Constantinople under Theodosius the Emperor by which enlargement all good Christian People were to be establish'd in the belief of the Catholick Doctrine declared so to be according to Scripture and Universal Tradition By these mighty Arguments they convinced the Hereticks and justly subjected them to the Punishment which their refractoriness and guilt deserved They settled the Peace of the Church and secured the Faith from the like assaults in after-times Their Creed was the Test by which they discerned Truth from Heresie and it was received and acknowledged as such by all the Orthodox Christians in the Churches of Greece the lesser Asia Syria and Egypt and taught the Catechumeni as a necessary qualification of their admission into the number of the Faithful which is the true reason that the other short form which had been in use hitherto the sum and substance of it with all its necessary deductions being transfused into this began to be dis-used and in process of time wholly omitted and left out of their Liturgies Whereas at Rome and in the other Churches of the West where those Controversies about matters of Faith which had exercised the Wits and Curiosities of the Orientals whose prying and restless Genius drove them upon those subtilties never were admitted or made no considerable progress among them they continued constant and steddy in the profession of the Ancient Faith and therefore stuck to and retained the old form of words as they are summ'd up in the Creed which we call the Apostles with some little addition and needed not a larger explication 2. It follows from this that the Doctrine of Faith must necessarily be one and the same every where according to the assertion of the Text It was the common Faith Tit. 1. 4. not appropriated to any particular Sect but it lay in common and open to all The whole Faith that is so much as was necessary to denominate them true Believers was received by all without any difference in the main points of it For how could it be otherwise while they adhered so close to the Doctrine of the Apostles who all Preach'd the same Faith in the most distant parts of the World between which there could not possibly be as the times stood then that is before the Polarity or directive vertue of the Load-stone was known any communication or intercourse There was a perfect agreement and harmony of Confessions among all who had embraced the Doctrine of Christianity The Christians here in Britain believed no otherwise than those at Jerusalem and those in India whom St. Thomas Converted and all who lived in the intermediate spaces between those two vastly distant extreams which were the boundaries of the then known World exactly agreeing with both Though they differed in Language Customs Laws Behaviour and way of Living and were under different Governments yet they all held the same thing Which Argument is excellently handled by Irenoeus in his 1st Book 3d. Chap. adv Hoereses There cannot be a more convictive Argument of the truth of the sense of the Articles of Faith which the Hereticks reject than the profession of them in all Churches of the World For how came this universal Consent establish'd but from the soundness of the Doctrine and the Authority of its first Publishers Among that great variety of Opinions which prevailed every where there were certain essential points of Faith wherein they were all unanimous and so long as they were held and maintained a liberty of Judgment and Opinion was allowed in lesser matters witness those Ancient forms before-mentioned long before the Civil Power took the Christian Religion into its protection which whosoever admitted and processed was received into their Communion So that from this Unity of Faith which was received every where by the whole number of Christians except some obstinate Heretical Dissenters who were a small and inconsiderable Party at first in comparison of the rest the Christian Church was styled Catholick or Universal just as the great Ocean is one and the same though it receives particular denominations from the several shores which it washes as the Brittish Cantabrian Atlantick and the like and not from any pretended subjection to one Sovereign Pastor And the word Catholick became another name for Orthodox and the Bishops afterwards subscribed themselves Bishops of the Catholick Church of such a place as founded on the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Universally received throughout the World and by vertue of the same Faith in Communion with all Christians Upon these two Suppositions I shall lay down these following Propositions That 1. Diversity of Opinions in matters of Religion of less moment does not interrupt and dissolve the Unity of Faith Opinions arise either from want of Evidence in the things themselves which causes a fluctuation and unsettlement in the mind as not knowing where to fix and rest to which we yield a wavering kind of assent more or less according to greater or lesser degrees of Probabilities or else from the weakness of the understanding which not being able to take a comprehensive view of things and resolve them into their first Principles and Original Causes or for want of a sure Foundation whether of Nature or Reason or Authority or Revelation takes up with Arguments and motives of assent which fall short of certainty and which cannot quiet the mind and secure it from all suspicion and fear of the contrary And indeed considering the great variety of mens tempers and complexions Education and Interests and the greater or lesser degrees of Knowledge Industry Curiosity and the like there is a Moral impossibility that Opinions should be one and the same And where God has left a liberty no Power upon Earth can oblige the Conscience and Understanding to admit them any otherwise than as Opinions That is either as true in their kind but far from the Infallibility of Divine Revelations or as piè credibilia Or as means and instruments of