going to Cornelius and baptizing the Gentiles he only delivers his Opinion as one person in the Council of Ierusalem but St. Iames gives the definitive Sentence St. Paul never makes any Appeal to him in the Contests of which he writes He settles matters and makes Decisions without ever having recourse to his Authority He seems on the contrary to avoid it and when probably some of the Judaisers among the Galatians were appealing to him or at least to some practices of his St. Paul shews how he had fail'd in those matters for tho the Apostles were so govern'd by Divine Inspiration that they could not err nor be mistaken in points of Doctrine yet as to their Actions they were left to the freedom of their own Wills and so humane frailty might in some Instances have prevail'd over them It is evident from that Epistle that St. Paul own'd no dependance upon him nor did he submit in any sort to him as having any degrees in his Commission or Authority superiour to his own These are all such pregnant Intimations as make it more reasonable to give such a sence to those words as will import no special Authority given to St. Peter since it does not appear that either St. Peter or the Apostles themselves understood them so for since they persist afterwards to have their Disputes which of them was the greatest it is plain they did not understand this to be the Importance of our Saviour's Words And it is as plain that no part of the Scripture-History makes for this but very much against it Now as to the words themselves they begin with an Allusion to his Name and Phrases built upon such Allusions are seldom to be strictly and Grammatically understood By Vpon this Rock will I build my Church many of the Fathers have understood the Person of Christ others which amounts to the same thing faith in him or the Confession of that faith for strictly speaking the Church can only be said to be founded upon Christ and his Doctrine In a secondary Sense it may indeed be said to be founded on the Apostles and upon St. Peter as the first in Order as well as the forwardest among them and since the Apostles are all reckon'd Foundations tho this should be allow'd to be the meaning of these words which yet is a sense in which they were not taken for many Ages it will import nothing peculiar to St. Peter What follows of the gates of hell 's not being able to prevail against it may either be understood according to the Greek Phrase Death which is often thus represented as the entrance to the Grave which is the signification of the word rendered Hell and then the meaning is That the Church which Christ was to found was never to come to a period and to die as the Iewish Religion was then to do Or by a Phrase common among the Iews who understand by Gates the Wisdom and Strength of a Place since their Court and Councils were held near their Gates these words may signify That all the powers of Darkness with all their force and spite should not be able to bear down or destroy this Church but this does not bar any Errors or Corruptions from creeping into any part of it for the word rendred prevail properly signifies an entire Victory by which it should be conquered and extirpated As for the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ promised to give to him it must again be consider'd that these words are figurative so that it is never safe to argue from them since Figures are capable of larger and narrower Significations No man will carry them so far as to think that the power of giving or denying Eternal Life is hereby put in St. Peter for that is singly in the Mediator's hands This shews how difficult it is to know how much is to be drawn from a Figure By Kingdom of Heaven through the whole Gospels with very few or no exceptions we find that the Dispensation of the Messias is to be understood this appears evident from the first words with which both St. Iohn Baptist and our Saviour begun their preaching Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and this is the sense in which it is taken in all those Parables to which our Saviour compares the Kingdom of Heaven and in those words the Kingdom of Heaven is among you and it cometh not with observation or the like This being laid down as that which will soon appear to every one that shall attentively read the Four Gospels then by the Keys of the Dispensation of the Messias the most natural and least forc'd signification and that which agrees best with those words of the same figure he that hath the Key of the house of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and that shutteth and no man openeth and also with the Phrase of the Key of knowledge by which the Lawyers were described for they had a Key with writing Tables given them as the Badge of their Profession which naturally imported that they were to open the door for others entring into the knowledge of the Law With which our Saviour reproach'd them that they entred not in themselves and hinder'd those that were entring From all these hints I say we may gather that according to the Scripture-phrase by the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven is meant that St. Peter was first to open the Dispensation of the Gospel which he did in the first preaching of it to the Iews after the wonderful Pentecost and this was yet more eminently perform'd by him when he first open'd the door to the Gentiles to which the words of the Kingdom of Heaven seem to have a more particular