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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A71330	A preservative against popery. [Parts 1-2.] being some plain directions to unlearned Protestants, how to dispute with Romish priests, the first part / by Will. Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3326; Wing S3342; ESTC R14776	130,980	192

where his infallible Interpretation is to be found for if there be such an Interpreter who never Interprets I know not how either they or we shall understand Scripture the better for him Now have either Popes or General Councils given us an authentick and infallible Exposition of Scripture I know of none such all the Expositions of Scripture in the Church of Rome are writ by private Doctors who were far enough from being infallible and the business of General Councils was not to expound Scripture but to define Articles of Faith and therefore we find the sence of very few Texts of Scripture Synodically defined by any General Council I think not above four or five by the Council of Trent So that after all their talk of an infallible Interpreter when they undertake to expound particular Texts and to dispute with us about the sence of them they have no more Infallibility in this than we have for if they have an infallible Interpreter they are never the better for him for he has not given them an infallible Interpretation and therefore they are forced to do as Protestants do interpret Scripture according to their own skill and understanding which I suppose they will not say is infallible But you 'll say though the Church has not given us an infallible Interpretation of Scripture yet she has given us an infallible Exposition of the Faith and that is an infallible Rule for expounding Scripture I answer there is a vast difference between these two for our dispute is not about the sence of their Church but about the sence of the Scripture we know what Doctrines their Church has defined but we desire to see them proved from Scripture And is it not a very modest and pleasant proposal when the dispute is how their Faith agrees with Scripture to make their Faith the Rule of expounding Scripture Though I confess that is the only way I know of to make their Faith and the Scriptures agree but this brings the Scriptures to their Faith does not prove their Faith from Scripture II. As for Expounding Scripture by the unanimous consent of Primitve Fathers This is indeed the Rule which the Council of Trent gives and which their Doctors swear to observe how well they keep this Oath they ought to consider Now as to this you may tell them that you would readily pay a great deference to the unanimous consent of Fathers could you tell how to know it and therefore in the first place you desire to know the agreement of how many Fathers makes an unanimous Consent for you have been told that there have been as great variety in interpreting Scripture among the ancient Fathers as among our modern Interpreters that there are very few if any controverted Texts of Scripture which are interpreted by an unanimous consent of all the Fathers If this unanimous Consent then signifie all the Fathers we shall be troubled to find such a Consent in expounding Scripture must it then be the unanimous Consent of the greatest number of Fathers This will be a very hard thing especially for unlearned men to tell Noses we can know the Opinion onely of those Fathers who were the Writers in every Age and whose Writings have been preserved down to us and who can tell whether the major number of those Fathers who did not write or whose Writings are lost were of the same mind with those whose Writings we have and why must the major part be always the wisest and best men and if they were not the consent of a few wise men is to be preferred before great numbers of other Expositors Again ask them whether these Fathers were Infallible or Traditionary Expositors of Scripture or whether they expounded Scripture according to their own private Reason and Judgment if they were Infallible Expositors and delivered the Traditionary sence and interpretation of Scripture it is a little strange how they should differ in their Expositions of Scripture and as strange how private Doctors and Bishops should in that Age come to be Infallible and how they should lose it in this for now Infallibility is confined to the Bishop of Rome and a General Council If they were not Infallible Expositors how comes their Interpretation of Scripture to be so sacred that it must not be opposed Nay how comes an Infallible Church to prescribe such a fallible Rule of interpreting Scriptures If they expounded Scripture according to their own Reason and Judgment as it is plain they did then their Authority is no more sacred than their Reason is and those are the best Expositors whether Ancient or Modern whose Expositions are backed with the best Reasons We think it a great confirmation of our Faith that the Fathers of the Church in the first and best Ages did believe the same Doctrines and expound Scripture in great and concerning points much to the same sence that we do and therefore we refuse not to appeal to them but yet we do not wholly build our Faith upon the Authority of the Fathers we forsake them where they forsake the Scriptures or put perverse sences on them and so does the Church of Rome too after all their boast of the Fathers when they contradict the present Roman-Catholick as they do very often though I believe without any malicious design because they knew nothing of it However ask them once more whether that sence which they give of those Texts of Scripture which are controverted between us and the Church of Rome be confirmed by the unanimous consent of all the ancient Fathers whether for instance all the ancient Fathers did expound those Texts Thou art Peter and on this Rock will I build my Church and feed my Sheep c. of the personal Supremacy and Infallibility of Peter and his Successors the Bishops of Rome Whether they all expounded those words This is my Body of the Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Flesh and Bloud of Christ and those words Drink ye all of this to signifie Let none drink of the Cup but the Priest who consecrates and so in other Scriptures If they have the confidence to say that all the Fathers expounded these and such-like Scriptures as the Doctors of the Church of Rome now do tell them you have heard and seen other Expositions of such Scriptures cited from the ancient Fathers by our Divines and that you will refer that cause to them and have it tried whenever they please III. There is no other way then left of understanding Scripture but to expound it as we do other Writings by considering the signification and propriety of words and phrases the scope and context of the place the reasons of things the Analogie between the Old and New Testament and the like When they dispute with Protestants they can reasonably pretend to no other way of expounding Scripture because we admit of no other and yet if they allow of this they open a wide Gap for all Heresies

