also of the incertainty of the Proponent 2ly Again let it be granted as freely That that Faith which is the Gift of God and work of the Spirit must needs be infallible and exempt from all possibility of error because the supreme verity cannot inspire a falshood 3ly Let it be granted also That the Spirit produceth many times in the soul such a supernatural and undiscursive light and evidence to the understanding and following this such a strong inclination of the will and adherence of the affections to the matter believed as do far exceed all science sense experience demonstration Tho this intuitive rather than argumentative or probative of such truths either to other's or our own reason which this Spirit captivates and brings into obedience * moving us to the strongest faith upon very small evidence and the smaller the evidence the stronger the power of the Spirit against many temptations of infidelity and * opening the heart to such a degree of undoubtedness that we are willing to undergo any Martyrdom rather than quit and renounce our belief See for such certainty 2 Tim. 1. 12. Act. 2. 36. Jo. 6. 69. IV. All this therefore being granted namely That all true saving faith is grounded on God's word which is infallible That all true faith is wrought in us by the Spirit of God which Spirit is infallible That there is a certainty or assurance sufficient if not infallible to be had from universal Church-tradition of both the former namely both * that such writings on which our faith is grounded are God's word and such their meaning and consequently * that the belief of such things contained in them is the work of God's Spirit Yet our Query remains still uncleared Whether I say not some for I grant many have but every one that truly and savingly believes must have an infallible certainty of his faith or must have a known-to-him infallible teacher or motive external as Tradition or internal as the Spirit to ground his faith upon by which he is not fully perswaded but also rationally sure of the truth of that which he believes And this to me notwithstanding the former Concessions seems not at all necessary for the producing of a saving Faith. And first for the assurance we may have from the Scriptures by knowing either in general that they are the word of God or that in such places or points where their sense is doubtful this and no other is the certain meaning of them I have shewed § 23. and 35. That the knowing this must either be devolved upon Ecclestastical Tradition or upon the Spirit And first for the assurance of these Scriptures and so of our faith from the inward testimony of the Spirit to which many fly for succour and first taking this for granted that every believer must be infallibly certain of his faith and then that tradition tho the most full and much more any private instructer being some way liable to errour sufficeth not for to produce such an effect they labour to ground this certainty upon the assurance of God's Spirit None can plead this at all from our faith being caused by this Spirit for it follows not that if the Spirit begets faith infallible in our hearts or also the most unexpugnable adherence thereto therefore we know this faith to be begotten by the Spirit or if it move us that therefore we can certainly tell when it doth so so that we can say to this God's Spirit moveth me to assent to this not For we may have from the Spirit the greatest perswasion or internal evidence if you will of a truth that may be imagined and yet not have any rational or discursive evidence thereof from it neither by other proofs nor by this which is sufficient that we clearly discern the good Spirit to produce it since the like assurance or confidence to some degree is frequently begotten by an impetuous lust or by the evil Spirit for most pernicious errors so nearly imitating the Spirit of illumination as not to be discernable from it by this sign of strong perswasion since many have had it so strong as to dye for them The assurance therefore or full perswasion of a Divine truth by the Spirit is one thing the assurance that this assurance cometh from the Spirit is another And indeed tho in some general things as of the Bible being the Word of God and of some universally-believed points of faith all men are confident of their assurance in them that it is from God's Spirit because indeed all Christians are in these agreed yet in descending to particulars as whether such or such a Book of Scripture be God's Word or be written by an heavenly-inspired author whether such a particular point of faith be to be stated thus or so whether such be certainly the meaning of some particular place of Scripture here I say where there is contradiction and doubt between parties few there are who will offer to plead such assurance from the Spirit as that they cannot be mistaken but labour to inform themselves as well as others the best they can from other reasons And indeed did the Spirit thus always bear witness to it self had we any such internal assurance ordinarily for extraordinary assurances of it happening to some greater Saints of God in very many things I deny not I mean not of the belief of the thing but that such belief of the thing cometh from the Spirit there needed no more confirmation of any point either from Church or universal Tradition or collation of other Scriptures or any other way but this For thus tho some men might profess an error against conscience yet err in very deed in matter of Divine faith none could for knowing that the Spirits operation is necessary to all true faith and knowing again when it operates he may be sure that that which it operates not is no true faith But this sufficiently argues that there is no such ordinary effect thereof in that the pretenders of the Spirit so frequently by this Spirit contradict one another and indeed this arrogant perswasion and ultimate refuge of singularity hath bin the great Source of all Heresie and Schism by reason of mens departing from Tradition and from the Church upon confidence of this Therefore we conclude a man may believe by the efficiency of the Spirit and yet not certainly know its efficiency and may know that by it he believes all which he truly believes in divine matters and yet not know that by it he believes such or such a particular thing So that tho this be laid for a ground That all true Faith is the work of the Spirit yet we must by Scripture or in things doubtful by the Church'es traditionary exposition thereof first know our faith to be true and thence by consequence gather that it is the work of the Spirit not è contra argue that it is the work of the Spirit
reasonable that the Church'es infallibility in Necessaries should be taken in the latter sense there being nothing in our Saviour's promise that appears to restrain his assistance or in the conveyance of Tradition that appears to restrain its certainty to the former sense See Church-Government 2. part § 31. In which former sense if it be only allowed the Church'es insallibility in guiding Christians will be confined only to two or three points and those scarce by any at all doubted-of or disputed In this latter sense therefore both because of our Saviour's promise and the evidence of Tradition it must be said that the Church cannot be mistaken in defect but only if at all in the excess not in substracting from Christians any part of such necessary faith or duty but perhaps in superadding thereto something as necessary which is not 2. And here also secondly concerning such excess I think you will grant me That it will be hard for a private man to judge that any particular point decided by the Church is not some way or other necessary to be stated known and believed by reason of some ill influence which the contradictory thereof may by some consequence at least have upon our other faith or manners necessarily required and formerly established Nay farther that it will be hard to say that any point decided c is not necessary either directly and immediately or by connexion with some other points that are so to the actual exercise of Christian Religion and the practice of a completely holy life to which the most contemplative points of faith are very much conducing tho they mistakenly seem to many in this respect useless and therefore that they ought not to be so rigidly vindicated 3. And thirdly yet further if the Church be granted infallible in Necessaries however we take them it seems also most reasonable that from her we should learn if this be at all requisite to be known which or how many amongst many other decrees of hers if she makes any besides those concerning Necessaries which I say or how many are necessary For to what other Judgment can we repair for this unless to our own But how unreasonable this That whilst she is appointed to guide us with her infallibility in some points we are to state to her in what points only she can infalliby guide us This Mr. Chillingworth well discerned when he said 2. c. § 139. We utterly deny the Church to be an infallible Guide in Fundamentals for to say so were to oblige our selves to find some certain society of men of whom we may be certain that they neither do nor can err in Fundamentals it follows nor in declaring what is fundamental what is not and consequently to make any Church we may say or Representative of the Church i. e. a General Council an infallible guide in Fundamentals would be to make her infallible in all things which she proposeth and requireth to be believed i. e. In as many things as she saith are fundamental and she may say all are fundamentals or necessary if she will. Thus he So 3. c. § 59 60. to that objection since we are undoubtedly obliged to believe Her in fundamentals and cannot precisely know what be those fundamentals we cannot without hazard of our souls leave her in any point He answers by granting the consequence and denying the supposition I mean the former part thereof That we are obliged to believe her in fundamentals in delivering of which he saith she may err As for that Objection ordinarily made against the Church'es defining what points they are that are necessary and wherein by consequence she is infallible viz. that then Ecclesia non errabit quando vult because she may as she pleaseth nominate the points fundamental c. We answer that it being supposed necessary that the Council or the people must know not only the fundamental points but an exact distinction of such from the rest of which presently the same divine hand that will not suffer the Council appointed for the peoples guide to erre in any fundamental neither will permit them to say or to define any point to be fundamental that is not because this latter thing is supposed as necessary as the former i. e. God will never permit them to say they do not or cannot err in any point wherein they may err 4. But fourthly after all this it seems to me not to follow necessarily that if our Saviour by his Spirit preserve the Church an infallible Guide in necessary points of Faith 1. Therefore she must be infallible in distinguishing them from all other points which perhaps are not the same if we speak of those whereof men are to have an explicit knowledge to all persons and from whence if it be true it will follow that the Church shall travel in vain to prescribe any set number of such points See Dr. Holden de Resol Fid. 1. l. 4. c. Solutio Quaestionis hujus i. e. of absolute necessaries inanis impossibilis Nor 2ly doth it follow that therefore the Church should certainly know in what particular points she is infallible and in what not Certainly know I mean not for some but for every point to the uttermost extremity of Infallibility For who can doubt that she is both certain and may profess her certainty and infallibility and the absolute necessity that lies on all to believe some of them for many of those points she delivers namely for those at least which are of clear revelation of universal Tradition and also for the immediate manifest and natural consequentials thereof Nay who denies that private men also from the abundant clearnes of Scripture only may attain sufficient certainty of many doctrines of Christianity But I say certainly know that she is inerrable for every point in which she is so For as to one ground of her infallibility the assistance of the Spirit leading her into all truth necessary since men may be and all regenerate men are guided by the Spirit of God and yet without extraordinary revelation cannot certainly discern and distinguish the particulars wherein they are guided by it nor sensibly perceive the motions thereof why may not the Church also be ignorant in what particular points she is so far assisted by God's Spirit as never to give an erroneous judgment in them And as to the other ground evidence of Tradition tho I grant sufficient assurance or infallibility in it if plenary yet 1. Tradition of some points being greater and of some other lesser and more obscure this Tradition seems not always in all points to be such as to amount to that certainty some of late pretend 2ly By this the Church can only know her infallibility in points traditionary But then some determinations of Councils and that under an Anathema will be found to be not of doctrines clearly traditional and such as have bin the common tenents of the former Church but of new emergent
invocato Spiritu Sancto aliquid communi consensu statuentes Faciunt argumentum probabile therefore by acquiescence here is not meant only a passive submission to their censure nor yet that of silence only and non-contradiction which in any things of practice sufficeth not for unles one do what they command he cannot be said to acquiesce in their sentence neither may any exteriorly act that to the lawfulnes whereof he doth not inwardly assent See Dr. Holden who holding that in some doctrines of less moment a general Council may possibly err yet exacts obedience notwithstanding to those Decrees we think such de resol fid 1. l. 9. c. Veruntamen quando a Conciliis Generalibus ad evitandum schisma pacem in Ecclesia conservandam definitae fuerint hujusce naturae conditionis veritates he speaks of those in which there is not certitudo ab omni erroris periculo immunis eorum decretis obediendum esse novit unusquisque Ecclesiae Catholicae vere Filius He goes on Quaeret hic forsitan aliquis curiosius an liceat hujusmodi decreta interno saltem mentis actu in dubium revocare Cui respondeo Quod imprudentis superbientis animi indicium esset haec dubitatio aut saltem hujusce dubitationis publica significatio Ad quid enim valet supremi tribunalis judicium c. si cuilibet subdito aeque liberum foret post ultimum denunciatum litis judicium ac antea oppositum censere publice praedicare An discipulus supra magistrum nonne unicuique in sua arte credendum c. See the like in S. Clara's Systema Fid. 20. c. And thus Mr. Cressy c. 33. Such Decisions many Catholicks conceive are not in so eminent a manner the necessary objects of Christian faith because not delivered as of Universal tradition But however an extreme temerity it would be in any particular man to make any doubt of the truth of them and unpardonable disobedience to reject them now in matters of practice not to obey in doing them is to reject them If in such decisions an error should happen since it c it were far better such an error should pass till as St. Austin saith some later Council amended it than that unity should be dissolved for an unnecessary truth Lastly t is commonly said that in a point controverted and not yet determined by any Council a man's private judgment ought to be swayed by the stream or major part of Catholick writers yet are not these fallible The same thing is ordinarily said of submitting our judgment to the Fathers in all things wherein we find the most of them to agree yet are not they liable to error But those of the Church of Rome that submit their judgment to a General Council and cannot prove it to be infallible as doubtless some of the simpler sort cannot do not so many submit to a Council for any thing they know fallible and yet they should offend if do otherwise For such submissions not the pretence of infallibility but the dictates of common Prudence are used and thought suffici Thus much of the Duty of obedience to all the decrees of General Councils tho these Councils be some way fallible wherein I have spoken of the obligation and rationalness of assent to their doctrines in case of our uncertainty of the contrary to be truths But remember that here I do not undertake to determin whether the Church thinking it fit perhaps to leave to her subjects in points of less consequence and such as are speculative more liberty of enjoying their own judgment so that only they disturb not her peace nor make faction hath only in some points of evident and universal tradition and more necessary consequence and practice required the submission of judgment and profession of assent and belief c under the peril of Anathema * where perhaps she expresseth her self in such terms as these Si quis non confitetur non profitetur constanter tenendum firma fide credendum nemo salva fide dubitare debet c And again whether in many other points of less necessity and not so common tradition tho perhaps certain deduction from those which are so she hath for only the preserving of her peace required the obedience and submission only of Non-contradiction and silence or Non-profession of the contrary under Anathema likewise * where she expresseth her self Si quis dixerit the most usual form in her Anathema's without any firmiter tenendum affixed to the contrary truth I meddle not to decide whether in the prohibition of the affirming an error the Church'es intention doth not always involve the profession of the contrary truth or whether all her Anathema's are not set only to points necessary to be believed but some to points fit not to be contradicted some Anathema's for consent some for peace and silence Again I attempt not to resolve here whether under the former of these the requiring of assent she means an internal plenary act of faith which perhaps is not in every man's power at all times faith having a great latitude of strength or weaknes according to the repugnancies of some verisimilities of the contrary running in a man's mind not fully settled and convinced and many times some mixture of unbelief Lord I believe help thou mine unbelief or else whether she means only a submissive endeavour and willingnes to believe and assent to her propositions In these things I can determin nothing neither if I have before argued that we may rationally yeild in such points more than the least of these submissions therefore will I deny that the Church may or doth require only the less as I cannot on the other side affirm that she hath not required the more But surely no more duty needs be paid to avoid her Anathema's than she chargeth us with tho she claim not all her due nor is more if so much necessary to salvation to be believed than she exacteth of us to be believed To conclude this discourse 1. Infallibility of the Church in all necessaries be they clear revelations and points traditional or consequential consequential clearly or not clearly deducted from the former provided that they be necessary to attain salvation for to be known or believed or practised by all Christians is not denied being had either by evidence of Tradition or assistance of the Spirit from the promise of our Saviour who fails not to guide the Church in all such truths for ever that she may in these also for ever securely guide others 2ly likewise at least for the most of these truths namely such as are of universal tradition or natural and immediate consequences thereof not only certitudo objecti but subjecti is granted not only that de facto the Church cannot err in them but that she knows she doth not err in them For it follows not that if the Church may err in something and not know that she
charity to other Churches i. e. with not condemning them to be no Churches so may his Considering these things may not such a one say Whether it is better to obey God than men judge ye 2. Again I ask If the power in the Church of Excommunication of private men binds them not to contradict her why doth not the same power in superior Councils to excommunicate Bishops and to annul the acts of inferior Councils bind such inferior Councils also to Non-contradiction 3. Again the obligation of Non-contradiction of private men to their Bishop or to his Synod in not-fundamentals will signifie little because an Episcopal or a National Synod may err in fundamentals and the judgment of this Synods erring in a fundamental is by the reformed left not to It which will never judg such a thing to be but to its subjects and they may misjudge a point not-fundamental to be fundamental and so may break their due silence neither can there be of this any remedy For none hitherto have contradicted the Church-decisions but they have made that which occasioned their contradicting to be a thing of great consequence Here therefore again in the yeilding of our obedience of Non-contradiction to a Provincial or National Church the Queries concerning Fundamentals will return Who is to determin what are such both for agends and credends which it is extream necessary to know that in such we may be sure to vindicate God's truth against that particular Church wherein we live Is not idolatry an error against a fundamental truth and doth not the Roman Church then err in fundamentals in worshipping bread as the Protestants think they do for Christ So that tenet of the Greek Church à Patre per filium is said to destroy the Trinity and so the Lutheran's Consubstantiation is said by consequence to destroy Christ's Humanity the Trinity and Christ's Humanity fundamental truths In such points and the like therefore none must be tied in obedience to their Bishop or Church-National to a Non-contradiction 2ly In respect of the Church in general the obedience of sole-Non-contradiction is limited by the reformed as we have said before to Non-fundamentals wherein the Church may err whereas in fundamentals wherein this Church cannot err here they also allow an obedience of assent But I ask again Who shall determin both in credends agends which are fundamental And why in these fundamentals especially are we wished in our judgment to conform to the Church'es since these are the points most clear in Scripture and such as without the Church'es direction we cannot mistake And methinks those places of Scripture concerning Tryal of Doctrines which we have learnt to turn against the injunctions of the Church hold as well or more for trying her Doctrines in Fundamentals than in any thing els because the rule by which we try is the most plain in these points Again I ask Are all the necessary consequences of fundamentals to be accounted fundamental If so then who knows how far these points may extend in which we are to consent to and not only not-to-contradict the Church'es decisions 3ly This obedience not of yeilding assent but solely of Non-contradicting is allowed and secured by the reformed only to those persons who upon examination of Scripture and Tradition are certain of the contrary surely then it must extend to very few persons and in very few things for how few are there that are able to compare the Scriptures or search Traditions Therefore the Scripture seems to make rules of our obedience to our present Spiritual Governors as if we were void of writings and not according to the extraordinary skill and learning of some few that are not rulers but according to the general capacity and knowledg of the flock of Christ. 1. Therefore it were well if these men who would not have their own knowledge restrained by authority would yet let the people know That only those who by long studying the Scriptures and Fathers have arrived to infallible certainty are tied only-to Non-contradiction to the Church-decisions but that all the rest to assenting For doth it not make our hearts yet to bleed to see so many thousands of the common people amongst us upon this mistaken priviledge even to disbelieve and not to yeild consent to the Church in fundamentals 2. When this is done how few are there of the learned that can say they are certain without some doubt that what the Church proposeth is false Are not all the rest then who are not infallibly certain to be taught that they must in Non-fundamentals subscribe to the Church-decisions Why labour we then more to free then subjugate mens judgments 3. But then for a private man's being infallibly certain upon which the reformed opinion seems to build much methinks this concession of the Scriptures which he reads to be the infallible word of God is not enough for his certainty almost in any point because there must be a comparing of Scriptures and a not interpreting of some places so that other places contradict and because the sence of the words may be diversly taken tho he were to judge only of one place by it self Besides there are many degrees of seeming certainty and t is hard to know when it is a presumption only and when a true certainty That men are ordinarily deceived in making this judgment is plain because two contradicting one another will often both affirm that they are infallibly certain The thinking ones self infallibly certain mostwhat ariseth from knowing no objections of any difficulty to the contrary which objections as one afterward discovers so his former certainty by degrees abates Hence we see the greatest Scholars many times dubious when the ignorant are either certain or strongly confident Four texts of Scripture that seem plainly to say a thing make one sure as it were and then two texts suggested to him that seem to say the contrary reduce him to doubt and make him begin to deliberate of the sense of the former I speak not this to affirm we are certain in nothing at all but that we have almost always reason to doubt where the same certainty that we have appears not to others But then if private men may be infallibly certain much more may the Church and so many Doctors be so they also all agreeing in their certainty So that all proofs of certainty to be had in divine truths rather strengthen the argument for obedience to the Church And she deals but with us in our own kind if she plead infallibility to require our submission to her even in Non-fundamentals as we do plead infallibility to avoid it As for those objections which the Reformed opinion makes 1. That possibly a National or Provincial Synod may or also hath broached some new mischievous tenet the contrary to which tenet neither the Creeds expresly nor former Councils have decreed into which error therefore my too secure obedience may betray me
