the discipline of the pretended reform'd Religion under the title of Consistories Art 31. that going about to prescribe a means to end debates which might arise upon any point of Doctrine or Discipline c. they ordain first the Consistory shall endeavour to appease the whole without noise and with all the sweetness of the word of God and after having established a Consistory a Conference and a Provincial Synod as so many different degrees of Jurisdiction coming at last to a National Synod above which amongst them there is no Authority they speak of it in these terms There the entire and final resolution shall be given by the word of God to which if they refuse to acquiesce in every point and with an express disavowing of their errours they shall be cut off from the Church It is manifest those of the pretended Reformation do not attribute the authority of this last sentence to the word of God taken in it self and without dependence upon the authority of the Church for tho this word was made use of in their first Judgements yet notwithstanding they permitted an appeal It is then this word as interpreted by the soveragin tribunal of the Church which gives this final resolution to which whosoever refuses to submit in every point altho he boast he is authorized by the word of God is no more reputed but as a prosane person who corrupts and abuses it But the form of those Letters of deputation which were addres'd to the Synod of Vitre in the year 1617 to be observed by the Provinces when they were to send their Deputies to a National Synod has yet something more express it is in these terms We promise before God to submit our selves to all that shall be concluded and resolved of in your holy Assemblis to obey them and put them in execution to our utmost power being persuaded as we are that God will preside in it and lead you by his holy spirit into all Truth and equity by the rule of his word Here the point is not about receiving the resolution of a Synod after they have found it to speak according to Scripture they submit to it even before it is assembled and they do it because they are persuaded the Holy Ghost will preside in it If this persuasion be only founded upon a human presumption can a man in conscience promise before God to submit to all that shall be there concluded and resolved of to obey and execute them to the utmost of his power And if this Persuasion has its foundation in a certain belief of the assistance which the Holy Ghost gives to the Church in her final decisions Catholics themselves require no more So that the proceedings of our Adversaries shew them to agree with us in this supreme Authority without which it is impossible ever to put an end to any difficulty in Religion and tho whilst they were desirous to cast of the yoak of obedience they denied the Faithful to be obliged to submit their Judgments to that of the Church yet the necessity of establishing an order has since forced them to grant what their first undertakings had made them deny They have gone yet much further in the National Synod held at Saint Foy in the year 1578. There was some overture made of a Reconcilement with the Lutherans by means of a general form of a profession of Faith common to all their Churches which was proposed to be drawn up Those of this Kingdom were invited to send to an Assembly which was to be held upon this account Vertuous persons authorised by all the said Churches with an ample Procuration TO TREAT AGREE UPON AND DECIDE ALL POINTS OF DOCTRINE and other matters concerning that union Upon this Proposall see in that terms the resolution of the Synod of St. Foy was couched The National Synod of this Kingdom after having given God thanks for such an overture and commended the care diligence and good advice of the forementioned persons convocated and APPROVING THE REMLDIES WHICH THEY HAVE SUGGESTED that is to say principally that of framing a new Confession of Faith and to give power to some certain persons to compose it has ordained That if the copy of the above named Confession of Faith be sent in time it shall be examined in each Provincial Synod or otherwise according to the convenience of each Province and in the mean time has deputed four Min sters the most experienced in those affairs to whom express charge has been given to be present at the place and day appointed with the Letters and full Procurations of all the Ministers and Elders Deputies of the Provinces of this Kingdom as also of the Lord Viscount Turenne to do all things above said yea even incase that MEANS COULD NOT BE FOUND OUT TO EXAMINE IN EVERY PROVINCE THE SAID CONFESSION it should be referred to their prudence and sound judgement to agree and CONCLUDE all the points which shall be brought into deliberation as well FOR DOCTRINE as for other matters concerning the benefit union and peace of all the Churches It was to this in fine that this seeming tenderness of Conscience of these pretended Reformes tended How often have they reproched to us as a weakness that submission which we pay to the Decisions of the Church which say they is nothing else but a company of men lyable to error and yet nevertheless being assembled in a Body in a National Synod which represented all the Churches of the pretended Reformed in France they are not afraid by mutual