of some visible Deity and because God cannot be seen they have gratified their Superstition by making some visible Images and Representations of an invisible God now to take them off from mean corporeal Images and Representations which are both a dishonour to the Divine Nature and debase the minds of men God has given us a visible Image of Himself has cloathed his own eternal Son with Humane Nature who is the brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his person 1. Hebr. 3. And therefore St. John tells us That the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth 1 John 14. And for this reason when Philip was desirous to see the Father Shew us the Father and it sufficeth Christ tells him that the Father is to be seen onely in the Son who is his visible Image and Glory Jesus saith unto him Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not seen me Philip He that hath seen me hath seen the Father and how sayest thou then Shew us the Father 14 John 8 9. This was one end of Christ's Incarnation that we might have a visible Deity a God Incarnate to represent the Father to us who is the living and visible Image of God and there could not be a more effectual way to make men despise all dead material Representations of God than to have God visibly represented to us in our own Nature It is true Christ is not visible to us now on earth but he is visible in Heaven and we know he is the only visible Image of God and that is enough to teach us that we must make and adore no other He is as visible to us in Heaven as the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies was to the Jews and is that true propitiatory of which the mercy seat was a Type and Figure 3 Rom. 25. Him hath God set forth to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mercy-seat as that word is used 9 Heb. 5. He is the natural Image of God and his Mercy-seat or Presence and Throne of Grace he is his visible Image tho' he cannot be seen by us for the Typical Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies did praefigure that his residence should be in Heaven and therefore invisible to us on earth but there we may see him by Faith and there he will receive our Prayers and present them to his Father Now then to sum up this Argument since it was one main design of Christs appearance to root all the remains of Idolatrous Worship out of the world is it credible that the Worship of Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary the worship of Images and Reliques as it is practised in the Church of Rome should be any part of Christian Worship or allowed by the Gospel of our Saviour If Creature-worship and Image-worship were so offensive to God here is the Worship of Creatures and Images still and therefore all the visible Idolatry that ever was practised in the world before All that they can pretend is that they have better Notions of the Worship of Saints and Angels and Images than the Heathens had but whether they have or no will be hard to prove The Pagan Philosophers made the same Apologies for their Worship of Angels and Daemons and Images which the Learned Papists now make and whether unlearned Papists have not as gross Notions about their Worship of Saints and Images as the unlearned Heathens had is very doubtful and has been very much suspected by learned Romanists themselves But suppose there were some difference upon this account can we think that Christ who came to root out all Idolatrous Worship intended to set up a new kind of Creature-Worship and Image-Worship in greater pomp and glory than ever and only to rectifie mens Opinions about it Suppose the Idolatry of Creature-Worship and Image-Worship does consist onely in mens gross Notions about it yet we see under the Law to prevent and cure this God did not go about to rectifie their Opinions of these things but absolutely forbids the Worship of all Images and of any other Being but himself which methinks he would not have done had there been such great advantages in the Worship of Saints and Angels and Images as the Romanists pretend and when God in the Law of Moses forbad all Creature and Image Worship can we think that Christ who came to make a more perfect Reformation should only change their Country Gods into Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary and give new names to their Statues and Images Which whatever he had taught about it instead of curing Idolatry had been to set up that same kind of Worship which the Law of Moses absolutely forbad and condemned as Idolatry When God to cure the Idolatrous Worship of inferiour Daemons as their Mediators and Advocates with the Supreme God sent his own Son into the World to be our Mediator can we think that he intended after this that we should worship Angels and Saints and the Virgin Mary as our Mediators When God has given us a visible Image of himself his Eternal and Incarnate Son whom we may Worship and Adore did he still intend that we should worship material and sensible Images of Wood or Stone By the Incarnation of his own Son God did indeed take care to rectifie mens mistakes about Creature-Worship and to cut off all pretences for it Those who pleaded that vast distance between God and men and how unfit it was that Sinners should make their immediate approaches to the Supreme God and therefore worshipped inferiour Daemons as middle Beings between God and man have now no pretence for this since God has appointed his own Son to be our Mediator Those who worshipped Images as the visible Representations of an invisible God have now a visible Object of Worship a God Incarnate a God in the nature and likeness of a Man and though we do not now see him yet we have the notion of a visible God and Mediator to whom we can direct our Prayers in Heaven which is satisfaction enough even to men of more gross and material Imaginations without any artificial and senseless Representations of the Deity And was all this done that men might worship Creatures and Images without Idolatry or rather was it not done to cure mens inclinations to commit Idolatry with Creatures and Images Whoever believes that the Gospel of our Saviour was intended as a Remedy against Idolatry can never be perswaded that it allows the Worship of Saints and Images which if it be not Idolatry is so exactly like it in all external appearance that the allowance of it does not look like a proper cure for Idolatry SECT II. Concerning the great Love of GOD to Mankind and the Assurances of Pardon and Forgiveness which the Gospel gives to all Penitent