful and Hereticks I maintain that he has formally acknowledg'd the justice and necessity of a separation not only in regard of some particular persons but in regard even of entire Societies provided they go not so far as that which he calls Eradication We have already noted that he would that we should according to S. Paul pronounce an Anathema against those who preach another Gospel than that which he has preached But this very thing gives the faithful a right to reject the communion of Heretical Societies and to separate themselves from their Assemblies In his Book of the True Religion he aggravates it as a very strange thing and very much deserving to be condemn'd that the Heathen Philosophers who had other sentiments concerning Divinity than the people should partake in the worship of the people In their Schools sayes he they had sentiments differing from those of the people and yet notwithstanding they had Temples common with the people The people and their Priests were not ignorant that these Philosophers had opinions contrary to theirs touching the nature of the Gods since every Philosopher was not afraid of publishing his opinions and of labouring at the same time to perswade them and others and yet nevertheless with that diversity of sentiments they did not fail to assist at the publick worship without being hindred by any body A man that speaks after this manner would not think it ill that any should separate themselves from Heretical communions But he yet further explains himself more clearly afterwards For he sayes That if the Christian Religion should do nothing else but correct that vice it would deserve infinite praises And he adds immediately after That it appears by the example of so many Heresies that have deviated from the rule of Christianity that they would not admit to the communion of the Sacraments those who taught concerning God the Father his Wisdom and his Grace otherwise than the truth would allow them and who would perswade men to receive their false Doctrine But that is not only to be found true in regard of the Manichees and of some others who have other Sacraments than we but also in regard of those who having the same Sacraments have sentiments differing from us in other things and errors which they obstinately defend for they are shut out from the Catholick communion and the participation of those same Sacraments which they have common with us From whence comes it to pass therefore you will say that S. Augustine seems sometimes to ascribe to the Orthodox the right only of a passive separation in regard of Heretical Societies that is to say that he would not that we should separate from them even then when they separate themselves For he sayes in some place that though the Traditors should have openly maintain'd in the Church that their Action was good and holy that is to say that they ought to have delivered up their Bibles to the Pagans for them to burn them and that though they should even have wrote on that subject provided they had not set up their Assemblies apart nor separated themselves yet we ought not to have abandoned for them the good wheat which signifies this to us that we ought not to separate our selves from those though their Doctrine whereof he had spoken was detestable contrary to the faith conscience and good manners In effect he speaks almost alwayes of the Heretical Societies of his time as of those who were themselves cut off from the communion of the Church and whom the Church had not rejected I answer that S. Augustine would have us suffer the communion of Hereticks in certain cases but that he would have us also in other cases to separate our selves from them While we are in no danger of partaking with their errors neither in effect nor in appearance but that we may preserve the profession of our faith pure without consenting to impiety or seeming to consent to it and that there should not be on the part of the Hereticks that obstinacy of opinion he would have us suffer their communion For it is the manifest Doctrine of this Father that in the Society of the
Prejudices means that that visible extension is a perpetual mark of the Orthodox communion that alwayes distinguishes it from impure or heretical communions so that this Orthodox communion as far as it is visible can never be restrained to a few persons and places it is certain that this was not the opinion of S. Augustine nor that of the other Fathers and it is certain also that the celebrated Authors of the Church of Rome reject the Proposition in this sense as false and absurd and that in effect it is manifestly contrary to experience To set forth the truth of what I propound I will begin with experience and as that of our Age presents it self first to our view I say that if we must act at this day according to the principle That the true Orthodox Church ought to be visibly extended over all Nations we must conclude that there is no true Orthodox Church in the world For it is most true that of all the communions which at this day divide Christianity there is not any one to whom this mark can agree I will not say that there are divers parties in the known world which have not so much as yet heard of Christianity nor that there are others who after having received it have absolutely rejected it to embrace the Mahometan Religion I will not here speak of the Greek communion separated from the Roman nor of the Coptick or Nestorian or of the Jacobites or Armenian which evidently have not that visible extension throughout all Nations I will only speak of the Roman and the Protestant as they are at present He must sayes the Author of the Prejudices be wholly blind that can dare to maintain that the society of Calvinists which is wholly shut out of Italy Spain Flanders a great part of Germany Swedeland Denmark Muscovy Asia Africa of almost all America is that which Jesus Christ has spread over all the world But before he argues after this manner he ought to take heed that we cannot say the same thing of the Roman communion For is it not true that it is at this day excluded from Swedeland Denmark a great part of Germany a part of Switzerland a part of Greece Muscovy Africa Aethiopia Persia Tartary China Japan of the Indies and from the greatest part of America And the Author of the Prejudices ought not to pretend the prevailing of some Colonies of Missionaries whom the Pope sends here and there to gain Proselytes For since he will not have it that we should gain any thing by the Colonies of English and Dutch who have establish'd themselves in all the parts of the world why would he help himself by the Missionaries and Pensionaries that the Congregations de fide propaganda maintain in foreign Countreys Why should they be more reckon'd for any thing than those Colonies of English and Dutch who have the exercises of their Religion as free as those of the Roman Communion They are sayes he such Merchants as are in those Countreys only for the sake of Trade But do not those Merchants pray to God in the form of their Religion in what Countreys and with what design soever they are Is it that those Merchants being so much ty'd as they are to their Trading make no open profession of their Religion or that they have not in the greatest part of those places where they are their ordinary Assemblies with their Ministers as well as the Missionaries He must yield in good earnest that the Christians are now divided and separated from one another about matters of faith and worship in their different Societies or communions of which each one has its seat and bounds apart beyond which we cannot say they are visibly extended if we would speak with any reason and that there is no one that is throughout all Nations in the form of a communion of visible Society From whence it follows that all this dispute of the Author of the Prejudices is but a beating the air and which he can never apply to any real subject The Experience of former Ages is not less contrary to the Proposition of the Author of the Prejudices than that of our Age. For if we consult History we shall find that it has fallen out often that an Heretical communion has spread it self every where while the Orthodox communion was so limited that it did not seem to take up any space If in the time of the Arians they had disputed by this principle by which the Author of the Prejudices would decide our differences I mean if they would have treated that communion as Heretical that was not visibly spread over all the Nations and that as Orthodox which was the Arians had easily overcome The Heresie of the Arians and Eunomians sayes S. Jerom possess'd all the East except Athanasius and Paulinus S. Hilary sayes the same thing The greatest part of the Ten Provinces of Asia excepting Eleusius and some others do not truly know God In those time sayes the Author of the Life of S. Gregory Nazianzen the Church was oppressed by the Arian Heresie many Bishops were banished and vexed by torments and calumnies a thousand wayes many Presbyters and many numerous Flocks were brought down to the utmost misery exposed to the injuries of the weather as no more having any house of prayer where they might meet That Heresie had almost fill'd all the Earth and it triumph'd being upheld by the power of the Emperour so that good men had not so much as the justice of the Laws against the wicked And because the Pastors or to say better the concealed Wolves under the appearance of Pastors had the liberty to drive the Orthodox Bishops out of the Churches who alone were worthy to serve Jesus Christ the Soveraign Bishop it hapned that some overcome with fear others deceived by fair words others gained by money others surprized through their own simplicity embrac'd that Heresie and opened their bosoms and gave their communion to their adversaries This was that that oblig'd the Fathers to elevate the little number and the little flock above extension and multitude Where are those men saith Gregory Nazianzen who reproach us with our poverty and insolently boast themselves of their riches who would define the Church by multitude and contemn the little flock They measure Divinity they weigh the people in the ballance they esteem the illiterate and cover with injuries the lights of the world they heap together the common stones and despise the pretious not remembring that the more the thick darkness surpasses in number the Stars the more the ordinary stones surpass the pretious in quantity the more those Stars and pretious stones surpass the ordinary stones in purity and excellency This Father who had seen in his time the Hereticks masters of the whole Church and their communion spread very wide and far in the East and in the West while the Orthodox durst not appear was so far from having
the state of grace where the goodness of God had sent the Gospel in declaring to them that they ought to fear being cut off as the Jews from the Covenant of God he addresses himself to the whole body of the Gentiles converted to Jesus Christ Ad totum Gentium corpus adds he And certainly that horrible Apostasy of the whole world which has fallen out since manifestly shews us that this advice of S. Paul was not unprofitable For God having diffused in so great an extension of Countreys almost in a moment the waters of his Grace so that Religion flourished every where within a very little while after the truth of the Gospel was vanished and the treasure of salvation banished out of the Earth But whence could that change come unless from this that the Gentiles were fallen away from their Call and therefore it is that he clearly professes in a Letter to Melancthon that they had separated from all the world Plusquam enim absurdum est postquam discessionem à toto mundo facere coacti sumus alios ab aliis desilire The Author of the Prejudices yet further makes use of an Article of our Confession of Faith to prove the same thing which sayes That we believe that no one ought of his own authority to thrust himself into the government of the Church but that that ought to be done by election while it is possible and while God permits it Which exception we emphatically add to it because it has failed sometimes and even in our time in which the state of the Church was interrupted till God had raised up men after an extraordinary manner to order the Church a new which was in ruine and desolation Grounding himself on these two passages he insults over Monsieur Vigerius the Author of the Discourse in the Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith because he had declared That none of us had ever said that it could be possible that the Church should no longer subsist and that he defied Monsieur Arnaud to shew him one only Author among us who had thought so Before he had expressed such desires sayes the Author of the Prejudices it would have been well to the purpose that he had better informed himself about that which not only some Authors of his Sect have wrote but the Master of all their Authors which is Calvin who sayes a great deal more than that which is contained in that Book of the Perpetuity of the Faith since he looks upon the Church not only as possible to perish but as having effectually done so for many Ages so far as to say that the threatning of S. Paul which he pretends to be spoken to the whole body of the Gentiles had its effect that all the Gentiles had fell from their Call through a general Apostasy that the light of the Gospel had vanished in respect of them and that they had lost the treasure of salvation It is upon this foundation that he builds his Proposition and pretends to make us pass for worse men than the Donatists But all this is nothing else but an effect of the unjust and violent hatred that this Author has conceiv'd against us and Monsieur Vigerius had reason to deny that which he has denyed As the dispute here is only to know what our Hypothesis is upon the point of the perpetual subsistence of the Church it would be sufficient methinks to stop the mouth of the Author of the Prejudices to tell him that he troubles himself to no purpose that we do not believe that intire extinction of the Church throughout all the world which he layes to our charge and that he has mistaken the meaning of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith for there is no likelihood that he should better know what we believe than our selves nor that he should be a more faithful Interpreter of the sense of Calvin and that of our Confession of Faith than we our selves Notwithstanding to make the Character of the Author of the Prejudices more and more known and what judgement we ought to make of that which he propounds when he speaks with the greatest confidence it will be good to relate here the testimony that Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu has given to the Protestant Churches concerning that that they believe and teach upon the subject of the perpetual subsistence of the Church until the end of the world For we might say that he had the Author of the Prejudices in his view and wrote about this matter only to confute him There is not sayes he any point in controversie between our Adversaries and us about which their Confessions of Faith speak so clearly and agree so uniformly as this which I may truly say ought not to be put into the number of the controverted points The Confession of Ausburg which may be said to be as well the Rule as the source and origine of all the other Confessions of Faith of our Adversaries sayes in express terms that the Church ought perpetually to remain one and holy That of Saxony sayes that the Article of the Creed which declares the Church Holy and Catholick was inserted therein only to confirm the faithful against the doubts that they might have of the stability of the Church That of the Switzers does not only affirm this truth but sets down the same reason for it that I my self have made use of here above since God sayes it would from all eternity that men should be saved we must acknowledge this truth that the Church has alwayes been for the time past that she subsists for the present and that she will do so till the end of the world The Scotch holds this Article to be so undoubtedly true that it compares the belief of it to that of the Mysterie of the Trinity saying That as the faithful believe the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost so they also constantly believe the perpetuity of the Church The Flemish professes the same truth and gives the reason altogether founded upon the Regality of Jesus Christ which being perpetual supposes in all times some subjects over whom he must reign The French Confession alone sayes nothing upon this occasion but it is so far from saying nothing of it through the difficulty that they found in this point that on the contrary the certainty which they had of it was in my opinion the cause of their silence She does not therefore it may be speak any thing because she did not think she could doubt of so evident a truth of which her founders have spoke so clearly for her Luther teaches it in terms so express that he makes perpetuity to enter into the definition of the Church as a quality that making a part of its essence is altogether inseparable from it He draws the duration of the Church from an Article of the Creed and the words of Jesus Christ which bind us to believe it saying that it is an