OF FAITH Necessary to SALVATION And of the NECESSARY GROUND OF Faith Salvifical Whether this alway in every Man must be INFALLIBILITY OXFORD Printed in the Year M DC LXXXVIII FIVE SHORT TREATISES I. Concerning Faith Necessary to Salvation II. Of Infallibility III. Concerning the Obligation of not Professing or Acting against our Judgment or Conscience IV. Concerning Obedience to Ecclesiastical Governors and Trial of Doctrines V. Concerning Salvation possible to be had in a Schismatical Communion Estius in Sent. 3. d. 23. §. 13. Utrum in haereticis vera sit Fides Articulorum in quibus non errant Quaestio est in utramque partem probabiliter a Doctoribus disputata Ibid. Fidei impertinens est per quod medium primae veritati credatur id est quo medio Deus utatur ad conferendum homini donum Fidei Ibid. Nihil vetat quo minus haeretici quamvis in multis errent in aliis tamen sic divinitus per fidem illustrati sint ut recte credant Courteous Reader THese Treatises by divers passages may seem to have been written before the Author was fully united to the Catholick Church So that some things in them are not so cautiously and clearly explained as had himself liv'd to publish them they would have been But we thought it our duty rather to represent them as he left them than to make any breach in the Discourse it self or to pull any threads out of so close and well wrought a contexture CORRIGENDA Page 8. Marg. such points very few p. 9. l. penult necessary besides the assent p. 32. l. 18. and is in some l. 38. some degree of incredulity Of Infallibility Pag. 15. l. 12. tho this can never p. 20. l. 1. pertaining to Faith methinks sufficient ibid. l. 9. in Doctrinals pertaining to Faith certain of truth p. 28. l. 17. But I say he shall never be so Of Submission of Judgment Pag. 30. l. 7. that it was generally practised Trial of Doctrine Pag. 21. l. 18. by most of differing p. 28. l. 5. He may be free l. 7. from the sin of Schisin and invincibly ignorant of the errors which are profess'd in his Communion he may attain in such a Church life everlasting because in desire he is hoped to be of the true Church l. 22. sufficient thro Godâ—s infinite goodness l. 23. crimes and invincibly errs in not-fundamentals errors unknown to them l. 30. we may hope Danger of Schism Pag. 3. l. 13. and if she deny it l. 14. which are accounted THE CONTENTS PART I. 1. COncerning Faith necessary for Salvation § 1. 1. Concerning the object or matter of Faith. 2. Concerning the necessity of our belief of such object of Faith. § 2. 1. That it is necessary to our salvation to believe whatever is known by us to be Gods word Where 1. Concerning our obligation to know any thing to be Gods word which knowledg obliges us afterward to belief § 3. 2. And concerning sufficient proposal § 6. 2. That it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is Gods word be known by us to be so or in general be known by us to be a truth § 10. Where 1. That it is necessary to salvation that some points of Gods word be expresly known by all Such points very few Not easily defined § 13. In respect of these the Apostles Creed too large 2. That it is highly advantageous to salvation that several other points of Gods word besides these be known § 14. 3. And our duty each one according to his calling to seek the knowledg of them In respect of which the Apostles Creed is too narrow § 15. 4. That the obligation of knowing these varieth according to several persons c. And § 17. That the Decrees of Councils not obligatory at least to some against a pure nescience but only opposition thereof and not any opposition but only when known to be their Decrees PART II. II. Concerning the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical whether it must be in every Believer an Infallibility that the matter of such Faith is a Divine truth or Gods word § 20. Concessions § 21. I. Concerning the object of Faith that this is only Gods word II. Concerning the Act of Faith and the certainty which it may receive from the external motives of Scriptures Church Tradition § 22. That the Authority of Scriptures and Church is learnt from Universal Tradition § 23. Concessions concerning Tradition § 25. 1. That there is sufficient assurance in Tradition whether infallible or no to ground a firm Faith upon 2. That Tradition may have a sufficient certainty tho such Tradition be not absolutely Universal § 28. 3. That no one Age of the Church is mistaken in delivering any eminent Tradition § 29. 4. That the testimony of the present Age is sufficient to inform us therein § 30. 5. That Tradition of the Church is easier to be understood in some things expounded by her than the Scriptures § 31. 6. That the Church is a sufficiently-certain Guide to us in Doctrines proposed by her as Traditionary § 32. Digr 1. That all Traditions carry not equal certainty § 33. Digr 2. The difference between the Church's and Mahometan and Heathen Traditions III. Concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the inward operation of God's Spirit § 35. Concessions concerning the Spirit 1. That it is always required besides outward means 2. That all Faith wrought by the Spirit is infallible § 36. 3. That sometimes the Spirit produceth evidence beyond science § 37. IV. That from these Concessions it follows not that all who savingly believe have or must have an infallible or such sufficient certainty as may possibly be had of what they believe § 38. Neither from the evidence of Scriptures § 39. Nor of the Spirit § 40. Nor of Church-Tradition § 41. For these following reasons § 43. Necessary Inferences upon the former reasons § 51. CONCERNING FAITH necessary to SALVATION AND Of the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether This always in every Man ought to be Infallibility SIR YOU have importuned me to communicate to You my opinion on these four Queries as being you say the chief subjects which are debated by our modern Controvertists and in which if one side should gain the victory there would follow a speedy decision of most other Theological Controversy The First concerning FAITH What or how much is necessary for our Salvation The Second concerning Infallibity in this Faith Whether it be necessary in every Believer to render his Faith Divine and Salvifical The Third concerning the Infallibility of the Church Whether this is at all or how far to be allowed The Fourth concerning Obedience and submission of private Judgment Whether this be due to the Church supposed not in all her decisions infallible For the two latter I must remain for a while your Debter On the two former I have returned you as briefly as
I can my Conceptions no way swerving that I know of from any general Decree or Tenent of the Church Catholick And First concerning the former of these What or how much Faith is necessary to Christians for the attaining of salvation 1. Faith as it respects Religion or things Divine in general seems to be an assent to the Truth Goodness c of any thing that is God's Word or Divine Revelation And all truths whatsoever revealed by God even every part and parcel of God's word are the object and so many points or articles of our Faith i. e. are not to be denied but believed and assented to immediately when ever we know them or when ever they are sufficiently proposed to us that we might know them to be God's word Amongst these therefore all precepts of Manners are also matters of Faith in as much as they must first be assented to and believed by us to be God's commands lawful good holy just and most fit to be obeyed or else we cannot as we ought obey them And he that should practise them misbelieving them either to be things evil or things in themselves indifferent in the first way would sin in the second would perform a service utterly unacceptable by reason of an error in his faith See Rom. 14. 23. Surely every one of the fundamental rules of good life and action is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith. Again all necessary deductions and consequents of any part of God's word or of any point or article of faith are also so many points or articles of faith See Discourse of Infallibility § 12. So that the articles of faith taken absolutely are almost infinite for whatever is or necessarily follows that which is divine revelation may equally be believed and so is an object of faith and when it is believed is a point of faith Consequently also all controversies concerning the sense of any part of Scripture are concerning matter of faith taken in this general sense even those concerning Grace and Free-will as well as those about the Blessed Trinity 2. Next concerning the necessity of believing all such points of faith We must say in the first place That it is fundamental and necessary to our salvation That every part of God's word fundamental or not fundamental it matters not supposing that we exercise any operation of our understanding about it be not dissented from but be believed or assented to when we once know and are convinced that it is God's word Else we knowing that it is God's word and not believing or assenting-to it to be truth must plainly make or believe God in some thing to say false which if perhaps it be possible is the greatest heresy subverting the very first principle of faith that God is Truth and so necessarily excludeth from heaven And here also first concerning our knowing a thing to be God's word it must be said That we know or at least ought to know a thing so to be whensoever either so much proof of it is proposed to us by what means soever it comes as actually sways our understanding to give assent to it for which assent it is not necessary that there be demonstration or proof infallible but only generally such probability as turns the ballance of our judgment and out-weighs what may be said for the contrary for where so much evidence is either none can truly deny his assent or cannot without sin deny it or else when so much proof of it is proposed to us as consideration being had of several capacities according to which more things are necessary to be known to some stronger than to some others weaker would certainly sway our understanding if the mind were truly humble and docile and divested of all unmortified passions as addiction to some worldly interest covetousness ambition affectation of vain-glory self-conceit of our own wit and former judgment and of all faultily contracted prejudice and blindness by our education c. which unremovedfirst do obstruct and hinder it from being perswaded In which obstructions of our knowledge in things so necessary there are many several degrees of malignity which it will not be amiss to point at For 1. it is always a greater sin caeteris paribus i. e. the matter of the error being alike obstinately to maintain a known error and to profess a thing against conscience convinced than to have the conscience unconvinced by reason of some lust that hinders it because there is more ignorance of my fault in this latter and ignorance always aliquatenus excuseth another fault even when it cannot excuse it self 2ly In holding the same error not against conscience tho from some culpable cause some may be in very much some in very little fault according to many circumstances which none can exactly weigh to censure them of capacity condition obligation to such duties accidental information c. varying in several persons 3ly The sinfulness of the same man's erring in two things tho both equally unknown to him and neither held against conscience may be very different for the grosser and more pertinacious that their error is the more faulty in it is the erroneous Both 1. because the necessary truth opposed to such error hath more evidence either from Scriptures or from Ecclesiastical exposition thereof which exposition in the greatest matters we must grant either never or seldom errs and to whose direction all single persons are referred whence any ones ignorance in these is much more faulty and wilful And 2ly because such an error is the occasion of some miscarriage in manners so that tho formally he sinned no more in this than in his other errors yet consequentially he sins more in many other things by reason of it than he doth in truth mistaken in some smaller matter And hence 4ly it follows that an error doing great mischief to manners or to the purity of the Faith on which tho this foundation doth not always appear to support them good manners are built can hardly be held without a very guilty ignorance because such points are by God's providence and the Church'es care to all men sufficiently proposed Indeed it is so hard a thing for a man to divest and strip himself of all irregular passion and especially from prejudice contracted by education that an error in some things of less moment even out of some faulty cause is very often incident to men good and honest But when our passion shall grow so high and our interest so violent as to darken the light of truth in matters of moment especially if recommended to us by authority and as it were openly shining in our face in such case there is but little difference between our * denying a thing to be God's word when known to be so and by our own default * not knowing it to be so between knowingly gainsaying truth and wilfully being blind between shutting
the door against knowledg or affronting it being entered between conscience witnessing against us or by violence silenced Again concerning this removeal of all passion and interest as when we have used our uttermost endeavour to find out and lay them aside we are sufficiently excused so we are not to presume that when ever we are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and know nothing by our selves that we are therefore presently clear therefrom when as we have used no great examination or pains to discover or remove them for most men that are obstinate and self-biassed do not think tho they have reason to think that they are so and not without great diligence it is that men espy the corruption of their own intentions but yet certainly this may with much vigilance be found out and removed els such men who can no way discover it would be in their obstinacy as excusable as in an incapacity Now in this search of our own integrity I can advise nothing so necessary as 1. to rectify our manners where vitiously inclin'd before we trust much to our own reasoning for the vicious seldom judg aright in divine matters 2. Then to cast a jealous eye still upon the inclinations of our education And 3ly lastly * to mortify the self-love we have to our own reason by subduing and bending it to other mens in the particulars which we doubt of or would learn whom it once acknowledgeth in the general learneder and wiser than we and this especially when our judgment leads us to oppose common doctrines and * to employ our understanding not so much to find out by it self what is the true sense of disputed Scriptures as what is the most universal exposition of the Church concerning the sense thereof wherein it may soon be satisfied But of this see more in Tryal of Doctr. § 14. c. 2. Next our passions being rightly ordered concerning sufficicient proposal we may not think it enough to behave our selves passively i. e. to receive from time to time what happens to be evidenced to us and till then concerning sufficient knowledge of divine truths to think our selves in a safe condition We may not rely on the security of believing some few things in which all Christians agree and on an implicit faith and the preparedness of our mind whereby in general we assent that all God's word is true and are ready to believe with all willingness any thing whereof we shall be convinced that it is so By which implicit faith of the Scriptures we may also truly be said to believe the contrary to what we believe This I say frees not our conscience from all guilt For there lies a duty on all not only willingly to entertain knowledg in divine matters when brought as it were to their door and infused into them but to seek diligently and continually after it all the days of their life due respect being had to their secular vocations as being the only foundation of a right obedience and service of God which is the unum necessarium for this world and the next And certain it is that the most of men are much more obliged to the study of Divinity soberly undertaken not for the teaching of others but the informing of themselves than by reason of their secular condition they think they are By want of which study it is that men become so fatally addicted to the doctrines practices religion of the place wherein they are bred tho these never so gross and easily discernible for erroneous and damnable to their souls Neither may we become careless in this search of divine truth by relying on a general repentance as too many do of our errors as if it were tho not for all other sins yet for these a sufficient remedy and this because tho many of our errors are sins as proceeding from not an unavoidable but a culpable ignorance which so far as it is culpable so far it is also voluntary yet those errors in which we err for the present of which we speak they are always wholly unknown nor can any man live a minute in a known error profess it afterward he may but hold it any longer he cannot but that the very knowing or judging it to be an error is the very act of forsaking it and then if errors be unknown a general repentance of them only can be made I say this plea tho it serves the turn for some smaller yet not for grosser errors because such tho actually undiscovered yet may be easily known for we suppose sufficiently perspicuous revelation and proposition of the truths contrary to these In such therefore the first and not very difficult business or act of repentance is to endeavour to know and discover them and so to make particular confession of them nay further publick recantation if by them we have done much hurt to others for many times errors are more pernicious than lusts when ever they tend to patronize a lust and so one heretick may do more mischief in the world than a thousand otherways grievous offenders It follows therefore that errors are forgiven after no other manner than other sins are Some smaller sins and errors because less discernible may be remitted to a general repentance but greater as well sinful errors as sinful lusts we are to acknowledg and forsake the tenent of the one as well as the practice of the other Only this difference there is 1. That the errors so soon as known are ipso facto forsaken tho not so other sins 2. That caeteris paribus i. e. if the error by some ill consequences of it be not more mischievous a gross error undiscovered hath less guilt in it than a known and wilful sin because the more knowledge the more guilt What is our duty then We are never to be secure of ourselves in the search of Divine Truth but are obliged according to our several conditions the opportunity of teachers the times of manifestation we live in c. for there lies a necessity or duty of knowing more of divine things as upon some capacities so upon some conditions of life and upon some times of revelation more than in others and that knowledge is necessary to one man's salvation that is he shall stand guilty before God and be called to a severe account for the want thereof which is not to anothers we are obliged I say all our life to seek earnestly further knowledge of divine truths and not to acquiesce in our present knowing no more than in our present working but from milk to ascend to strong meat and to grow in faith as in grace and holiness See Rom. 1. 17. Jo. 16. 22. 1 Cor. 3. 2. Heb. 5. 12. 14. Eph. 1. 17 -4 13. Col. 1. 10. Phil. 1. 9 10. 2 Pet. 1. 5 -3 18. And then upon our using such constant endeavour both for knowing the wisdom of God to praise him and will of God to serve him our