consent to leave their faith to the arbitration of four men with so absolute an abandoning of their own sentiments that they gave them full power to change the very Confession of Faith it self which they do at this very day propose to the whole Christian world as a Confession of Faith which containeth nothing but the pure Word of God and for which as they said in presenting it to our Kings an infinite number of people were ready to shed their Blood I leave the prudent Reader to make his reflections upon the Decree of this Synod and shall in a few words finish the Explication of the Churches Tenets SECT XXI The Authority of the Holy See of Rome and of Episcopacy THE Son of God being desirous his Church should be one and and solidly built upon Unity hath established and instituted the Primacy of St. Peter to maintain and cement it Upon which account we acknowledg this Primacy in the Successors of the Prince of the Apostles to whom for this cause we owe that Obedience and Submission which the Holy Councils and Fathers have always taught the faithful As for those things which we know are disputed of in the Schools tho the Ministers continually alledg them to render this Power odious it is not necessary we speak of them here seeing they are not Articles of the Catholic Faith It is sufficient we acknowledg a Head established by God to conduct his whole
FOR VS No matter for that the Ministers will never believe it They must then raise out of their Catechism and their Confession of Faith these accusations of Idolatry with which they are filled they must retrench in their Sermons so many bloody Invectives which have no other Grounds and this they cannot resolve of and let us make what Declarations we can of our Minds they will neither believe the Council not its Catechism nor our Confession of Faith nor the Bishops nor the Pope himself It is not necessary to repeat here what is said in the Exposition as to other objections Exp. p. 8. and principally as to that where they accuse the Church of attributing to Saints a divine Knowledge and Power whilst she teaches they can neither know nor do any thing of themselves But the accusation of Idolatry has another Foundation which they accuse M. de Condom to have palliated as well as the others And it is the Article concerning Images An. Av. p. 24. where nevertheless he has searched no other Palliations but to expose faithfully the meaning of the Church Rep. p. 65. There needs no more than this to make the very Suspition of Idolatry to vanish according to the Principles of the Pretended Reform'd and they need only in this compare the Doctrine of their own Catechism with that of the Council of Trent represented in the Exposition Their Catechism upon this Commandment Dim 23. Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image Asks whether God forbids the making of any Image And the answer is No but that God forbids only the making of any Image whereby to represent God or to adore it Behold the two things which they think forbidden in this Precept of the Decalogue It may be they will do us the Justice to believe we do not pretend to represent God and that if they see in some Pictures God the Father Painted in that form which he was pleased so often to appear in to his Prophets we pretend no more to derogate from his Invisibile and Spiritual Nature than he himself when he exhibited himself under that form The Council explicates sufficiently to them upon this account Sess 25. that we pretend not thereby to represent or express the Divinity or to give it any Colours and I think I should do them an injury in proceeding to a clearer Proof Let us pass to the second part of their Doctrine and let us learn from their Catechisms what form of Adoration is condemned To Prostrate ones self says the Answer before an Image to pray to it to how the Knee before it or shew some other sign of reverence as if God exhibited himself there to us This is in effect the Errour of the Gentiles and the proper Character of Idolatry But they who believe Expos p. 9 10 11. with the Council That Images have neither Divinity nor Vertue in them for which they ought to be reverenced and who place all the benefit in their recalling the Originals to our remembrance do not believe that God in them exhibits himself to them It is not therefore Idolatry by the consent of the Pretended Reform'd and according to the proper Definition of their Catechism The Anonymus seems to have been sensible of this Truth in that place where objecting this Commandment of the Decalogue he says P. 67. that God forbids to make Images and to worship them He is in the right The words of the Precept are express and the Images there spoken of are those which are forbidden to to be made as well as to be worshiped That is to say according to the explication of his Catechism those which are made to represent God and those which are made to show him present and which are worshipped with the same intention as full of his Divinity We neither make nor suffer any of this nature We do not worship Images God forbid but we make use of Images to put us in mind of the Originals Our Council so odious to the pretended Reform'd Church teaches us no other use of them Is this then enough to make them say as that Church doth in her own Confession of Faith that all