Agreement and Uniformity in Judgment to prevent Schism and Confusion so as yet no one particular Church shall prescribe to another but leave each to its liberty of securing their peace and quiet by what Confessions they judge best for that end and nothing be imposed as a matter of Doctrine which thwarts the Ancient Christian Doctrine and the Catholick Tradition of the Church 2. All truths are not fundamental and necessary to be believed with the same firmness of assent For several Propositions may be true and useful and yet not necessary and essential to the Faith the ignorance or dis-belief of which does not throw a man out of the Communion of the Church The neglect of this distinction has been one great cause of the troubles and turmoils of Christendom whilst fierce and eager Disputants have been engaged in the defence of several tenents which have no necessary dependance on the Doctrine of Faith and which are not determined in the Scriptures and by reason of their difficulty
A SERMON Concerning the Doctrine Unity and Profession OF THE Christian Faith Preached before the UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD To which is added An APPENDIX concerning the Apostles CREED By THO. SMITH B. D. and Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen Colledge OXON London Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard M. DC LXXXII Admodum Reverendo in Christo Patri ac Domino HENRICO D. Episcopo LONDINENSI Sacelli Regalis DECANO Regiae Majestati à Secretioribus Conciliis Natalium Splendore Morum Sanctitate Fide Prudentiâ ac invictâ animi fortitudine contra infensissimos Eccl. Ang. hostes Caeterisque dotibus quae Virum Apostolicum planè decent Illustri T. S. Concionem hanc de Unitate fidei coram Academicis Oxoniensibus in Templo B. Mariae non ita pridem habitam una cum Appendice de Symbolo Apostolico gratitudinis observantiae ergo L. M. D. C. Q. Ephes. 4. Ver. 5. One Lord one Faith one Baptism IT is sad to consider how that Christianity has suffered more by the Factions and Feuds of Christians themselves than by the Fury of its Professed Adversaries that Schism has done more Mischief to the Church of God than all the Persecutions of the Heathen Roman Emperours who made it their business to abolish and destroy the very name of Christian out of the World and that Christians should treat one another with that despight and Malice as if good Nature and Charity and a mutual forbearance were things of meer indifference As it has happened between Churches of different Communions in the East and West and in these Northern parts of the World since the Reformation either because they would not own an Usurpt and pretended Universal Authority or else because of some little disagreement in Opinion or the Usage or Non-usage of a Ceremony which every particular Church in dependence upon and in conjunction with the Civil Power has a right to Ordain and Constitute and which all its Members are Obliged to conform to out of a Principle of Conscience For hitherto must be referred as to their chief and proper Causes all those horrid Tumults and Separations of Parties which have so much distracted the Peace of the Church from its first Beginnings and Infancy to this day however blancht over by some with subtilty and Artifice of Wit and by others with pretensions of Zeal to colour their Ambition and their Pride and to render their ill Designs the more plausible and successful Here it is for I cannot be so unjust and partial as to charge the Romanists only with the fault though they are deepest in the Guilt and more blameable than the rest that all take Sanctuary and think to justifie their ill will one to another this way that they from whom they divide and separate themselves entertain different Notions of some points of Religion though perchance they be not Essential to the Faith or else use other Rites in their Religious Worship which yet may be as decent and as useful and as significant as if this were to renounce Christianity and to forsake the Communion of the Catholick Church How has this fond Opinion broken Christendom into pieces and shut Unity and Peace out of it Private Passion and a false Zeal corrupting our Judgments and Practises so far that instead of joyning in the same Publick Worship and Service of Christ our Common Saviour and Living together in Holy Communion and Love we can scarce think well one of another we are afraid of one anothers Company in a Church at least as if it were Infectious we use most unjust and most unchristian Censures we malign and hate one another to the Death and as much as in us lyes we send one another to Hell by our evil and uncharitable surmises and by peremptory Sentences of Excommunication To prevent which dismal and bloody effects of Schism the Apostle in the beginning of this Chapter lays down and prescribes a Method which would prove most effectual if we understood our Duty and our Interest so much and had but the Honesty and the Conscience to put it in practise and execution which is to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called v. 1. That is to adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour with a suitable Conversation and as it becomes true followers of Christ to live up to those Excellent Rules and Institutions which he has Publish'd and not only to make an outward Shew and Profession of Christianity but to justifie and demonstrate the Truth and Power of it by the Example and Practise of the severest Virtues and especially in this great Instance of it With all Lowliness and Meekness and Long-suffering to forbear one another in Love v. 2. That is to make some allowances for the faileurs and imperfections and infirmities of the Understanding not to be peremptory and dogmatical in matters of Opinion to the prejudice of Unity nor to be over-fierce and severe in Condemning little mistakes and mis-apprehensions of things but to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace v. 3. That is to