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
all that it is necessary that every one should mistrust his own Eyes and the defects of his memory and that he should be always recollecting his first thoughts to keep himself from passing a wrong Judgment In fine we will also demand of the Author of the Prejudices whether he would not give the Scripture this Honour to reckon it for one part of Tradition since it contains the first Sermons of the Apostles from whence we may draw a great deal of light for the deciding of the Question upon which we are which is that of the Authority and Infallibility of the Church of Rome For how can any man rationally determine himself upon a point of that weight without consulting the first and the most Antient piece of Tradition But that being so we see here how we are fallen back into the difficulties and perplexities which the Author of the Prejudices pretends to be unconquerable And as those Gentlemen are liable enough to be beaten with their own Weapons we will only turn against him the conclusions that he pretends to draw against us from his Principles and demand of him Whether he believes this way very proper for those who are Obliged to spend the greatest part of their time in other Employments Whether he believes it proper for Judges Magistrats Tradesmen Labourers Souldiers Women Children for those who do not understand any of the Languages into which the Fathers are Translated for the Blind who cannot Read and for those who have no quickness of understanding If I only propounded to my self to refute this Author I might content my self with what I have said and wait with patience for what he should have to propose to disintangle his Catechumeni from the Difficulties and lengths whereinto he himself has plunged them But because I desire also to satisfy mens Con Consciences I think my self bound to Answer directly to his Objections Let us therefore see those four Maxims which he says our Principle includes and without which he is certain it cannot subsist As to the first we shall tell him that it does not belong to us to lay down the proofs of this Proposition That the Church of Rome for this is that we are about is not infallible in her decisions concerning the Faith she is naturally subject to be deceived if she pretends to have a priviledge that exempts her from a weakness common to all men it belongs to her to shew it and to convince the world of it but till then we shall always have a ground to presume that she is subject to that general Law and that is sufficient without any other proof to hinder us from acknowledging her for the Rule of Faith As to the Second which is That Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith we shall tell him That it is not necessarily incumbent on us to bring a passage of Scripture to exclude Traditions that Common sence is enough for that because it dictates to all men even to the most simple if they would take heed that after sixteen hundred years or thereabouts which are gone since the Apostles days Tradition cannot but be a very confused and uncertain thing and that being so vagous as it is after its having passed through the hands of an infinite number of men naturally unsetled and changeable it is not imaginable that they should not have altered increased lessened it since that happens through a long tract of Time to all other things and by consequence that it could not at present but be out of a condition to serve for a Rule of Faith Thus far the most simple are within the limits of nature and general Experience If they pretend that Tradition ought to be exempted it does not belong to us to shew that it is not it is their part who make that pretension to produce their Reasons and yet for all that it must be presumed on the side of Nature and general Experience It appears therefore already that the Two First Propositions which our Hypothesis includes according to the Author of the Prejudices to wit That the Church of Rome is not Infallible in its decisions concerning the Faith and that Traditions do not make up any part of the Rule of Faith do not give us the least difficulty but they give an infinite one to our adversaries For they ought solidly to prove the contrary Propositions not only to the Learnned and knowing persons but to the most simple also to Tradesmen to Labourers to Souldiers to Women and generally to all or otherwise they abuse their credulity retaining them without Reason and without Justice in their Communion in which they cannot remain with a good Conscience unless they are assured of the Truth of these two Articles That the Church of Rome is Infallible in her decisions of Faith and that Traditions make up a part of the Rule of Faith But how can those people have that certainty As for what respects the Third Proposition to wit That the Scripture contains all the points of the Faith generally it has no more need then the others to be proved by passages of Scripture It is sufficient to establish it to see that we cannot be assured of the Faith either by the decisions of the Church or Tradition For that thing it self necessarily leads all Christians to the Scripture alone there being nothing besides the decisions of the Church and Tradition that can Dispute a part with it There remains therefore only the Fourth Proposition which is That the Scriptures generally contain all the points of Faith after a manner fitted to the understandings of all the World But this proposition so framed is not ours neither is it included in our Hypothesis We only say that that which the Scripture contains in a manner fitted to the understanding of all the World concerning the Faith and Manners is sufficient for Salvation provided that moreover they have not Errors that hinder that effect But there is no need of proving this proposition by Texts of Scripture It sufficiently proves it self as well by the very nature of the things that the Scripture clearly Teaches as by the light of common sence and the first notions of the Conscience For those first notions dictate to all Christians that although God be free in the dispensation of his Call he is notwithstanding in good earnest towards all those to whom his Call is addressed and that there being among those the weak as well as the strong the simple as well as the Learned it must necessarily be concluded that he would render his Salvation inaccessible or impossible to the simpler sort provided that they seriously applyed themselves to it according to their Call The Author of the Prejudices himself acknowledges this Principle and he calls it a principle of common sence He draws ill consequences from it but the True Consequence that must be drawn is Those things which the Scripture clearly Teaches and after a manner