was the time whereof Hilary speaks in his Writings which you artificially make use of to elude so many Divine Testimonies which I have set before you as if the Church had perished throughout all the world You may as well say that there were no more Churches in Galatia when the Apostle said O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that after having begun in the Spirit you should end in the flesh for thus it is well nigh that you calumniate the learned Hilary under a pretence that he censured the negligent and the fearful for whom he has as it were so many birth-pangs till Iesus Christ should be formed in them Who is there that knows not that in the time of Arianism divers simple persons deceived by obscure expressions imagined that the Arians believ'd the same thing with themselves that others yielded through fear and dissimulation and consented in appearance to heresie not walking in integrity in the way of the truth of the Gospel you would see you Donatists that he had not pardoned those persons for you are not ignorant of the doctrine of the Scripture upon this subject Read what S. Paul has wrote concerning S. Peter See afterwards what S. Cyprian has thought was to be done on these occasions and you will find that it is to very ill purpose to blame the mildness of the Church which gathers together the members of Iesus Christ when they are dispersed instead of dispersing them when they are gathered together Howsoever it be there have been yet some firm ones who were sufficiently enlightned to know the snares of the Hereticks They were indeed very few in number in comparison of others but yet nevertheless some of them generously suffered banishment for the cause of the faith and others kept themselves concealed here and there throughout the earth Thus it was that the Church which increased in all Nations preserved within her self the good Wheat of our Lord and thus it is that she will preserve her self unto the end till she extend her self over all people and even over the Barbarians themselves The Church therefore consists in the good seed that the Son of Man has sown and of which it is said that it should grow up until the harvest amidst the Tares The field is the world and the harvest is the end of the world See here after what manner S. Augustine declares his opinion concerning the state of the Church and its subsistence under the Arians since coming afterwards to speak of a passage of S. Hilary which they had objected to him he sayes that we must understand that which he had said not in regard of the good Wheat which was yet mingled with the Tares but only in regard of the Tares or if his words had any relation to the good Wheat we must take them as only designing to enflame the zeal of the fearful by such answers And he adds that the holy Scripture it self frequently makes use of this way of expressing it self in general terms which at first seem to belong to the whole body but which notwithstanding regard only a part Habent etiam scripturae canonicae hunc arguendi morem ut tanquam omnibus dicatur ad quosdam verbum perveniat We may now see very clearly that we are so far from being like to the Donatists as the Author of the Prejudices layes it to our charge that we tread on the contrary in the footsteps of St. Augustine For first of all our Hypothesis touching the subsistence and obscurity of the Church is throughout conform to his We say as he does that God has alwayes preserved his truly faithful in the very communion of the corrupted Church We say with him that in the most violent entring in of Error and Superstition God has not left himself without witness since he has raised up not only persons but whole Societies that have openly and couragiously maintained the truth and withdrawn themselves from under the Roman Domination And as to the passages that the Author of the Prejudices objects to us out of Calvin and our Confession of Faith we give the same explication of it that S. Augustine gave to those of S. Hilary which the Donatists objected to him That is to say that that defection of all the world and that ruine and desolation whereinto the Church had fell that Eclipse of the truth and treasure of salvation are expressions that regard properly only the Tares that covered the Field of the Church and not the good Seed which was mingled with those Tares These expressions only regard the greater number of those who followed those Superstitions and Errors and not those who in the midst of that confusion kept their Religion pure and much less those who had the courage to oppose themselves openly to Error and to resist it even unto Persecutions and Martyrdom I know that he has accustomed himself to form some difficulties and Objections against our Hypothesis but we have this satisfaction to know that he can make none that does not equally regard the Hypothesis of S. Augustine and ours and to which by consequence the Author of the Prejudices himself would not be obliged to answer if he would not act the Donatist He confesses himself that S. Augustine had acknowledged that there might have been some Catholicks hid in Heretical communions and besides he cannot deny that the passage which I have set down is express upon that subject 1. If therefore he demands of us who those faithful were who before the Reformation kept their faith pure without infecting themselves with the publick errors and if he urges us to mark them out to him one after another to tell him their names and their Genealogy I will demand of him likewise who were those good seed of S. Augustine who under the Arian Ministry preserved their faith without being infected with Heresie and I will intreat him to mark them out to me by name and to give me their history 2. If he demands of us how we understand those persons could with a good conscience live under a Ministry where they taught Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Eucharist the Sacrifice of the Mass the religious worshipping of Images which we believe to be fundamental errors I will also demand of him how he understands that the good seed of S. Augustine could live under an Arian Ministry where they taught that the Son of God was not consubstantial with his Father and that the Father was not the Father eternally which are errors that the Author of the Prejudices himself judges abominable 3. If he tells us that our Fathers ought not therefore to have undertaken a Reformation but that they ought to have left things in the estate wherein they were since howsoever corrupted the Latin Church was according to us we could yet be saved in her communion I shall tell him that by the same reason the Orthodox ought not to have taken care to have re-established the
not God his Prophets and his Altars yet among them Lord said Elias they have killed thy Prophets and thrown down thy Altars And the hundred Prophets of God that Obadiah hid in two Caves to withdraw them from the persecution of the Idolatress Jezabel the Altar of God that Elias repaired in Carmel to sacrifice there by the miraculous fire that fell down from Heaven to consume the victim the calling of Elisha and Micaiah and in a word the whole History of those schismatical Ten Tribes does it not evidently note that God looked on them as his true Church in which there was yet a means to be saved We must not therefore abuse that which the Fathers have wrote against Schismaticks in intending to aggravate their crime and to draw them from it nor must we take their expressions in the whole rigour of the letter Their meaning is not that all those generally who are found engaged in a Schismatical Communion even down to Tradesmen and Labourers who remain there with an upright heart and through the prejudice of their consciences are out of the Church and eternally damned but that the Authors and Defenders of Schism who run into it through their personal interests or out of a spirit of fierceness pride and an hatred incompatible with the Spirit of Jesus Christ commit a horrible crime and that while they are in that state they remain deprived of all hopes of salvation That if the Fathers have said any thing more generally and which cannot be thus restrained it is just to understand it in a comparative sense that is to say that setting that Schismatical party of the Church in opposition to that which is not so the hope of salvation appears evidently in this which it does not in the other where it is obscured by that Schism The End of the Third Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE FOURTH PART Of the Right that our Fathers had to hold a Christian Society among themselves by Publick Assemblies and the Exercise of the Ministry CHAP. I. That our Fathers had a Right to have their Church-Assemblies separate from those of the Church of Rome on the supposition that they were right in the Foundation THE Order of the Matters of this Treatise requires that we now go on to that Separation which the Author of the Prejudices calls Positive and that after having confirmed the Right that our Fathers had to Examine the State of Religion and the Church in their days after our having shewed the indispensable necessity that lay upon them to forsake the Assemblies of the Church of Rome and to live apart from her Communion that we also establish the Right that they had to set up a Christian Society among themselves notwithstanding their going off from the other Party who were not for a Reformation and to make up alone and apart a Body of the Church or an External and visible Communion This is that which I pretend to establish in this Fourth and last Part and to that end I shall here Treat of two things The first shall respect the Right of those Publick Assemblies and the Second shall be concerning that of the Gospel Ministry wherein our Function lies Howsoever these two things have a dependance one upon another it will yet be well to Treat of them with some distinction To make the First clear I shall first lay it down as an indisputable Truth That the Right of Religious Assemblies naturally follows that of Societies I mean That as far as a Religious Society is Just and Lawful so far the Assemblies that are therein made are Just and Lawful and that on the contrary as far as a Society is unjust and wicked so far its Assemblies are so too This Principle is evident to common sence and it is for that Reason that we condemn the Assemblies of the Heathens Jews and Mahometans as Unlawful and Criminal because their Societies are impious and wicked and that having no right to be united to believe and practice those Errors which they believe and practice they have also no right to Assemble themselves together in order to make a Publick Profession It is for the same Reason that we hold on the contrary the Christian Assemblies to be not only Just and Allowable but to be necessary and commanded by Divine Right because the Christian Society that is to say the Church is it self also of Divine Right It is then True that the Right of Assemblies follows that of Societies But we must further suppose as another evident and certain Truth That our Fathers before the Reformation were Latin Christians living in the Communion of the Latin Church in which they made as considerable a party as the rest of the Latins and that from Father to Son throughout a long succession Time out of mind they enjoyed with the others the rights of that Society That they were equally in possession of it with the other common Assemblies of that Religion having a part in the Ministry in the Churches in the Sacraments in the publick Prayers in the Reading and Preaching of the Word and that as far as the communion of the Latin Church was lawful so far the part that our Fathers had in it was lawful also That it was not a company of Strangers or unknown persons come from the utmost parts of America or the Southern Lands nor a sort of People dropt down from the Clouds who were newly joyned together with them in the same Society but Persons and whole Families setled a long time ago who were joyned together with them in the Profession of the Christian Religion many Ages before and who by consequence were in possession of the Rights of that Society Although had they been Strangers Americans and Barbarians on whom God should have suddenly bestowed the Favour of Calling them to the True Faith and the True Holiness of Christanity yet we could believe that by that thing alone they would have been invested in all the Rights of that Society as much as if they had had it by a long possession time out of mind But howsoever it be they were Christians from Father to Son and neither their blood nor their birth did distinguish them from the others We are now concerned only to search out whether that which hapned to our Fathers that is to say their Reformation their Condemnation by the Popes and by their Council of Trent and their Separation from the Church of Rome can be able to spoil them of all their Rights For if it be True that they were fallen off either by their own ill Carriage or by the meer Authority of the Church of Rome we must yield that our Assemblies are Unlawful and Criminal but if on the contrary they were not so fallen off if that which hapned to them did nothing else but confirm their Right and render it more pure more just and more indisputable they ought also
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
Pastors as I have shewn But they are necessary to the well being of a Church but it is the hand of the Pastors alone that dispences the Sacraments to us and their Preaching is a publick instruction that more strongly sets before our Eyes the Truths of the Gospel that livelily applies its Precepts its Promises its Threatnings and its Exhortations to us and frequently forces us to make those Reflections on our selves which we should not do without their Aid Their Authority restrains us their light inlightens us their Direction guides us their Example excites us and their Labours case ours It is certain that a Flock without a Pastor cannot but be in a very bad condition for howsoever each of the Mystical Sheep who compose it may defend themselves against the assaults of the Wolves yet it is not ordinarily done either with such force or such success as when the defending of them lies in the hands of Faithful Pastors to whom God communicates a greater measure of his Light and Grace and although the External Society among the simple Faithful may not cease to subsist though they have not actually any Pastor since they may be joyned together in Jesus Christ by the profession of one same Faith and the same Piety which assembles them by vertue of the first Convocation that the Apostles made yet that Society as far as it is External would be far better maintained by the Actions of the Ministry of the Pastors then it would be otherwise 3. I shall not fear to say that even the Actions of the Ministry are necessary for the perpetual subsistence of that External Society for however the meer Reading of the Word of God Publick Prayers in Common the mutual Exhortations of the Faithful and the Writings of the Doctors of the Church are without doubt sufficient to preserve the Faith and Piety in the Souls of men not only during some time but even always if they do not neglect their duty yet notwithstanding it must be acknowledged that according to the way that we are made and to speak as they say after the manner of men a Flock cannot abide a long Time without a Shepherd so as not to fall into Negligence and by that Negligence into an Oblivion of its duty and in fine so as the Sheep should not be in a great danger of dispersion See here after what manner Pastors are necessary to the Church but to imagine that it cannot absolutely have any more a Christian Society or lawful Assemblies among the Faithful when their Ordinary Pastors forsake them is that which they can never maintain with any Reason For the Faithful are the Sheep of Jesus Christ and when their Pastors scatter them the Grace and Name of Jesus Christ calls them together They are in a Society by the right of the first Convocation of the Church which is a perpetual right which subsists every where where the True Faith and true Christian Piety are found Common among many persons and it is from that perpetual and immovable Right that that of the actual Assemblies Flowes But what Order can they hold in their Assemblies since they have none to direct them Externally I answer That the same Spirit of Grace which inspired them with Piety and Charity would it self suggest an Order and subject them one to another by a mutual consent for God does not forsake his own Children though men and the Church may always say in the Languague of the Prophet When my Father and Mother forsake me the Lord shall take me up If there be any Magistrate to be found among the Faithful it belongs to him to settle an Order among them for the Civil Society comes in Naturally to the succour of the Religious when the Religious is cast into any Extremity If there be no Magistrate they ought to agree about an Order in private Conferences before they come to Assemble together in a Body to avoid Confusion and every one has a Right to make those private Conferences But what can they do in those Assemblies They may pray to God there they may implore the succours of his Providence and put their Trust in his Promises They must begin by that Afterwards they will search out all possible means to have Pastors called to that Office by the Ordinary ways to receive the Sacraments and Preaching of the Gospel from them but if that is impossible or if they see that that would be evidently to Tempt God and put the Flock in danger of dissipation it is Necessary in that case that the Flock should chuse a Pastor for it self and Consecrate him to God by ardent Prayers in committing to his Trust the Rights of the Ministry that reside in the Body of the Faithful to whom Jesus Christ according to Saint Augustine has given the Power of the Keys For we ought not to imagine that the Body of the Faithful should be stripped of the Right of the Ministry as often as they should be actually without Pastors That Right is inviolable it cannot be either lost or separated from the Body of the Faithful We will in the Close examine whether an Election made after that manner gives a sufficient Call it is sufficient at present to know that neither the Right of a Christian Society nor that of Christian Assemblies is so necessarily tied to the Pastors That when there should be none of them the Faithful could not remain united together externally in a Body of a Visible Church or make those Assemblies lawful The Author of the Prejudices Treating about this matter distinguishes between two sorts of Separations the one Negative the other Positive There is says he a meer Negative Separation which consists more in the denyal of certain Acts of Communion then in positive Actions against that Society from which one separates And there is another Positive Separation which includes the erecting of a Separate Society the Establishment of a new Ministry and the positive Condemnation of the former Society to which he was united He says afterwards That we did not content our selves with the first kind of Separation that we have gone further that we have formed a new Society a new Church that we have set up new Pastors That it is that kind of Separation whereof he accuses us and that it is this also that we ought to Justify our selves about He repeats the same things in the end and concludes That when the Faithful should believe themselves obliged out of a good Conscience to separate themselves Negatively they ought not to form a Society nor have any Pastors But that they ought to remain in that State without any Pastors and without any External Worship in waiting until God extraordinarily raise up some with visible Characters of their Mission I acknowledge that that Distinction of two kinds of Separation is of some Use and I have my self made use of it for the putting of the matters of this Treatise into a more natural Order