sorts of Idolatry are in vogue in the Roman Church Art 28. Is it for this that her Discipline calls us Idolaters and our Religion Idolatry Disc art 11.13 Art 5.2 Without doubt they represent to themselves other things than our Doctrine when they give us the name of Gentiles They believe we follow their abominable Errors and that we believe as they did that God shews himself to us in those Images Had it not been for these mortal Prejudices had it not been for Ideas which they frame to themselves of the sentiments of the Church Christians could never have imagined it so detestable a crime to kiss the Cross in remembrance of him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood nor that so simple and natural a demonstration of those sentiments of tenderness which that Pious Object excites in our hearts ought to make us regarded as if we Adored Baal or the Golden Galves of Samaria During this strange preocupation of the Pretended Reform'd this Treatise of the Exposition might well appear to them which really in effect it did a Book full of Artifice which did nothing but extenuate the Sentiments of Catholicks But now when they see clearly all the Artifice of this Book is to separate the Doctrines which they have imputed to the Church from those which she professes that all the mitigations he makes in Doctrine is that he has taken off that hidious Masque which the Ministers had put upon it let them confess this Church was not worthy of so much horror as they had for her and that at least she deserves to be heard Neither the Pope nor the Sea Apostolick ought to be hereafter accused of diminshing that adoration which is due to God nor that confidence which a Christian ought to establish in his sole goodness through our Lord Jesus Christ since they see without further search this Treatise of the Exposition which is made only to explicate these two Truths has received at Rome and from the Pope himself so Authentick an Approbation After this they will certainly be ashamed of that Title which they give the Pope No one can think on it without horrour nor hear without astonishment that the Pretended Reform'd who boast to follow Scripture word for word when the Apostle St. John who has alone named Antichrist tells us three or four times that Antichrist is he who denies that JESVS CHRIST is come in flesh 2. Joh. 1.7 1 Joh. 2.22.4.3 dare so much as think that he who teaches so fully the Mystery of JESVS CHRIST that is to say his Divinity his Incarnation the superbundance of his Merits the necessity of his Grace and that absolute confidence we must have in it should nevertheless be that Antichrist described by the Apostle But it is
entirely washed away by the Blood of JESVS CHRIST and by the grace of regeneration which is so far from obscuring or lessening that Idea which we ought to have of the merit of this Blood on the contrary it heightens and augments it So that the Justice of JESVS CHRIST is not only imputed but actually communicated to the faithful by the operation of the Holy Spirit in so much that they are not only reputed but rendred just by his grace If that Righteousness which is in us were only such in the eyes of men it would not be the work of the holy Ghost It is then a righteousness and that before God seeing it is God himself who produces it in us by pouring forth his charity in our hearts Nevertheless it is too true that the flesh rebels against the Spirit Gal. 5.17 and the Spirit against the flesh and that we all offend in many things Jam. 3.2 So that tho our Justice be truly such by the infusion of his Charity yet it is not perfect Justice because of the combat of Concupiscence In so much that the continual sighings of a soul penitent for her offences is the most necessary duty of a Christian righteousness which obliges us to confess humbly with St. Augustin that our Justice in this life consists rather in the remission of sin than in the perfection of Vertues SECT VII Merits of Good Works AS to the merit of Good works Sess 6. c. 16. the Catholic Church teacheth us that eternal life ought to be proposed to the children of God both as a Grace which is mercifully promised to them by the mediation of our Lord JESUS CHRIST and as a recompence which is faithfully rendred to their good works and merits in vertue of this promise These are the proper terms of the Council of Trent But least human pride should flatter it self with an opinion of a presumptuous merit the same Council teacheth us that all the price and value of a Christians works proceeds from the sanctifying grace which is given us gratis in the name of JESVS CHRIST Ibid. and that it is an effect of the continual influence of this divine Head upon its Members Really the Precepts Exhortations Promises Threatnings and Reproaches of the Gospel show clearly enough we must work out our salvation by the cooperation of our wills together with the grace of God assisting us But it is one of our first Principles that the free-will can act nothing conducing to eternal happiness but as it is moved and elevated by the Holy Ghost So that the Church knowing it is this divine Spirit which works in us by his Graces all the good we do she is obliged to believe the good works of the Faithful very acceptable to God and of great consideration before him and it is just she should