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
matter of this importance we should take the greatest care to avoid dazling our sight with words that would have more of shew then Solidity it will be good to inform our selves more exactly whether this way is so easy as they represent it whether there do not occur some Obstacles that hinder our passing further and whether it be not of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope to come to the end of it whatsoever diligence we use whether it be fitted to all the World and whether there be not any person who may not going on faithfully in it arrive to the end whether it leads Behold here another Conclusion against our way inwraped under a so to wit that it is of a length so excessive as we ought not rationally to hope ever to get to the end whatsoever diligence we use and that at least it is not fitted to all the World In what follows he fills his Chapter with the Objections and difficulties that tend to turn away men from the Scripture and to make them conceive that in effect it is that infinite way which has no issue at all of which he had spoke and that way of so excessive a length that we could never come to the end of whatsoever Diligence we should use But the meaning of that is that according to him the way to be assured of the Articles of the Faith by the Scripture is absolutely unprofitable to all men of what order soever they be and for what Truth soever it be For an infinite way which has no issue and the length of which is so excessive that we could never with all the diligence we should use come to the end of it is equally unprofitable to all as well to the Learned as the Ignorant And moreover the greatest part of the difficulties that render it infinite according to him being not to be found in some private passages but in the Scripture in general it follows that we can never be assured by that means of any Truth So that behold here according to the Author of the Prejudices the Scripture absolutely unprofitable and that for all sorts of men and all sorts of Truths In one word as the Tilte of his Chapter bears it is a ridiculous way and impossible to instruct men in the Truth Whatsoever Prejudice there has been in the Church of Rome against the Reformation I cannot believe that it would not be shaken at so scandalons and un-Christian a Proposition For to treat the holy Scripture which is the Oracle of Christians and the word of God as a ridiculous way and to reject it as absolutely unprofitable and improper to instruct men in the Truth without distinction without Limitation as much for one sort as for another as much for one truth as for another is methinks a new Gospell which we have not yet heard spoken of for there was never any thing spoke so high till this or to say better none were ever yet carried out to such Excesses We have read in Pamelius and some others with Indignation and Horrour That the Scripture is a nose of wax which may he turned which way we please and that it is far more easy to wrest it to Profane and Impious things then it is to make use of half the verses of Virgil to Compose Epithalamiums We have seen in Pighius and elsewhere that the Scripture is a dumb Rule a dumb Witness a dead and lifeless thing a Sword that cuts with both edges and such other Expressions injurious to the Scripture But no body that I know of ever went so far yet as to make it a ridiculous way for the Instructing of men in the Truth There are enough in the world who know that these Gentlemen of whose number the Author of the Prejudices is write nothing but for one and the same Intrest and with the same Spirit I may therefore methinks with very good reason make use for this occasion of what the Author of the Translation of the New Testament of Mons has wrote in his Preface to oppose it to the Author of the Prejudices to shew him that the Spirit that animates them is an unequal Spirit that blows both cold and hot For behold what that Preface carries in it We hope that not only the Souls of the more learned but even of the Simpler sort may find here that is to say in the Translation that which shall be necessary for their instructtion provided that they read at with an intire Simplicity of heart and Address themselves humbly to the Son of God in saying to him with Peter Lord to whom should we go It is thou who hast the words of Eternal Life and it is thou alone who canst make us learn They must goe to him as those in the Gospel of when it is said that they came to hear him and to be healed of their Diseases And a little lower The Holy Scripture is like to a great River saith Saint Gregore which has always slid 〈◊〉 and which will do so 〈◊〉 the end of the world The great and the small The mighty and the feeble may find there that living water which rises up even unto Heaven it â—ffers it self to all and is fitted to all it has a simplicity that descends even to the Souls of the most simple and a height that excercises and elevates the most raised all may draw there indiffirently but it will be farr from being able to be drawn dry by filling us we may always lose our selves in the bottomless depths of learning and wisdom that we may adore without being able to comprehend But that which ought to comfort us in that Obscurity is that according to Saint Augustine the holy Scripture sets before us in an Easy and Intelligible manner all that which is necessary to us for the Conduct of our Lives which she explains and makes clear her self in telling us clearly in some Places that which she said obscurely in others This Language is very different from that which they hold in the Book of the Prejudices The one says That we shall find in the Scripture all that which is necessary for our Instruction and the other assures us that the way of the Scripture is Ridiculous and Impossible to instruct men in the Truth The one declares that the Scripture propounds to us after an Easy and Intelligible manner all that is necessary for the Conduct of our lives which it explains and makes clear her self and the other says that it is a way of so excessive a length that we ought not rationally to hope ever to come to the end whatsoever dilligence we should use The one makes it a means of Instruction proper not only for Inlightned Souls but even for the Simpler sort for great and small for strong and weak and the other in making it an Infinite way which has no Issue makes it improper not only for the simple but even for the most
Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Adoration of the Host And that which is yet further considerable is That as the Essential Truths of Religion are so linked with one another that there is not any one that may not be as I may so speak the Center of all the rest that is to say which may not have references to all the rest and immediate connexions and which all the others may not serve to prove and uphold which makes out divers ways or manners of establishing them in the minds of the most simple even so those Errors that are destructive are so repugnant to those Truths that there is not any one which may not be opposed not only by all in general but even almost by each one in particular which shews that there are divers ways of overthrowing them and destroying them in the minds of the weakest and when they shall escape one of those ways they will be sufficiently overthrown by another For Example Transubstantiation which is repugnant to the sincerity of God is also repugnant to the Truth of the humane nature of Jesus Christ to the formation of his Body of the substance of the B. Virgin to the state of that Glory wherein he is at present to the Article of his Ascension and of his existence in Heaven to the manner in which he dwells in us which is by his Spirit and by our Faith to the nature of that hunger and thirst which we should have for his flesh and for his blood which is Spiritual to the Character of both the Sacraments wherein there never is any Transubstantiation made and to the perpetual Order that God observed when he wrought Miracles which was to lay them open to mens Eyes and Sences so that when a man should not be capable of perceiving any of those repugnances he would perceive the others which would produce the same effect and which would be sufficient to make him reject those Errors See here then all the Conditions that are necessary for the forming of a True Faith even in the Souls of the most simple behold them found in the Scripture and by consequence behold the Scripture remaining the Rule of Faith in spight of all the endeavours of the Author of the Prejudices It is in vain that he so strongly opposes it it will always be what God has made it that is to say the Fountain and only source of the Truth of Religion or as St. Irenaeus speaks the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith which only can give us quiet of mind and peace of Conscience The Difficulties which the Author of the Prejudices forms against the Scripture have these Three Characters The one That they may be turned against himself that is to say that as he has made them upon the subject of the Scripture We may also make them upon the subject of Tradition and the Church of Rome to which he would send us back the other That in regard of the Scripture they are null and to no purpose and the Third That in regard of Tradition and the Roman Church they are solid and unconquerable and this is what will appear if what I have said in this and in the foregoing Chapter be well Examined The End of the Second Part. An HISTORICAL DEFENCE OF THE Reformation Against a Book Intituled Just Prejudices against the CALVINISTS THE THIRD PART Of the Obligation and Necessity that lay upon our Fathers to separate themselves from the Church of Rome CHAP. I. That our Fathers had just sufficient and necessary Causes for their Separation supposing that they had right at the bottom in the controverted Points WE should certainly be the most ungrateful persons in the World if after the favour that God has shewn us in re-establishing the Purity of his Gospel in the midst of us we should not think our selves bound to give him everlasting Thanks So great and precious an advantage highly calls for our resentments and that in enjoying it with delight we should pay our Acknowledgements to the Author of it But what ground soever we should have to rejoyce in God we must notwithstanding avow that we should be very insensible in regard of others if we could behold without an extream affliction the misery of so many men who voluntarily deprive themselves of that good Those who are at present engaged in those Errors and Superstitions from which it has pleased the Divine Goodness to deliver us are our Brethren by the External Profession of the Christian Name and by the Consecration of one and the same Baptism and how can we intirely rejoyce while we see them in a state which we believe to be so bad and so contrary to our common Calling I know that God only who is the Lord of mens hearts and minds can dissipate that gloomy darkness which they are involved in and that it is our Duty to pour out our ardent and continual Prayers to him for his Grace for them but we ought not to neglect humane methods among which that of justifying the Conduct of our Fathers in the subject of their Separation is one of the most efficacious and as it is by that especially that they labour to render us odious so is to that that I shall allow the sequel of this Work The Separation of our Fathers ought to be distinguish'd into three Degrees the First consists in that which they have loudly pronounc'd against the Doctrines and Customs of the Church of Rome which they judg'd to be contrary to Faith and Piety and which they have formally renounced the Second consists in this that they have forsook the External Communion of that Church and those of its party and the Third in that they have made other Assemblies than hers and that they have rank't themselves under another Form of Ministry We have treated of the First already where we have shewn the Justice and Necessity of the Reformation which our Fathers made the Third shall be spoken to in the Fourth Part and this is designed to examine the Second Our Inquiry therefore at present will be to know whether our Fathers in Reforming themselves ought to have separated themselves from the other Party who were not for a Reformation or whether notwithstanding the Reformation they ought yet to have abode with them in one and the same Communion and to have liv'd in that respect as they did heretofore This is that which I pretend to make clear in this Third Part of this Work To enter upon this business I confess that if we could suppose it as a certainty That all Separation in matters of Religion is odious and Criminal we ought to be the first in condemning the Actions of our Fathers and that whatever aversion we should have for the Errors and Abuses which we see reigning in the Church of Rome we ought to labour to bear them as patiently as it could be possible for us to do in waiting till it should please God
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
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
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
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
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