are upon For if they mean That the Society or Church of the Protestants is new in respect of the State wherein it was or of that external form which it had immediately before the Reformation we shall voluntarily agree that it is made new in that sence after the same manner that the Scripture calls the Regenerate a new Man or as God promises to give us a new heart or as they call a House repaired and put into its natural State a new House That would speak the Favour God shew'd to our Fathers in re-establishing the Christian Society in that Just and lawful State wherein it ought to be according to its first Establishment and that that State is very much different from that wherein it was immediately before the Reformation This is that which we do not deny and are so far from it that on the contrary we praise and glorify God for it But if they mean that we have made a new Church that is to say one essentially differing from that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles would establish in the World and which has always subsisted even to our days or that in all that which depends on us we have not re-established it in its first and lawful State this is what we deny and in this sence which is the only one that can render the Accusations of our Adversaries just we maintain that we have not in the least made a new Church In a word we say that the Church of Jesus Christ has subsisted down from the Apostles to us inclusively in all that which it has Essentially and that she yet subsists at this day among us but that having changed her State or External Form in the Ages that preceeded the Reformation she was re-established in her just and lawful State by the Reformation of our Fathers which no ways hinders but that she was and might always be the same Church To make this Truth to be the better understood we need only to clear on the one side what that Essence of the Church is that ought always to remain immovable to shew that it may be but one and the same Church by descent and uninturrepted Succession and on the other side what State it is that she has suffered change in and how it could be altered and repaired The Essence of the Church consists in this That it is a Body of divers persons united together in the Commnion of one only True God under one only Jesus Christ their Head and Mediatour and it is Jesus Christ himself that has given us this Idea of it when he says that This is life Eternal to know the only True God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent That Definition which we give of the Church supposes 1. The subject or matter whereof the Church is composed which are divers men divers persons united among themselves and with God 2. It supposes the Necessary means without which that Communion cannot be which are the word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit 3. It contains not only the True Faith Charity Hope which are the natural bonds of that Communion but all the other Christian Vertues also as Worship Adoration Truth Obedience Thanksgiving Justice Temperance c. which are the the duties to which that Communion engages us 4. It comprehends in it further all the fruits that we gather from that Communion as Remission of Sins Peace and Tranquillity of Soul Consolation in Afflictions Succours in Temptations c. 5. In fine it includes all the Rights that necessarily follow that Communion as that of being joyned together in an External Society that of Publick Assemblies that of the Ministry that of the Sacraments and that of External Government and Discipline See here that which is Essential to the Church for I call that Essential without which the Church cannot subsist and which yet is sufficient to make it subsist that which cannot subsist if that Church fail to subsist and that which cannot be wanting if there be a Church As to the State in respect of which it suffers changes it consists in all that that depends on the different disposition of Times Places and Persons For Example To have the Bodily presence of Jesus Christ to have Apostles and Evangelists for its Pastors to have the Miraculous gifts of healing that of Tongues that of the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Faithful by Visible Symbols that of Prophecy and that of an external and infallible direction and instruction is a State wherein the Church was in the Time of its Birth but which was changed in the other Times that followed To have Pastors illustrious for Zeal Learning and Piety as a Saint Augustine a Saint Basil a Saint Chrysostom is a State wherein it was not always nor every where but in some Times and Places only To be flourishing and in Peace without Persecution without Schism without Error is a State wherein it has neither been always nor in all Places nor in respect of all those persons who have composed it but which it has been in in some Times and Places only and with respect to some Persons We ought then to set down in their proper Order those things which belong to the State of the Church and to its Essence and which by Consequence are liable to change as to be extended every where or in the greatest part of the World to have a multitude or the greatest number Temporal Splendor or outward Glory Peace whether in regard of those without or in respect of those within Liberty in External Profession Visibility of Assemblies Purity of the Ministry Holiness of External Worship Form of Government that of Discipline and that of Liturgies an Actual Bond of the Parts of the Church in one Body of External Communion and the Actual Exercise of the Ministry or if you will the Actual Presence of the Pastors All those are things that do not absolutely belong to the Essence of the Church but only to its State or Condition and of which it may be sometimes spoyled either wholly or in Part without being absolutely destroyed It may be restrained to a few places and a few persons and therefore it is called in some places of Scripture a little Flock she may be so in her low State We are says Saint Paul not many wise not many mighty not many noble but God has chosen the weak things of this World to confound the strong She may be in Trouble and in Affliction through the Persecution of Infidels as she was under the Heathen Emperours or in Fighting against Hereticks as she has been almost always she may lose the Visibility of her Assemblies as she did in most places in the Time of Decius and Dioclesian she may find her Ministry corrupted as it hapned in the Time of the Arrians she may see her external Worship sullied by Actions of superstition and Idolatry as it fell out in Judah and Israel in the days of the Prophets As to
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
them do all that they please we are firm and fixed upon two Principles against which we are sure they cannot do any thing The one That if our Communion Teaches the True Doctrine if it has the True Worship and the True Rules of Christian Sanctity to a degree sufficient for Salvation and if the Causes for which we separated our selves from the Church of Rome were Just God nourishes and preserves his True Faithful Ones in our Communion whatsoever mixture there may be of Worldly Wicked and Hypocrites in it The other That if God nourishes and preserves his truly Faithful in our Communion we are the True Church of God that which has a Right to be in a Society and to which all the other Rights that follow that of a Society belong of Assemblies Ministry Sacraments Government Discipline and by Consequence we are the Church which succeeds not only de Jure but de Facto the Church of the Apostles that of the Ages following and even that which was immediately before the Reformation These two Propositions are framed in clear and distinct Terms they have neither Ambiguity nor Equivocation but I hold also that they are of a certain and indisputable Truth For there neither is nor ever was there any other True Church then that of the Truly Faithful and there never will be any other The Holy Scripture sets down no other Reason will not suffer us to acknowledge any other The Fathers never owned any other This is the constant and evident Principle of Saint Augustine as may be seen in the Fourth Chapter of the Third Part and it is also the Principle of the other Fathers as may be Justified by almost an infinite Number of passages The Antient Catholick Church says Clemens of Alexandria is but one only Church which assembles in the Vnity of one only Faith by the will of one only God and the Ministry of one only Lord all those who are before Ordained that is to say whom God has predestinated to be Just having known them before the Foundation of the World Where is the place where Jesus Christ should dwell says Origen It is the Mountain of Ephraim which signifies a fruitful Mountain but where are those fruitful Mountains among us where Jesus Christ dwels They are those on whom the fruits of the Spirit Joy Peace Patience Charity and other vertues may be found They are those fruitful Mountains which bring forth fruit to Jesus Christ and which are eminent for knowledge and hope And a little after The Grace of the Holy Spirit has gone over to the People of the Gentile and their Antient Solemnities are come to us because we have with us the True High-Priest after the Order of Melchizedec True Sacrifices are offered up amongst us that is to say the Spiritual Sacrifices and it is among us that he builds with living Stones the Temple of God which is the Church of the living God And elsewhere The Church desires to be united to Jesus Christ but note that the Church is a Society of the Saints And further elsewhere explaining those words Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church The Church says he that God builds consists in all those who are perfect and are full of those words thoughts and actions that lead to blessedness and a little lower How ought we to understand those words The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it For that expression is ambiguous is it the Rock that he speaks of or if it be of the Church is it that the Rock and the Church are but one and the same thing This latter I believe to be True for the Gates of Hell prevail neither against the Rock upon which Jesus Christ has built his Church nor against the Church according to that which is said in the Proverbs That the way of the Serpent is not found upon the Rock If the Gates of Hell do prevail against any there is neither that Rock upon which Jesus Christ builds the Church nor the Church that Jesus Christ builds upon the Rock For that Rock is inaccessible to the Serpent and stronger then the Gates of Hell And as to the Church as it is the Building of Jesus Christ she can never let in the Gates of Hell against her those Gates may very well prevail against every man that is without the Church and separated from that Rock but never against the Church Jesus Christ says Saint Ambrose knows those that are his and as to those who do not belong to him he does not vouschafe even to know them And elsewhere God called his Tabernacle Bethlehem because the Church of the Righteous is his Tabernacle and there is a Mystery in it for Bethlehem is Situate upon the Sea of Galilee on the East side which signifies to us that every Soul that is worthy to be called the Temple of God or the Church may be built upon the waves of this World but can never be drowned it may be encountred but can never be overthrown because it represses and calms the wild impetuousness of sufferings It looks upon the Shipwraecks of others while it self is safe from danger always ready to receive the illumination of Jesus Christ and to rejoyce under his Rays And further elsewhere he says Expresly That as the Saints are the Members of Jesus Christ so the wicked are the Members of the Devil Saint Hierome Teaches the same thing The Church says he which is the Assembly of all the Saints is called in the Scripture the Pillar and ground of Truth because she has in Jesus Christ an eternal firmness And in the Exposition of the Song of Songs he lays down this Maxim That the Church is the Assembly of all the Saints and that she is brought in speaking in the Canticles as if all the Saints were but one person And even the Author of the Commentary on the Psalms ascribed to Saint Hierome Explaining these words of the Prophet I will drive away from the City of the Lord all the workers of Iniquity The City of the Lord says he is the Church of the Saints the Congregation of the Just I do not deny that the Fathers sometimes give a very large extent to the Church when they consider it as mingled with almost an infinite number of the wicked and the Worldly as we have frequently explained it already and it is to this Idea that they refer their comparisons of a Field of the Air and the rest which we have often mentioned But it is certain That when the Question is to be decided which of the two Parties that make up that mixed Body is the Church that they unanimously agree to give that Title to the truly Faithful and to the Righteous only and that they deprive the wicked and the worldly of it and it is for this Reason that Saint Augustine always distinguishes in that extent of the mixt Church two People
noted were not one and the same Church with that of the Apostles If then he can do neither the one nor the other he ought to look to it how he means that his Church should be the True Church of Jesus Christ for it is enough as to us to find our selves conformable to the Church of the Apostles since that being as we are certain that it is the same Body that God has Established upon Earth to which Jesus Christ has promised a perpetual subsistence and without which we should very difficultly know precisely how he has Executed his promise we should no ways doubt that we were the same Church which has subsisted even down to the Time of the Reformation For when we should be ignorant of the manner how it has subsisted when we should not be able to understand that we should be notwithstanding certain that it has subsisted since the word of Jesus Christ is inviolable and none can call it in question without impiety whence it follows that we are not a new Church but the same which has always abode and which was immediately before the Reformation That way which we hold to assure our selves of this Truth is not only good solid and certain but it is yet further the only one that any Communion can or ought to hold if it would be certain with a good Conscience that it was the true Church of Jesus Christ which has always subsisted and which will always subsist I would say it ought to compare it self with the Church of the Apostles to know whether it be conformable to that and as to what respects the following Ages it ought to rest assured upon the word of Jesus Christ who has said that he will be with his until the end of the World for that certainty arises from thence that being one with the Church of the Apostles it is also one with that of all the Ages following But if he will take another way and say that Communion is the same with the Church of the fifteenth or sixteenth Age therefore it is the same with that of the Apostles because that Jesus Christ has promised that his Church shall always subsist it is evidently to expose himself to Error and Illusion and to follow a very false and deceitful way of Reasoning The Reason is evident because by this means one is liable to take that for the Church in the 15 or 16 Age which it may be is not so For in that visible Body which they call the Church mixed there are two Parties the one which is properly the Church and the other which is not the one which is the Wheat that the Son of God has sown and the other which is the Tares sown by the hand of the Enemy the one which is the good seed and the other which is the chaff But it may so fall out that the Tares should exceed the Wheat and that a heap of chaff should cover the good seed and by consequence the conformity which they pretend to have with that Church might be nothing else but a conformity with the Chaff and the Tares and not