make use of the word Merit with all Christian antiquity whereby she may principally denote the value the price and the dignity of those works which we perform through grace But seeing all their Sanctity comes from God who produces them in us the same Church has in the Council of Trent received these words of St. Augustin as a doctrine of Catholic Faith that God crowns his own gifts in crowning the merits of his Servants We beg of those who love Truth and Peace that they would be pleased here to read a little more at length the words of this Council to the end they may once for all disabuse themselves of those false inpressions which has been given them concerning our doctrine Although we see Sess 6. c. 16. say the Fathers in this Council that holy writ esteems Good works so much That JESUS CHRIST himself promises that a glass of cold water given to the poor shall not want its reward and that the Apostle testifies how a moment of light pain endured in this world shall produce an eternal weight of Glory nevertheless God forbid a Christian should glory in himself and not in our Lord whose bounty is so great to all men that he will have those gifts which he bestowes upon them to be their merits This doctrine is dispersed throughout the whole Council which teacheth us in another Session Sess 14. c. 8. that we who can do nothing of our selves can do all things with him who strengthens us in such sort that man has nothing of which he may glory nor for which he may confide in himself but all his confidence and all his glory is in JESUS CHRIST in whom we live in whom we merit in whom we satisfy bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance which draw their vertue from him and by him are offered to his Father and accepted of by his Father through him Wherefore we ask all things we hope all things we render thanks for all things through our Lord JESVS CHRIST We confess aloud we are not acceptable to God but in and by him and we cannot comprehend why any other thought should be attributed to us We so place all the hopes of our salvation in him that we dayly make use of these words to God in the Sacrifice Vouchsafe O God to grant to us sinners thy servants who hope in the multitude of thy mercies some part and society with the Blessed Apostles and Martyers into whose number we beseech thee to be pleased to receive us not looking upon our merits but gratiously pardoning us in the name of JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Will the Church never be able to perswade her Children now become her adversaries neither by the Exposition of her Faith nor by the Decisions of her Councils nor by the Prayers in her Sacrifice that her belief is that she can have no life but in JESVS CHRIST and that she has no hope but in him This hope is so firm it makes the Children of God who walk faithfully in his wayes to find a peace which surpasseth all understanding as the Apostle tells us Phil. 4.7 But tho this hope be stronger than the promises and menaces of the world and sufficient to calm the troubles of our Conciences yet it does not wholy extinguish Fear for tho we be assured God will never abandon us of his own accord yet we are never certain we shall not lose him by our own fault in rejecting his inspirations He has been pleased by this saving fear to mitigate that confidence which he has infused into his children because as St. Augustin tells us such is our infirmity in this place of Temptations and dangers that an absolute security would produce tepidity and pride in us whereas this fear which according to the Apostles command makes us work out our salvation with trembling Phil. 2.12 renders us more vigilant and makes us rely with a more humble dependance upon him who works in us by his Grace both to will and to do according to his good pleasure as the same St. Paul expresses it Thus you have seen what is most necessary in the
receiving the Body and Blood of our Saviour which is not performed by Faith and this is what the Catholic Church teaches The second thing granted by the Pretended Reformers is taken out of that Article which immediately follows that which I have already cited out of their Catechism Dim 52. which is That the Body of our Lord JESUS for as much as it was once offered up in Sacrifice to reconcile us to God is now given to assure us we have a part in that Reconciliation If there be any Sense in these Words if they be not an useless found and a vain amusement we ought to understand by them that JESVS CHRIST does not give us a Symbol only but his proper Body to assure us we partake of his Sacrifice and of the Reconciliation of Mankind But if the reception of the Body of our Lord assures us of our participation of the Fruits of his Death this participation of the Fruits must necessarily be distinguished from the reception of the Body seeing one is the pledg of the other From whence to proceed I say If our adversaries are forced to distinguish in the last Supper the participation of the body of our Blessed Saviour from the participation of the fruits of his Grace in his Sacrifice they must also necessarily make a distinction between the participation of this Divine Body and all kinds of Spiritual participation by Faith This latter participation will never furnish them with two distinct Actions by