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
said in the way of Tradition for all will be reduced to that 1. In the first place it is certain that we ought not to take all sorts of Traditions to be true indifferently since we have already seen that there are some false and Apocryphal so that we must learn plainly to distinguish it by it self the good and the Authentick from the others and to that effect to know certainly the rules by which we ought to make that distinction always remembring that the Authority of the Church of Rome is not here of any use because it is in question and that it is that Authority which we are treating of in that search See here already a no small Confusion for we must for this turn over a great many Books be well read in Histories Pass a great many Judgments which cannot be very easy to a man who will not help himself with the Authority of the Scripture 2. After we have set aside Apocryphal Tradition and it being restrained to the True we must enter upon the Examination of the question that is controverted to wit Whether the Authority of the Church of Rome as it pretends at this day be taught in that Tradition And to this effect he must see whether the Passages that are brought to prove it are faithfully related and for that he must consult the Originals and compare them with the Translations which require a great knowledge of the Tongues or at least as the Author of the Prejudices says that one should referr himself to a sufficient number of fit persons to have no occasion to doubt of the Fidelity of their Relations And as the number of Antient Books is not small that Consultation could not but be long enough 3. He must not forget also to inquire whether there be not diverse ways of reading the Passages that may weaken that proof For since the Author of the Prejudices would have us observe this Precaution to assure our selves of one only passage of Scripture why would he not have it observed to assure himself of the Passages of that Tradition It will therefore be necessary to consult the Manuscripts of Libraries or at least to read the notes which the Criticks have made upon the Books out of which those Passages shall be taken this would be yet a matter of further Labour 4. But must he not also be bound to examine narrowly the meaning of the Passages not to give them too great a Latitude and avoid being blinded with a meer Appearance For if there are in the Scripture as the Author of the Prejudices assures us that the Passages that appear clearly to Contain certain Truths and which do not in Effect contain them are an occasion of deluding those who are too easily led by that Appearance which at first sight presents it self Why must it not be so in Tradition also They ordinarily alleadge that Passage of Saint Irenaeus in Favour of the particular Church of Rome Ad haue Ecclesiam propter Potentiorem Principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est cos qui sunt undique Fideles in qua semper ab 〈◊〉 qui sunt undique Conservata est ea quae est ab his Apostolis Tradâ—tio These words seem clear to the Partisans of the Court of Rome for the establishing a necessity of being united with the particular Church of Rome and living in Dependance upon it and yet if we look a little narrowly into them we may see that they signify nothing less then that which they pretend they signify and that Irenaeus would only say thus much That the Faithfull came from all parts to the Church of Rome by reason of the Imperial power which drew all the World thither and that from thence it was that they all together preserved the Doctrine that the Apostles had left without their having any considerable difference between them That this was the meaning of Saint Irenaeus appears from the Connexion of his discourse wherein he proposes to prove that the Pretended Traditions of Hereticks could not come from the Apostles and his reason is that if they could have come from them they would have been yet found in his Time in the Churches which they had instituted and particularly in the Roman which was in a manner an Abridgment and Composition of all others by reason of the concourse of all Nations to Rome So that to shew that the Church of Rome in those times did not own any of the Tenets of those Hereticks was at once to shew that they were Traditions unknown to all the Churches and by Consequence false and not Apostolical This Example therefore shews us that one ought not to let himself be dazzled by the first Appearances of a Passage but that it ought to be narrowly examined and that as every one may see requires time and is not altogether so easy to be done 5. To carry on that Examination well in respect of the Passages of the Scripture the Author of the Prejudices would that we should carefully consider the like Expressions and contrary Passages to see whether we should not be bound by them to give another meaning to those Passages which we gather He says That Common Sense dictates this Rule and that it is full of Equity and Justice I see not therefore how he can exempt his Catechumeni from it in regard of the Passages of Tradition It is requisite that he should carefully remark the ways of speaking in the Fathers in diverse matters in order to the making them mutually give light to one another It is necessary that he should look after the contrary Passages of the Antients and that he compare them one with another to draw out clear Observations from them But this will be yet further no small Business for it is very well known that there are things enough in the Antients directly opposite to the Pretensions of the Church of Rome 6. But not to detain the Readers much longer upon so clear a matter all the Intricate Perplexity which he pretends to find in the way of the Scripture fâ—lls back again upon the way of Tradition when they would by this without the aid of the Scripture be fully satisfied concerning the Authority of the Church of Rome It is necessary to discern a true Tradition from a false one It is necessary to consult the Originals It is necessary to know the Different Ways of reading passages It is necessary to search out the meaning with great Attentiveness It is necessary to examine the like Expressions and contrary Passages It is necessary to see divers Interpretations of both sides It is necessary to know why the Roman Church distinguishes between points which every Faithful man is bound to believe with a distinct Faith and those which it is enough to believe upon the Faith of the Church It is necessary to Examine that which each Sect that does not acknowledge the Roman Church says against her And after
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
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