with the Wheat which would be the greatest of all Illusions But if they took the former way they would be in no danger of falling into that Error because we know that in the Church of the Apostles the Wheat surmounted the Tares the good grain the Chaff and that that which appeared to their Eyes was of Jesus Christ and not of the wicked one whence it follows that they could not be deceived in taking one Unity for another This then is the way that we hold and which by the Grace of God gives us great peace of Conscience those who follow the other ought to take heed that they go not from it See here my first Answer the second is That that which regards the Essence of the Church never ought to be confounded with that which regards only its Condition The Church as I have so often already said consists only in the truly Just and Faithful and not in that confused heap of the worldly who Assemble with them under the same Ministry and who partake of the same Sacraments That therefore which makes the Essence of the Church is the True Faith Piety and Charity and it is most true that those Vertues cannot be without the true Doctrine disintangled from all those Errors which separate us from the Communion of one only God and the Mediation of one only Jesus Christ Whence it follows That the True and pure Doctrine is the Essence of the Church But it is also true that while the Foundation of the True Doctrine remains in a Communion and there is yet left there some liberty to the Minds and Consciences of men for the choice of the Objects of the Faith and Practice of the Actions of Religion how impure soever that Communion may be whatsoever Errors may be Taught there whatsoever false Worship they may practise there how corrupted soever the Publick Ministry may be there is always a means there to separate the good from the bad and to secure one's self from this in holding to the other without falling into Hypocrisy or acting against the Dictates of ones Conscience by false shews But I affirm this to be the Condition of that Visible Communion that we call the Latin Church immediately before the Reformation I acknowledge that Transubstantiation was believed there the Real presence the Sacrifice of the Mass the merit of good Works Purgatory human Satisfactions Indulgences the Monarchy of the Pope that they religiously Worshipped the Images of God there and those of the Saints that in those days they gave a Religious Worship to Reliques that they adored the Eucharist there as being the very person of Jesus Christ that they then Invocated the Saints and in a Word that they then believed and practised all that which they now believe and practise in the Church of Rome But the foundation of Christianity was as yet there and we may truly say that in that good which there was there they had light enough to reject that which was bad That Commandment alone Thou shalt Worship one only God was enough to let a good Soul know that he ought not to adore either Saints or Angels or to call upon them or render any Religious Worship to their Images and Reliques nor to take any Creature for the Object of this Devotion The Doctrine of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross and that of his sitting on the Right hand of God was sufficient to make them reject those of the Sacrifice of the Mass the Real presence Transubstantiation the Adoration of the Host Haman Satisfactions Indulgences and Purgatory For it is true that the Religion then was composed of two contradictory Parties that overthrew one another those who took things on the wrong side destroyed the good by the bad for in adoring for Example the Saints and Angels they overthrew that good Doctrine Thou
which had alwayes Subsisted notwithstanding the Corruptions wherein they were plunged In a word they did not set up any thing new for which they can with any Colour of Reason require an immediate Mission either from God or Jesus Christ his Son We speak therefore here only of the same Ordinary Ministry that the Apostles established in the Christian Church as they called or formed it and which was there appointed to help its Preservation and Purgation This is that Ministry which we do not pretend to have a new but that Antient and perpetual one which Jesus Christ and his Apostles left to the Church when they were Converted to the Christian Faith 3. In the Third Place we must know that to Judge well of the Validity or Invalidity of a Ministry we ought to Consider it in three Respects 1. In Respect of the things themselves that are taught and practised in it 2. In Respect of the Body that is to say the Society where it is exercised 3. In Respect of the Persons who exercise it in that Society In Regard of the first the Ministry of the Jews the Pagans the Mahometans is Wicked and Sacrilegious because the things that are taught there are Impious In the Second the Ministry of the Donatists and Luciferians which was good and Christian in it self because there was taught and practised nothing ill in it yet it was notwithstanding Vitious because it was exercised in Schismatical Societies which had no right to have a Ministry apart and to live in aState of Separation For the Third the Ministry of an Intruder an Usurper a Simoniack howsoever good it be in it self however it be set up in a Lawfull Society that is to say in the true Church yet it is notwithstanding bad and Unlawfull through the Defect of his Personal Call 4. In the Fourth Place we must here before we go any further make Use of the same Distinction upon this Subject of the Ministry that we have used in the Preceding Chapter upon the Subject of the Church I mean that we ought to place a great Difference between that which makes the Essence of the Ministry and that which belongs only to its State For that which is Essential to the Gospel Ministry cannot be changed so as to make another Ministry and by Consequence a False Sacrilegious and Criminal Ministry since there can be but one alone good and Lawful and on the contrary the Essence of a Ministry remaining the same and Intire it must needs be said that it is the same Ministry though as to what Respects its State it should have received a Change The Essence of the Gospel Ministry Consists in the teaching the saving Christian Truth without excluding any Article that is necessary to the Subsistance of the True Faith Piety and Holiness in dispensing the true Sacraments that Jesus Christ has Established in his Church and in guiding the People in such a manner as helps to preserve the Religious Society or which at least does not absolutely destroy it It s State is either good or bad the Good State is then when there is such a Purity in the Ministry that only Christian Truths are taught there and wherein those are taught in all their Force and Natural Beauty with all the Diligence and Care that men assisted by the Grace of God are capable of and when the Sacraments also are purely administred according to the Institution of Jesus Christ without Addition or Diminution and with all the Decency Modesty Simplicity Gravity Circumspection that those Mysteries of the Christian Religion require so that God may be Glorified and his Kingdom more and more established in the Hearts of men and when further the Church is Governed by Just Wise Prudent Charitable and well Executed Laws after a way that does not destroy but Edify In Fine that Good Consists also in this that those who Exercise this Ministry receive it by Just and Lawful waies that are proper to draw the Blessing of God upon them and their Labours and that they behave themselves worthily quitting themselves with a good Conscience in the Charge Committed to them The bad Estate of the Church on the contrary is then when that Ministry is found to be mingled with Errours and Superstitions when the Sacraments are Altered and Corrupted when the Government of it is worldly or unjust or Tyrannical or Confused when those who fill up that Ministry take it by ill scandalous and unlawfull wayes and behave themselves unworthily in it The Good State of the Ministry is a thing that is the most to be wished for in the World and most proper to preserve the Faith Piety Holiness Peace Comfort and Publick Rejoicing in the Church and the bad State is the most to be feared of any thing in the World and that which we ought to Labour the most to Remedy Nevertheless we are not to think that the Ministry may not yet Subsist in that bad State as our Bodily Life does not cease to Subsist in the midst of Languishing and heaps of Diseases 5. In the fifth place we ought Carefully to distinguish the Ministry considered precisely in it self and the same Ministry in as much as it is Occupied or possessed by persons who are Invested in it or if you will we ought to distinguish the Ministry and the Ministers for there is a very great Difference between the one and the other as in a civil Society there is a great difference between the Magistracy and the Magistrate The Magistracy is an Office the Magistrate is a Person who possesses that Office the Office remains allwayes the persons are changed by Death or otherwise This Distinction is not hard to be conceived but it is nevertheless of very great Use in the Matter we are upon For the Ministry Considered in its self is of an immediatly Divine Establishment Whereas the Persons that are raised to it are raised thither by means of men and if their Call be divine as it is in Effect it is no otherwise then mediately so for they are men who call them to it although they do it by the Authority of God It is then certain that when God has established the Ministry he has not only established all that which it ought to have Essential to it but he has also Established it de Jure and de facto in a good State I mean he has not only laid an Obligation upon Ministers faithfully to discharge all the Functions of so great a Charge but that he has even chosen Persons who have most faithfully acquitted themselves of it But it has not been alwayes the same in those who have been called by men for as humane Judgments are so short-sighted that they cannot pierce through the Hearts of men and as they are mixed with a great many Imperfections the Ministry may be Committed to persons who are Insensibly Corrupted either through their Ignorance or through other Inclinations yet more Criminal then Ignorance and it is
from that humane Intervention that the bad State of the Ministry proceeds If God would alwayes send them immediately as he did his Apostles and Evangelists there would be some ground to believe that it would never be remote from its first Institution but since they are men that send them no one can deny that it cannot be Corrupted through that Channel for God has never promised any thing to the contrary in that matter God has not promised that he would accompany those Elections and Humane Calls with an Infallible Spirit that should give them all a happy Success and besides that the experience of all the Ages past Contradicts it Jesus Christ himself seems purposely to have forbidden such a rash Imagination for although he knew the Heart and the thoughts of it yet nevertheless he would have a Judas added to the Number of his first Disciples and he permitted that a Nicholas who was afterwards the Head of the Sect of the Nicolaitans should have a part in the Election that the Church made of her first Deacons to give us to understand that it was not his intention actually to hinder the Ministry from ever falling into very bad hands 6. We must note in the sixth place That although the Church and the Ordinary Ministry which we speak of are two things naturally joyned together yet it is not the Church that depend s upon the Ministry but it is the Ministry on the contrary that depends upon the Church For the Ordinary Pastors were not Established but when the Church was first formed and when care was taken for its Preservation and Propagation so that naturally it preceded Pastors The Church was produc'd at first by the Extraordinary Ministry of the Apostles the first thing which they propounded was not to make Ordinary Pastors but true Beleivers They called men to the Knowledge of Jesus Christ they assembled them together they united them in a Society before they provided for the upholding of that Society in setting up an Ordinary Ministry in the midst of it They first took care for the birth of the New Creature and after they procured it Breasts to nourish it Therefore it is that the Ordinary Ministers were called Pastors in reference to Shepheards who fed and led their Flocks They were called Presbyters or Elders with reference to the Senators among the Jews they were called Bishops that is Overseers or Super-Intendants by an Allusion to the Super-Intendants of Victuals among the Greeks who were called Bishops also But the Shepheards suppose their Flocks the Chosen Senators among the people suppose the people the Super-Intendants or Overseers suppose those over whom they gave a right of Super-Intendance and Inspection The Ordinary Ministers therefore suppose the Church and not the Church the Ministers she is not because they are but they on the contrary because she is she does not own her being to them but they theirs to her This Truth will yet appear more clearly if we set before their eyes what I have already said in the first Chapter of this Fourth Part That the Ordinary Ministry is not absolutely necessary to the being of a Church but that it is only necessary to its well being and to hinder it from falling into Ruine For when the Faithful should have no Pastors they would yet be joyned together in a Society since it is Grace and Faith that unite s them and not the Ministry And as in the Civil Society it is the Nature and not the Magistrate that unites men and that after men are united in a Society the Magistrate is made by reason of Order and by the necessity of the preservation of that Society so that it is the Society that makes the Magistrate and not the Magistrate the Society So here it is the same The Faith and Grace Assemble men into a Religous Society they are those things that make the Church and afterward the Ministry arises by reason of Order and to help the preservation of the Church and so naturally it is the Church that produces the Ordinary Ministry and not the Ordinary Ministry that produces the Church The Church was the Fruit of the Extraordinary Ministry of the Apostles and Evangelists that Ministry produc'd it at first and not only produc'd it but it has always since made use of that means or that source for its subsistence and we may truly say that it yet produces it and that it will produce it unto the end of the World for it is the Faith that makes and alwayes will make the Church and it is the Ministry of the Apostles which makes and will always make the Faith It is their voice that calls Christians together at this day it is their word that Assembles them and their Teaching that unites them It is certain that the Ministry of the Apostles was singular that is to say only tyed to their persons without succession without Communication without Propagation but it ought not to be thought that it was also as Transitory a Ministry as that of other men for it is perpetual in the Church Death has not shut their Mouths as it has the others they speak they instruct they incessantly spread abroad the Faith Piety and Holiness among the Souls of Christians and there is not another Fountain from whence those Vertues can descend but from them If any demand of us what is that perpetual Voice that we ascribe to them We answer That it is the Doctrine of the New Testament where they have set down all the Efficacy of their Ministry and the whole vertue of that Word which gave a Being to the Church There it is that their True Chair and their Apostolick See is there is the Center of the Christian Unity there it is that they incessantly call men and join them into a Society every other Voice besides theirs is false and supposititious it is from theirs alone that the Church proceeds and because to Assemble with those is to Assemble with Jesus Christ we may very well say that not to Assemble with them is to disperse instead of Assembling But as to the Ordinary Ministry of the Pastors we cannot say the same thing it is not their Voice as it is distinct from that of the Apostles that begets the Faith that Assembles Christians into a Society or that produces the Church they are no more but meer dispensers of the Word of the Apostles or if you will External Instruments to make us the better understand their Voice They are not not only the Ordinary Pastors who gave a Being to the Church at first but yet further at this day to speak properly it is not their word that produces the Faith in those who had it not before for that which confirms it in those who have it and that which produces it in those who have it not is the word of the Apostles themselves to whom we must go for conduct if we would have good success They are then to speak properly no