respect This Dispensation was committed to him and executed by him and seems to be claim'd by him as his peculiar Priviledge in the Council at Ierusalem so we may safely conclude that this is the natural meaning of these words and is all that was to be imported by them and those who carry them further must use several distinctions lest they give St. Peter that which belongs only to our Saviour himself What follows concerning the binding and loosing in Heaven whatsoever he should bind or loose on earth is no special Priviledge of St. Peter's since we find the same words said by our Saviour to all his Apostles so that this was given in common to all the Apostles According to the sense now given of the Kingdom of Heaven these words will be easily understood which are otherwise very dark but they are full of Figures and so are not to be too far stretch'd By binding and loosing we find the Rabbins do commonly understand the affirming or denying the Obligation of any Precept that was in dispute This then being a common form of speech among the Iews a genuine Paraphrase of these words is That Christ committed to the Apostles the dispensation of his Doctrine to the
World in which they should be authoris'd to dissolve the Obligation of the Mosaical Laws and to confirm such parts of them as were Moral and perpetually binding which the Apostles should do with such visible Characters of a Divine Authority empowering and conducting them in it that it should be very evident that what they did on Earth was ratified in Heaven These words thus understood carry in them a plain sense which agrees well with the whole design of the Gospel but whatsoever may be their sense it is plain that there was nothing here peculiarly given to St. Peter As for our Saviour's praying for St. Peter that his faith might not fail and his restoring him to his Apostolate by a threefold charge feed my sheep or lambs it has such a visible relation to his fall and threefold denial that it is not worth the while to enlarge on or to shew that it is capable of no other signification and cannot be carried further And thus I have gone through all that is brought from the Scriptures for asserting the Infallibility of the Church and in particular of the Pope's and have I hope fully shew'd that they cannot bear that sense but that they must genuinely bear a plainly different sense which does no way differ from our Doctrine It was necessary to clear all this for tho as was before made out it is no proper way for them to resolve their Faith by passages out of Scripture yet these are very good objections to us who upon other Reasons do submit to their Authority There remains but one thing now to be clear'd which is this If the Church is not Infallible it does not easily appear what certainty we can have concerning the Scriptures since we believe them upon the Testimony of the Church and we have no other knowledge concerning them but what has been handed down to us by Tradition If therefore this is fallible we may be deceiv'd in our persuasion even concerning them But here a great difference is to be made between the carrying down a Book to us and the Oral Delivering of a Doctrine it being almost as hard to suppose how the one could sail as how the other should not fail The Books being in many hands spread over the whole Churches and read in all their Assemblies makes this to be a very different thing from discourses that are in the Air and to which every man that reports them is apt to give his own Cue A great difference is also to be made between the Testimony of a Witness and the Authority of a Judge If in any Age of the Church Councils had examin'd controverted Writings and had upon that past Sentence this had been in deed a judging the matter but no such thing ever was The Codex of the Scriptures was setled some Ages before any Provincial Council gave out a Catalogue of the Books which they held as Canonical For no ancient General Council ever did it and tho the Canonical Epistles of which there not being such a certain Standard they not being addrest to any particular Body that had preserv'd the Originals were not so early nor so universally receiv'd as the others were yet the matter was setled without any Authoritative Judgment only by examining Originals and such other Methods by which all things of that nature can only be made out But this matter having been so fully consider'd and stated in another Discourse I shall dwell no longer on it in this As for the Authorities which are brought from some of the Ancients in favour of the Authority of the Church and of Tradition it is to be considered that though the word Tradition as it is now used in Books of Controversy imports a sense opposite to that which is written in the Scripture yet Tradition is of its own signification a general word that imports every thing which is delivered And in this sense the whole Christian Religion as well as the Books in which it is contained was naturally called the Tradition of the Apostles So that a great many things said by Ancients to magnify the Tradition of the Apostles and by way of Appeal to it have no relation to this matter Besides when men were so near the Apostolical Age that they could name the Persons from whom they had such or such hints who had received them from the Apostles or from Apostolical men Tradition was of another sort of Authority and might have been much more safely appealed to than at the distance of so many