implicit faith is accepted whether in our defects or also errors in matters of faith implicit faith being then only serviceable to us where faith explicit considering due circumstances cannot be attained by us Now what is said hitherto concerning knowledge of the Scriptures may be applied to the knowledge of the Church our guide in the Scriptures and the obedience due to her For he who believes 1. Either that the Church is infallible in her proposals to him what is the word of God or 2. That tho fallible in some things yet she is appointed in those things to be his Judge and the final determiner of them 3. or at least that in the exposition of the sense of Scriptures her judgment is better than his own such a one is bound to believe any thing to be God's word if she affirm it to him to be so And he who doth not believe any of these things of the Church is not presently therefore unobliged to her proposals unless he hath unpartially examined this matter and so finds no just cause to believe any such thing of her wisdom or authority as is pressed upon him For when some argue thus There is no danger to me in so or so disobeying the Church where she ought to be obeyed if having used the uttermost examination I can both of the point and of my own dis-interest I can find no such obedience due to her t is well reasoned tho such obedience were indeed due to her if we grant the Supposition that he hath examined to the uttermost who yet after all remains mistaken for a mistaking examination where there is no further power to discover it is no more blameable than a true one and in this case invincible ignorance or incapacity excuseth And God doubtless imposeth nothing to be believed by us under the penalty of sinning but that he gives sufficient arguments to evidence it to all men endued with the use of reason and void of prejudice and passion But hence is our error that we take an imperfect trial and examination for a compleat and suddenly rest in the dictate of our conscience un or mis-informed which is virtually a going against it and to God must we answer both for such a blind conscience and all the acts of disobedience that flow from it Thus much concerning our obligation to seek after the knowledge of all divine truth and concerning sufficient proposal and that upon this whatever appears to be God's word is necessary to our salvation to be assented to and believed But this granted in the second place you are to observe that it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is God's word be known to us to be so or be known by us to be a Truth For of these parts of God's word which are proposed to us some there are which concern the business of our salvation and again some others which do not as some passages of history and perhaps some subtle consequences of some beneficial point of Faith c Hence therefore ariseth a twofold necessity of belief either only in respect of proposal because we know they are God's word or besides proposal in respect of our salvation because they are some way advantageous thereto Now concerning the first of these tho such things once evidently proposed are necessary to be assented to or rather not dissented from yet it is not necessary at all that they should be either proposed to us or known by us but we may be ignorant of or also err in them without any sin any danger Concerning the second Divine Truths necessary to be believed with relation to our salvation may be taken either in a more strict or in a more large sense Taken in the most strict sense they are such articles or points of faith as without which actually known and believed none at all can possibly enter into heaven and escape damnation and of which not only the denial or opposition but the pure nescience and ignorance is a defect of faith to all adulti absolutely irremissible And these must needs be very few since we must make them no more than the knowledge whereof may be attained by the most illiterate indocile and the lowest conditions of men And likely according to the several degrees of the proposal and revelation of the mysterys of salvation fewer of these are required in some times as those before the Gospel than in some others as those since it Yet that now also in the greatest illumination there are but few we may gather both * from the short abridgment of faith the Apostles proposed in their Sermons to the people commonly including the Articles of the Passion and Resurrection and Kingdom of Jesus the Son of God and of David and the remission of sins to the penitent thro his Name and * from the yet shorter Confessions of Faith which the Apostles accepted as sufficient for bestowing of Baptism i. e. for admitting men to salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven so that in that instant had they died as the good Thief also did doubtless upon such a small stock of faith they had entred into life eternal See Act. 8. 37. 16. 31 33. Act. 2. 38. 10. 43. Now these absolutely necessary points are either 1. of pure faith or also 2. of practice 1. Again those are either * such wherein we more expresly give honor and glory to God in acknowledging Him and his wisdom and his works such as they are and that is much better and more wonderful than any lye can make them or * such whereby we * nourish our hope concerning good things belonging to our selves obedient and * quicken our fear concerning evil things appertaining to the disobedient Yet are not those amongst them which are most speculative to be thought useless or unprofitable to us even in respect of our practice they all generally conducing to the advancing of our admiration love and affection to God and of our confidence and reliance upon him and so to the animating of our endeavours and obedience accordingly to his commands Nullum est dogma Christianum quod non sit quodammodo necessarium ad praxim So that an orthodox faith in Speculatives is a main ground of a right practice and a strong faith of a zealous practice 2ly Those points of faith which are also of practice are such wherein we learn our duty to God. To particularize something in both these 1. Pure faith absolutely necessary to all in general even to those under the law of nature perhaps * is that faith only Heb. 11. 6. made evident evident enough to all by the works of God. Again faith absolutely necessary to those within the Church before the times of the Gospel is perhaps besides the former faith * a general trust and hope in the Messias to come See Jo. 4. 25. 1. 21. Mat. 2. 5. Jo. 7. 42. Again absolutely necessary to those under the Gospel
is * perhaps that faith Jo. 3. 18 36. 1 Jo. 4. 2 15. Jo. 11. 27. Act. 17. 18. Rom. 10. 9 Mat. 16. 16 17. Act. 8. 37. both these last kinds of faith being evidenced sufficiently to all where the sound of the Prophets or the Gospel hath bin heard And 2ly for matter of practice and of holiness in which there are as undispensable fundamentals for attaining salvation as in pure credends for as without faith so without holiness none shall see God there is absolutely necessary perhaps besides the assent to the most clear laws of nature which were also afterward the law written repentance from dead works and the interior acts of Sanctification in loving God and our neighbour See Heb. 6. 1. Now the set number of these the pure nescience or non-practice whereof certainly excludes from Heaven there where ever is the preaching of the Gospel I do not see what way it can be certainly known but the Apostles Creed seems too large a Catalogue I mean in respect of pure Credends not Practicals of necessaries or fundamentals taken in this sense This being said of Necessaries taken in the most strict sense 2ly Fundamentals and Necessaries to salvation are taken in a more large sense for all such divine truths the knowledge of which and practice if they be practicals is very advantageous and beneficial to salvation tho amongst these there are degrees of more and less necessary and some approaching nearer to fundamentals absolute some further off removed These points are also said to be necessary both * 1. because they especially if they be points relating to some practice are such helps to our performing the conditions of our salvation and have such influence upon our lives that they much facilitate our way to Heaven which would be either much more coldly pursued or much more difficultly proceeded in without them Concerning the danger of erring in which points methinks Mr. Chillingworth speaks very well There be many errors saith he not fundamental which yet it imports much tho not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these errors tho they do not merit may yet occasion damnation So that tho a man if remaining godly may be saved with these errors yet by means of them many are made vitious and so damned by them I say tho not for them Thus Mr. Chillingworth And this said he for a necessity of a reformation from the rest of the Church in such points this say I for a necessity of the Church'es guidance of us in them And 2ly * because God both by a fuller revelation of them to us in the Scriptures and by the doctrine of the Church hath obliged all men according to their capacity and condition of life and opportunity of directers to a certain measure of actual knowledg belief profession thereof and obedience thereto So that tho they are not absolutely necessary to attaining Salvation ratione medii strictly so taken yet they are so ratione praecepti and it is our duty to know and believe them and doing of our duty is a thing necessary to Salvation and we sin if we do not learn and use all diligence competent with our calling for to acquire the knowledge of them and so also our teachers sin if they neglect to instruct us in them Act. 20. 26 27. Neither can we be saved in the ignorance of them but only by God's first forgiving us both this sin of our faulty ignorance and our negligence or obstinacy that caused it and our disobedience in practicals that followed it and then again this forgivenes is not obtained where our fault so far as we our selves have discovered it is not first repented of and according to the time we have in this world after such our repentance rectified Now taking Necessaries in this sense the Apostles Creed as it was before too large so now is much too narrow to comprehend them all as being * a Catalogue at least for the most of the Articles thereof 1. only of pure credends without practicals in which practicals our Salvation mainly and fundamentally consists as well as in speculative faith By fundamental points of faith saith Dr. Potter Char. mist. 7. sect p. 215. speaking there only of pure Credends we understand not the necessary duties of charity comprehended in the Decalogue nor the necessary acts of hope contained in the Lord's Prayer c tho both these vertues of charity and hope are fundamentals necessary to the Salvation of Christians And as we are bound to believe such and such things under pain of damnation so to do such and such which doing still includes belief first that they are God's commands and ought to be done under pain of being the least in the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5. 19. And 2ly in those pure Credends the Apostles Creed being a * summary not of all but the chief of them if we consider the Creed in the express terms and immediate sense thereof Els Arrians Socinians Nestorians the Pelagian or late Anabaptists c may not be said to err in any necessary points since they confess this Creed But if you include all necessary consequences of those Articles within the contents thereof to make it compleat yet neither thus can many necessary points be reduced to it and could they yet secondly then where will there be any one found that thus being strictly catechized may not affirm something contrary to some necessary consequence thereof We find nothing therefore in it expresly concerning some pure credends and those of great consequence For to say nothing of the Deity of our Saviour of his consubstantiality with the Father of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and many other points added in the latter Creeds of Councils how necessary is the believing and acknowledging the Grace of God empowering us to all good works against Pelagius c Much less find we any thing therein concerning many practicals of our duty towards God or our neighbour yet is it as fundamentally necessary to Salvation to believe the Ten Commandements as the Creed For since the practice of these is granted necessary to be saved believing first is also a necessary precedent to all lawful practice and all acts of obedience are grounded upon a foregoing assent of the understanding to the lawfulness or also divine command of what we practise and how many of them are not of faith are sin And to affirm the lawfulnes of any thing forbidden in Scripture suppose of adultery or drunkenness or to deny the lawfulnes and goodnes of any thing commanded there suppose of marriage obedience to Parents and Magistrates would be as fundamental an error and perhaps more mischievous as denying some Speculative article of faith And many dangerous Hereticks have there bin in practicals Again in the Apostles Creed we find * nothing concerning what writings are to be
believed by us to have bin heavenly inspired and the undoubted word of God and hence the settling of the Canon was no small sollicitude of the Primitive Church a point this of no small consequence for the attaining of Salvation to be believed yet not absolutely necessary since one may be saved without knowing the Scriptures and many were so before these writings * Nothing concerning Ecclesiastical Orders Ordinations Sacraments the Church'es absolving sinners inflicting censures prescribing publick Liturgies points fundamental and so called some of them at least Heb. 6. 2. in respect of the essence and government and unity of the Church tho not in respect of the Salvation of some member thereof Yet why not necessary to every person therein as having reference one way or other to their particular good * Nothing express concerning the obedience due to the Church and her Governours else why do so many deny it who confess the Creed and in it the Catholick Church and yet this a very necessary fundamental also in respect of Christian duties for ignorance whereof whilst especially they will not believe the Church in attesting her own authority how many deprive themselves of the help of her excellent rules not to name here the Evangelical Counsels of Celibacy and emptying our selves of our superfluous wealth recommended to us by her and her many injunctions sovereignly tending to the advancing of piety and bettering of manners which we will suppose here not to be contained in Scripture as frequent confession of sins to the Priest frequent Fasts hours of Prayer Communions which who knows not of how much moment they are for the abstaining from sin acquisition of Christian virtues and so consequently for our Salvation Now the obligation to know and believe these and such like Necessaries of this 2d sort varies according to several persons and conditions and according to the more or less evident proposal of them In this dispute as Dr. Potter acknowledgeth Char. mistak § 7. p. 242. of necessary and fundamental truths both truths and persons must be wisely distinguished The truth may be necessary in one sense that is not so in another and fundamental to some persons in certain respects which is not so to some others 1. * More points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as more are made manifest to one than another by the Scriptures by the decision of the Church or any other way Where note that before the Church's determination of some points of faith one may have an obligation to believe them when another hath not if before this they be evidenced to him when not to another what I mean by evidence see before § 3. by what means or author soever it be he receives this evidence And after such evidence he that opposeth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and heretical in God's sight even before that he happens to be declared so by the Church'es censure and is made yet more perversly erroneous after her definitions and such obstinate error again is more or less dangerous besides the sin of obstinacy as the matter of the error is of more influence toward our Salvation whilst mean-while others not having the like evidence of them are yet free to dissent or disbelieve them but then after the Church'es definition those also upon this stronger evidence shall I call it or authority will become obliged to assent to them Again * more points ought to be known and believed by one than by another according as one hath more opportunity than another by studying the Scriptures the Church'es exposition thereof and her decrees to find out and discover such truths Art thou a Master in Israel saith our Saviour and knowest not these things See Heb. 5. 12. There are those who are not excused in acquiescing in the tenents of their particular education but who are bound to examine the general traditions and doctrines of the Church the ancient Fathers Ecclesiastical Histories c. Again others there are of another condition who are not so far obliged And in the former sort if they either depart from the foresaid doctrines themselves or continue a separation first made by others it will be a damnable Schism when perhaps the simplicity of the vulgar their followers will remain excused if the error be not in a point absolutely fundamental or will be much lightlier punished Luk. 12. 48. Which common people we must leave to God's secret mercies in the same manner as we do all those others who have not believed because they have not heard which Heathens also I charitably think shall not suffer for want of that Faith of which they had no Teacher as that Faith mentioned Jo. 3. 36. but for want of that the sound of which hath come to all the world in all times mentioned Heb. 11. 6. compared Rom. 1. 20 21. Thus many truths are necessary to be known by the Pastors and the Learned that are not so by the illiterate people And in respect of some vulgar I conceive that form Quisquis non confitetur or non credit Anathema sit concerning the Creeds drawn up against several hereticks by the four first General Councils is not to be understood to be of force against a pure nescience of some Articles thereof for there are many subtilties exceeding vulgar capacities and which they need not distinctly know but against an opposition of them or denial or non-confession of these points when they come to know the Church hath established them and condemned the contrary for thus to oppose the Church is not to be ignorant of them but heretical in them Tho t is not necessary to Salvation that either they should know the Church hath determined such a thing or that such a thing is a divine truth if such knowledg be beyond the compass of their moral endeavors sutable to their capacity and their vocation in the search of divine truth See this matter more largely discussed in the Disc. of Infallibility § 15. Nay if the Learned also should I say not be ignorant of but err in some point of such moment that by consequence such error destroys some chief principle of our faith yet this being supposed and granted possible that having used their just endeavor in the search of the truth they are by no sufficient proposal convinced of it and that mean-while they contend for the principle with the same or more pertinacity than for it with a resolution to desert it if once appearing to them any way repugnant to the other such an error will no way hazard Salvation Upon such Supposition Tho the Lutheran is conceived from his new fancied Ubiquity by consequence to destroy the verity of Christ's Humanity Again the Calvinist is conceived from God's eternal predetermination of all our actions c. by consequence to destroy God's Holiness and Justice in making him the Author of all sin points highly fundamental yet are not these holding
some there are and those as well within as without the Church much more doubtful obscure and questionable than others For 1. both truths committed to Tradition may fail in successive times vel per omnimodam cessationem vel ex eo quod oppositum introducatur viz. where Tradition is not come to a convenient and due pitch of universality as is granted by the strongest abettors of Tradition See Dr. Hold. Resol Fid. 1. lib. 8. cap. And 2. the unfailing Tradition of successive times may be defective in its first original's being false or els in its having many falsities in its current thro posterity superadded to and mingled with the truth as persons are interested or fanciful As Gentilism did superadd many things to the ground-work of religion received from the Jew and writings of the Old Testament For falsum poterit quodammodo caeteris paribus aeque certo ac verum per traditionem communicari els lies cannot be commonly believed But many such we know were credited amongst the Heathen concerning their Gods and are amongst the Mahometans concerning their Prophet and so it may happen that as undoubting an assent may be given to these as is to the truth for ignorance many times doubts less of a thing than knowledg doth But yet this we contend that it will never be so rational And indeed many disparities there are between the credibility of Heathenish or Mahometan and of Christian Tradition * Such as are in Heathenism these †1. that except some foundations of religion borrowed from the Jews and so free from error there is no constancy or agreeance in the tradition thereof but t is varying according to each city or country whereby any one of them much fails of universality and contradictory Tradition destroys it self And 2ly that †as we have said that falsities under the notion of falsities may be conveyed by Tradition so many of the absurd stories of Heathenism seem not to be believed even by the most or wisest of those who propagated them therefore are their Poets their Divines out of whom chiefly such tradition is learned And * Such as are in Mahometanism these †It s spreading 1. * by the force of the Sword contrary to the nature of Tradition and 2ly * by its plausibility and compliance with carnal lusts both great corrupters of the truth of Tradition whereas Christianity flowing down to all ages in opposition to both these by how much it was less pleasing or less protected seems to be strengthned in all times with so much greater evidence of truth and testimony irresistible †It s wanting that universality which Christianity possesseth never having had so large a circuit the Western part of the world having always bin a stranger to it and the growth of it now for many ages being stopped and it decreasing in the world and this great falshood by little and little giving place as is seen in the Eastern Countreys to its elder the Truth I say these and many other disparities there are but besides these the main thing whereby all such Traditions are convinced of falshood lies in this that they came into the world still later than that of the Truth and so are known to be false by their contradiction to it so that Truth against them may always plead prescription * So Heathenism was younger than the Tradition of God's word in the Old Testament and so indeed than the Gospel which also was contained in the Old Testament and taught from the beginning see Rom. 3. 21 23. So that I may say Heathenism was the Antichristianism of the former Ages springing up after the tradition of God's true worship Again * so Mahometanism was later than the tradition of the New Testament being the Antichristianism of the last times but lest the world I mean that part of it to whom it pleased God to divulge the truth by false traditions should be deceived God hath always provided true Tradition to pre-occupate Faith and to anticipate and antidate error Therefore tho we yeild to the truth also of Mahometan tradition in some things as that there was such a one as Mahomet a Law-giver a Conqueror c. yet we know that Tradition that he received his writings from the Angel Gabriel c. to be false because contrary to that divine Tradition which besides many other advantages ought from its antiquity to be preferred God having given to Truth the Eldership of Falshood And on the same grounds may we reject that Heathen-tradition in the Acts of the Image of Diana falling from God c. III. And thus much be granted concerning the certainty which Faith may receive from the external motives or proponents the Scriptures Church and Tradition 3ly Concerning the illumination adherence certitude which this Faith that ordinarily first cometh by hearing receives from the inward operation of God's Spirit 1. First let it be granted that the interior working of the Holy Spirit opening the heart is always required besides the outward means for the conception of all saving Faith that we cannot exercise any act thereof without particular grace and motion of the Holy Ghost that it is the infused Gift of God as well as other graces of hope and charity see Jo. 6. 29 44 45 64 65. Matt. 11. 25 26. 16. 17. Act. 13. 48. 16. 14 15. Rom. 12. 3. 1 Cor. 12. 3 9. 2 Cor. 3. 3. Gal. 5. 22 23. Eph. 1. 17. c. 2. 8. 6. 23. See Ben. Spir. p. Whence Faith is said to be supernatural as in respect * of its object things above the comprehension of reason and * of it s ultimate ground it builds upon which is divine revelation so * of its act being caused by the Spirit All the acts of faith being in some kind supernatural for such a degree of adherence as they have both because the relater or proponent thereof is many times not at least known to be infallible and because the object thereof many times tho there be all certainty from the relater is capable of much doubt and vacillancy from its supernaturalness and seeming-repugnancy to reason Therefore we see our first Father or at least his wife see 1 Tim. 2. 14. failed in not believing the words spoken by God himself to him and the Disciples when rationally believing our Saviour to be the Son of God and all he said to be truth and seeing his miracles yet desired the increase of their faith and were in it many times not a little shaken thro the contrariety or transcendency which it had to sense or reason And it is reckoned to Abraham as strong faith that he believed the word of God himself in things contrary to nature See Rom. 4. 18 19 20. which Sarah his wife flagg'd in See Gen. 18. 12. 2 King. 7. 2. Thus Faith to make it vigorous and lively comes necessarily to be a work of the Spirit either in regard of the sublimity of its object or