more than those External Guides that God has Established in the Church to lead men to the Scripture and even such Guides as cannot hinder us from going thither of our selves if we will and it is the Scripture the voice of the Apostles or to say better the voice of Jesus Christ that speaks by the Apostles that does all There is therefore a great difference between those two sorts of Ministers the one preceded the Church the other follows it the one is immediately Communicated by God and the other is Communicated by means of men the one has an Independent and Soveraign Authority and Infallibility on its side and the other is exposed to Vices Disorders Errours and humane weaknesses Inferior and depending on the Church the one is every way Divine and the other is partly Divine and partly Humane 7. From that sixth Observation there arises another not less important and that which I have already touched upon in divers places of this Treatise that is That the Ordinary Ministry is a Right that belongs to the True Church and of which it can never be spoiled The Reason of this Truth is taken from the very Nature of the Church For the Church being a Society that God has call'd together by the Ministry of his Apostles and which he yet every day calls together and upholds by the word of his Scriptures and the use of his Sacraments we must necessarily say that in forming it he has given it in that very thing that he has formed it a sufficient full and entire Right to make use of all the means that may help its preservation and upholding amongst which that of the Ministry is without doubt most considerable That same Providence that gives men a Natural Life and appoints them to preserve their life by that Food it furnishes them with gives them by that very thing a right to employ persons to gather that food together and to prepare it to the end they may make use of it according to what it is designed for and it would be a great Extravagance to demand of a man what Right he has to prepare himself to eat and drink for he could have nothing more to say but that the Nature that gave him life gave him at the same time all the Right that was necessary to provide for the upholding of that life And to make use of another Example The same Nature or to say better the same Providence that Assembles men together in a Civil Society and ordains them in their so uniting together to uphold that Society by a rational Order does it not give them at the very same time and by the same Right that Assembles them a Right to have Magistrates to Govern them by and to make the Laws of that Society to be Executed to have Judges to decide their differences to have Remedies for the Healing of Diseases and Tradesmen for the publick good And would it not be an absurdity to demand of a people what Right they had to have Magistrates Judges Physicians Tradesmen Teachers of Commerce Lawyers since they could not have a fuller and juster Right than that which is founded upon the reason of Order and the Society it self We need but to apply these Examples to the Subject we are upon The Church is a Body to which God has given a Spiritual Life and he has ordained it to be preserved and upheld in the use of Mystical Aliments of which he himself has made a publick Magazine in his Holy Scriptures it is therefore evident that he has given it by that very thing a Right to have Ministers or Pastors who should prepare those Sacred Aliments and season them for its Spiritual Nourishment The Church is a Religious Society composed of divers persons that God himself has Assembled to live together not in Confusion but in Order he would have that Society subsist he has appointed it to uphold and preserve it self he himself has suggested the means he has then without doubt by that very thing given a Right to have Guides to Govern her Pastors to lead them forth into the Heavenly Pastures of the Scriptures Ministers to dispense the Divine Sacraments that he has instituted for her Watch-men and Guides to be careful of her and to go before her In a word he who has given Faith Piety and Christian Holiness to the Church has at the same time indispensably obliged them to these four Duties one is to persevere in the Exercise of those Vertues unto the end The other is to defend themselves against the Assaults and wiles of the Enemy of their Salvation the third is to increase and strengthen themselves more and more and lastly to propagate them as much as in them lyes from us down to our Children and even amongst Strangers that is to say among those who are not as yet in that Relation It follows therefore necessarily that that has given the Church a sufficient full and entire Right for the Ministry since the Ministry is but a fit and lawful means for all that It could not have a Right more lawful than that which is founded upon those indispensable Duties for in that case it is not only a Right that makes the thing just but it is an obligation that imposes a necessity of it as in the State the Right that every one has to learn the Will of the Prince is indisputable because it is built upon the obligation that lies upon every one to conform himself to it It is clear then that there could not have been a Right to have Ministers more lawful than that of a Faithful People a True Church since it is founded upon those four Duties which I have noted that are indispensable and that give not only a Right but an Obligation to have a Ministry But we ought here to take notice of the Fallacy that their Missionaries are wont to make and that the Authour of the Prejudices who has Adopted their Method would have us make with them For see after what manner they argue Where there is no lawful Ministry there is no True Church But among the Protestants there is no True Church I set aside the Question Whether we have or whether we have not a lawful Ministry in the same sence that he intends I will only at present consider his way of Reasoning that makes the True Church depend upon a lawful Ministry Admitting that to be a True Church where the Ministry is and denying that to be a True Church where the Ministry is not I say that this is a vain deceitful and illusory way of Reasoning to which I oppose this other Argument Where there is the True Church there is a Right to a Lawful Ministry But the True Church is among the Protestants Therefore the Right to a Lawful Ministry is among the Protestants Of those two ways of arguing it is certain that this latter is the justest and almost only just right and natural For the True Church
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
House not only Vessels of Gold and Silver but Vessels also of Wood and Earth the one to Honour and the others to Dishonour They must wilfully shut their Eyes that will not acknowledge by these Passages that it is only to the Church of the Faithful and not to the Body of the Prelates that that Father refers all the Efficacy and Force of the Actions of the Ministry and all the Power of the Keys But further if you will he explains himself yet more expresly in the same Book out of which I have taken these last Words Hitherto says he I have methinks clearly enough demonstrated by the Holy Scriptures and by the Testimony of Saint Cyprian that the Wicked who have undergone no change in their Natural Estate may both give and receive Baptism Notwithstanding it is manifest that those men do not belong to the Church of God since they are Covetous Extortioners Vsurers Envious Malicious and Enslaved by such like Vices for the Church is the only Dove that is modest and Chast the Spouse without Spot and Wrinkle the Inclosed Garden the Sealed Fountain the Paradice full of Fruits and such other Titles that are given it can be understood of none but the Good the Saints and the Righteous that is to say those in whom not only the Operations of the Gifts of God are found that are common to the good and bad but who have also the inward and Supernatural Grace of the Holy Spirit It is to those that it is said Whosoevers Sins you shall remit they shall be remitted and whosoever Sins you retain they shall be retained I do not then see why we may not say that a wicked man may Administer Baptism since he may have it and as he has it to his ruine he may give it to others also to their ruine not because that that which he gives may be a Pernicious thing but because that he himself who receives it is a wicked man For when a wicked man gives Baptism to a good man who dwelling in the bond of Vnity is truly Converted the wickedness of him who gives it is overcome by the goodness of the Sacrament and the Faith of him who receives it and when his Sins are pardoned who is truly Converted to God they are pardoned to him by those with whom he is joyned by a true Conversion For the same Holy Spirit which was given to the Saints with whom he is united by the bond of Love is he who pardons them whether he knows that Body or whether he knows it not And so when the Sins of any are retained they are retained by those from whom they are separated by the Difference of their Lives and the Malice of their Hearts whether they know that Body or whether they do not It could not methinks be said either with greater strength or Clearness that all the Efficacy of the Actions of the Ministry that the Pastors Exercise depends not on the Body of the Pastors but on the Body of the truly Faithful and that in Effect they are those who pardon and retain Sins when the Ministers pardon or retain them From whence it necessarily follows That if the same Actions of the Ministry belong to the Society of the Faithful the Call of the Ministry does so also with a far greater Reason for if the Power of the Keys the right of Remitting and Retaining Sins belongs to the body of the Faithful only it must be every way necessary that the Pastors should hold the exercise of that Power from the body of the Faithful for if they should not hold it from thence they would have no Right to exercise it nor could have it elsewhere And if they should have it elsewhere or that it should belong properly to the body of the Pastors exclusively from the Simple Faithful it would be not only not true but it would be further absurd to say that the body of the Faithful exercised that Power by the Pastors or that they pardoned and retained Sins as Saint Augustine teaches I cannot avoid taking notice here by the by of that Ordinary Error whereinto those of the Church of Rome fall who do not believe that immediate absolute and Independent Authority that the Pope ascribes to himself over the whole Church but who would that the Power of the Keys is given to the whole Body of the Hierarchy that is to say to those Pastors who are Priests and Bishops For to prove their Opinion they do not fail to set the Sentiment of St. Augustine before us which plainly as we have seen shews us that the Keys were given to the whole Church from whence they draw two Conclusions The one against that great Authority that the Pope pretends to and the other for the Authority of the Bishops which they would have to flow immediately from Jesus Christ But of these two Conclusions it is certain that the First is just and wholly conforming with the thoughts of that Father but it is not less certain that the second is not and that at least without going about to deceive our selves willingly or to cheat the World we could not say that That Church figured by St. Peter to which God gave the Power of the Keys which is exercised by the Ministry of the Pastors should be any other according to Saint Augustine then the Body of the Truly Faithful and Righteous in opposition to the Worldly and the wicked who are mixed with them in the same External Profession and this is in my Judgment so clear and evident in the Doctrine of that Father that they must needs be ignorant of it who deny it It is therefore a manifest Illusion to go about to make use of those Passages in favour of the Bishops for that Church is not the Body of the Hierarchy but that of the Truly Faithful whether they be Laymen or Pastors and it is to those only that Saint Augustine ascribes all the Rights and all the Actions of the Ministry as it may appear by what I have related and by consequence it is to those that the lawful Call of the Pastors belongs and not to the Body or Order of the Hierarchy For it would be absurd to derive that Call from any thing else then from that very Church which has received the Power of the Keys and which is exercised in her Name and her Authority by her Ministers Tosta us Bishop of Abyla seems to have acknowledged this Truth conformably to the Principles of Saint Augustine for see after what manner he explains himself in his Commentaries upon Numbers upon the story of the man who was brought before the whole Assembly of Israel because some had found him gathering of Sticks upon the Sabbath Day and put him in Prison for it First of all he says That although the Acts of Jurisdiction cannot be exercised by the whole Community yet that Jurisdiction belongs to the whole Community in regard of its Origine and Efficacy because
to practise it self a Worship contrary to the true service of God or to celebrate the Sacraments that Jesus Christ has not instituted It belongs therefore to the Author of the Prejudices to tell us how he pretends to avoid that Discussion for it is certain that the first Question that must be decided to make the Validity of a Call clear is that of the Justice of the Ministry in it self that is to say in regard of those things that are taught and practised in it when that Justice is in dispute as it is between the Church of Rome and us after which when that point is once decided we must pass over to two other Questions the one whether the body that is to say the Society wherein one is has it self the Right to have Ministers and the other whether the Persons who exercise the Ministry therein are well and duly called as I have shewn in my third Observation That first Point then being supposed to wit that the things that are taught and practised among the Protestants are good and Christian I say that they cannot dispute with them the Right of their Ministry but by accusing them of a Schism like that of the Luciferians or the Donatists But we have so clearly shewn that if we have Reason at the bottom our Separation from the Church of Rome is just and that she her self is guilty of chism that there is no further ground for that unjust Accusation They cannot therefore any further contest our Ministry with us and in effect if we are true Believers and if we are justly Separated from the Church of Rome it is Evident that we are Lawfully United among our selves in a Religious Society as I have shewn in the first Chapter of the Fourth Part. And if we are Lawfully United in a Religious Society it is not less Evident that all the Rights of the Christian Society belong to us and that in all those Rights that of the Ministry is Comprised as it appears from my Sixth and Seventh Observation So that our Right to a Ministry is indisputable supposing that we have Reason in the Foundation and all that which they propound against us will remain null and Fallacious If we have Reason at the bottom we are the true Church of Jesus Christ but the true Church of Jesus Christ can never lose its Rights she is never deprived of them and she cannot so much as deprive her of them none can ravish them from her they are Rights that cannot be Alienated they can neither be lost by the Inundations or Concussions of the World with and by Interruption of Possession or Invasion of Enemies as the Inheritances of the World are and in one word there where the true Faith and Charity is there is the true Church and where there is a true Church there is the Right to a Ministry But say they Is the Ministry which you have that Antient and perpetual Ministry that Jesus Christ has established in his Church or is it a new one For if it be a new one it is a false and Unlawful Ministry and if it be the Antient and perpetual Ministry of the Church whence comes it to pass that we do not see among you any of the degrees of that Hierarchy which was established in the Church before your Reformation I answer that our Ministry is that Antient and perpetual one that Jesus Christ and his Apostles have set up in the Church and if it were a new one we must needs have set up a new Gospel which is a thing so remote from the Truth that our most passionate Adversaries except the Author of the Prejudices would never in my Judgment have us charged with it But I say that we must distinguish of the Essence of a Ministry from its State as I have shewn in my Fourth Observation Before the Reformation we grant that the Ministry was preserved in the Latin Church in regard of all that which was Essential to it and it is in that that our Church has Succeeded it so that in that Respect they are not two Ministries but only one and the same which we have retained We preach the same Truth that they teach yet we Adore one and the same God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost There is among us a Baptism an Eucharist a Government a Discipline as there was then but we have not succeeded it in that bad and Corrupted State whereinto the Ministry was then fallen we have no more either any Sacrificers of the Body of Jesus Christ or a Soveraign Monarch of the Church or Patriarchs or Cardinals or Preachers of Indulgences or Framers of Legends all that was not any thing of the Essence of the Ministry and in having retrenched those kinds of things we have it no more abolish'd then a Town is abolished when its excesses are retrenched or then a House is abolished when it is cleansed and its ruines repaired As to a Personal Call I say that we have that Body of the Church which only upon Earth has a Lawful Right to confer it on us That which our Reformers had they had from the Church in their days which did not consist in that Multitude of Prophane Worldly and Superstitious Persons which swell'd their Assemblies then but in those truly Faithful Persons who as yet preserved themselves pure in the midst of that Corruption in that good Corn which as yet grew amidst the Tares although it was almost Swallowed up by them It was in those that the Right of the Ministry properly and truly resided it was those who made as yet that Society any wayes Lawful and it was from those that the Justice of a Call proceeded I confess that they Communicated it then in a very corrupted State and after a very impure manner but God gave our first Reformers the Grace to purify theirs by the sound Doctrine and to rectify it by a Holy and Lawful Use It is therefore with and by those that the Body of that Society which is Reformed has conferred that Call upon others and that the Propagation of the Ministry has come down even to us after the most Evangelical manner in the World on one side with Instruction Examination Proof Inquiry and Testimony of good manners as exact as could possibly be made and on the other with publick Prayers Exhortation Benediction laying on of hands Mission and a particular Tye to a Flock Behold here what our Call is in Regard of the Body of the Protestants I do not deny that in some places of this Kingdom at the beginning of the Reformation there was not some Calls which were conferred by the People without a Pastor as that of La Riviere was at Paris in the year 1555. Which the Author of the Prejudices has not been wanting to reproach us with But besides that these are particular Cases of a very small number which hath not followed nor produced any setled Custom and by Consequence cannot be imputed to the