Ages Therefore if any thing is brought either from Irenaeus or Tertullian that sounds this way here is a plain difference to be observed between their Age and ours which does totally diversify it But to convince the World how early Tradition might either vary or misrepresent matters let the Tradition not only in but before St. Irenaeus's time concerning the observation of Easter be considered which goes up as high as St. Polycarps's time We find that as the several Churches adhered to the practices of those Apostles that founded them so they had quite forgot the grounds on which it seems these various Observations were founded Since though it is very probable that those who kept Easter on the Iewish day did it that by their condescendence to the Iews in that matter they might gain upon them and soften their Prejudices against Christianity yet it does not appear that their Successors thought of that at all for they vouched their Custome and resolved to adhere to it nor is there any thing mentioned on either side that give us the account of those early but different Observations If then Tradition failed so near its Fountain we may easily judge what account we ought to make of it at so great a distance Many things are brought with great pomp out of St. Austin's Writings magnifying the Authority of the Church in terms which after all the allowances that are to be made for his diffuse and African Eloquence can hardly be justified Yet when it is considered that he writ against the Donatists who had broke the Vnity of the Church upon the pretence of a matter of fact concerning the Ordainers of Cecilian which had been as to the point of fact often judged against them And yet as they had distracted the whole African Churches so they were men of fierce and implacable Tempers that broke out daily into acts of great fury and violence and had set up a principle that must for ever break the Peace and Union of the Church which was that the vertue of all the publick Acts of Worship of Sacraments and Ordinances depended upon the personal worth of him that officiated so that his Errors or Vices did make void all that past through his hands Now when so warm a man as St. Austin had so bad a Principle and so ill a disposition of mind in view it is no wonder if he brought out all that he could think on upon the subject so
respects as bad as ever this indeed is so slight a thing that a greater disparagement cannot de offered to our Religion nor can a greater strengthning of sin be contrived than the giving any sort of encouragement to it for it is one of the greatest and the most mischievous of all those practical Errors which have corrupted Religion These are the most important parts of our whole Commission and therefore we ought to state them first aright in our own thoughts that so we our selves may be fully possessed with them that they may sink deep into our own minds and shew their efficacy in the reforming of our Natures and Lives and then we shall be able to open them to others with more clearness and with better advantages when our hearts are inflamed with an overcoming sense of the Love and Goodness of God If the Condition of this New Covenant were deeply impressed on our thoughts then we should publish them with more life and joy to others and we might then look for the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel on our selves and on our labours DISCOURSE III. Concerning the INFALLIBILITY AND AUTHORITY of the CHURCH AFTER we are well setled in the Belief of the Christian Religion our next enquiry must naturally be into the Way and Method of being rightly Instructed in the Doctrine and other parts of this Religion and that chiefly in one great Point Whether we ought to employ our own Faculties in searching into this and particularly into the meaning of those Books in which it is contain'd or Whether we must take it from Oral Tradition and submit to any man or body of men as the Infallible Depositaries and Declarers of this Tradition In this single point consists the Essence of the differences between us and the Church of Rome While we affirm that the Christian Doctrine is compleatly contain'd in the Scriptures and that every man ought to examine these with the best helps and all the skill and application of which he is capable and that he is bound to believe such Doctrines only as appear to him to be contain'd in the Scriptures but may reject all others that are not founded upon that Authority On the other hand The foundation upon which the Church of Rome builds is this That the Apostles deliver'd their Doctrine by word of mouth to the several Churches as the Sacred Depositum of the Faith That the Books of the New Testament were written occasionally not with intent that they should be the Standard of this Religion that we have these Books and believe them to be Divine only from the Church and upon her Testimony that the Church with the Books gives us likewise the Sense and Exposition of them they being dark in many places and that therefore the Traditional Conveyance and the Solemn Decisions of the Church must be Infallible and ought to be submitted to as such otherwise there can be no end of Controversies while every man takes upon him to expound the Scriptures which must needs fill mens Minds with Curiosity and Pride as well as the World with Heresies and Sects that are unavoidable unless there is a living speaking Judge This they also prove from some places of Scripture