in which we may easily be deceived Ergo That it is true This for the Spirit In the next place to come to consider Whether all to have true and saving faith must be rationally assured thereof from the to-them-known Church-tradition And here we will grant as t is said before 1. That there is in Tradition sufficient ground for such assurance as is necessary and that it is a medium for necessary points of faith free from error 2. That the saith of very many hath this rational assurance and that any or most by some reasonable diligence may attain it for necessary points from the traditionary doctrine and practice which they may see and hear dispersed thro the Church for doubtles our careful Saviour hath provided a rational means sufficient for producing a full perswasion of faith in all sorts of men there where his Gospel is preached and this means all men for the ascertaining of their faith as much as may be are bound to seek after all their life according to their condition c. 3. That the Church-decrees may be certainly known and are easily understood and more easily in many things than the Scriptures namely where these happen to be doubtful to us and doubtful they are or should be where ever Church-tradition expounds them otherwise than we and hence that this point being supposed that the Church is infallible those who believing her to be so do rely upon her judgment have for the most part a stronger perswasion and those knowing her to be so have a more rational assurance of the truth of their faith in all other points than only relying on the perspicuity of Scriptures because the former persons faith rests on a double ground the saying of Scripture and the sense of the Church interpreting it And thus one adhering to the tradition and doctrines of the Church hath more warrant for his Faith than a single Scripturist 4. That those who hold Church-tradition fallible can have no other way an infallible evidence whereby they can demonstrate the truth of their faith But all these granted yet such a degree and measure of certainty or assurance as that of Tradition or Church-infallibility is seems not to be necessary to make faith salvifical or defect of such a motive sufficient to void it and render it no true divine and acceptable faith but an humane opinion and perswasion as some contend But saving faith may be begotten where the proponent of the word of God or of divine revelation mediate or immediate is not or at least is not known to be which is all one with the former to the believer's certainty infallible and it sufficeth to it that what one believes is the word of God and that he believe it in some degree or other predominant to unbelief to be so And this I think may be shewn in many instances and by many reasons 1. For first some at least of those primitive converts of the Apostles questionles endued with true faith yet believed before any certainty of the infallibity of their teachers or before or without seeing their miracles tho these also seen afforded to some no certainty who thought that such might be done by the Devil's power see Matt. 12. 24. Deut. 13. 1. meerly by the powerful operation of God's Spirit So the Eunuch to be a true believer needed no more than the bare exposition and relation of S. Philip So Cornelius and his friends some words of St. Peter The Jaylor and Lydia of S. Paul strangers and formerly altogether unknown to them the Holy Ghost presently unlocking their hearts and finishing the work For so the three thousand converted by S. Peter in one day supposing he at that time wraught miracles yet t is not probable that all these were spectators of them or yet auditors of his doctrine from his own mouth but believed only the relations of others persons fallible who stood near him The Bereans why examined they the Apostles doctrines if they knew or esteemed him infallible The Believers at Antioch zealous of the law why contested they with St. Paul and those of Jerusalem with S. Peter Act. 11. 2. if acknowledging them infallible Or the weaker brethren tho of the number of true Believers why doubted they long time of some meats unclean contrary to the Apostle's instruction T is true that whoever believes that which another relates must ipso facto believe the relater in that thing not to be deceived but yet he who in any other one thing doth not believe him doth not believe him to be infallible And granting that all the primitive Christians assented to the infallibility of the Hierosolymitan Council yet many points of their faith were learned not from the Council but private Doctors whom I have shewed that some of them accounted not infallible nor yet was their faith nullified thereby 2. Believers no way heretical or schismatical but submitting unto the Church in all things and believing her and her traditions to be infallible c and consequently whose faith is allowed by the most rigid exactors of certainty to be most safe and secure yet if things be well examined all of them cannot be said to have an infallible means or motive or proponent of their faith I mean so many as are neither able to search the H. Scriptures nor the Tradition of former times nor universal present Tradition nor yet the Catechisms and common writings of the Church neither for other points nor yet for this That the Church or the Tradition they rely upon is infallible But being young as many undoubtedly are made faithful Christians when children or illiterate necessitated to handy-labour quiescent in one place or perhaps inhabiting deserts and solitudes c do receive the doctrine of their faith believing and yeilding obedience thereto only from their Parents or the Curate of the place or from their bare reading or hearing read some portion of Scripture recommended to them for but not proved at all to them to be the word of God. Believing indeed what is truth and obeying it but having no more external argument or assurance thereof than another suppose educated in an erroneous Church and taking the false Tradition thereof for Apostolical hath of his error Now private teachers even within the Church may first possibly by their negligence be themselves ignorant or rationally uncertain of what they teach and a Catholic Priest be able to give no better account for his religion than the Protestant both inheriting their tenents from their next Ancestors For Error once begun is propagated afterward by Tradition as well as Truth Or 2ly being rationally certain of the truth yet may he wilfully for filthy lucre for fear for lasciviousnes c see 1 Thes. 2. 3 5 6. 2 Pet. 2. 14. misguide his disciples Or 3. lastly teaching only the truth which he perfectly knows yet is this his certainty tho something to the truth of the others faith nothing to their
in conclusione fidei semper est certissima infallibilis But then 4ly he saith that Ad Ecclesiae infallibilitatem in docendo satis est ut sit infallibilis in substantia fidei publico dogmate rebus ad salutem necessariis quia hic est finis datae infallibilitatis viz. ad consummationem Sanctorum ad aedificationem corporis Christi i. e. ad publicam salutem fidelium Deus autem Natura ut non deficit in necessariis it a nec superabundat in superfluis Nec ad quaevis particularia Dei providentia specialis deducenda est quae ut multos particulares defectus in gubernatione universali permittit ad decorem ipsius Universi ut not at Augustinus in Civ Dei 11. l. 18. c. sic multos privatos in Ecclesia errores multarum rerum non necessariarum ignorantiam etiam in doctissimis permittit And again to Calvin charging the Papists that they said Ecclesia nulli errori potest esse affinis he answers Infallibilitas docentis Ecclesiae ponitur tantum in rebus ad salutem necessariis atque adeo in ipsa conclusione Thus he But then he both assirmeth the teaching Church infallible in all her conclusions and then affirming her infallible only in necessariis ad salutem consequently he must hold all the conclusions which she peremptorily proposeth to be believed to be necessary ad salutem Hitherto Stapleton Lastly in matters of fact Bellarmin grants general Councils to have erred See 2. l. 8. c. Resp. to 14. and 15. Objection The Church therefore is not infallible in all her decrees but only those which are de side or which is all one in his sence which are proposed tanquam de fide Now things are said to be de Fide in many several senses and therefore you will excuse me here if I make a digression tho something hath bin said thereof in the discours of Necessary Faith § 1. to declare them that the different Notions wherein Authors use this term may be the better understood 1. First then you must observe as Bellarmin notes de verbo Dei 4. l. 9. c. that Nihil est de fide and therefore cannot be proposed tanquam de fide nisi quod Deus per Apostolos aut Prophetas revelavit aut quod evidenter inde deducitur Illa omnia quae Ecclesia fide tenet tradita sunt ab Apostolis aut Prophetis aut scripto aut verbo either by verbal or also written Tradition which is the Scriptures therefore he affirms ibid. Non novis revelationibus nunc regitur Ecclesia sed in iis permanet quae tradiderunt illi qui ministri fuerunt sermonis And Concilia Generalia non habent neque scribunt immediatas revelationes aut verba Dei sed tantum declarant quidnam sit verbum Dei scriptum vel traditum Quidnam sit i. e. from the Apostolical times before the meeting of the Council quomodo intelligi debeat praeterea ex eo per ratiocinationem deducunt Conclusiones It aque Concilia cum definiunt qui libri c. non faciunt sed declarant esse tales Bell. de Concil l. 2. c. 12. But note here therefore that no points become de fide in this sence i. e. that they are verbum Dei or revelata because the Church defines them much less are all things that she proposeth straight de fide but that she defines them to be so only because they are so before even from the Apostles times either explicitly or implicitly either express and traditional and well known from age to age or necessarily involved in and clearly deducible from those points that are traditional For as is said before the Church hath no new revelation of any thing of necessary knowledge not formerly delivered not that I deny that some new revelations from God's Spirit concerning things Theological and of the next world can be now made to any in the Church but only affirm that all necessary ones are received from the beginning of the Gospel and that the Church can build upon no such new ones because she hath no certain way to discern them neither can the Church make any new Article of faith which much differenceth the Church succeeding from the Church Apostolical that none may argue the like fallibility or infallibility in both as to making or composing Articles of Faith but only the Church can declare what hath bin always formerly and explicate the sence or also educe out of it the necessary consequents thereof 2ly You may observe that all necessary deductions or conclusions tho perhaps formerly unknown yet being the necessary consequents of some other Articles known and common are properly called Articles of Faith or else we must deny those added to the Apostles Creed in the Nicene and Athanasian to be such or granting these two propositions Est unus tantum Deus and Pater est Deus Filius est Deus Spiritus Sanctus est Deus Deus here being supposed to bear the same sence as in the Major Proposition to be Articles of Faith we must deny this drawn from them Pater Filius Spiritus Sanctus sunt unus tantum Deus to be so 3ly You may observe that such deductions are also necessary to be made and manifested by the Church from time to time in opposition to contrary errors destroying by consequence that known Article from which these deductions flow that as new Errors arise against the Faith so new Explanations of the Faith may counterpoise them and may preserve that former faith in its true sence and in its necessary consequences by which the explicit articles of our faith must needs increase to the end of the world if errors against the faith do so Which also we may call new Articles of Faith in respect of the arguing newly made and the proposition it self newly formed yet by no means are they new in respect of the principles out of which they are formed and do necessarily follow Now therefore they are for the form rather than the matter as if this proposition Omnis homo est corpus should be said to be newly formed when as these two propositions whereof t is made Omnis homo est animal omne animal est corpus were well known and received truths before Therefore in such sence to make new Articles there is no need of new revelation but for those more evident only the operation of common reason And thus many things become known to posterity even in things most supernatural which were not discovered to or discoursed of by their fore-fathers from a further examining upon some occasion given and discussing of ancient principles and comparing of former revelations as out of Mathematical principles new Demonstrations yet undeniable are daily minted In which respect knowledge of divine things as well as humane may be said to have a continual progress and increase to the end of the world Dan. 12. 4 But
4ly observe concerning these derivative articles that since the deductions which may be made from such as are express and tradititional are almost infinite tho we cannot deny that all of them even to the least are still de fide or matters pertaining to faith for how can the premises be so and not the conclusion yet all not necessary to be believed or matters pertaining to necessary and required Faith. For so neither is every thing that is plainly set down in the Scripture necessary to be believed tho it is all matter of faith being made known to us that it is there written as the Cardinal saith de verbo Dei 4. l. 12. c. Necessario creduntur quia scripta sunt yet not ideo scripta sunt quia necessario credenda erant such as are many things historical there A pure nescience or also a blamelesly-ignorant contradiction of such things hurts no man's faith so we deny them not to be truth when we happen to know they are Scripture but that we should also know them to be Scripture there lies no tye upon us So is it with these Deductions which if in themselves as some points are they were necessary to salvation to be believed they would have bin so always not only after the Church hath made them but before But so they are not for then former generations perhaps not knowing some of them at least would be deficient in requisite faith A pure nescience of them therefore in the simplicity of which they are neither affirmed nor denyed or also when denyed not knowing the contrary determination of Scripture or Church hurts none but only a peremptory denial of them or the asserting and maintaining of an error contrary unto them or destructive to that former express traditional Article of Faith from which they are drawn and this when we have a sufficient information from Scripture or the Church to know that it is so which we have always after t is known to us that a Council hath determined against it and many times may have so before And hence it is that also after the decision of the Church still to many not the pure nescience or contradiction of such a point but the opposing it and asserting the contrary when we know it to be proposed by her is pernicious In Dr. Holden's Phrase de Resolutione fid 1. l. 4. c. lectio 2. Cum quis sciens vidensque universam esse Ecclesiae sententiam illam tamen pertinaciter obstinate denegaverit aut etiam oppositum sustinuerit c. But concerning the unwittingly affirmers of the contrary to some decision of a Council thus Estius in 3. sent 23. dist 13. § Diligenter distinguendum est inter eos qui retenta generali promptitudine credendi quicquid Ecclesia Catholica credit per ignor antiam tamen in quibusdam fidei dogmatibus errant propterea quod nondum iis satis declaratum sit illa Ecclesiam credere eos qui post manifestatam sufficienter Ecclesiae doctrinam adhuc ab ea vel contrarium asserendo vel certe dubitando dissentire eligunt quod Hoereticorum est proprium Fidem illi in universali atque in habitu ut loquuntur totam atque integram retinent dum quicquid Ecclesia credendum tradit suscipere se ex animo profitentur De quorum numero fuit Cyprianus c. Where also we see that the Church doth not lay on all men an obligation of knowing whatever she defines in matters of faith but of not contradicting or doubting of them when made known to any 5ly Neither is it necessary for the Church to make or propose any such deductive Articles suppose such as those in the Nicene or Athanasian Creed nor perhaps ought she to charge the faith of Christians with them but only where some error ariseth contrary to and undermining some former received Article or practice whereby her Sons to the damage of their Christianity are in danger of infection But any such errors spreading the Church doth not her duty if she neglect to promulgate the truths opposite to them See before § 14. For tho the explicit knowledge of such truths is not necessary yet this is necessary to the believing such fundamental and prime Articles of faith as God requires that one together with them do not believe and affirm any thing contrary to and destructive of them after he may have sufficient assurance that it is so and this he may have so often as the Church states it so So I suppose the pure nescience of some deductive Article contained in the Athanasian Creed condemns none but the maintaining of the contradictory error thereto after such light given him by the Church which light she is bound continually to hold forth to her children so oft as any mists of false opinions begin to overcast the clearness of the former faith 6ly But in the last place note from what hath bin said that tho no points become de side because the Church defines them but are either so before or never can be so at all yet some of those points which were always de fide objects of faith or dogmata fidei so Scotus said Transubstantiation was no dogma fidei till the Lateran Council meaning by it dogmata credenda i. e. which men were then tied to assent to may become creditu necessaria for all points de fide or appertaining to faith are not necessaria creditu after the Church'es determining of them which were not so before Creditu necessaria not in themselves or affirmatively as if they ought to be explicitly known as some other points de side must with reference to attaining salvation but only so as not to be denied or opposed or the contradictory to them maintained whenever they are first known to us to be declared by the Church whom we are to presume never to divulge such truths but upon necessary occasions pressing Her to it and this out of the obedience and submission of judgment which we owe to her Decrees And of this submission due to Councils even when they determine points not of clear Tradition but some-way formerly dubious we have a pattern in the busines of Rebaptization which tho formerly not so evident before the decision of the Church Scripture seeming to favour one side and Ecclesiastical custom the other so that Provincial Councils varied in their judgment of it some pro some con nor they heretical that affirmed it yet decided once submission of judgment was unquestionably by St. Austin reckoned as due from all and they Hereticks who after this opposed See for this S. Austin de Baptism cont Don. 1. l. 7. c. Quaestionis hujus obscuritas he speaks concerning Rebaptization prioribus Ecclesiae temporibus ante schisma Donati magnos viros magna charitate praeditos Patres Episcopos ita inter se compulit salva pace disceptare atque fluctuare ut diu Conciliorum in suis quibusque regionibus