we see the Conditions that are necessary to a Lawful Call as Examination Information of manners and the like so ill observed in the Church of Rome that Christian Prudence will not suffer us to Trust to her and her Elections which for the most part would be Null if they were Examin'd according to their own Canons Calvin has wrote that God set up Apostles in his time or at least Evangelists to draw men from the Party of Antichrist I answer that Calvin only called the Reformers Apostles and Evangelists by some kind of resemblance which they had with the first Evangelists in some respect not that they brought a new Revelation with them into the World as the Apostles and Evangelists did but because God made use of them to make the light of his Gospel which was much darkened strike upon the eyes of Men with splendor and they honour those to this day with the Title of Apostles who now employ themselves in making Christianity known to the Nations that are Strangers to it although they are not immediately sent from God and though they have not any new Revelation He alleadges in the end the Dispute that was between a Protetestant named Adrian Saravias and Beza where Beza seems to admit of only an Extraordinary Call in the Reformers I answer That as well Saravias as Beza are particular Authors who may have had both the one and the other thoughts a little excessive about this matter and it may be may have even disputed the one against the other without well understanding one another This is that which falls out every day between persons otherwise very learned Beza rejected the Ordinations of the Church of Rome not that he thought the Ministry was absolutely extinct there nor that they had not there any Right to a Call but because the Calls of persons there were made after a very confused and corrupted manner without Examination either of Doctrine or manners by reason of which they were most frequently given to unworthy persons and that instead of ordaining them to Preach the Gospel they ordain them only to Sacrifice That concludes that the Ordinary Call which the first Reformers received was not purer than that of others if God had not given them the Grace to rectify it as they did by a just and lawful use of it but that does not conclude that such as it was it did not put them into a Right and Obligation to cleanse it from that ill which it had by that good which remained in it The Author of the Prejudices opposes further an Article of a National Synod held at Gap Anno 1603. which he sets down in these words Vpon the 31 Article of the Confession of Faith it having been put to the question whether when they came to Treat of the Call of our Pastors they should found the Authority which they had to Reform the Church and to Teach upon the Call which they had received from the Roman Church The Assembly determined that they ought meerly to referr it to the Article of the Extraordinary Call by which God extraordinarily and inwardly stirr'd them up to their Ministry and not in the least to any thing that remained of that Ordinary Corrupted Call But since he would give himself the trouble to look into our National Synods he ought not to stop there he ought to go on even to that of Rochel which was held immediately after that of Gap in the year 1607 and there he would have found that that Article having been set down differently in several Copies and having been altered by the negligence of the Copiers it was re-established in that Synod which was drawn into an Act in these words In the 31 Article of the Confession of Faith of the Synod of Gap wherein mention is made of the first Pastors of the Reformed Churches these words and to Teach which are found in some Copies should be raised out and in the place of meerly there should be put chiefly and that last Clause And not in the least to any thing that remained of that Ordinary Corrupted Call should be also mended Rather than to that little which remained of their Ordinary Call To have made use of that Article seriously he ought to have done it not in the State wherein the ignorance of the Copiers had put it but in that wherein a whole Synod had re-established it At the bottom it will appear that they there treated only about a Call for the Reformation and not for the exercise of the Ordinary Ministry and the Synod does not but in some respects only deny that that Call for a Reformation was not founded upon that that the first Reformers had received from the Church of Rome howsoever corrupted it was but it would that it should be chiefly referred to a particular Providence of God which by Extraordinary Gifts and Talents had raised men up for so great a work In effect although we should acknowledge that in the Church the rejecting or Reformation of Errours should be the common Right of all Christians and that that Right would yet more especially belong to the Ordinary Pastors then to others by the Obligation of their Charge joyned to that of their Baptism yet we do not fail to acknowledge also that there was something extraordinary in the persons of the Reformers to wit the Gifts or the admirable Talents which made them fit for that work and capable of reducing their Right into Act without which their Right would have been to no purpose as it did remain in divers others unprofitable who had not the same Gifts But that very thing might gain them the greatest Authority and this is that which the Synod would say and which we say also with it For we distinguish three things in the Reformers from whence there results as full and intire a Call to Reform the Church as they can desire the one is The general and common Right that all Christians have to Combat Errours since they are all called to defend the Truth the other is a more peculiar Right which they had for the same thing in quality of Pastors for how impure soever their Call was it would alwayes bind them to have a Care of their Flocks and to procure Gods Glory and the third is the Extraordinary Graces and Light that God had communicated to them and rendred them thereby fit for that work But it is this last that reduc'd the two others into Act and therefore they look'd on it there principally when they treated of the Reformation because if they had never met with this the two others would have been useless Rights and ineffectual Obligations After that it is easy to comprehend how the Author of the Prejudices was mistaken when under a pretence of that Extraordinary Call that we Attribute to the first Reformers in respect of their Gifts or Talents he imagines that he can lay it to our charge that we believe that the
to our Children as well as to us it ought to be given not only to us but to our Children So that without going any further I have in that respect all the Certainty that I can reasonably desire As to the second I say that the Word Baptise equally signifying in the Original Tongue to plunge and to wash and being used divers times in this latter sence as it may appear in the Translation of Mons in the seventh of Saint Mark and eleventh of Saint Luke and there being moreover nothing in the Scripture that precisely enjoins Immersion or forbids Aspersion it is my part to believe that in the Thoughts of Jesus Christ those two wayes of Baptizing are indifferent and that so much the more as I know the Spirit of the Gospel is not so nice and punctual about forms or the manners of External Actions which is proper to Superstition So that I have further for that all the Assurance that I ought to have For the third being certain as I am by the Promises of Jesus Christ that God has alwayes Preserved a True Church in the World that is to say the Truly Faithful howsoever mixt they may have been with the Worldly I am assured also that the Baptism which was Administred not only before the Reformation but since in the Latin Church and in other Christian-Societies where the Essence of Baptism remains is good because that being made in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost it is the Baptism of the True Church although it be administred by Persons filled with Errors and Superstitions Baptism is not theirs they are only the Ministers of it That Sacrament belongs to God and his Truly Faithful ones in what Quarter of the World soever they be That same Scripture that sayes That the Promise is made to us and to our Children and to all that are a far of even as many as the Lord shall call says by a necessary Consequence that the Seal of that Promise which is Baptism and all the other Rights of the Covenant of Jesus Christ belongs to us and to our Children that is to say to the Truly Faithful The Hereticks who Administer it do not do it as a good that belongs to them under that Quality for in that respect nothing belongs to them but as a good that belongs to the True Church the Dispensation whereof they have by the part which they have yet with her For they Baptise not by that which divides them from the truly Faithful but by that which after some manner Associates and unites them with them It is therefore the Baptism of the True Church which they give and not that of Heresy it is the Church that Baptises by them and in that respect they are yet as I have said the Dispensers of its goods If the Author of the Prejudices desires yet further to see a greater Number ot proofs drawn from the same Scripture that should Establish this Truth he needs but to read what Saint Augustine has wrote in his Treatise against the Epistle of Parmenio and that of Baptism against the Donatists and he will learn there not to make any more Questions of that Nature I know not for the rest whether he as well as the others of his Communion who shall take the pains to read this work will be satisfied But I dare say at least that I have done all that was possible for me to do to set before them without Offence the Truths that are most Important for them to know It belongs to them to make a serious Reflection upon that which I have represented to them and upon the present State of Christianity which the prophaneness Impiety and Debauchery of mens Minds do every day reduce into an Evident danger of ruine if we do not bring a Remedy both on the one and the other side Nevertheless instead of having in view that grand Interest upon which the Glory of God wholly depends and the Salvation of men they apply themselves only to destroy us and their Passion prevails to that height that they do not take heed of making irreparable Breaches in Religion as that is of bringing the Use and Authority of the Holy Scripture to nothing provided they can but do us any Mischief But although they should do whatsoever they pleas'd God would alwayes be a Witness on our Side that in the Foundation of the Cause that upon which we have Separated from them is the Love which we have for the Truth and the Desire that we have to Work out our own Salvation And to let them see that it is not a false Prejudice that Corrupts us let them go through all the Christian Communions that are in the world Let them Judg in cold blood and I am assured that they will come to a serious Agreement that ours is the purest Church nd the most approaching to the Primitive one Our Opinions are the Fundamental Opinions of Religion which are great Solid and Convincing our Worship has nothing that is not Evangelical for it consists in Prayers to God in Thanksgivings in Singing of Psalms in Celebration of Fasts in Humiliation in Acts of Repentance in tears and groans when we are prest with the thoughts of our Sins and the Wrath of God our Morals consist more in Exhortations in Censures in Corrections in Threatnings on Gods side in Representations of the Motives that bind us to do good Works then in unprofitable decisions of Cases of Conscience Our Government is plain remote from the Formalities of the Bar founded as much as can be upon good Reason Justice and Charity but very opposite to the Maximes of Humane Policy and especially to Ambition Covetousness and Vanity which we believe to be the Mortal Enemies of Religion Every one in the World knows that and yet notwithstanding the Author of the Prejudices and all those who with him take false lights have not fail'd to cry out against us not only after a very uncharitable but an unchristian manner As for us we shall alwayes pray to God for those who will not Love us we shall bless them that Curse us but we shall also with Gamaliel give them this Advice Take heed that in Tormenting us you do not fight against God instead of fighting with him Let us pray on both sides that he would give us his Blessing and his Peace and that he would make us to do his Will FINIS A TABLE OF THE CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS The First Part. Wherein it is shewn that our Ancestors were obliged to Examine by themselves the State of Religion and of the Church in their Days CHap. I. General Considerations upon this Controversy The Division of this Treatise Page 1. Chap. II. That the State of the Government of the Latin Church some Ages ago gave to our Fathers Prejudices of its Corruption in Doctrine and Worship sufficient to drive them more nearly to Examine their Religion Page 8. Chap. III. That
learned The one extends its use unto all that is Necessary for Instruction and the Conduct of life and the other in heaping up of general difficulties makes it unprofitable to Instruct us in the least Truths What Judgment can we make of this diversity unless this that the language of these Gentlemen changes according to the difference of Times and Interests as one has said of them elsewhere When the case is about gaining credit to their Translation of the New Testament they speak as advantagiously of the Scripture as it is possible for them to speak and when the business is to oppose a Reformation made according to the Rule of the Scripture but which notwithstanding has not the happiness of their Agreement you see what they say of that same Scripture The Scripture shall then to speak properly be only to be commended by the Intrest of their Translation and as long as that Interest shall remain shall be the Collection of the divine Teachings of our Lord The Testament that assures us of the Inheritance of our Father The mouth of Jesus Christ who although he is in Heaven speaks continually upon earth not only the nourishment of sound Souls and those who are establish'd in grace as the Body of the Son of God but even the Consolation of Sinners the light of the blind the remedy of the Sick and the life of the dead For these are the Titles that the Preface gives it but whenever that Interest shall cease those praises shall do so too and it shall be nothing but a Ridiculous way and impossible for the Instructing of men in the Truth I would therefore very fain know of these Gentlemen whether it were only upon the sight of their Translation that S. Cyprian S. Augustine and S. Gregory wrote that which the Preface relates or whether those Fathers did not consider the Scripture in it self For if it be the first they forgot to tell us that they only spake out of a Prophetick Spirit of that Translation and if it be the Second why have they entertained us with that admirable proportion of the Scripture to great and small to the strong and weak and that easy and intelligible manner wherewith it propounds to us all that is necessary for the Conduct of our life since that without the Translation of Mons it is an Infinite way which has no end a ridiculous way and Impossible to Instruct men in the Truth What can the Author of the Prejudices say to defend himself from this Manifest Contradiction which he discovers between him and his Colleague Will he say that the Scripture is in truth a good means for the Instruction of men but that it is so only with the Interpretations of the Fathers But the Author of that Preface speaks for Scripture alone separated from the Interpretation of the Fathers such as its Translation is for he excuses himself in that he had not made a collection of notes and explanations drawn out of the writings of the holy Fathers and he does not fail to say that in his Translation as plain as it is not only the Souls of the more learned but of the more simple also and unlearned may find that which will be necessary for their Instruction Will he say that he does not mean to exclude the learned from the use of the Scripture but only the more simple for the Instruction of which former he does not deny but that it would be a most proper means But besides that his Brother speaks formally of the Instruction of the more simple why has the Author of the Prejudices made it a ridiculous and Impossible way an infinite way which has no Issue a way which is of so excessive a length that one can never rationally hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence one should make Will he say that the Scripture ought to be joined with Tradition and that without Tradition it cannot give a perfect Instruction