Article of Faith taught in the Creed and founded upon the promise of Jesus Christ who ought alwayes to have a holy Christian Society in this world that should subsist until the consummation of Ages Calvin does not say less and his words are not less express We must sayes he hold it for certain that from the beginning of the world there never was a time wherein the Church of God was not and there never will be till the consummation of Ages in which it shall not be Vpon this foundation refuting Servetus who maintained that the Church had been banished from the world for a certain time he sayes boldly that to say that God had not alwayes preserved some Church in this world would be to accuse him of a lye because he has promised that it shall endure as long as the Sun and Moon shall Beza speaks as the Flemish Confession which acknowledging that the reign of Jesus Christ is perpetual acknowledges also that he ought alwayes to have subjects upon whom to exercise that Kingly Office Du Moulin and Mestresat are not less ingenuous in this point c. Thus it is that Monsieur the Cardinal of Richelieu has justified us against the Author of the Prejudices He could not in my judgement have spoken either more clearly or more strongly In effect they cannot without ignorance or calumny ascribe that opinion of the intire extinction of the Church throughout all the world to us We say indeed and we say it with an extream grief that the Church has been for some Ages in so great an obscurity that we can very hardly see any traces of the natural beauty of Christianity shine forth there Ignorance Error Superstition as most thick Clouds have covered the face of Religion and the Government of the Church has fallen into so strange a disorder that we can see nothing but confusion in all parts so that the Church could not but appear under a very deplorable condition under that Eclipse This is that which Calvin means by that intire defection of the world whereof he speaks in the passage that the Author of the Prejudices has alledged and that which is also represented in our Confession of Faith by that ruine and desolation whereinto we say the Church was fallen But how great soever that ruine should have been we do not believe as the Donatists do that the Church had absolutely perished or that it was intirely extinct through all the world We do not so much as believe that it was restrained to those Societies which the passion of their enemies has laboured to cry down under the names of Sects calling them Berengarians Waldenses Albigenses Petro-busians Henricians Wicklefists Hussites c. and over whom the Author of the Prejudices has insulted so fiercely after his usual manner Those Societies were yet the most illustrious part of the Church because they were the most pure the most enlightned and the most generous but the Church did not wholly and entirely reside in them For not to speak of the little Children that dyed before the Age of discretion and to whom we do not doubt that God was merciful we are perswaded that while Errors and Superstitions might be seen to reign in their Pulpits in their Books in their Schools and in the Councils and that a great number were filled with them that God preserv'd to himself amidst the people a considerable number of the truly faithful who have kept their faith and their conscience pure by reason of their simplicity contenting themselves with the principles of the Christian Religion adoring one only God their Creator and Father putting their confidence in one only Jesus Christ dead and risen again for them and as to the rest living holily and Christianly with embarassing themselves either with the opinions of the School which they did not know or the Superstitions wherewith they beheld Christianity loaded and which the sole instinct of their conscience could make them reject We no wayes doubt that even among the most enlightned persons there has been a great number who have groaned under so many corruptions as they saw the Church afflicted with and who in waiting for better times have kept themselves without bearing a part in them But we say nothing upon this subject but what the Fathers and in particular S. Augustine have said concerning the state of the Church under the domination of the Arians For they have said two most remarkable things First That while the wicked and the Hereticks possessed the Pulpits while they preached their blasphemies there whilst they were Masters of the Councils whilst they had the multitude and the powers of the Age on their side while they persecuted the good to the utmost and while all seemed to stoop under their yoak God preserved in that corrupted Ministry a considerable number of the truly faithful who kept under the veil of their simplicity their faith pure receiving that which they preached of good to them and not being infected with the bad The second thing that they have said is that there were those there who being more enlightned and more strong in the faith than the others opposed themselves to the Heresie of the Arians and would not have any communion with them suffering constantly their banishments and the most cruel punishments for so just a cause To justifie this truth I shall only here set down that which S. Augustine has wrote upon this subject in his Epistle to Vincentius but before I relate his words we must note that the Donatists precisely did that which the Author of the Prejudices has done when he has abused some hyperbolical expressions that Calvin made use of and the words of our Confession of Faith to lay it to our charge that we believe an entire extinction of the Church For the Donatists after the same manner abused some passages of S. Hilary in which that Saint had exaggerated the lamentable state of the Church in his dayes under the domination of the Arians from whence they conclude that S. Hilary had thought that the Church had entirely failed It is therefore to refute this Objection that S. Augustine explains himself after this manner The Church sayes he is sometimes obscured and covered as it were with clouds by the great number of scandals when the wicked take the advantage of the night to shoot against those who are true in heart But even then she is eminent in her most firm defenders and if it be allowed to us to make some distinction in the words that God spake to Abraham Thy posterity shall be as the Stars of Heaven and as the Sand that lyes upon the Sea-shore I mean that we must understand by the Stars some few persons more firm and illustrious than the others and by the Sand the multitude of the weak and carnal which in a time of a calm appears quiet and free but which is sometimes covered with the floods of tribulations and temptations Such