such as Christ's words to St. Peter Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it and unto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven Tell the Church I am with you alway even to the end of the World the Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth This is their Doctrine and these are their chief Arguments upon which it is founded There is no point in Divinity that we should more clearly understand than this for it is in it self of great Consequence and is that which determines all the rest if it is true it puts an end to all other Controversies and if it is false it leaves us at liberty to examine every thing and gives us the justest and highest prejudices possible against that Church that pretends to it without just grounds It is also that which of all others the Missionaries of that Church understand the best and manage the most dextrously they are much practised to it and they begin and end all their practice with this which has fair appearances and will bear a great deal both of popular Eloquence and plausible Logick so if men are not on the other hand as well fortifi'd and as ready on the other side of the Argument they will be much entangled as often as they have occasion to deal with any of that Church There is not indeed any one point that I know of that has been open'd and examin'd both with that Beauty and Force that is in Chillingworth's Unvaluable Book upon this Subject Few things of this nature have ever been handled so near a Mathematical Evidence as he has pursu'd this Argument and his Book is writ with such a thread of Wit and Reason that I am confident few can enter upon it without going through with it I shall now endeavour in as narrow a compass as is possible to set this matter in its true Light We must then begin with this That the freedom of a man's Thoughts and Understanding is the most Essential Piece of his Liberty and that in which naturally he can the least bear to be limited therefore any Restraints that are laid upon him in this must be well and fully proved otherwise it is to be suppos'd that God could never intend to bring us under the yoke in so sensible and so valuable a thing without giving clear and evident warrants for it And as every Invasion on the Liberties of the Human nature ought to be well made out so every Priviledge which any person claims against the common fate of Mankind ought to be also fully proved before others can be bound to submit to it We perceive in our selves and we see in all others such a feebleness of understanding such an easiness to go too quick and judge too fast and such a narrow compass of knowledge that as we see all Mankind is apt to mistake things so we have no reason to believe that any one is exempted from this but as there are evident Authorities to prove it Since then this is a Priviledge in those that have it as well as an Imposition on those that have it not it ought not to be offer'd at or obtruded on the world without a full Proof Probabilities forced Inferences or even disputable Proofs ought not to be made use of here since we have reason to conclude that if God had intended to put any such thing upon us he would have done it in so plain and uncontested a way that there should have been no room to have doubted of it Besides all such things as do naturally give jealousy and offer specious grounds of mistrust ought to be very clear Since
of their Law or the Conveyers of their Traditions to them Must he set up his Skill and Reason above theirs Thus we see that if this Reasoning is true it being founded on Maxims that are equally true at all times then it was as true at that time as it is now It is of no force to say that the Miracles which our Saviour and his Apostles wrought gave them such Powers that the people were upon that account bound to believe them rather than their Teachers For one part of the Debate was both the truth of the Miracles and the Consequences that arose from them So the Appeal according to this way of Reasoning did still lie to their Sanhedrim In a word In such Matters every man must judge for himself and every man must answer to God for the Judgment that he has made he judges for no body else but for himself He and He only can be the Judge and if he uses a due degree of Industry and frees himself from every corrupt Biass from Pride Vain-glory and affectation of Singularity or the pursuing any ill ends under those appearances of searching for Truth and the adhering to it he is doing the best thing which according to that nature of which God has made him he can do and so he may reasenably believe that he shall succeed in it Nor is there any pride in this for a man to think according to his own Understanding no more than to see with his own Eyes His Humility ought to make him slow and cautious modest and fearful but no humility can oblige him to think otherwise than he feels he must needs think Among the Works of the flesh Heresies or Sects are reckon'd as one sort and species Now by Works of the flesh are to be understood the appetites of a vicious and depraved nature the meaning therefore of reckoning Heresies among these is this That when a man out of a bad disposition of mind and on ill designs chuses to to be of a party he then is a Heretick but he that in sincerity of Heart goes into persuasions from an overcoming sense of their Truth cannot be one because he does not chuse his persuasion out of a previous ill design but is of it not