But the Preface says expresly that they will find in that Translation all that will be necessary for Instruction Will he say that in order to the Scriptures Instructing one the Sence of the Church ought to be added to it But the Preface says that according to Saint Augustine the Scripture lays down all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives after a most easy and Intelligible manner and that she explains and makes clear her self Will he say that in order to the Scriptures being capable to Instruct us we ought at least to read it with Dependance upon the Church and to take it from her hand But wherefore then would these Gentlemen have the People to read their Translation since they are only private Doctors and not the Church Wherefore when the Prelats rais'd to the highest dignities have forbid the reading of it by their Ordinances have we seen Printed writings maintain on the contrary there was in those Ordinances a Threatning of the Will and Commandment of God who would that we should hear his Son and not that we should suppress his Gospel a Contradiction to the Holy Scripture which was set down in writing for no other end but to be heard and practis'd by all Nations of the world a Contradiction of all the Councils which have always taken the Scripture for the Judge of the belief of the Church and of all the Difficulties and Questions that can arise in the Doctrine of Faith or Manners a Contradiction of all the Holy Fathers who advis'd the Faithful above all things continually to read the word of God Why has one Introduc'd two Lay-men Parishoners Saint Hilary Montanus saying one to another The Bishops cannot take away from us the Gospel that Jesus Christ has given us that God spoke to all his People when he said To day if you will hear my voice harden not your Hearts a Bishop cannot take away our Eyes from us to hinder us from seeing and considering our way we should not see Jesus Christ our Saviour our Pastor and our great Bishop who goes before us in his Gospel That if a Bishop would turn us away from if an Apostle if an Angel from Heaven would stop up this way and would go about to lead and guide us in another we ought not to believe him Why has he made us see those Parishoners holding That there is nothing more contrary to the Gospel then a prohibition to read and have it that bread and nourishment is not more necessary to preserve the life of the Body then the word of God is to maintain Life in our Souls That all Christians have a natural right that cannot be taken from them of Instructing themselves by the word of God and labouring to understand it and that the Holy Scriptures were given to the whole Church and not only to the Bishops who have no right to deprive the Faithful of them That this is say they what the Divel would preach up if he were
visible and Transfigured into an Angel of light and in the shape of a Preacher in the Chair of Truth and what else would he perswade the Faithful too but that the Faithful ought to take very great heed not to read the Holy Scripture and not to meditate day and night upon the words of life that the Spirit of God has dictated to the Prophets and which God the Father has given to his Son for the Instruction of his Church and to draw it from the Corruption of the world to render it Holy and without Spot to his Father who gave it to him Jesus Christ was the Word uf God and liv'd by that Word and to make his Church live he gave it his word in an Intelligible Tongue out of his own mouth and by his Disciples Search says he and examine carefully the Scriptures for they are they which Testify of me Thus it is that they speak of it sometimes Jesus Christ gave his Scripture to the Faithful with a Commandment to read it to examine it carefully and to hear it It was the Judge of the beleif of the Church and the Difficulties and Questions that arose in the Doctrine of the Faith and Manners The Parishioners made use of them against their Bishops They encountred even their Ordinances by passages out of that Scripture they maintain'd that the use of them belonged to all Christians by a natural right and that to go about to deprive them of them was to do an action of the Devil But now a days they speak no more after that manner for they tell us on the contrary that it is a Ridiculous and Impossible way to Instruct men in the Truth an Infinite way which has no Issue and which is of so excessive a length that whatsoever dilligence we should use we can never arrive to the end and they labour to heap difficulties upon difficulties to drive them back and to make a Labyrinth full of Circles and confus'd ways that so out of a fear of those Confusions the world should take heed of entring into it For my own part I freely acknowledg That I can comprehend nothing in all that For if before one can assure ones self of one only Passage of Scripture whatsoever it be we must needs go through a thousand tedious ways and overcome a thousand Obstacles that arise from the Question about the Canonical Books about the Conformity of the Translations with the Originals about the different manner of reading the Passages and about the difference of Interpretations as the Author of the Prejudices would have it according to his ordinary Exaggeration to what purpose is it to give the publick a Translation which after the manner that it was given and receiv'd in cannot but be subject to the greatest part of those difficulties and yet notwithstanding they put it into all mens hands as well the Ignorant as the Learned as well of the simple as the more Inlightned as well to women as to men The Church of Rome has not declared it Authentick Two Bishops and a Doctor have approved it but two Arch-bishops and a Cardinal have forbidden it and yet one has not failed notwithstanding those Prohibitions to maintain that all the world ought to read them and that that forbidding them is a Violence a Novelty an unexampled Enterprise a bold Attempt upon the Liberty that God has given to the Church ransomed at the price of the Blood of his own Son that it is an usurpation and the Introducing of a Tyrannical Authority that was never excercised in the Church until this day and that every one is bound not only not to obey that Ordinance but even to have an Horror for it and to resist it as much as he can What will then become of those Difficulties and those unconquerable Confufions which hinder them according to the Author of the Prejudices so that they cannot assure themselves of one only Passage of the Scripture through the uncertaitty wherein a man is of the unfaithfulness of the Translations through the Ignorance wherein we are of the different manner of reading those Passages and through the necessity of consulting Interpreters Is it because they would expresly engage the People in an Infinite way and which can come to no Issue and in a ridiculous way and which is Impossible for the Instructing of any in the Truth or is it rather because they did not propound to themselves in that Translation to Instruct men in the Truths of the Faith but only to satisfy their Curiosity and to make them read good French The Author of the Prejudices may acknowledge therefore if he pleases that the heat of Disputation has carried him beyond the bounds of Right and Reason and the respect which he ought to have for the word of God and that in endeavouring to have troubled us he has done it for himself and his Freinds for if that which he has propounded were true they would give us a ground to accuse those who have publish'd the Translation of Mons of Rashness and Imprudence And it will be nothing to the purpose to say that they Publish'd it for those persons who were already Instructed in the Truths which the Church believes that therein they might receive a Confirmation and increase of the Faith by the Conformity which they should find the Doctrines of the Church have with it and that it was necessary for that that they should go through all the difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices has worked since the Sole Conformity of it with the Doctrines of the Church would be sufficient to assure them that it was truly the word of God I say that answer will not satisfy For besides that it is an Injury to the word of God to make the Efficacy that it has in our Souls to depend upon the Conformity which it has with the Doctrine of the Church whereas on the contrary the Efficacy of the Doctrine of the Church ought to depend on its Conformity with the word of God besides that the Author of the Preface says expresly That the Souls of the simpler sort may find that in his Translation which is necessary for their Instruction He says not those who shall be already Instructed in that which the Church teaches but he says the Simpler sort he does not say that they would be Confirmed in the Instruction which they had already but that they would find that which should be necessary for their Instruction And elsewhere he says That the word of God that is to say in his Translation for it is about the Subject of that Translation that he speaks is the Light of the Blind and the Life of the Dead Which signifies that it gives by it self the first Impressions of the Spiritual Life So that it was not in the view of the knowledge that the simple might have of the Doctrine of the Roman Church that he publish'd that Translation if we believe the
Parishioners of Saint Hilary Montanus But on the contrary in the view of that Ignorance under which they were held For see how they speak Our Lord said I have Compassion on the Multitude for they have nothing to eat and you see the Complaint that the Prophet made The Children ask for Bread and there is none to give unto them It were a small matter if they would content themselves with the not giving them the Bread of the Gospel They will not suffer them to take it and if they take it They snatch it out of their Hands They do not Instruct them and they would hinder them so that they should not Instruct thenselves out of the word of God and that that Prophecy should not be accomplish'd Erunt omnes docibiles Deo and they shall be taught of God I thought my self bound to make these first Reflections to shew the injustice and inequality of these men that we have to do with Nihil est says Cicero quod minus ferendum sit quam rationem vitae ab altero reposcere eum quinon posset suae reddere Notwithstanding after having a little cooled that impetuous motion of the Author of the Prejudices I shall not fail to Justify our Fathers touching the Principle upon which they made their Reformation I say then in the first place That they could not in that State wherein things were take the Church in their days for the Rule of their Faith without renouncing Common sence The Church in their days or to speak better that which they would call the Church was made up of Three sorts of persons The Court of Rome the Prelats and the other Clergy and the People The Court of Rome was the source of all evil it was that that had spread abroad all the Errors and Superstitions in the Latin Church or that had at least fomented and maintained them when they took their rise elsewhere Her Usurpations and the disorder of her Government was one of the complaints of our Fathers They complained of her Principles her Maxims and some decisions of the Faith which she had caused to pass in Councils that were servilely subjected to her will and her interests She was therefore a resolute party in this affair evidently interested and by consequence uncapable of Judging It is True that she called her self the Mother and the Mistress of all Churches and that one of her pretensions was Infallibility in the Faith But that very thing was one of the Errors of which our Fathers required a correction whatever probability she had of ascribing it to her self Adrian the sixth acknowledged a great part of the disorders of that Court in his instructions to his Nuntio whom he sent to the Diet of Nuremberg as we have already seen and the General voice of the whole Church which demanded a long time ago a Reformation in capite membris make it known enough to leave us out of all doubt Moreover the Court of Rome did so loudly and vehemently declare her self against a Reformation that it could not be any further hoped for and why should our Fathers have taken her for the Rule of Faith since not only the Gallican Church who lived in Communion with her maintained that she was not but even the Experience of many years had very evidently shewed that she could not be Does not Tertullian turned Montanist Testify That Eleutherius Bishop of Rome had received the Prophecies of Montanus of Priscilla and Maximilla and that he had already wrote Letters of Communion to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia which were Montanists and that those Letters should have their effect although Praxeas had not made them to be recalled in relating false things concerning those Churches and their Prophets And has not the sixth General Council condemned Pope Honorius as a Monothelite Heretick with Sergius Patriaerch of Constantinople and some others I know that some have said that that Council was deceived in the business of Honorius but without entring upon that Question in which it is certain that they deceive themselves as not long since P. Louis Thomassin Priest of the Oratory in his Dissertation about that sixth Council has acknowledged It is enough that that Council condemned Honorius for an Heretick and that it proscribed his name and his Memory For that Condemnation after what manner soever it hapned is an Authentick Declaration that a General Council has held that Popes may Err and by eonsequence that they are not the Rule of Faith And it is nothing to the purpose to say as P. Thomassin has done that Henorius Erred only in the quality of a private man and not as Pope or to speak more properly That he did not Err but only that he had a mind to make use of a Dispensation for the procuring the peace of the Church which was divided about the Question whether there were two wills and two operations in Jesus Christ or whether there was but one and that he desired that they would be silent about that point Which side soever they chuse it will always follow from that Example of Honorius that the Bishops of Rome are not the Rule of Faith For to make a Rule of Faith it is not enough to be exempt from Error either in quality of Popes or even in the quality of private men it is further necessary that they should be always in a state of not fomenting or entertaining Heresy but of opposing it on the contrary of condemning it when it has made any progress and of maintaining the True Faith But this is that which they cannot say of Honorius in respect of the Heresy of the Monothelites That Heresy had over-ran all the East the Patriarchates of the East were infected with it the Emperour Heraclius had established it by a publick Edict a Council it self held at Constantinople had confirmed it whether therefore they say that Honorius embraced Heresy in quality of a private man or whether they say that by a false Dispensation he would only have imposed silence on the Orthodox which way soever they take it is manifest that he was not in a state under the quality of Pope to put a stop to the course of Heresy nor to succour the true Faith For what likelyhood is there that as Pope he should have condemned himself as a private man or that in quality of Pope or as they speak ex cathedra he should have Published the Truth that ought to be held while his own private opinion was that he should hold his peace about it and suppress it It is therefore a Mockery to make a Rule of Faith of such a Pope who through his own private Heresy or his imprudent Dispensation could not hinder Monothelism from Triumphing And it cannot be a less one if they should pretend that the Church of Rome should be the True Rule of Faith while such Popes are her Head since she can do nothing without them and since they might