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
to come to an agreement with us that our Assemblies are Holy and Lawful even in a far greater degree then they were before To begin that Disquisition with the Condemnation of the Popes and their Council I confess that if it were the Court of Rome that out of its pure Liberality should Communicate Christianity to those only whom it should please and that none could either have or preserve it but by the continual influence of its Favour after the same manner as we have the Day by the influence of the Sun it would depend on her and her Councils to take it from us whensoever she should see good with all its Rights and Priviledges We might very well say that it would be too injurious to take it away from us that we did not deserve so hard a Treatment yet we should be deprived for that very Reason when she should have taken them from us whether it should have been with Justice or against it with or without any reason But we do not believe that either the Court of Rome or its Council or that all that party who have followed them though it should have a thousand times greater strength and Authority then it has would carry their pretensions so high as to imagine that it depends on their meer good pleasure to bestow on or to take away Christianity and its Rights I do not say from an innumerable multitude of Men as that is which makes up the Body of the Protestants but even not so much as from two or three persons who should be assembled in the Name of Jesus Christ Saint Paul has said indeed Who art thou O man that repliest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Has not the Potter of the Earth power out of one and the same clay to make one Vessel to honour and another to dishonour And by these words he gives us to understand the absolute Power that God has to make us whatsoever it shall seem good to him But he has Taught us nothing of the like Power concerning the Pope and his Councils he has not said Who are you that contend against Rome Nor has he ascribed to him the power to make and destroy us as it shall please him In effect There is none but God alone on whom our Christianity depends it is his Favour that has given it to us his Spirit and his word have formed it in us and his Apostle has Taught us to say with a Holy boldness That there is no Creature either in Heaven or upon the Earth that can be able to Separate us from his Love We ought then to lay aside that Soveraign and absolute Authority and to come to the causes or reasons that could have been able to move the Court of Rome and its Council to condemn the Protestants and to deprive them of their Rights for if those causes are not only vain and frivolous but unjust and contrary to the Christian Faith and Piety as we maintain them to be a Condemnation of that Nature cannot but fall back upon those who have thrown it since they themselves have broken the Christian Unity so that their ill Carriage has made them justly lose that of which they would unjustly deprive the others And because in those kinds of Contests That which one Party loses by its injustice and its obstinacy in Error is recollected and restored in the other Party which does its Duty The Condemnation of the Council of Trent being ill done as we suppose cannot but have heightned and strengthned the Rights of the Protestants As to the Reformation it is not less True that if that should be found to be indeed Conformable to the Word of God and the inviolable Laws of Christianity as we suppose that it is I mean if the Things that our Fathers rejected were indeed Errors and Superstitions contrary to the True Faith and Piety as we maintain them to be so Holy an Action would be so far from depriving our Fathers of the Right of that Christian Society that on the contrary it could not but fortify that Right and render it more lawful then it was before For before the Reformation That Society was as I may so say a Composition of good and evil of Justice and Injustice by reason of those Errors which were mixed with the true Doctrine and those Superstitions which were to be found in conjunction with that Religion whereas the Reformation having freed it of that which it had of impurity and dross has without doubt put it into a far more Holy State and much more agreeable to God How prejudiced soever they may be they can never maintain it That Error and Superstition should establish any right of Society nor deny that as they are in their own nature more worthy of the Aversion of God and men then their Approbation they render those Societies unlawful and criminal For although all the World by a Universal Consent should be united in believing a Heresy or practising an Idolatrous Worship That consent how General soever it should be would not change the natures of things Heresy would be always Heresy and Idolatry Idolatry and in that respect the Agreement of all mankind would make up a wicked and unjust Society Whence it follows That a mixt Communion is only lawful in proportion to that which it has of good and that as its Justice is lessened when its Corruptions increase so its Justice also increases when its Corruptions are lessened We ought not then to imagine that the Reformation of the Protestants has deprived them of the Right of that Christian Society but we ought to assert on the contrary That it has put them in that respect into a far more advantageous condition then they were in before There is nothing further remaining but that Separation which was but by accident as they speak the Consequence of the Reformation if the whole Latin Church had done her Duty she would have reformed her self as well as our Fathers But the Court of Rome and its Clergy would not and that Refusal has caused that breach of Communion which is fallen out between the two Parties It concerns us to inquire Whether even upon supposition that that Reformation was Just and by consequence that that Refusal of it which they made was unjust That Separation could lawfully hinder our Fathers from holding a Christian Society among themselves But this is what they cannot maintain with the least colour of Reason For if the Reformation was Just and if the Refusal which they made was unjust how can the injustice of that Party which should have forgot its duty and which would have constrained the other Party to have forgot it too deprive the other Party of those Rights that Faith Holiness The Fear of God and the Communion of Jesus Christ have naturally given it Must Injustice needs Triumph over Justice and Error over Truth Is it that the