out of choice but necessity since his Understanding in which those matters may be variously represented offers them so to him that he must believe them to be true in the same manner in which he apprehends them If upon this Principle there happen to be many Sects and Divisions in the Church this is a part of that Wo that Christ left upon the World by reason of Offences and Scandals for he forsaw that they must needs come God has made this present Scene of Life to be neither regular nor secure The strange Follies and Corruptions of Mankind must have their Influence on Religion as well as they have on all other things God has reserv'd a fulness of Light and of unerring Knowledge to another State Here we are in the dark but have light enough if we have honest Minds to use and improve it aright to guide us thither and that is the utmost share that God seems to have design'd for us in this Life we must therefore be contented and make the most of it that we can I go next to shew That the same Difficulties if not greater ones he upon those who build on Infallibility for before they can arrive at the use of it they must have well examin'd and be fully assur'd of two things either of which has greater Difficulties in it than all those put together with which they press us First They must be convinced that there is an Infallibility in the Church and next they must know to which of those many Churches into which Christendom is divided this Infallibility is fastned Unless the design is to make all men take their Religion implicitely from their Forefathers these things must be well consider'd If men are oblig'd to adhere blindly to the Religion in which they were bred then Iews Heathans and Mahometans must continue still where they are If this had been the Maxim of all times Christianity had never got into the World If then men are allow'd to examine things they must have very good reason given them for it before they can believe that there is an Infallibility among men Their own Reason and Observation offers so much against it that without very clear grounds they ought not to receive it Now the reasons to persuade it must be drawn either from Scripture or from outward visible Characters that evidence it The Scriptures cannot be urg'd by these men because the Scriptures as they teach have their Authority from the Testimony of the Church Therefore the Authority of the Church must be first prov'd for the Church cannot give an Authority to a Book and then prove its own Authority by that Book This is plainly to prove the Church by her own Testimony which is manifestly absurd it being all one whether she affirms it immediately or if she affirms it by affirming a Book in which it is contain'd here a Circle is made to run for ever round in Why do you believe the Church because the Scriptures affirm it and why do you believe the Scriptures because the Church affirms them I do not deny but they may urge the Scriptures for this very pertinently against us who acknowledge their Authority but I am now considering upon what grounds a man is to be instructed in the stating the grounds of his own Faith and resolving it into Principles In this an Order must be fix'd and in the progress of it every step that is made must be prov'd without any relation to that which is afterwards to be proved out of that and therefore either the Church or the Scriptures must be first prov'd and then other things must be prov'd out of that which is once fix'd and made good But in the next place if we should suffer them to bring Proofs from Scripture how shall it he prov'd that the true sense of them is that which makes for infallibility Other senses may be given to them which may both agree to the Grammatical Construction of the words to the contexture of the Discourse and to the Phraseology of the Scriptures who shall then decide this Matter It were very unreasonable to prove what is their true Sense by the Exposition that any Church puts on those passages in her own favour that were to make her both Judge and Party in too gross a manner Therefore at least thâ—se passages and all that relates to them must fall under the private Judgment and in these Instances every man must be suffer'd to expound the Scriptures for himself for he cannot be bound to submit to any exposition of them but that which satisfies his own Reason and if this step is once admitted then it will appear as reasonable to leave a man all over to the use of his
Christ the Son of the most high God for according to the Mosaical Law when any Soul sinned and heard the voice of Swearing that is of Adjuration and was a witness whether he hath seen it or known of it if he do not utter it then he shall hear his Iniquity that is he shall be guilty of Perjury It were easy to shew from several Passages of the Old Testament That Superior whether Parents or Princes could put others under a Curse and by that either bind them in a Promise of Vow or oblige them to declare the truth This being then the custom of the Iews our Saviour though silent as long as it was free to him to speak or not he in that shewing his patience and meekness yet as soon as he was adjured he then answered for he was bound by that Oath to declare the truth Therefore since among the Iews the Party did not take the Oath but was only passive to the Judge that imposed it upon him those cited words of our Saviour cannot be extended beyond Oaths in communication that is in common discourse or the