thereof or require submission of their judgment also to her not as she declares her judgment infallible but only as it is definitive and unappealable else her orders are no more than good counsel On the gainsayers c. not as subverters of some necessary faith but as troublers for an unnecessary if truth of the Church'es peace and rebels to her authority whom Christ hath commanded to hear not only how far they list or in their private judgment see cause And if she may impose some penalty then why not anathematize or excommunicate This Anathematizing even Protestants do not so far charge as a trespass of charity or a sign of rigor upon the Church of Rome or her Councils but that they allow that those who turbulently or pertinaciously speak against the Doctrines of the Church in smaller points may be anathematized for it See Dr. Fern in his Preface to Consider of present Concernment c. We acknowledge that he who shall pertinaciously turbulently speak and teach against the doctrines of the Church in points of less moment may deserve to be anathematized or put out of the Church for such a one tho he denies not the faith yet makes a breach of charity whereby he goes out of the Church against which he so sets himself Thus he of pertinacious and turbulent contradiction but then modest contradiction he allows Was Luther's and Calvin's modest Are not Anathema's used by her against Schismatical as well as Heretical spirits May not she excommunicate as well disturbers of her peace as subverters of her faith How come Schismaticks then thrown out of the Church Doth she not use Anathema's or Excommunications in matters of Fact wherein she is confest to be liable to error If in decisions not traditional c we are bound to yeild obedience as I shall shew anon what reason have we why the Church may not anathematize for these points those who contradict and disobey But if she may then Anathema for any thing we know is joyned to some point not traditional nor in which the Church is infallible 2. To put this matter more out of doubt why have Provincial Councils granted fallible used anathematizing than which nothing more frequent toward those under their Jurisdiction If any say they use Anathema's indeed but not to be in force I say not after they be contradicted which we grant but till they be confirmed by a General Council then why may they and have they bin put in practice before they were by any such Council confirmed Nay to what purpose such Council convened since it hath no power of excommunicating the resisters and since when a General Council sits that sufficiently obligeth before it sits the other obligeth not 3. Again many Heresies as the Pelagian c. by Provincial Councils have bin censured and supprest but who may judg heresies i. e. errors against points of faith may pronounce Anathema's Judicium non infallibile tamen sufficit ad excommunicandum debent privati homines acquiescere ejusmodijudicio donec non judicaverit aliter Apostolica Sedes vel Concilium Universale si secus egerint merito excommunicantur saith Bell. de Concil 2. l. 10. c. Judicio in points of Doctrine too for as for matter of fact he will allow the same liability to error may be in particular which in General Councils Thus much touching your first Quaere concerning the Infallibility of the Church Now I come to your second concerning Obedience due to the Church and submission of private judgment Where I think this will be made clear unto you That to what point soever the Church'es infallibility be enlarged yet this the Universal-Infallibility of this Supreme Judge of Controversies is not a necessary ground or the only rule of the duty of obedience thereto neither of the obedience of Non-contradiction nor yet that of Assent but that there may be and is just obligation of obedience I mean that of submission of judgment i. e. to believe what it delivereth to a fallible Authority i. e. one that may command us perhaps to believe sometimes what is an untruth And if this be a truth I conceive it may be of some good consequence For first so those also may be rationally induced to yeild obedience to the Church who now think themselves to be clearly freed from it unles it can first be shewed them that the Church is infallible in all her Propositions neither will they then suppose themselves so easily discharged by shewing the contradictions of General Councils in some few matters perhaps from their obedience in all other points wherein these agree or which some defining none other have reversed and the Church hath received in her general practice or also wherein they find even a later Council contradicting a former For if as St. Austin saith later Synods may amend and correct the former they ought also in what they amend them to be submitted-to non obstante the contradiction of the former Secondly so those who have not opportunity of consulting the highest Tribunal may not think their duty cancell'd excepting where they are certain to other their Superiors and Spiritual Guides because fallible or suborordinate nor will oppose so frequently to them not the Dictates of an higher Court but of their private judgment When-as certainly this submission of our judgment and reason to a Superior tho fallible authority is a duty most acceptable to God and which tho much unpractised by and I am afraid quite unknown to many Sectaries amongst Protestants yet hath bin always most religiously observed elsewhere in the Church of God by those who have bin most eminent in piety nothing conducing more to the preservation of truth unity of minds peace security and serenity of a man's conscience and lastly to true humility mortification and self-denial there being no mortification nor self-denial like this and therefore perhaps so many refuse it because there is nothing so much our self as our judgment And again the contrary thereof as it is the fruit of pride and self-conceit so having bin always the promoter of error and mother of distraction and confusion I cannot here but set down two or three words of Mr. Hooker 2. l. 7. sect This opinion saith he which T. Cartwright maintain'd against Councils c that an argument of authority of Man is in matters divine nothing worth being once inserted into the minds of the vulgar sort what it may grow into * God knoweth I may add * we have seen Now to shew this Truth 1. first I must grant to you That God hath obliged no man to believe a known-to-him error or to believe an error quatenus error for this I think is a contradiction in terminis to believe that to be a truth which he knows I do not say which he thinks or doubts is not a truth the same may be said of obligation to the doing or practice of any thing certainly known to one to be
unlawful and therefore I grant the consequence That if any be bound to believe or assent to a fallible Authority in all they determin for truth either they de facto shall never determin an error or at least a private man shall never certainly know that which they determin to be an error 2ly Again this I hold most certain That God cannot propose any error to be believed by us for a truth for this would mainly oppose his veracity as any impiety doth his holines And 3ly I see not that God in obliging to obedience of fallible Councils can be said to have absolutely necessitated any to believe an error tho unknown to him to be so unless we can say also that God hath necessitated that Authority to err for t is possible for one errable not actually to err But granting actual error of our Guides in some things to come now to some stating of this matter which note that it will be the same case in every thing concerning their injunctions of believing truths or falsities and of doing things lawful or unlawful 1. First then I am not obliged by God to obedience to any authority inferior or supreme in any thing I certainly or infallibly know to be an error or unlawful Some case therefore there is which if it happen I cannot be justly obliged to obey an authority fallible Therefore I willingly assent to such sayings as that of Mr. Hooker 2. l. 7. § quoted by Mr. Chillingworth 5. c. 110. § as if it weakened or qualified that Author's judgment elsewhere for submission to Church-Authority Altho 10000 General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence yet one demonstrative reason alledged demonstrative that is infallible or one manifest truly manifest not seeming so for what Sect hath not their called demonstrations and manifest texts testimony cited from the word of God himself to the contrary could not chuse but overweigh them all c. Will any Catholick writer deny this He may say further If an Angel from Heaven c. Let there be submission of judgment where such manifest texts and demonstrations are not and all is well And again I must grant that it follows not from the Church'es infallibility in Fundamentals or Necessaries being supposed that therefore all are tied to assent to her in whatsoever she proposeth if they can certainly know that she errs in any point because then they certainly know that such point is not necessary or fundamental since in such necessaries she is granted to be infallible Again I grant that if any can be certain that two General Councils do point-blank contradict one another tho one of them is in the right he may be certain that such point wherein they contradict is not fundamental but yet nevertheles he is in such point to assent to the latter Council unles he can infallibly demonstrate the contrary 2. Secondly I am not obliged by God to obedience of assenting or acting to any inferior Court or Magistrate in a thing whereof I doubt only whether it be truth whether it be lawful if there be any higher court to whom I have opportunity to repair for better information but if otherwise I am notwithstanding my doubting to acquiesce in the judgment of a lower court 3. Thirdly to the supreme Ecclesiastical court tho supposed fallible in some things I am obliged to obedience both of assent and acting at least in such a manner as is described before § 28. in all things which are not certainly known by me to be errors or unlawful What do I gain by this for obedience to them very much For 1. if all who cannot be sure that a General Council is erroneous in any point must submit their assent to all very few they will be most men being ignorant and not pretending at all to demonstrate against General Councils that may withdraw it in any thing at all and none at all in most things But 2ly by what way can any one in any thing be infallibly sure not think only or suppose that he is sure that such a Council errs By divine Revelation But whence can he certainly know that it is Divine especially when these contrary to the proposals of the Church'es supremest Council By the Church But that is She in the way wherein only she is capable of delivering it whose judgment he opposeth By the Scriptures Hath he any other then besides those the Church hath and which she first recommended unto him Or understands he them better He whoever pretends evidence of Scripture against the Church in very deed objects only his own interpretation thereof against that of the Church and for doing this methinks he might blush before so many Reverend Fathers For suppose he find the contradictory to their decision totidem verbis in Scripture words are capable of divers acceptions and the true contradiction lies in the sence not the terms But then hath he well compared Scriptures And is he sure that no other text is again totidem verbis contradictory to that he urgeth If it be then one place must not be understood as the letter soundeth and then why not that which he presseth I ask a Protestant Is a Catholick presently infallibly certain that the Protestant Synods are erroneous in denying of Christ's presence-corporal in the Sacrament so soon as he reads the words Hoc est Corpus meum I could heap up many instances in this kind But I would not have this so understood as if I held that a private man might not be sufficiently certain in many things from the exceeding evidence and clearnes of the Scriptures therein But hardly I say shall he ever be so in any such thing where a General Council is not certain of the same from the same so clear Scriptures but at least thinks its self from these Scriptures or notwithstanding them certain of the contrary Lastly by Reason But what arguments from their Reasons can counterpoise this from the authority of so many of much greater reason Ipsa sola Ecclesiae Catholicae authoritas argumentum est majoris ponderis quam alia quaevis ratio quia credendum judicamus quicquid maxime vitam societatem humanam dirigit ac conducit Especially if this be considered That as many matters of our faith are obscure and exceeding the natural light of reason so evidence of private judgment in them against the Church can hardly be so pressing and irresistible as that he may not conform to her judgment Again what certainty can any presume-of in such a pretended demonstration as being communicated and made known to others yet convinceth none but himself The authority even of Councils less than General i. e. fallible to punish dissenters from their decrees unless they have unjustly hitherto usurped it methinks argues their errors to be by private men not easily discoverable But of this see more in Obligation of Judgment § 15. 22. c. Trial of Doct.
but only on the word of God you say something if that word could never be mistaken in the sence nor alledged amiss See Mr. Hooker's Answer to Cartwright on this point Eccles. Pol. 2. l. 7. sect The force of Arguments drawn from Scripture c. So that now and then they ground themselves on humane authority even when they most pretend divine Even such as are readiest to cite for one thing 500 sentences of H. Scripture what warrant have they that any one of them doth mean the thing for which alledged c. But 4ly here you will reply That surely God's wisdom in matters concerning Salvation hath provided some way or other whereby we may certainly know the truth R. What truth mean we If necessary so he hath in this General Councils err not If all truths whatsoever there are many truths not only Natural but Theological for which all grant that there is no infallible Judge to be had If the truth of all those things which shall be proposed by a General Council Why so Why may not God order them in their fallibility in such things to use the same prudence for ending troublesom and violent contests that any other temporal Courts do And since in these from God as in the other from the King the people have an injunction unlimited in all things to hear them why may not they punish the rebellious 5. But yet lastly if such be fallible in any thing you may say there will be some error of which there can be no remedy because they are unappealable R. Not so For in such things as former Councils may err in none denies but that latter Councils may correct them Only such will be errors indeed that private men cannot remedy and what matters all this I pray if these errors be not committed in things necessary as t is shewed before they never can be Again why are such Councils willingly granted by all to be unappealable in other things wherein they may err i. e. in maters of fact Nay why if some make them infallible in judging all truths so may not some others think it fit they should be so in all causes that come before them all which are afterward remediles But also in those doctrinals where because no Anathema's are affixed Bellarmin saith Non est certum si sint de fide and so neither is it certain whether the Church in them may not err yet is not in these submission of judgment required For if we withdraw this how if it should happen that they are de fide The same may be said in general That if the Church being infallible only in things de fide hath made no clear distinction of these points from the rest t is plain she obligeth us to the same submission in points where she may be fallible 3. This having bin said from § 39. to remove such scruples and demurs as we ordinarily use to make for the not yeilding up and resigning in any thing of our own private judgment 3ly to shew you That the duty of submission of judgment to an Authority fallible in all things wherein we are not certain that it errs is no Paradox I will produce you therein the consentient doctrine both of Catholick and Protestant writers of no mean note 1. For Protestants see the quotations out of Bishop White Archbishop Laud Dr. Jackson in Church-Government 2. Part. § 36. Oblig of Judgment § 29. 30. t is too tedious to repete them here To which I will here add that eminent testimony of Mr. Hooker in his Preface the 6th Sect. throughout who writing against Puritans there speaks much of submission of private opinion to the determinations of Ecclesiastical Authority The place is well worth your reading as likewise the 2. l. 7. sect which Mr. Chillingworth produceth as a qualification of this passage in Hooker pressed by F. Knot But I can see no such matter in that Section which proves against Cartwright the validity of Humane Authority where is no infallible demonstration against it see especially the latter end of that Section To return to the former Mr. Hooker there quotes Deut. 17. 8. c. where he hath these words God was not ignorant that the Priests and Judges whose sentence in matters of controversy he ordain'd should stand both might and oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment Howbeit better it was in the eye of his understanding that sometimes an erroneous sentence definitive should prevail till the same Authority perceiving such oversight might afterwards correct or reverse it than that strifes should have respit to grow and not come speedily to some end And there he answers the Objection That men must do nothing against conscience saying Neither wish we that men should do any thing which in their hearts they are perswaded they ought not to do but we say this perswasion ought to be fully settled in their hearts that in litigious and controverted causes of such quality that is as I conceive where they have no infallible certainty but only probability see the end of 2. l. 7. sect the will of God is to have them to do whatsoever the sentence of Judicial and final Decision shall determin Now they are to do nothing but what they are perswaded in their hearts that they may do when the Judge in some cases determines the lawfulnes of a thing tho they may do many things which they may think still that they are unjustly obliged by the Judge to do as when the Judge determines something to be their duty which is not yea tho it seem in their private opinion i. e. according to their own reason and arguments drawn ex parte rei to swerve utterly from that which is right as no doubt many times the sentence amongst the Jews did unto one or other part contending and yet in this case God did then allow them to do that which in their private judgment it seemed yea and perhaps truly seemed that the law did disallow For if God be not the Author of confusion but of peace c. Where note that whatever Mr. Hooker means by that limitation controverted causes of such quality yet the Commission Deut. 17. extends to the Priests interpreting to the people and giving the sence of the law in whatever matters should be controverted as also it is more clearly expounded afterward in 2 Chron. 19. 5 8 10 11. where it runs What causes soever shall come to you of your Brethren between blood and blood between law and commandement statutes and judgments ye shall c. And Thou shalt do or practise according to whatever they shew thee requires not only a passive willingly paying the mulcts or undergoing the punishments but active obedience Again an active obedience not only in doing of something to which I think I am not in duty obliged as paying 100l to one upon their sentence to whom I never owed any thing which I may do without believing
such a matter but to the judgment or directions of your father or master for your reason that is considering another argument of the prudence and experience of his father or master c or of the command which God hath given him to obey them teacheth you that you subject or you unskilled should yeild to their judgment Thus may not one truly say For this reason I think such a thing is so but for such a reason again I think it is not so Els how come any to doubt Now when one sort of these reasons is a natura rei such as his own brain suggests to him and the other ab authoritate and this ab authoritate sways and is the more powerful with him then may he be said to side with authority against his private opinion or judgment But then here by private opinion or judgment is meant not simply that which is so i. e. as he now assents to authority for two contrary judgments or opinions swaying him none can have but that which abstracting from authority c from other reasons his opinion or judgment would be professed to be should any one demand it But indeed whilst against such reasons he yeilds to authority and yeild he may where-ever such reasons are conjectural or less than certain his private judgment simply considered is the same with the publick judgment of that authority and such a one suppose a Catholic that is perswaded that he ought to assent to all the Church shall decree should he notwithstanding against this follow his own private reason or reasons which may be many times contrary to such decree as also they are sometimes to divine mysteries may rightly be said in this doing to go against his judgment or conscience But if a man cannot submit his judgment against his private opinion then cannot a Council justly oblige any to believe any thing tho never so necessary and clear a point unless they know first that his private reason is not against it for they may not oblige him to impossibilities But how often is this done by them even the four first generally allowed and that under Anathema And St. Austin also writ a Treatise De Utilitate Credendi he means of believing the Authority of that Church which was found first to be the Church Catholick from seeing the great benefit that came by this captivating our reason to authority by which act of believing he observed Epist. 48. men not unfrequently came at length to be assured also by true reason of those things which first they believed only from authority Quamdiu intelligere sincera non possumus authoritate quidem decipi miserum est sed certe miserius non moveri Si enim Dei Providentia non praesidet rebus humanis nihil est de religione satagendum Sin vero c. non est desperandum ab eodem ipso Deo authoritatem aliquam constitutam qua velut gradu incerto innitentes attollamur in Deum Haec autem authoritas seposita ratione quam sinceram intelligere ut saepe diximus difficillimum stultis est dupliciter nos movet partim miraculis partim sequentium multitudine De Util. Cred. 16. c. This he writ to a Manichean endeavouring to perswade him in religione turpe non esse credere antequam scire Thus much of the possibility of thinking or believing a judicial determination right when it seems in our private opinion as explain'd above not so But note here that I do not extend our yeilding assent to authority against private reasons in all matters when-ever this assent is given to a necessary belief in all such things that what they say is absolutely just and right but this our assent is capable of less degrees as a belief that what they say is more likely or probable to be so or also that it is more safe for me to err with them as long as I am not by any private reason infallibly certain that they err but have reason to think they do not err than to oppose their authority perhaps with the retaining of a truth but to me uncertain Thus much of Mr. Hooker's testimony and the justification thereof against Mr. Chillingworth's exposition See also Dr. Potter speaking the same thing much-what with Mr. Hooker sect 4. p. 105. where after he hath said It is not lawful for a private man to oppose his judgment to the publick he adds He may offer his contrary opinion to be consider'd of c. but if he will factiously advance his own conceits conceits I suppose he means that which seems reason and the sence of Scripture to him yet of which he is not infallibly certain Advance i. e. against the contrary determinations of the Church and despise the Church so far as to cast off her communion he may be justly condemned for a Schismatic for casting off her communion yea and an Heretic also i. e. for advancing his own conceits in some degree and in foro exteriori tho his opinion were true and much more if it be false Heretick in some degree and in foro exteriori Sure Dr. Potter saith he is this because he allows him some-way faulty in factiously advancing his own conceits against the Church and then I ask why is he not an heretic or if that name may not be so used guilty of an equal crime in foro interiori too For what great difference is there between him that having no sufficient reason for it obstinately defends against the Church'es determination that which happens but is not to him certainly known or by him proved to be a truth and him that obstinately defends an error Those reasons which such a one hath but short of certainty I grant afford him some but not a sufficient excuse of his opposition This for Protestants Next for Catholicks that they also allow a submission of judgment to an Authority fallible See what Bellarmin who holds that particular Councils are fallible yet saith concerning submission of judgment to these errable de Concil 2. l. 10. c. Etsi hoc judicium non sit prorsus infallibile tamen sufficit ad excommunicandum And tamen debent privati homines acquiescere ejusmodi judicio si secus egerint merito excommunicantur donec non judicaverit aliter Apostolica Sedes vel Concilium Universale Therefore if these have formerly decreed nothing contrary we are to submit to it until they shall Again There is no reason of non-acquiescing to such a sentence but only the contrary judgment of a superior Court therefore if the Court be supreme there is no reason at all Again Quod Concilium particulare facit argumentum adeo probabile ut temerarium sit ei non acquiescere planum est and before he saith ex communi sententia Catholicorum asserimus quia si aliquot sancti Patres casu in eandem sententiam convenientes faciunt argumentum probabile quanto magis 50 aut 60 Episcopi simul convenientes