Assemblies most lawful For as to that which is said in the Scripture I will smite the Shepheard and the Sheep shall be scattered abroad it would be manifestly to abuse that passage if they would conclude from it an absolute necessity of the Pastors for the subsistence of that Society For that is a Prophecy which notes not that which the Faithful ought to do when they have no Pastors but that which should befal the Disciples of Jesus Christ in the Time of his Passion when the fury of the Jews and the sad Condition wherein they should behold their Divine Master should force them to be scattered which has nothing common to the Question we are now Treating of In the Third place I say that to understand well the true use and the Necessity of the Actions of the Ministry the Church must be considered in two Seasons in her first formation and in her subsistence For in her first formation it is certain that the Actions of the Ministry were necessary for the calling of men to the light of the Gospel whereof as yet they had no knowledge and by Consequence they were necessary to the Establishment of the Christian Communion or Society amongst them which could not be without that knowledge To this end Jesus Christ employed his Apostles and Evangelists Go says he and Teach all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and it is that to which Saint Paul has a chief regard when he says That Christ has given some Apostles and some Prophets and some Exangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the gathering together of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ Those glorious Heralds by the efficacy of their word accompanied with the power of Jesus Christ called together the Church if we must so say as the Holy Assembly of God they Established the Christian Religion in the World and so united men among themselves in an External Society by the profession of one and the same Faith of one and the same Hope and Charity which inspired them so that the Acts of their Ministry were absolutely necessary for that first Establishment because their Preaching was the only means that God would make use of to draw men from the Pagan Idolatry or the Jewish Obstinacy and to give them that Faith without which they could never have had a Christian Society In this respect there is Reason to urge the force of the word Church which signifies not a rash and tumultuary Assembly made by chance or Sedition but an Assembly lawfully called for it was God himself who called it by the voice of his Apostle according to the Prophecy of David The mighty Lord the Eternal God hath spoken and called to all the Earth from the rising up of the Son to the going down of the same He has called the Heavens from on high and the Earth to Judge his People saying Gather ye my Saints together In this first Establishment the Apostles and Evangelists did three things On one hand they spread abroad the Faith every where and by this means bound men in an External Communion or Society on the other hand they set together the Christian Truths which are the Objects of Faith in the Cannon of the Scriptures and in fine they established Ordinary Pastors for the upholding and Government of the Church By the first of those things in Establishing the Faith in mens hearts they assembled called them together and put them into a Society by the second they laid as I may so speak the Fountain or the External and perpetual Magazine of the Evangelical Doctrine By the Third they provided for the Ordinary Dispensation of that Fountain setling of Ministers to distribute it by their Preaching the Sacraments and the Exercise of Discipline Of these three things there is none but the first only to which we ought to refer the Convocation of the Church and Establishment of the Christian Society But we must say that all Three serve for its preservation and increase for they are so many ways and means which the Apostles left for the preservation of the Faith and strengthning of it in those who had before received it and to propagate it to their Children and in those who had not as yet received it in which the preservation of a Society consists The first contributes much for as Lights or Torches lighted all together preserve and mutually strengthen their fire and are capable of lighting others So many faithful Christians united together confirm one another in the Faith and Piety and are fit to Communicate that Faith and Piety to those who have not yet received it The Second does not contribute less for the Faithful preserve and increase their light their Faith Piety Sanctity by the immediate Reading of the Holy Scriptures Infidels themselves may be converted this way and those that go astray be brought back to the purity of the Gospel The Third is also of exceeding great Use for the Pastors by their Preaching their Direction and their Writings by their Examples by the Sacraments they Administer and in a word by all the Actions of their Ministry confirm the Faith where it is and propagate it where it is not The Divine Wisdom has so prepared its divers means for the preservation of that Society and the Propagation of his Church That if the Actions of the Ministry do not produce that effect for which they are appointed the other means shall and supply that defect In Effect when the publick Preaching and presence of the Pastors fail the Reading of the Scripture private Exhortation of the simple Christians the writings of their Pastors either dead or absent may come to succour and make the Faith and Charity and Piety subsist and by consequence the External Society of the Church and its Assemblies How then are the Actions of the Ministry necessary They are so first By Necessity of Precept as they speak I mean as it is a means that Jesus Christ has ordained the Use whereof we cannot neglect without sin Those who contemn it resist the Order that God himself has established and make themselves unworthy of his Grace and to this those passages in the Scripture refer which recommend the Pastors to the Faithful 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 2. The Actions of the Ministry are necessary to the Churches well being though not absolutely necessary to its being It is not absolutely impossible for a Church to subsist without having actually any Pastors not only because sometimes Faith and Piety may subsist without their heavenly food which is the Word and Sacraments as a Body may subsist sometimes without its nourishments but also because one part of that food may come to us otherwise then from the mouth of the
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
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