one of which they receive the Body of our Saviour and by the other the benefit of this Sacrifice no man being able to conceive what difference there is betwixt partaking by Faith of the Body of our Saviour and partaking by Faith of the Fruit of his Death They must therefore acknowledg that besides the Communion by which we spiritually partake of the Body of our Saviour and also of his Spirit by receiving the fruit of his Death there is also a Real Communion of the Body of the same Saviour which is to us a certain Pledg of the others being assured to us if we put no impediment to such a Grace by an evil Disposition This is necessarily included in the Principles they admit and they will never be able to explicate this Truth with the least shadow of Solidity if they return not to the Sentiments of the Church Who will not here admire the force of Truth All the consequences which follow from the acknowledged Principles of our adversaries are perfectly understood in the sentiment of the Church Catholicks the meanliest instructed without difficulty conceive that in the Eucharist there is a Communion which JESVS CHRIST which is not to be found any where else It is no difficulty for them to understand his Body is given us to assure us we partake of his Sacrifice and of his Death They distinguish clearly betwixt these two necessary manners of uniting or selves to JESVS CHRIST the one in receiving his proper flesh the other in receiving his Spirit the first of which is granted us as a certain pledge of the second But seeing these things are inexplicable in the sentiments of our adversaries tho on the other hand they cannot deny them we must necessarily conclude that errour has thrown them into a manifest contradiction I have been often astonished they did not explicate their Doctrine after a more plain manner Why did they not always without so many formalities persevere to say that JESVS CHRIST having shed his Blood for us represented to us this effusion by giving us two distinct signs of his Body and Blood that he was pleased indeed to give to these signs the name of the thing it self that these sacred signs were pledges to assure us of our partaking of the fruit of his Death and that we were spiritually nourished by the vertue of his Body and Blood After so many endeavours to prove that signs often receive the names of the things signified and that for this reason the sign of the Body might be called the Body all this connection of Doctrine obliges them naturally to fix there To render these signs efficacious it sufficed the Grace of Redemption was annexed to them or rather according to their Principles that it was in them confirmed to us They needed not have tormented themselves as they have done to make us understand we receive the proper Body of our Saviour to assure us we partake of the Grace of his Death They were well enough satisfied to have the water of Baptism a sign of the Blood which washeth us and it never entred into their fancies to say we there received the proper substance of the Blood of our Blessed Saviour to assure us his vertue is there diffused upon us If they had argued after the same manner as to the Eucharist their Doctrine would have been less embroyled But those who invent and innovate cannot express all they have a mind to They find certain truths and maxims established which incommode them and force a violence upon their imaginations The Arians would gladly have resused our Blessed Saviour the name of God or the only Son of God The Nestorians did not admit but with reluctance that kind of I know not what unity of person in JESVS CHRIST which we find in their writing The Pelagians who denied Original sin would also willingly have denyed that Baptism was given to little children for the remission of sins for by that means they would have been freed from the argument which Catholicks drew from this practice to prove that original defect But as I just now said those who find some truths firmly established have not the boldness or rather impudence to overthrow all Let the Calvinists ingenuously confess the truth they would have been well pleased to acknowledge in the Eucharist the Body of our Blessed Saviour only figuratively and the sole participation of his Spirit in effect laying aside those great words of Participation of his proper substance and the many others which import a real presence and serve only to perplex them It would have been more to their humour to have acknowledged in the Lords Supper no other communion with JESVS CHRIST but what is also common to Preaching and to Baptism without telling us as they have done that in the Lords Supper he is received in plentitude and every where else only in part But however this was their inclination yet the very force of the terms opposed them our Blessed Saviour having said so precisely of the Eucharist This is my body This is my Blood which he never did of any other thing nor upon any other occasion what likelihood was there of rendring that common to all the Actions of a Christian which his express word had annexed to one particular Sacrament And farther the whole order of divine providence the connexion of Doctrine and Holy Mysteries the intention of JESVS CHRIST in his last Supper the words themselves which he uttered and the impression which they