that those Judges were absolutely infallible Now after all let Non-contradiction be all the obedience we when otherwise perswaded ow to the Church and this Non-contradiction be due only from the subjects of a Diocese in respect of the Bishop or Diocesan Synod not from the Bishop or Diocese to superior Synods yet hence it will follow 1. First that the Reformation abroad was unlawful which we followed and that no Minister might then preach against Popish doctrines unles these things had bin first decided by his Bishop which I think is more than many of the reformed will defend 2. Again from this distinguishing of our obedience to the Church according to several things commanded by her methinks this may reasonably be demanded since neither King nor Church can justly punish or anathematize any for not yeilding that obedience to them which God hath not bound men to yeild them Therefore if they are bound to yeild obedience of consent in some points as in fundamentals and only obedience of Non-contradiction in others as in Nonfundamentals when our private judgment therein happeneth to be contrary to the publick methinks I say this may reasonably be demanded That there should be some certain way how both the Church may know when to enjoyn the one and when only the other and how the subject may know also when the one and when the other is due for none can be justly punished in an invincible ignorance of his duty And if this be the rule of their non-obligation to consent namely when the point is not fundamental and when they are also infallibly certain of the contrary there must also be some way for men to know when they are infallibly certain and when they think only that they are so For I should have thought any one might know when he is sure but that I see so many that say they are sure when mistaken and but that I have also found my self afterward mistaken in things of which I once thought my self infallibly sure Another thing methinks Non-contradiction sounds well in speculatives but in practicals what must be done For unles the Church in practicals may bind men tho of a contrary perswasion to consent to what she defines she cannot enjoyn them to do what she commands or to forbear what she forbids because this doing or forbearing necessarily presupposeth consent first to the lawfulnes thereof els the action will be sin Now the Church many times commands and forbids several practices doubtles not-fundamental under Anathema's And indeed might not people in matters practical be tied beyond their own inclinations and opinion to conformity in these the church that is founded by the God of holines and order what a disorderly Society would it be and how full of several impieties To conclude the whole matter since in this division of Christendom one party in general seems many ways to crush the Church'es authority and the other to crush private judgment and since there seem to be some inconveniences on all hands a wise man will chuse that way which seems the more safe which I think is to adhere not to our own but the common judgment of the Church In which there seems to be much humility also and mortification of our rationale in which we are all very strong and also the not hazarding the breach of the great duty of our obedience to the Church which I think had far better be yeilded too much than too little And besides these motives we have seen more evidently the effects of both these tenets upon men in our days and there seems to be no comparison between the mischiefs which too much obedience to the Church hath wrought and those which the following of private judgment hath produced A Postscript IN the former Discours § 2. it is said That our Judgment if it be taken for any degree of private opinion short of infallible certainty ought to be submitted to the judgment of our Ecclesiastical Superiors Where infallible certainty a thing so ordinarily mistaken seems to stand in need of some further explication By infallible certainty therefore I mean either * that which ariseth from demonstrative arguments drawn from the nature of the thing but this is a certainty which consists not with faith for faith walks not by sight or which most concerns our busines * that certainty which ariseth ab authoritate dicentis when we know infallibly both that he saith it who cannot lie and that such is the meaning of what he said els the former of these without the later breeds no certainty 1. Now if you make your proposal thus Supposing that I am infallibly certain of a thing that is contrary to the Church'es judgment whether am I obliged to consent to that judgment c I must answer No by no means For indeed if we speak of interior assent such a thing as this assent cannot be at all unles one can hold two contradictories to be true And 2ly for exterior assent that is professing an assent when you do not assent this you may not do neither for this is hypocrisy and lying which the God of truth always hates and forbids neither hath he tied any man to forsake or renounce tho in profession only an infallibly known truth great or small And therefore from hence as long as you cannot believe that the Church hath any authority to guide you or that her judgment is so good as your own or fit to be followed so long you cannot profess a consent unto her judgment against your own without sinning but whilst you may not do this without sinning you sin again in not believing otherwise For no man may do what he thinks he ought not to do and yet he doth sin in not so doing because he ought to think otherwise When I shew you that you may without sin obey the Church contrary to what your judgment is in the thing which you assent to I do not tell you that you may without sinning obey the Church contrary to this your judgment that you ought not to obey her or when your judgment is that you ought not to obey her Where ever the mouth or hand goes contrary to the heart t is hypocrisie and lying contrary to Christian simplicity and unlawful But if the mouth and hand go with the heart and the heart go not right here also will be sin tho not the same sin 2. Now in the 2d place if you ask me Whether hoc dato that such a book is the word of God rightly translated c you may be infallibly certain of the sence of it in some things This I also grant you may be for hoc dato that the New Testament which we have is the word of God and that God in this word meant to speak so that it should be intelligible to us els it were no revelation of any thing a private man that hears or reads it may be as certain of something
then before all the people have ascended into Heaven to God and so have sealed for ever to that whole Nation the Confession of his being the Messias and thus with a great access to his Glory on earth have prevented their so great and long Apostacy What meaned he then to appear so sparingly and in corners the doors being shut and not to all the people saith the Apostle but to some few chosen to be witnesses tho he was not here defective in what was sufficient Again could not his Spirit that hath led some have led all into all truth if he had pleased to give it to them in a greater measure How easie had it bin for our Saviour who foresaw that sharp controversie concerning observance of the Ceremonial law by Christians the maintainers of which ceremonies contended only for them because they thought Christ had not abrogated them to have declared himself openly in that point when he was here on earth How easie for him foreseeing the controversies ever since even those so many about his own person those now between the Reformed and the Roman Church to have caused instead of an occasionally-written Epistle such a Creed as the Athanasian or such Articles as those of Trent or of the Augustan Confession or such a methodical clear Catechisme as now several Sects draw up for the instruction of their followers in the principles of their religion to have bin written by his Apostles Will any one say that had such writings bin H. Scripture yet these controversies had not bin prevented or at least not in some greater measure prevented than now they are Or would not brieflier all controversies have bin prevented had our Saviour as plainly said that the Roman Bishop should regulate the faith of his Church for ever as it may be said and is said by others There must be heresies then and therefore it seemed good to the wisdom of the Father that all things should not be done that might but only so much that was sufficient whereby they should be prevented Neither is it a good reasoning This was the best way for taking away all controversy and error in the Church that the Scriptures should plainly so as none may mistake set down all truths necessary to salvation or that there should be a known infallible Judge therefore they do so or therefore there is so because this seemed not best to God for the reasons fore-mentioned and for many other perhaps not known which made the Apostle cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 11 33. to take away all controversie and error c no more than it did to prohibit in the world the being of evil I know not whether Tertullian's saying in praescript cont haer concerning this matter be not too bold Ipsas quoque Scripturas sic esse ex Dei voluntate dispositas ut haereticis materiam subministrarent And haereses sine aliquibus occasionibus Scripturarum accidere non poterant But we may make good use of it in being less rash and more circumspect in interpreting especially when we are singular where we may be so easily mistaken 2ly It seems since there is supposed sufficient means for all those who are in the Church to attain to the knowledge of all necessary truth for God and our Saviour have not bin wanting to his Church in necessaries that those who blindly obey such false guides as shall be in the world shall not be free from punishment tho they offend thro ignorance See Matt. 15. 14. Ezek. 33. 8. 3. 18. 3ly There being some doctrines false and danger in being misled by them it seems all doctrines may be tried and that by all persons See Jo. 5. 39 our Saviour bidding them try his Act. 17. 11. the Bereans and Act. 15. 2. the Antiochians trying S. Paul's See to this purpose 1 Jo. 4. 1. 1 Thes. 5. 21. Rev. 2. 2. 1 Cor. 10. 15. 11. 13. And the more trial the better so it be rightly performed whereby we may discover false doctrines and teachers that we may not be seduced by them whereby we may know more of God may confirm our belief of which there are many degrees in what we are taught and may be able to give better account to others of our faith 1 Pet. 3. 15. Col. 3. 16. and whereby truth will always have a great advantage of error For verum vero consonat 4. Now seeing that all Spiritual knowledge cometh first by Revelation from God the trial of any doctrine we doubt of is to be made either by the holy Scriptures written from the beginning by men inspired by the Holy Ghost or by the Interpreters of these Scriptures and those who were ordained by these men that were inspired and who had the form of sound doctrine committed unto them viz. by the Doctors and Pastors of the Church where also the doctrines of some Doctors whose tenets we doubt of are to be tried by the rest of the Doctors of the present times or the doctrines of all the present Doctors to be tried by the writings of the Doctors of former times Trials by the Scriptures were those Act. 17. 11. Jo. 5. 39. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Trials by the Doctors of the Church those Act. 15. 2. Gal. 1. 9. Rom. 16. 17. 2 Thes. 3. 14. 1 Cor. 14. 32. c. 2 Jo. 10. Now these H. Scriptures and Holy Doctors collectively taken to the not-yet-so-far-grounded and illuminated are capable of being tried too The first Scriptures and Teachers by those who lived in the same times were tried by Miracles by those who lived afterward are tried by Tradition the second Scriptures are tried by their accord with the first as also by Miracles the 2d Teachers are tried by their Ordination from the first which Teachers if we find all agreeing in one judgment we need try no further our Saviour having promised his perpetual presence with them and that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the truth taught by them 5. Now first concerning trial of our Superiors commands and doctrines by Scriptures of which there are many several ways As trying 1. Whether such doctrines or commands be contained or commanded in Scripture 2. Whether the contrary to them be contained or commanded in Scripture Again if the contrary of them be contained there 1. whether as fact only 2 or also as precept 1. Now the first of these trials seems not necessary to be used 1. For it doth not follow that it is unlawful to do or to believe a thing because H. Scripture doth not say or command it Angumentum ab authoritate non valet negative Some things both in doctrine and discipline may possibly descend from the Apostles that are not set down by them in writing and these tho not absolutely necessary which very few points are yet very useful to Salvation Timothy might hear some things from S. Paul more than are set down in his Epistle see 2 Tim. 1. 13.
better to inform his conscience not only or chiefly in the confutation of the reasons he hath for his opinion which confutation cannot always be had or when had perhaps is by him not well understood but in the reasonablenes and many times duty of the submission of his private and singular judgment and opinion to those more wise more religious than himself or to those authorized to direct him 2ly Where the Doctors of the Church are not all of a mind but divided in their opinions it seems better to follow any party of them rather than our own judgment opposit to both because they having the same light of Scripture as we a calling to teach and interpret it being those to whom Christ hath promised more assistance using perhaps more means to understand it having more understandings agreeing in such a sence of it tho they may possibly err yet we are the more likely to mistake And experience daily shews that they who renounce fallible authority and stand to their own judgment to avoid one error incur twenty and those by God's desertions sometimes in the most plain points of practice * far grosser than ever any Church-authority or Synod hath lapsed into Neither are the diversities of opinion between Churches any thing in comparison of those millions of private mens singularities and as in sight we say many eyes see more than one so in blindnes or dimnes of sight many eyes are never so blind as one Let us avoid self-conceit and put on humility and then we * shall be glad rather to use the judgment for our way of another eye which if it hath motes in it we have reason to think that ours hath a beam and * will be ready to say if the Church be not infallible how much less I rather than the whole Church is not infallible therefore let me trust to my single judgment an illation not more unreasonable than usual 3. In following one party of the divided Clergy we are to avoid those rather who acknowledge the former practice of the Church against them and appeal to Scripture as long as the practice also pretends the same Scripture either for it or not at all against it For tho Scripture is a more sure foundation than the Church's practice yet since the practice also pretends as well as those who oppose it to be guided by the Scriptures so that Scripture and Practice is pretended on one side and Scripture only on the other side and since there is so great odds in number of those judgments concerning the Scripture that have ever so practised and also a succession of truth promised to be continued in the Church t is more probable I say that the practice is not mistaken in the sence of Scripture and of two we are to chuse the more probable 4. But if besides Scripture there be practice or tradition of some times of the Church the more ancient pretended against the practice of other later times here search is to be made by us and if such an opposition of the present and former Church seems to be discovered which indeed can never be by reason of our Saviour's promise in any matter of necessary faith the contrary course to heady Rehoboam is to be held the old mens counsel is to be taken and the former times are to be preferred except it be in matters not prescribed by God's word wherein the Church of all times hath power to constitute what she thinks fit Where therefore the Scriptures tho pretended by both sides plain yet are not so plain that both sides agree there let all the trial rest not * upon reading arguments pro and con in controversie-writers where wit and continual agitations of the question make any side tenable as men are biassed by interest and education but * upon this search of the Fathers and history of the Church and I am perswaded most controversies will quickly end For who tries them 1. First he will find in those voluminous writings many things more express and full and positive than they are in Scripture especially most of the practices of the Church put out of all dispute so that tho several men read those writings with a several interest as they do the Scriptures yet they shall find too much clearnes there to be corrupted by such interest For example those who dispute Episcopacy to be against the Scriptures yet are clearly convinced in the Fathers writings that it was practised in the primitive Churches and thought consonant to the Scriptures 2. Again he will find a most unanimous consent among them in most things and in many of those of present debate contrary to the opinion of many who seeing them quoted constantly by both sides almost in all controversies and that not only one Father against another but the same against himself seeing likewise books written of their many disagreeings which books are silent of the many more things wherein they accord do in this prejudice condemn them of the same ambiguity as the Scriptures and of much opposition besides and lastly of impertinency to modern controversie and so forbear to consult them and laugh at Vinc. Lirinensis his Rule Quod omnibus c as tho most true yet utterly useles But here some cautions must be given to the searcher which it were most unreasonable that he should not observe 1. * That in a search of the antiquity of opinions and not of the reputation of authors he would not reject writings which are evidently very ancient and likewise then approved since they are quoted by latter Fathers and Councils suppose those of the 3d 4th and 5th age after Christ. Because tho granted by all very ancient for the time they are uncertain for the author and bear a false title Such are for example the Apostolical Canons Clement's Apostolical Constitutions Dionys. Areop works of which it being disputed so early as A. D. 420. whether these were the genuine works of St. Dionysius shews that they were very ancient Again * that from discovering some corruption in some of the Fathers writings he would not argue there not to remain so much purity and incorruption in the rest as that in any thing controverted their true opinion can be known neither argue from his discovering their erring perhaps every one in something and that many times in a thing very inconsiderable that therefore in nothing they can be fit witnesses of truth and lastly from his finding them obscure or ambiguous in some places that they cannot be clear upon such subject in any other place or also in that place cleared by the context Yet such we find are most of the arguments that are urged for weakening their authority 2. That for the primitive times of the Church he would not only take those wherein she lived in persecution and left few records of her doctrines or customs as the first and second age but extend them to the end
unrepented of before death must needs as other sins do exclude all such out of heaven and tho the Excommunications of the Church have also here a dreadful power whereby he is deprived of her prayers also and receives her curse yet in such a Church by the great light of Scripture therein retained there may be and ordinarily is so much truth asserted as joyned with christian obedience is sufficient for his salvation who is guiltless in these crimes Neither are the Church-Excommunications further powerful in their censure than others are guilty of the offence But yet such a one must know 1. First that he becomes guilty of Schism not only by not forsaking a known error or a byhim-counted unlawful communion but by where there is any remedy for it a purposed ignorance and carelesnes of further knowing truth where he hath reason to be jealous and sees a breach made in the Church of Christ. 2ly This misfortune happens to those not guilty of the Heresie or Schism of the Church wherein they live that the matter of the Heresie or Schism most times being in doctrines or practices if not necessary yet very beneficial for attaining Salvation that I say either by erroneous doctrines taught in such Church's or many profitable doctrines not taught or looser discipline practised there they run a much greater hazard of their Salvation See Dr. Potter sect 4. p. 115. Yet blessed be God for those whom he hath so far enlightned as to abide without obstinacy in their errors in any christian Society for we may presume that thence also many go to heaven and these not only hearers but perhaps some teachers also if not with their doctrines destroying the foundation Jesus Christ nor acting against conscience nor wilfully negligent to inform it as I fear many of them be See Ch. gov 3. part § 84. Besides trial of Doctrines by Scriptures and by the Doctors of the Church there is also a 3d. way of trial both of the Doctrines and Doctors and Churches which is much recommended by our Saviour Matt. 7. 15. c. and by his Apostles 1 Tim. 4. 7. 6. 3. 2 Tim. 2. 16. Tit. 1. 1. Jam. 3. 17. and that trial is as their doctrines tend more unto holines of life and as this fruit is more or less produced by them For tho this holines is by all doctrines equally pretended yet is it not by all doctrines equally advanced For many ill consequences there are following some doctrines more than others which tho they are disavowed and shaken off in the expositions of the teachers yet do they still adhere to them in the peoples practice As there are other doctrines which whereas perhaps as some mis-understood them they seem pernicious yet we find the followers thereof excelling in holines where the doctrine seems to commend and induce ignorance very studious and knowing where the doctrine seems to nourish boasting presumption and pride very humble and contrite in spirit whom when we find and that frequently walking just contrary to what we suppose their doctrines we are to imagin their doctrines not to be what we suppose the practice of the Church being the best expounder generally of her opinions But were it otherwise yet I conceive far better it were to have faulty doctrines mis-understood so as to produce holines than even those that are good mis-understood so as to produce profanenes and impiety Again there are fewer divine truths acknowledged in one Church perhaps than in another and so obedience less perfect and in a Church where there are no false doctrines affirmatively and positively taught yet perhaps many true ones areo mitted or also rejected such as are exceeding beneficial to produce sanctity Now 1. first this is certain that no lye abounds so much to the producing of holines as truth doth and the more true and orthodox any Church is and the more truths of God are embraced by her and none of his counsels rejected the more purity is in her For the whole design of our Saviour's coming into the world of the moulding of all the doctrines of the Law and of the Gospel these and not others was the advancing by them her sanctification So that I may say had there bin an error that could more have advanced it than these truths truth had bin error and that error had bin made truth Where then more of these divine rules are known and observed there will flourish more holines And therefore we may reflect Where more holines is found there probably are these better known and taught because where they are most taught there in all likelihood also they are most observed Therefore since all acknowledge the excellent sanctity and purity of the primitive times they must likewise grant that Church more orthodox which more closely retains their doctrines their discipline c. And it is an astonishment to me to see that those who so much admire the one yet so freely cut off and reject the other that effected it and now where practised do still effect it which they might by this know to have caused it for that where all other doctrines are put and these which used anciently are now cast aside in some Church's abrogated there such sanctity grows not nor is the brick made at all where the straw is denied How is it then that the fruit is so much commended and yet the root that bears it called superstition will-worship tyrannical abridgment of christian liberty * the equalling of things indifferent and of mens traditions so are all things called which in their conceit are not strictly commanded in Scripture notwithstanding all the holy examples which they may find in these Scriptures thereof and that the commands of God are made thereby not of none but of much more effect with the commandements of God * the placing salvation in mens devices and in the practising of their own inventions Again besides this that where more divine truths for I speak not here of other knowledge which many times proves a great enemy to piety are revealed there generally must be more holines because all divine truths tend to it see Psal. 119. 104 128. and ordinarily where the judgment is very much illuminated the affections cannot but follow it and the more light the soul hath in it the less likely it is to miss its way t is yet further to be observed that holines where ever we find it if not begotten by yet quickly begets truth that the passions brought into order do readily admit that heavenly light which less or more enlighteneth every one that cometh into the world The H. Ghost is a fire Matt. 3. 11. so that wheresoever the Spiritual light thereof is there is heat also and much more e contra And the mortification of lusts soon brings in orthodoxnes of opinion when the inclinations of the soul are so well regulated as truth is rather for at least not against them So that in that Church