render it incapable to defend the Truth I pass over in silence a multitude of other things which sensibly shew us the falseness of that pretence of Rome such as are the lapses of Marcellinus and Liberius the Contradictory decisions of divers Popes their inconstancy their capricious humours their interested Judgments and I know not how many other Characters incompatible with a true Rule of Faith It is sufficient to know that that pretence has never been publickly received in France and that our Kings and our Parliaments have always most vehemently opposed it As to the Prelats and the other Ecclesiasticks after the sad Descriptions that we have given of their state in the days of our Fathers and many Ages before them there is no likelyhood that they can yet further with the least shadow of Reason propose them as a Just Rule of Faith which way soever they are considered whether in General or in particular whether separated or assembled together Their Ignorance their negligence in spiritual things their sinking into vices their excessive love of the World and in a word all that which we have have seen in them will not permit us to believe that we should be bound to trust absolutely to their word about the Subject of the Reformation They had given but too many marks that they were subject to Error since the greatest part of those things which were to be reformed came from them or from those who went before them And besides that they were themselves express parties in that affair considering the complaints that they made of them and that they were engaged to uphold the superstitions in which they had held the People we are not Ignorant that they had a servile dependance on the Court of Rome to which they were bound by Oath that they would no stir nor speak nor act but according to her Inspirations and her Orders as experience has Justified it to us in the Council of Trent In fine their Prelats were men and such men as had made the Church to fall into that Lamentable Corruption out of which our Fathers sought to get out and how could they take them for an Infallible Rule As for that which respects the people if the Author of the Prejudices is as is reported the Author of the Treatise of the Perpetuity of the Faith he would it may be fain make them pass with us for Infallible and give them to us to be the Rule of our Faith But we have shewn him often enough already that he is deceived in his opinion What was there more liable to deceive them and more to incline them to abuses and superstitions then the people and above all a people ignorant of the Mysteries of the Gospel such as was for a long time that of the Latin Church How could a people that ought themselves to undo the false prepossessions with which they had been imbued serve for the Rule of a Reformation But some will say if there had been nothing in the Body of the Church capable of being a Rule of Faith why did your Fathers demand a Council to hear their Complaints and give them a remedy I answer that our Fathers demanded a Council not such a one as that of Trent made up of the Creatures of the Pope who waited for the Holy Ghosts coming from Rome in a Cloak-Bag as the Roman Catholicks have reproached them but such a free Council as wherein they might yet have hoped that God would have presided and his word have been heard They demanded it not as the Rule of Faith blindly to submit their Consciences to all that which should be there determined for they well knew that they owed that submission only to God but as a humane Ordinary means in the Church that Christian Charity and the love of Order made them desire to try if they could not by that way re-establish the purity of the Gospel in the West by the way of the Scripture I acknowledge that there had lain a great difficulty in the choice of persons but if yet notwithstanding they would have proceeded sincerely in it and in the fear of God without letting the interests of flesh and blood enter in the difficulties were not unconquerable Passion Contention a Spirit of Division was not as yet generally spread over all they were not as yet so obstinate in Error as they have been since All the Learned men that were then in it acknowledged the necessity of a Reformation and desired it They had therefore a ground to demand a free Council and these who know History are not ignorant that to elude that demand which appeared to all the World to be so Just and Reasonable that the Court of Rome thought it needful to make use of the most deep and imperceptible piece of its Policy But howsoever it be there is a great difference between a Council that should submit it self to and Rule it self by the Word of God and between a Rule of Faith Our Fathers might very well demand the first and expect to obtain it although he state of the Church was then extreamly corrupted for there was yet some good desires which without doubt would have wrought some effect if they had not been stifled or turned aside But it does not follow from thence that they must after what manner soever have taken that Church for the Soveraign and Infallible Rule of their Religion They would not have more reason to say that we ought to turn to the side of Tradition which the Council of Trent has raised to the same Honour and Authority with the Scripture We shall quickly see which ought to have been believed It shall suffice to say here that although the greatest part of the Roman Traditions are new as the Protestants have often demonstrated them to be yet that in the Age of our Fathers which was as it were the sink of the foregoing there was scarce any Error nor any Superstition how gross soever that they did not labour to defend under the pretence of Tradition so that Tradition is so far from being able to serve for a Rule that it ought it self to be corrected and regulated according to that Maxim of Jesus Christ In the beginning it was not so As to the Antient Fathers I confess that their Writings may be of great use to Learned men to furnish them with a great measure of knowledge but they can never have Authority sufficient to serve for a Rule of Faith The Fathers were men subject to Errour to Prejudices and Surprises as well as other men and there appear but too many signs of it in their Writings They have submitted themselves to the Authority of the Scripture They have called it the balance and exact Rule of all things a sure Anchor and Foundation of the Faith They have taken in their Controversies Jesus Christ speaking in his Gospel for their Judge They have Exhorted their Hearers and their Readers to believe them only so far
the Faith and the True Orthodox Church to be regulated by that extension that he made on the contrary this extension a ground of reproach to the Arians taking that for a mark of Heresie which the Author of the Prejudices would have us take for a mark of Orthodoxy Are you ignorant sayes he that the faith as miserable and forsaken as it is is a thousand times more pretious than impiety in splendor and abundance Is it so that you prefer the multitude of the Canaanites before one only Abraham or all the inhabitants of Sodom before one only Lot or all the Midianites to one only Moses Notwithstanding you know that these Saints were but strangers and foreigners among those people I pray tell me whether the three hundred that lapped the water with Gideon were not more to be esteemed than all those thousands who cowardly forsook him whether the servants of Abraham who were few in number were not to be preferr'd to all those Kings who with their innumerable Armies were overcome But I pray yet farther tell me how you understand that which is said when the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea a remnant only shall be saved and this other passage I have reserv'd to my self seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal The matter will not go as you imagine no without doubt for God takes no pleasure in a multitude As for you you reckon your thousands but God reckons those who work out their salvation you heap up a great pile of dust but I assemble the vessels of election There is nothing so great before God as the pure Doctrine and a soul that is filled and adorned with the Tenets of the Truth S. Athanasius or if you will Theodoret is not less express about the subject of a small number in opposition to that extension and multitude than S. Gregory Nazianzen Shall we not sayes he hearken to Jesus Christ who sayes That many are called and few chosen that straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find that gate or this way What man of good understanding will not rather chuse to be among this small number that enters into life than to be joyned to this multitude that goes to perdition If we had lived in the age of S. Stephen should we not have rather chose his party though it should have been forsaken by all else buried under stones and exposed to all manner of reproaches than the party of that multitude which thought that the faith ought to follow the greatest number One man alone who has the Truth on his side is more to be esteemed than ten thousand rash men and this is what the Scriptures of the Old Testament confirm for when millions of men fell under Gods sword one Phineas alone oppos'd himself in the breach and put a stop to the anger of the Lord. If he had not resisted that torrent which bore down all the others if he had approved that which the multitude did he had never himself been commended above all he had never put a stop to the flood of divine vengeance nor had saved that remnant which was after that the object of Gods mercy It was therefore a thing worthy of praise that one man alone should boldly maintain right and justice against the opinion of the multitude Go if you will and be drowned with the multitude that perished in the deluge but give me leave to save my self in the Ark with that small number Be consumed if you please with the inhabitants of Sodom I shall not fail to go out of it with Lot alone Thus these Fathers spoke concerning the state whereto the Orthodox communion might be sometimes reduced and into which it had been in effect reduced which evidently shews us that this visible extension is not a perpetual mark of the True Church and that it is not so very necessary that this arguing should be always just Your society is not spread every where over the world therefore it is not the Church This Vincentius Lirinensis has also acknowledg'd in his Admonition against Heresies for he acknowledges that it may sometimes fall out that Heresie invades the whole Church and he makes a question what he ought to do in that case What ought we to do sayes he when some new contagion endeavours to infect not one part only but the whole Body of the Church in general Quid si novella aliqua contagio non jam portiunculam sed totam pariter Ecclesiam commaculare conetur What visible extension could the Orthodox communion have throughout all Nations in those unhappy times in which the same Vincentius Lirinensis sayes that the greatest part of the good were put to death or imprisoned or banish'd or condemned to the Mines or hid in Desarts and Caves exposed to savage Beasts to hunger thirst and nakedness Horum pars maxima interdictis urbibus protrusi atque extorres inter deserta speluncas feras saxa nuditate fame siti affecti attriti tabefacti sunt What visible extension could that same Orthodox communion have in the time wherein S. Athanasius cryed out after this manner Who is there among the servants of Jesus Christ that these rebells have not calumniated or whom they have not lain snares for Who is there that the Emperour has not banished upon their false accusations he who has alwayes so readily hearkned to them who has alwayes so constantly refused to hear whatsoever should be said against them and who never refused to believe all that they have said against others Where now a dayes shall we find a Church that worships Jesus Christ with liberty If Churches have any piety they are in danger if they dissemble they are alwayes in fear The Emperour has fill'd all with wickedness and hypocrisie as far as things depend on him I know that there are every where many persons who have piety and a love of Jesus Christ but in what place so ever they are they are forced either to conceal themselves as the Prophets and as the great Elias till they find some faithful Abdias who should hide them in a Cave or to to go dwell in the Desarts For it is most true that these wicked men make use of the same calumnies against the good that Jezebell made use of against Naboth and the Jews against Jesus Christ And the Emperour who stirs up himself to defend Heresie and to overthrow the Truth as Ahab overthrew Naboth 's Vineyard refused nothing to the desires of these Hereticks because these Hereticks also spake to him only according to his desires The Fathers had then no regard to seek for the true Church either in that visible extension or in that temporal glory or splendor or in a word any where else than in the True Faith and there it is that they seek for it in effect The Church sayes the
Author of the Commentary on the Psalms attributed to S. Jerom does not consist in her Walls but in the truth of her Tenets She is where the true Faith is For as to the other it is but fifteen or twenty years since the walls of these Churches were in the power of Hereticks They possess'd all these Churches which you see But the Church was where the True Faith was As the Author of the Prejudices has not scrupled sometimes to make use of the Testimonies of our own Authors when he thought he could draw any advantage from them he will not it may be take it ill if I oppose to him also upon the subject about which we now dispute the Testimony of two men famous in the Roman communion and who well deserve to be heard the one is Driedo whom Bellarmine calls a most learned man and the other is Bellarmine himself both very great defenders of the Church of Rome See here therefore what Cardinal Bellarmine hath wrote in the name of both in his Controversies of the Church We must note sayes he according to the Doctrine of Driedo that it is not necessary that the Catholick Church should have that extension in all places all at once or in the same time that is to say that there should be the faithful in all Provinces and that it is enough if that be successively done From whence it follows that when there should remain but one Province alone that should retain the true Faith this Province would not fail to be truly and properly called the Catholick Church provided that we see clearly that it is the same Church which sometimes or at divers times is found spread over all the world Could any one have more clearly contradicted the Author of the Prejudices He would that this visible extension through all Nations should be a perpetual mark of the True Church and these here say that it is sufficient that it is sometimes and even in divers times successively he would that this extension should be the mark of the Church for all following Ages and these here maintain that it is not necessary He would that this reasoning should be alwayes just your society is shut up in a small part of the world Therefore it is not the Church and these here say that when there should remain but one only Province that should retain the true faith this Province would not cease to be properly and truly called the Catholick Church But it may be that Bellarmine had not observed that his opinion and Driedo's favoured the Donatists and that it was contrary to the doctrine of S. Augustine This may be so in effect not only because a man in writing may not have all things in view but because also at the bottom the sentiment of these Doctors is very remote from that of the Donatists and that it does not encounter that of S. Augustine It is yet true that Bellarmine saw that they could make that Objection which he has prevented and answered this I say to the end the Author of the Prejudices may see that this which he has treated of as an Argument and as a convincing Argument for which he has made two Chapters Bellarmine has look'd on as a very trivial objection which he proposes and resolves in a few words They will say sayes he that this is to fall into the Error of Petilianus and the Donatists who maintain'd that in truth the Church had been spread over all the world but that it was afterwards lost in all the Provinces and remain'd no where but in Africa which S. Augustine disputes against I answer that the Error of the Donatists consisted in two things the first that they would have it that the Church should be in Africa only in a time wherein it manifestly increased throughout all the world the second in that they could not connect their Church of Africa with that which had before been spread through all the world for in that Church there they had alwayes good and bad as S. Augustine proves whereas they would compose theirs of the righteous only This Answer of Bellarmine overthrows all the pretensions of the Author of the Prejudices for it establishes these following Propositions 1. That Visible Extension is not a mark of the true Church but in a certain time that is to say when we see it manifestly increase throughout all the world from whence it follows that this mark is vain at other times 2. That the Argument of S. Augustine concludes only for the time then being by reason of that manifest fruitfulness from whence it follows that it is very impertinent that the Author of the Prejudices goes to apply it to these last Ages wherein we maintain the field of the Church has been fruitful only in Errors and Superstitions 3. That if the Donatists had accused all the world to have fallen into Heresie and if they had said by consequence that it was not the time of fruitfulness for the Church it had been in vain for S. Augustine to alledge to them the visible extension of his Church to exempt himself from entring into the discussion of that accusation from whence it follows that it is also in vain that the Author of the Prejudices propounds the visible extension of his since we say that it is fallen into fundamental errors 4. That the Argument of S. Augustine concluded because the Donatists agreed that his communion was Orthodox from whence it follows that that of the Author of the Prejudices concludes nothing since we question that Orthodoxy of his Church 5. That by consequence visible extension is not a mark that can make us know which is the True Church when the dispute is between two Societies contesting that Orthodoxy between themselves but at farthest only when the dispute is between two Societies that mutually own one another to be Orthodox from whence it follows that the Author of the Prejudices makes use of this mark to no purpose since our chief question is to know whether the Church of Rome is Orthodox or no. All these consequences which flow naturally from the answer of Bellarmine contradict the Argument of the Author of the Prejudices and it concerns him to see after what manner he can decline the Authority of this Cardinal But some will say lastly It may be Bellarmine was deceived and that he had not well understood the state of the question which was between S. Augustine and the Donatists nor well comprehended the true Hypothesis of that Father I confess that this may be but it may be also that he did well understand it and that the misconstruing should be on the side of the Author of the Prejudices This is that which must be further cleared and for this effect we must note a thing that the Author of the Prejudices seems not to have comprized which is that if the Donatists had accused the Society of S. Augustine of Heresie S.