common business of life For indeed to end all matters by a solemn Appeal to God is a natural piece of Worship and Religious Adoration They load us with another prejudice in which tho we may seem to much parties to it yet it is not to be passed over They call us Hirelings for receiving those supports and rewards for our labours that are appropriated to us Those who run into these Imployments only with such views and desire to be put in a Priest's Office that they may eat a piece of bread must feel somewhat within them that testifies to the truth of this Imputation But such as do dedicate themselves to the Gospel and serve at the Altar may well live of the Altar and of the Gospel or the reward of the glad tidings that they publish for so saith St. Paul hath the Lord ordained All persons will yield it to be lawful to accept the bounty that is freely offered by private persons to such as labour among them so it will not be easy to shew why publik Bodies may not by setled Laws give those bounties for ever as well as particular persons do it for once And therefore not to enter upon the discussion of any antecedent right to Tythes it is certain that Publick Laws may appropriate such proportion of Soil or of its growth to such uses as they think fitting And when that is once done private persons must bear that even when they do not approve of the use Those very people think that all Wars are unlawful and yet they pay Taxes tho levied in express words to carry on a War Thus then when any proportion of the growth of a Nation is applied to any use by a Law that proportion becomes a rent due to the Publick in consideration whereof there is a full abatement made as it is bought and sold And whosoever purchases with such abatement can have no right to that for which they paid nothing Now it is certain that no man can pretend to possess himself of that which is not his own on this colour that he who does then possess it has no good Title to it That man knows that he himself has no right to it whether the Possessor's Title is good or bad and that is enough for him not to challenge or invade it Every man knows that his Tythes are not his he never bought them on the contrary he made a considerable diminution of the price that he would have paid if the Land had been Tythe-free And therefore this being of the nature of a Quit rent that the Law has laid on an Estate any opinion that a man may have of the lawfulness of the use to which it goes can never justify him who keeps that which is not his own from the person to whom the Law has appropriated it If therefore these men would govern themselves by the Maxims of strict Justice as long as they cannot overcome this scruple they ought to make no purchases but where they buy out the whole Increase of the Soil and pay its full price And as there are fair portions over the whole Nation that are Tythe-free this were a way of dealing that would look like a strictness of Conscience a regard to their own peace and the quiet and peace of the Society By so doing they should possess nothing that were not their own and invade nothing that were any other man's Thus I think I have omitted no material Objection that is made to the terms of communion among us as to our Worship and Rituals and I think I have offered sufficient reason not only to justify the concurrence of all the single Members of our Body in every one of them but also to justify our Forms and Constitutions in themselves It is enough to prove that they are lawful to oblige all the Members of the Body or Society to observe them but the fitness and usefulness of them must also be made out to justify the Laws and Constitutions that are made concerning them But tho lawful and unlawful are severe and rigorous things and of a fixed and determinate nature yet fit or unfit are of a more loose and unstable Order And in this respect things may have different faces what is fit in one respect and at one time may be much otherwise at other times And therefore tho this is not a consideration strong enough to dissolve the Obligation under which private persons lie to obedience yet it ought to be well considered by those to whom that care may belong It is certain that a long continuanc of any Custom is a very powerful Argument enforcing any antecedent fitness that might have been at the first setling of such matters For all Novelties as they gratify the levity of more inconstant Minds so they grate no less upon men of more staid tempers who naturally are not given to change Yet when all things are well weighed there may be upon some occasions very good reasons for altering some things which were at first established upon as good and just Considerations since there is nothing in any Human Constitution which comes not from an immediate Divine Authority that may not be brought under second thoughts and become the matter of new deliberations To conclude those Divisions from us and the Prejudices that are raised against us ought to make us watch the more carefully over our selves since we have so many severe observers They ought to oblige us to such an exactness of deportment and such diligence in our labours that our behaviour both in our Persons and Callings may not inflame and heighten but on the contrary very much allay and soften those Prejudices since after all that is said in the way of Speculation and Argument the numbers are most wrought on by visible and sensible Prejudices If we see among those who