mystery of to attribute too great a virtue to give too great a reverence to the Holy Sacraments c. 3. You are to peruse their writings and books not of controversy but of devotion and instructions for the practice of holy living In which you shall find certainly what fruit their doctrines bear and what strength and virtue they contain in them and a great difference between them in their operations upon the affections a much fainter and more languishing heat from the one than from the other as indeed what fervent motives to piety could one raise from such foundations as have bin above-mentioned Some teaching as it were from Experience the other from Art some full of wit the others of zeal the one more enlarging the other straitning the way to heaven some laying light the other more heavy burdens but more full of hope and present consolations more punctual and particular in their directions as from those who have first tried the way wherein they direct others more high in their aim carrying men to these heights which the other imagin impossible to attain It remains that you observe which do inflame you to more sanctity and purity of life and to them adhere for there is the power there is the Spirit of Christ. And commonly the purer the Church the more with these writings doth she abound as others do with controversy and questions as error is ever unsettled laying foundations always learning but never coming to the perfect knowledge of the truth whilst one controversie still gendreth another after the busines is committed wholly to our reason 2 Tim. 2. 23 16. 3. 7 1 Tim. 1. 4. 4. Lastly after their books and precepts peruse their lives and practices by reading the stories of the pretended holy men of all sides and those the nearest to the present age wherein the relations are more certain of which stories those Churches that afford very few t is to be suspected that where little is said there is likewise little done that may be talked of In which compared you shall find a plain difference in their strictnes according to their doctrines and a transcendency in their virtues according to their principles some much more mortified and weaned from the world and accordingly more enlightened and honoured of God than the other in each of them their doctrines perfectly designed and copied out And here in perusing their lives as their rules and doctrines t is wisdom to adhere to those by whom you most profit And since we find in the Church which the Reformation forsook frequent relations concerning holy men therein as having frequent extasies and revelations doing many miracles foretelling things future exercising most rigid abstinences and penances every day confessing and communicating c and find not in the Churches reformed any one holy man at all of whom the like things are told by them in the histories of their lives methinks it follows either that all those writers of Saints lives in the Church reformed-from have bin most intolerable liars and this in all ages as well those before as those since the reformation began for in those ages we find the like stories or else that this Church is much more favoured of God than that of the reformed is But if those writers of lives have bin all such intolerable liars t is a wonder in so frequent a fault that no Protestants at all should fall into the same but all be so strict observers of truth that none of them should at any time for the advancing of the reputation of their religion make the same fictions But from their universal silence herein may it not rather be guessed that such things as are writ in these lives involving the testimony and knowledg of so many nominated persons living in the same time and place where such facts are alledged cannot be so easily forged and counterfeited as some would perswade Not that I affirm that there is any Church or Religion wherein you may not find some persons that are virtuous in their conversation and exemplary in their lives For many excellent men also have there bin amongst the Philosophers and in the heathenish religions walking only in the light of nature much more therefore may some such be found in any Christian Sect whatever who enjoy besides that of Nature the light of Scriptures But yet in that Church where the doctrines are purest and tend most to holines certainly will be found a much greater number of holy men and Saints than in any other and these also of a greater purity and perfection and consequently more honoured also with singular favors from heaven not unlike to those of primitive times To these three ways of Trials of Doctrines c me thinks upon the weighing of our Saviour's promise That the Gospel and the doctrine of his Kingdom should be published to all Nations may be added a fourth not unconsiderable And this is diligently to observe in the many divisions of faith and diversity of opinions that are in Christianity what profession of faith doubtles sometimes attested by miracles if histories deceive us not that was or is to which usually the heathen nations have bin and are now converted and of what perswasions and communion those men are whom God hath made his instruments of their christianity For we cannot rationally think tho it may so happen to some few particulars as the Goths are said to have bin at first converted by Arrian Bishops under an Arrian Emperor yet so that God's mercy soon promoted them into the faith of the Church Catholick we cannot rationally think I say that for the general the good God having promised to the nations bread would give them a stone having promised them the revelation of his truth would plant amongst them instead thereof a manifold idolatry as worshipping of dead men and of bread as God c as some would perswade us and would not give them the waters of life to drink of unless these poisoned with such errors as from which the external communion of all true believers ought to separate And if considering the promises of God Rom. 11. c. at the time of the conversion hereafter of the Jews to Christianity no wise man would doubt to conform to their external communion why should we not also chuse rather as more safe to be of the external communion and faith in which the Nations generally both who have bin and are converted to the faith have bin and are initiated and that upon the same promise Matt. 24. 14. Mar. 13. 10. as the Jews hereafter shall be Now to these I will add only one thing more That the most part of the Northern world have received at least the publick plantation and profession of the Christian faith in or since the times of Gregory the Great as the Ecclesiastical histories plainly shew In whose time we know what were the publick doctrines in most of the modern controversies and by whom
verebatur offendere superbos daemonicolas quorum graviter ruituras in se inimicitias arbitrabatur Sed posteaquam legendo inhiando hausit firmitatem timuitque negari a Christo coram Angelis sanctis si eum timeret coram hominibus confiteri reusque sibi magni criminis apparuit erubescendo de Sacramentis humilitatis Verbi Tui non erubescendo de sacris sacrilegis superborum daemoniorum depuduit vanitati erubuit veritati subitoque inopinatus ait Simpliciano Eamus in Ecclesiam Christianus volo fieri c. mirante Roma gaudente Ecclesia Superbi videbant irascebantur dentibus suis stridebant tabescebant Servo autem tuo Domine Deus erat spes ejus non respiciebat in vanitates insanias mendaces S. Aug. de ordine 2. l. 9. c. Cum docilis factus fuerit tum demum discit quanta ratione praedita sint ea ipsa quae secutus est ante rationem quid sit ipsa ratio quae post authoritatis cunabula firmus idoneus jam sequitur Grot. Votum pro pace Preface Facile vidi id voluisse Christum ut omnes qui ab ipso nominari per ipsum beatitudinis compotes fieri vellent unum essent inter se sicut ipse cum Patre unum est Jo. 17. 11. 21 22 23. Neque vero unum animo tantum sed ea communione quae conspici potest maxime conspicitur in regiminis vinculo in sacramentorum participatione Est enim Ecclesia aut esse debet corpus quoddam Rom. 12. 5 12 c. 27. Eph. 1. 23. 2. 16. 4. 4. 5. 30. Coloss. 1. 18. 2. 17 19. Quod corpus Christus caput ei a Deo datus per varias junctur as praefecturarum compaginari voluit Eph. 4. 11 12 16. in hoc singulos baptizari ut unum corpus fierent 1 Cor. 12 13. de uno consecrato pane vesci ut sic magis magisque coalescerent unum se corpus esse testarentur 1 Cor. 10. 17. Note that in this Discours by Schismatical I mean in that sort of Schism which is a separating from lawful Ecclesiastical Superiors And that Churches not only private persons may be thus schismatical see Dr. Hammond Of Schism 3. c. § 10 21. and what is said in Ecclesiastical Government 2. and 3 parts Of the danger of SCHISM SIR COncerning the hainousnes and danger of Schism I have read over those quotations you directed me to in Mr. Cressy's Motives c. 46. but cannot consent to what he there sect 5. compared with the former quotations deduceth from them i. e. that no man if living in a Communion or Church schismatical tho he hath no influence upon the beginnings of the separation tho he judge charitably of the Church which others have separated from and approacheth as near to it in his belief as that which is truth in his opinion will permit him can be saved Unless 1. first this be true also which he indeed seems to affirm 47. c. 2. § that the true Church cannot be hidden from the eyes of any man who doth not willingly shut them That any ones opinion that such a thing as he or his church holds is truth I add or that that Church wherein they are baptized and educated is the true Church of what condition age calling capacity soever he be must needs proceed in him from some corrupt passion as S. Austin instanceth in two such passions which chiefly make ones error an heresy qui alicujus temporalis commodi or qui gloriae principatusque sui gratia falsas novas opiniones vel gignit vel sequitur and from ignorance not invincible but obstinate and affected Now I hardly think any one will affirm this of every man whatsoever that is born and educated in a Communion schismatical Tho indeed I believe that this may be truly said of very many especially the learned who notwithstanding think themselves very free from it For the necessity which is ordinarily pleaded of following or not-doing contrary to our conscience freeth not us from being guilty of Schism in doing after it no more than it could free a Donatist c if there be any defect from negligence interest passion c in the information of it See Notes of Necessary Faith § 6. And see Archbishop Lawd Conf. 37. sect 6. n. where he saith That an error and that in points Not-fundamental may be damnable to some men tho they hold it not against their conscience If they neither seek the means to know the truth nor accept truth when it is known especially being men able to judge Now I conceive in most learned that abide in a Schismatical communion such a fault there is Namely either †much negligence and this either in not reading the controversies of religion at all or in their reading the tenets of their adversaries only in their own writers or in their taking and arguing against the extremities of some private mens opinions for the Catholick doctrines of that Church from which their Ancestors have departed Or if they deficient in none of these 2ly †much interest and passion and addiction to worldly conveniences or honors therefore S. Paul and S. Jude observe much carnality in Schism 1 Cor. 3. 3 4. Jude 19 which passion unknown to them restrains the free liberty of their judgments Hence the ignorant people in a Schismatical Church may well be saved whilst the learned thereof in their uncharitablenes to and opposition of the true Church perish Or 2ly unless this be true that where invincible ignorance is and no actual breach of charity at all yet the pure want and privation of external unity or communion with the Church without any their default damns such men tho mean-while they do receive all the benefit of the Sacraments well know and believe all the necessary Articles belonging to faith and manners and conform in their lives thereunto even in strict obedience to their Ecclesiastical Superiors of that Church which they live in and which they only know Now this I think as unreasonable an assertion as the former See § 6 7 8. Now to consider the quotations in Mr. Cressy and what may be said in this point you must give me leave not to shuffle all together but to distribute the matter into many Propositions that we may see which of them are disputable which not 1. Let it be granted for the present that the Church cannot have in it many opposit external communions but only one so that he that enjoys not that one external communion is rightly said to be out of the communion of the Church i. e. out of the external communion thereof Only here note that one may elsewhere out of this external communion of this only true Catholick Church be partaker of the Sacraments and those the true Sacraments for none deny that the administration of true Sacraments may be in a Church Schismatical
from it to that one Society which only hath its union with the head But 2ly are there not some other of the texts that speak as plainly of the avoiding of the heretical and schismatical as these do of the unbeliever or idolater See Matt. 18. 17. If he neglect to hear the Church let him i. e. thy brother in Christianity be unto thee as an heathen i. e. an idolater Rom. 16. 17. Those that cause divisions contrary to the doctrine which ye have received mark and avoid Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an heretick reject 2 Thess. 3. 14. If any man obey not our word c note that man and have no company with him 2 Jo. 10. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house nor say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him which is not spoken of plain idolaters but some half-christians of whom other Christians might be less aware But if you say that some of these Scriptures forbid only private familiar converse with those who are factious tho such perhaps as are not yet excommunicated by the Church then how much more obliging must they be for our not communicating with whole congregations and separating-assemblies of them in holy things This last then or also more than this is prohibited in them And indeed were such conformity in the publick Service and the Sacraments allowed with Sectaries what a confusion would it cause in religion there being no sign now left whereby the orthodox professors may be distinguished from the schismatical And if we may be thus far dispensed with to consort with divided communions only upon design of doing the Church thereby the more service how many are there who engaged only in secular ends may make use of such dispensation upon holy pretences To conclude this matter about the restraint found in Scripture 1. We are not obliged for any thing I know as to speak so neither in any other action to profess all that is truth at all times tho in matter of religion especially even where it is lawful to conceal something of our profession it is more honourable and more glorifying of God upon all occasions to confess him to the uttermost We are not obliged I say to do all acts amongst hereticks which may shew us Catholicks no more than amongst Turks which may shew us Christians 2. Not obliged to forbear absolutely the company converse eating negotiating nor perhaps private praying in the same place with hereticks c for as is said before § 9. n. 1. many worldly accounts may in a sort necessitate us to such things and then the Apostle's dispensation 1 Cor. 5. 10. will be applicable unto us I mean supposing no express injunction of the Church concerning the forbearing of any such communication in which I must add if she at any time should think fit to restrain us then would such forbearance become upon another account obligatory to us much more are we not debarred any entercours with them whereby we may the better confute or instruct them Again 3. Perhaps we are not obliged especially where probably we not they shall suffer some detriment thereby and that in regard of our Spiritual affairs as where a country is orespread with such an infection to expell schismaticks from our communions if such not by name excommunicated for who knows whether some such having never personally affronted our religion may not at last also be gained thereby Time and place do alter much in all these matters See S. Aug. Ep. 50. Ubi per graves dissensionum scissuras non hujus aut illius hominis est periculum sed populorum strages jacent detrahendum est aliquid severitati ut majoribus malis sanandis charitas sincera subveniat 4ly We are by no means obliged to forbear every thing whereby de facto we may be mistaken by others to favor or profess some heresie or schism provided that we give no just and commonly received grounds of such mistake But to do that thing in conjuction with hereticks and schismaticks which either is or there is none at all the ordinary test and token to the world of such a profession such as is our communicating with them in publick prayer and the worship of God and in the Sacraments this I conceive by the places above utterly prohibited Lastly I would not have this discours above so mis-understood as if none could have union with the head who are out of the external communion of that body which belongs to him or also are in the external communion and participation of the Sacraments of the Lord with another sect factiously divided from it but only that those have it not who knowing them schismatical yet in their Sacraments dare to joyn with them But where is not such knowledge nor affected and culpable ignorance to the integrity and simplicity of such people the true Sacraments where-ever received are still effectual Which makes a great difference of those persons who live in and communicate with a Church schismatical from those who communicate with infidels in which see what danger there is even to the weak 1 Cor. 8. 11. compared with 10. c. 20 21. v. because such weaknes can never be blameles Are still effectual because here no guilt in the person factiously disposed or practising against conscience and known commands hinders the benefit thereof unto him See Levit. 5. 3. If he touch the uncleannes c when he knoweth of it then he shall be guilty and bound to make expiation for it Neither doth here the participation of the same Sacrament by both render one guilty of the impious schism of his fellow-communicants no more than when in the true Church it is received in the company perhaps of some abominable livers it doth render the rest partakers with these in their crimes or no more than a good Christian who by the fraud of others without any his own fault is joined to an harlot in stead of his wife may be said to make Christ's members the members of an harlot Tho such who knowingly join in their external Sacraments with any separated worship shall thereby be partakers of their guilt See 1 Cor. 10. 20 21. which I conceive was spoken by the Apostle not only to the erroneous who with some conscience of the idol as if it were something did eat of the sacrifices see 1 Cor. 8. 7. but to the orthodoxly-minded who counting the idol nothing thought such external compliance lawful and no prejudice to their Christian profession 2. Now in the 2d place to come to the commands of the Church which are justly obligatory even in such things as by the Scriptures are left indifferent and not prohibited unto us And therefore we are as well to examin what liberty the Church permits us as what the Scriptures or also what our Spiritual Superiors according to the obedience which we owe to them Heb. 13. 17. think fit to allow us