ordinary Ministry was intirely lost and that it was renewed by an extraordinary and immediate Call of God For it is upon that that with great heat to very ill purpose he spends his reasonings throughout his whole fifth Chapter in Allegations of Fathers and Observations to no purpose upon the Rights of that pretended immediate Ministry We Answer him in a Word that he only Combats his own Shadow for we do not hold that the Ordinary Ministry established by the Apostles was absolutely extinct It is a Good that belongs to the Church and as the Church has alwayes subsisted by the special Providence of God though in a different State that same Providence has also made that Good to subsist alwayes It is True that it was very ill dispens'd while it was in the hands of bad Stewards and that where the Inheritage should have been cultivated and have brought forth without doubt much fruit it produced on the contrary abundance of Thorns and Briars But notwithstanding the Inheritance was not lost The Ministry was alwayes preserved not only de Jure in as much as the Church is never lost but de facto also for it alwayes had Ministers ill chosen indeed ill called designed to bad uses called by very confused Calls but called notwithstanding and having a Right sufficient to make them do their Duty if they would and if they were capable So that the good State of the Ministry might be very well altered Corrupted Interrupted overthrown but the Ministry was not absolutely lost I will not be afraid even to go further and to say that when it should be true that the Ministry should be wholly annihilated that which notwithstanding has never hapned and it may please God that it never shall it would not be necessary that God should renew it by an immediate and every-way Supernatural Mission while there should be two or three of the Faithful in the World who would be able to Assemble together in the Name of Jesus Christ For the Right of the Ministry would alwayes remain in those two or three and they might confer a Lawful Call upon one of themselves If it could even happen that there should not be absolutely any more Faith upon the Earth and that Heresy or Paganism or Judaism or Mahumetanism should generally overspread the whole World without leaving any Truly Faithful in it which certainly will never come to pass since we have the promise of Jesus Christ to the contrary I say in that case Provided that the Book of the Holy Scripture remained the young Buds of the Church and that of the Ministry would subsist even there The Apostles who left it to the world would yet further call men from thence a second Time to the true Faith and by that true Faith to the Re-establishing of a Christian Society and by the Re-establishing of that Christian Society to that of the Ministry without any absolute necessity of Gods immediately sending new Apostles One man only who should learn the heavenly Truths contained in that Book might teach them to others and reduce Christianity to its first State if God would Accompany the word of that man with his Ordinary Blessing Those who are acquainted with History are not Ignorant that in the Fourth Century two young men named the one Edesius and the other Frumanius having been taken on the Sea and carried Captive to the King of the Indies converted many persons to the Christian-Faith in that Country and that they might make Assemblies there where they might celebrate the Worship of God This is that which manifestly discovers the Injustice of the Author of the Prejudices and other Writers of Controversy of the Church of Rome when they demanded Miracles to prove the Call of the first Reformers For while the Scripture remains in the midst of men it is not necessary to make new miracles to Authorize Ministers that Scripture sufficiently Authorises the Church immediately by it self to confer a Call when its Pastors forsake it It would sufficiently Authorise one man alone whoever he should be a Lay-man or Clergy-man to communicate the light of his Faith to others if he were the only Faithful Person that was in the World it would Authorise two or three Faithful who should find themselves alone to Assemble together and to provide for the Preservation and Propagation of their Society and Miracles would not be necessary for all that because in all that there would be nothing new there nothing that might not be included in the Revelation of the Scripture or drawn from thence by a just Consequence as it may appear from what I have handled in the foregoing Chapter Miracles are necessary to those who preach new Doctrines and those which are not of antient Revelation and which besides have not in themselves any Character of Truth such as the Sacrifice of the Mass the Corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament Transubstantiation Purgatory Invocation of Saints Merit of good Works Adoration of the Host c. are It belongs to those who teach those things to tell us whence they hold them and since they give us them as holding them from Gods hand it belongs to them to prove them by Miracles for they cannot prove them otherwise and when they should even have wrought Miracles or things that should pass for such it would belong to us to examine them since Jesus Christ has given us warnings upon that point which we ought not to neglect See here what I had to say upon the Fifth Chapter of the Author of the Prejudices The sixth wherein he treats further of the same matter contains nothing which I have not already satisfied It pretends that the Call of our First Reformers was not Ordinary under a pretence that some few received their Ministry from the people that others were ordain'd by meer Priests and that those who had been Ordained by Bishops have says he Anathematiz'd that Church from which they received their Ordination But as to the first we have shewn him that the Calls that are made by a Faithful People are Just and Lawful in a case of absolute necessity that naturally dispences with Formalities Besides that those Calls were very few in number that they were not followed that they do not infer any Consequence against the Body of the Pastors and that even when it should have had any Irregularity that Irregularity would have been sufficiently repaired by the hand of Fellowship which the other Pastors have given those who were so called and by the consent that the whole Body of that Society gave to their Calls We ought not for that to leave off holding them for Ordinary although in that Respect they should be remote from the Common Practice no more or less then they in the Church of Rome to leave off holding the Call of Pope Martin V. and that of divers other Popes for Ordinary although they were not made according to the accustomed Forms I demand
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
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.