much against the simplicity and ready vindication of our Christian profession In the times of persecution before the days of Constantine it was not only held unlawful tho this required upon pain of death for Christians to cast a little incense into the fire before an Idol or the Emperor's image a thing which a Christian might externally have done with the greatest vilifying of the same idol in his heart but also to procure with money a Libel or testimony from the officer tho most false to be shewed by them upon occasion that they had done any such thing or to procure the officer to recite or return their names that they had done such a thing or to subscribe that they would do it See the Epistle of the Roman Clergy to S. Cyprian inter Cyprian Ep. 31. Non est alienus a crimine cujus consensu licet non a se admissune orimen tamen publice legitur Et qui vult videri propositis adversus Evangelium vel edictis vel legibus satisfecisse hoc ipso jam paruit quod videri paruisse se voluit See Cyprian de Lapsis Professio denegantis i. e. se esse Christianum contestatio est Christiani quod fuerat abnuentis fecisse se dixit quicquid alius faciendo commisit Tho see how plausible the same Father draws up such a ones excuse Ep. 52. Ad magistratum mandavi Christianum me esse sacrificare mihi non licere Dare me ob hoc praemium ne quod non licet faciam But note that the magistrates freeing him for this reward was by bringing in his name as if he had sacrificed which the Christian ought by no means either to have procured or admitted As for that which is urged concerning S. Paul that he became as a Jew to the Jews as without law to those without law c. practising some things whereby he seemed at the first to his converts of another opinion than indeed he was that he might out of this mistake produce their greater good yet note that for this good he practised nothing absolutely unlawful or prohibited either by Divine or Ecclesiastical injunction but some things which tho they were no longer necessary to any ones salvation and some ways also inconvenient and troublesom yet were things indifferent at least as yet to those infant-times of the Gospel before Christ was perfectly understood to be the end of the Law and to that nation and in some respects very beneficial to the propagation of the Gospel that they should be used The Apostle therefore in some places and times used them for very good ends as namely thereby to enjoy still the freedom amongst the Jews of preaching the Gospel and the benevolence of his auditors so to gain them that were born under the law as himself saith 1 Cor. 9. 20. Again to preserve the new Jew-converts converted by others observant of the law from apostatizing from the faith upon such a scandal of his neglecting the commands of God by Moses as likewise as t is probably collected from Act. 21. 21. to undeceive the new Christian Jews in that sinister opinion they had of him as if that he not only licenced the Gentile-converts from any use of these Legal ceremonies at which they took no offence but also perswaded the Jews converted by him not only that such ceremonies were no more absolutely necessary to salvation but that they might by no means use any of them nor walk after the former customs Therefore he practised these himself sometimes for this reason also saith S. Austin Ep. 19. ne Judaeis c viderentur qui ex gentibus in Christum crediderant sic detestari Circumcisionem sicut idololatria detestanda est cum illam Deus fieri praecepit hanc Satanas persuaserit or discindi a Prophetis Christi tanquam Mosis doctrinam detestantes atque damnantes Again used them only when more evil than good was not probable to ensue thereof by his giving more dangerous scandal to more by his avoiding the giving thereof to some few for in case of double scandal that of less dangerous consequence and of less extent in the offence is to be chosen therefore he used such compliance with the Jews only in such places as in Jerusalem Act. 21. or in other quarters where many Jews abode Act. 16. 3. where no offence could be taken by the Convert-gentiles But he never when both were present to observe his behaviour so corresponded and sided with the weaker brethren the Jew as to desert or shame or weaken the strong the Gentile But we may see how tender he was of using such things where any prejudice thereby might possibly come to the truth in that tho elsewhere out of charity to the weak he circumcised Timothy being to assist him in his preaching to the Jews yet he when he was amongst false brethren tho at Jerusalem would not do the same to Titus a preacher lest from such condescension their malice who came only for Spies might by their false comments upon it raise some prejudice to the liberty of the Gospel Gal. 2. 4 5. See Gal. 6. 12 14 his detesting such compliance to avoid the cross And again in that he so sharply and publickly reproved S. Peter tho in some sort his superior Gal. 2. 14. for his dissimulation in forbearing the company of the Gentiles and complying with the former fashions of the Jews in a place namely in the Church of Antioch which chiefly consisted of Gentiles or Jews also much more moderate than those at Jerusalem where much more scandal must come of such an action which by his withdrawing from them did bear the shew of a repentance of the freedom he had formerly used toward them in making those believe that they ought to conform to the Jewish laws then good in not offending some few that came from Jerusalem and perhaps were such false brethren as those S. Paul there opposed Whereby it appears that dissimulation many times even in things in their own nature indifferent is not free from guilt how much more if it be in things which we have shewed by several strict prohibitions of them that they are not to be reckoned of such a nature Something like this case of ours perhaps it would have bin if the Apostle had complied the least with those false brethren and leaders of faction in Jerusalem that he might have gained some from amongst them but he saw there the defence of the truth against the opposers more necessary than was the gaining of a disciple to that truth with a publick shew of deserting it or had he or S. Peter so become a Jew to the Jew that he had concealed his Christianity or not professed always every where publickly privately that after the way which they called heresy so he worshipped God Act. 24. 14. which he did before all the people of Jerusalem Act. 22. 4 8. c. before Felix Act. 24. 14. before Agrippa Act. 26. 22
be justly supposed by any therefore to justifie all their Acts Laws Injunctions or Censures whatsoever no more than from my peaceable obedience to my temporal Prince will any such thing be collected Suppose the Church pronounceth an Anathema on all those who do not believe her decrees yet can none hence justly conclude That every one that is in her communion believes them unless we are certain that every one doth what another requires who doth not quit all relation to him who requires it Neither have her Anathema's being universally pronounced more force upon nor are they more to be feared by one when he is now within than when he was before without her communion or than they are to be feared by all those who continue still without the further any one runs from the Church he the more justly incurring her censures Neither reasonably may those thro the Kingdom of France after the conclusion of the Tridentine Council who lived and died in the communion of the Roman Church or Father Paul the Venetian who writ the history of that Council dying also in the same communion be therefore presumed to have assented or subscribed to all the decrees thereof Doth the 5th Canon of the Church of England bind all tho Non-Subscribers to forsake or not to enter her communion who think some one thing she saith not agreeable with the Scriptures for fear of their giving scandal by being thought to believe such points Did the many false doctrines of those who sat in Moses's chair and ruled in the true Church of God therefore warrant the Samaritan discession from the Church Consider well Jo. 4. 22. Matt. 10. 5. We may not being in her communion openly gainsay the errors of a Church such as are not fundamental as all I think grant how much less may we quit her communion for them And if one may not leave that which he imagines the true Church for such faults or defects neither may he forbear to return to it And if a member of a Church may not disturb her peace in an open speaking against some things he supposeth to be errors in her but not fundamental now for erring in fundamentals the true Church of Christ is secure and in the Protestants opinion the Roman Church doth not err in any such upon this pretence because else some may be scandalized as if himself also held such errors why may not one likewise enter into the Church's communion without an obligation of declaring against her supposed errors for fear of giving such scandal And indeed upon such terms i. e. of fear of giving scandal no man may be of any communion wherein he thinks any one untruth is held and then by being of none shall he not give more scandal as if he denied there to be on earth a Catholick and Apostolick Church to which he may securely joyn himself He that may not pass over to another Church because she hath some in his opinion errors may not stay in his own if he imagines the same of her But mean-while he that takes such offence may perhaps too magisterially accuse a Church of errors who 1. first ought not hastily to conclude especially the decrees of Councils to be untruths unless he be infallibly certain thereof And if he be so yet 2ly ought he not to be offended at anothers submission to the Church that holds them unless he knows also that the other is infallibly certain of their being errors But yet 3ly from the others submitting he cannot indeed gather so much as that such a ones private opinion in all things is the same as the Church's doctrine is but only this that such a man's judgment is that he ought to submit as much as is in his power his contrary reasons or opinion to her wiser and more universal judgment To conclude No man may neglect a duty for fear of giving some scandal or of having his actions by some weak men misconstrued For t is only in the doing and forbearing of things indifferent that we are to have an eye to scandal Now our communion with that which we suppose to be the Church Catholick must needs be a duty and that a high one Of which S. Austin saith so often see 5. § That there can be no just cause of departing from her Therefore either she errs not at all in her decrees or else we may not desert her communion because therein are maintained some errors tho some upon these be scandalized that we still abide in it I add as no just cause of departing from her notwithstanding such errors so no just cause of not returning to her when she is willing and ready to receive him By Him I mean here as likewise in the rest of this discourse such a one as tho he scruples at some of her in his conceit errors yet is perswaded that that Church to which he desires to joyn himself is the truly Catholick Luk. 9. 59 c. And he said unto another Follow me But he said Lord suffer me first to go and bury my Father Jesus said unto him Let the dead bury their dead c. Another also said Lord I will follow Thee but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house And Jesus said unto him No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. FINIS PART I. §. 1. 1. Concerning Faith necessary for salvation 1. Concerning the object or matter of Faith. §. 2. 1. Concerning the necessity of our belief of such object of faith 1. That it is necessary to our salvation to believe what ever is known by us to be Gods word §. 3. Where 1. Concerning our obligation to know any thing to be Gods word which knowledg obligeth us afterward to belief §. 4. §. 5. §. 6. 2. And concerning sufficient proposal §. 7. §. 8. §. 9. §. 10. 2 That it is not necessary to our salvation that all that is God's word be known by us to be so or in general known by us to be a truth Where 1. That it is necessary to salvation that some points of Gods word be expresly known by all 〈◊〉 points very few §. 11. §. 12. §. 13. Not easily defined In respect of these the Apostles Creed too large §. 14. 2. Other points only highly advantageous to salvation that they be known 3. Yet our duty each one according to his calling to seek the knowledg of them §. 15. In respect of these the Apostles Creâ—d too narrow §. 16. §. 17. 4. That the obligation of knowing these varieth according to several persons c. And the decrees of Councils not obligatory at least to some against a pure nescience but opposition thereof and not any opposition but only when known to be their Decrees §. 18. §. 19. §. 20. PART II. Concerning the necessary Ground of Faith Salvifical Whether Infallibility that the matter of such Faith is a divine truth
revelasse or se hanc fidem Deum revelasse habere ex auxilio Spiritus Sancti and this a motive morally infallible namely consensum Ecclesiae or Universal Tradition concerning which he thus goes on Verum in ordine ad nos revelatio divina credibilis acceptabilis fit per extrinseca motiva inter quae unum ex praecipuis merito censetur authoritas consensus Ecclesiae tot saeculis tanto numero hominum clarissimorum florentis But then this evident or morally-infallible motive is not held always necessary neither for the humane inducement to divine faith For he goes on quamvis id non unicum neque simpliciter necessarium motivum est quandoquidem non omnes eodem modo sed alii aliter ad fidem Christi amplectendam moventur His adde Non tantum variis motivis homines ad fidem amplectendam moveri sed etiam alios aliis facilius partim propter majorem internam Spiritus sancti illustrationem impulsionem sicuti not avit Valentia q. 1. p. 4. arg 18. partim propter animi sui simplicitatem quia de opposito errore persuasionem nullam conceperunt Qua ratione pueri apud Catholicos cum ad usum rationis pervenerunt acceptant sidei mysteria tanquam divinitus revelata quia natu majores prudentes quos ipsi norunt ita credere animadvertunt So then if all saving faith must be sides divina infallible that which can rightly be produced to advance sides humana into it is not the authority of Scriptures or of the Church for Qui credit propter authoritatem hominum vel simile motivum humanum is fide solum humana credit but only auxilium Spiritus Sancti succurrentis intellectui c in the stating of this learned Casuist Thus you see by what is quoted here out of Estius Lugo and Layman that the moderate Catholick writers concede divine and salvifical faith where no infallibility of any outward evidence or motive And perhaps it might conduce much more to the prayed-for union of Christ's Church if so many Controvertists on all sides perhaps out of an opinion of necessary zeal to maintain their own cause to the uttermost did not embrace the extreamest opinions by which they give too much cause to their adversaries to remain unsatisfied and to make easie and specious replies being helped also by the more moderate writers of the other side As if they chiefly endeavoured to fright their enemies from any yeilding or hearkning to a peace whilst they hold it still upon higher terms than those the Church Catholick proposeth which hath redounded to the multiplication of many needles controversies From what hath bin said I think we may infer 1. First That it is not necessary to true and saving faith that all the mediums by which we attain to it be infallible That neither an infallible Judg nor a known-infallible argument from the Scriptures or writings of Fathers c. is absolutely necessary to it but that it is sufficient to believe the things revealed by God as revealed by him see § 1. holding whatever is his word to be infallible which is a principle to all men and needs no proof by what weak means soever we attain the knowledge of such revelations whether it be by Scriptures Catechisms read or Parents Pastors instructing yea tho these instructers did not know whether there were any Scriptures as the Eunuch believed without those of the New Testament and how unevident soever their confirmation thereof to us be only if we receive from them whether from the credit we give to their authority or to their argument so much light as together with the inward operation of the Spirit opening the heart to receive and accept of it of which Spirit yet we are not so certainly sensible as to know the proper movings thereof for then this were a motive all-sufficient without Scripture or Teacher doth sway and perswade the understanding and so produceth obedience Which faith tho it is not such for its immediate ground as cui non potest subesse falsum by reason of any humane evidence it hath yet many times it is such as cui non subest dubium of which we doubt no more than we do of a Demonstration by reason of the strong adherence we have to it either from the power of God's Spirit or probability of arguments c. See § 35. c. But neither is this actual non-doubting necessary for there is many times doubting in a true but weak faith see § 46. but this is enough if any thing be so far made probable as that it turns the ballance of our judgment so far as to win our assent nay nothing can be without sin disbelieved which seems generally including here also the argument from authority more probable than another thing tho it have no demonstration Which demonstration or also an infallible proponent that the faith of most men wants see the plain confession as it seems to me of Mr. Knot in his Answer to Mr. Chillingworth 4. cap p. 358. A man may exercise saith he an infallible act of faith tho his immediate instructer or proposer be not infallible because he believes upon a ground which both is believed by him to be infallible and is such indeed to wit the word of God who therefore will not deny his supernatural concourse necessary to every true act of divine faith Otherwise in the ordinary course there would be no means left for the faith and salvation of unlearned persons from whom God exacts no more but that they proceed prudently according to the measure of their several capacities and use such diligence as men ought in a matter of highest moment All Christians of the primitive Church were not present when the Apostles spoke or wrote yea it is not certain that every one of those thousands whom St. Peter converted did hear every sentence he spoke but might believe some by relation of others who stood near And 1. c. p. 64. the same Author saith that a Preacher or Pastor whose testimonies are humane and fallible when they declare to their hearers or subjects that some truth is witnessed by God's word are occasion that those people may produce a true infallible Act of Faith depending immediately upon divine Revelation applied by the said means And if you object saith he That perhaps that humane authority is false and proposes to my understanding Divine revelation when God doth not reveal therefore I cannot upon humane testimony representing or applying Divine revelation exercise an infallible Act of Faith. I answer it is one thing whether by a reflex act I am absolutely certain that I exercise an infallible act of Faith and another whether indeed and in actu exercito I produce such an act Of the former I have said nothing neither makes it to our present purpose Of the latter I affirm that when indeed humane testimony is true tho not certainly known by me to be so and so
applies a divine revelation which really exists in such case I may believe by a true infallible assent of Christian faith The reason of this seems clear because altho a truth which I know only by probable assent is not certain to me yet in it self it is most immoveable and certain in regard that while a thing is it cannot but be for that time for which it is c. Thus he The sum of which is That the infallibility of many mens faith is not from any external Proponent but only from God's concourse See Dr. Hold. 1. l. 2. c. p. 36 37. de resol fid saying the like 2. Again in the 2d place it may be inferred * That receiving of the Articles of his Creed from the Church'es proposal is not necessary to true faith or * That one may truly believe some who doth not believe all the points of faith which the Church proposeth or any for or upon her proposal or lastly * That one may truly and savingly believe an article of faith who is not certain of the divine revelation thereof I willingly grant here 1. first That he who believes aright any divine truth must believe that it is revealed by God or that God hath said it and That he that denies any one thing which he believes is revealed by God can believe no other thing at all as he ought that is as from divine revelation he must believe all such or none at all aright 2. Since a rational certain knowledge of divine revelation as of the Scriptures or also of the Sense thereof where doubtful is only receivedd from the Church and her Tradition I accord that none can rationally or so infallibly believe any things to be revealed by God but such as he knows to be proposed to him by the Church or Tradition to be such either immediately in her exposition of obscure Scriptures or mediately in her delivering to him the Canon of Scripture and therefore that who denies this authority in some points suppose in those points where this authority is granted by him to be of equal force hath no rational ground or certainty of his faith in any other of those points according to the Schools Qui inhaeret doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili regulae i. e. in omnibus quae proponit omnibus assentit quae Ecclesia docet i. e. quae scit Ecclesiam docere alioqui si de his quae Ecclesia docet tenet quae vult quae non vult non tenet non inhaeret infallibili doctrinae Ecclesiae sed propriae voluntati But note that every one who doth not inhaerere doctrinae Ecclesiae tanquam infallibili may not therefore be said inhaerere propriae voluntati because he may hold such tenents not quia vult but * for some other reason abstract from the Church'es authority as Protestants do * for the evidence of Tradition in this point That Scripture is God's word So those who rejected some parts or books of Scripture because containing something opposite to their opinions could not ground any certainty of their faith upon the rest because that Scripture they refused came recommended to them by as much and the same authority as that they accepted But these Concessions destroy not the former proposition because for the former concession it is one thing to believe such a truth to be divine revelation another to be rationally assured thereof the first we grant is the second I think we have proved not to be necessary to all true faith For the second tho he who certainly knows not Church-tradition cannot have a rational or discursive certainty in his faith abstracting here from what internal certainty one may have from the Spirit nor upon that principle can believe one thing unless he believe all the rest that have the like Tradition with it yet he may without such a certainty or such a ground truly believe as I think is before-proved And hence it follows that one may truly believe some other points of faith who doth not believe this point in particular That the Church or Universal Tradition is infallible Thus much * of the non-necessity of infallible certainty in every believer to render his faith true divine and salvifical * and of the erring in some one article it s not necessarily destroying the true faith of all the rest But to conclude this Discourse Three things mean-while are acknowledged and confessed 1. First that he that truly and divinely believes all the rest of the Articles of our Faith and erreth only in one Article that is absolutely necessary to salvation such error may be said to destroy his whole faith in some sense that is in rendring his faith in other points tho not false yet non-salvifical to him 2. Again he that disbelieveth and opposeth the propositions of the Church known to him to be so in some point not absolutely necessary I mean to be explicitely believed for attaining salvation as some points there are so necessary tho this error doth not null the body of his beleife yet this opposition in that error is by the common doctrine of the Church accounted so great a crime as that unrepented of it renders his true faith being destitute of due obedience and charity unprofitable for his salvation which I thought fit here to mind you of that none may presume salvation from the truth of his faith in all necessaries as long as he stands tho in some as he accounts smaller points after sufficient proposal in opposition and disobedience to the Church i. e. to his supreme Governour and Guide in all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual matters See before § 50. 3. And lastly if this Article of Faith That the Church'es authority is either absolutely infallible in all things she proposeth to be believed or at least so supreme that none may in any wise dissent from her determination can be proved one of the points of faith absolutely necessary to salvation to be by every Christian believed then since there can be no disobedience and non-conformity to the Church but that it is grounded on the dissbelief of this Article it must follow That every one that opposeth the Church is also from his disbelief of this Article excluded from salvation FINIS OF INFALLIBILITY CONTENTS PART 1. COncerning the Infallibility of the Church how far this is to be allowed § 1 2. 1. Infallibility of the Church in necessaries granted both by Roman and Protestant writers § 3. Where How far points necessary are to be extended § 4. That the Church not private men is to define what points be necessary § 6. If these points be necessary at all to be defined and exactly distinguished from all other her Proposals § 7. 2. Infallibility of the Church in matters of Universal Tradition tho they were not necessary conceded likewise by all § 8. 3. Infallibility Universal in whatever the Church proposeth and delivereth is not affirmed by the Roman writers §