maintain this Spiritual Communion with all Peaceableness and Moderation as being all Members of one Body the Catholick Church actuated by one Spirit and called together in one Hope of our Calling v. 4. That is by virtue of the same common Christianity all alike pretending to the hopes of the same common Salvation all Disciples of the same Lord and initiated into the same Faith by Baptism So long as there is no breach made upon the Articles of Faith and the form of sound Doctrine is retained in its full sense and meaning there can be no just cause for Censure and dis-union All other differences of Opinion in Matters of Doctrine should be tolerated and forgiven if they have no evil influence upon Religion Morality and Government if there be no Schism or Sedition in practise or behaviour and so long as the Unity of Faith is preserved entire and kept inviolate there being as but one Lord so but one Faith and one Baptism From which words I shall endeavour to make good these three following Propositions 1. That the Doctrine of Faith is to be derived only from the Revelations of Christ. One Lord one Faith 2. That the Unity of Faith only respects the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion And 3. That all who are Baptized and consequently are by this Sacrament of initiation admitted and received into the Communion and Society of Christians are to make Profession of this Faith One Faith one Baptism 1. That the Doctrine of Faith is to be derived only from the Revelations of Christ. One Lord One Faith That it is not in the Power of Humane Wit how prying and industrious soever to raise it self up to the Contemplation and Knowledge of Supernatural Truths without the assistances of Divine Revelation and Grace is no disparagement to our Reason to acknowledge it being the effect of an irrational Pride and a
in the right if a good Life for that is a Fundamental and most necessary point of Christianity and without which all our belief be it never so Orthodox will signifie nothing added to an entire and found Faith carried them to Heaven we may be secure it is enough for us to follow them and tread in their steps We retain the same Faith the Reformation of the Church of England conformed it self to their Practise and Example Our Church has been the great Eye-sore of Rome ever since and especially of late when they had such mighty hopes of prevailing to which the froward and perverse humour of the Non-Conformists and chiefly the Presbyterian Faction the Original and source of all our Church-divisions have given so great advantage So that the Wise and most Learned King James of Blessed Memory may seem to have been a Prophet in this too That if ever the Pope were brought into England it would be upon the back of a Puritan as well as in that remarkable saying No Bishop no King the truth of which was most sadly justified and made out in the late most bloudy and unnatural Wars and by the most horrid Murder of the best of Princes Charles the Martyr whose Righteous Soul must needs be troubled if any thing of pity which is a troublesom Passion can be supposed to reach the Blessed at our present Distractions and the dismal consequences of them They envy her Beauty and Order the discreet Piety of her Service and the Regularity and exactness of her Discipline and the Apostolicalness of her Government and the flourishing of her Universities This makes them rage and swell and for want of better Proofs and Arguments accuse and arraign as guilty of Heresie and Schism and Innovation the purest and most Apostolical Church of the World But wise and considerate men are not to be frighted out of their Senses and out of their Religion with hard and big words and with reproachful Language The dissolute and debauched may easily be reconciled as the new word is to a Religion that is so favourable to them and gives them hopes of going to Heaven after a careless and wretched Life if upon a Sick Bed they begin to be afraid and profess a little sorrow and can but send for a Priest and be Absolved and the ignorant and weak may be wrought upon by little tricks and pieces of Sophistry and cheated and trapanned out of a Church the Doctrine of which they did not throughly understand For it is impossible for one who understands aright the Grounds and Principles of the Reformation upon which this National Church proceeded ever to renounce her Communion unless he first makes Shipwrack of his Honesty as well as of his Conscience and is swayed wholly by Worldly respects and interests But we need value their Censures the less not only because they are unjust and uncharitable but because they involve the Primitive Christians in the same guilt with us and all the Christian Churches this day in the World that will not own that grand Fundamental Article of the Roman Faith the Pope's Jurisdiction and be content to receive their Christianity from Rome and acknowledge all her determinations to be truly and really as they in the ordinary Court-stile call them Apostolical Let us in the name of God justifie the Doctrine of our Church by the strictness and exemplariness of our Lives as well as by Arguments and Discourses of Reason Let us reform our selves not only from the Errors and Superstitions but from the Vices that are too commonly practised in Catholick Countries as they call them though thanks be to the great industry and kindness and charity of their Missionaries of late they would be content I will not say though perhaps I might justly enough make it their business that Atheism and Profaneness and Debauchery should overspread the Land rather than that the name of the Church of England should be any more in remembrance In times of such defection to Socinianism and Popery on the one hand and to Fanaticism on the other let us take heed to our selves that we be no way byassed or wrought upon to desert the purity and integrity of the Christian Doctrine as it is taught in this Church in any one point of it and withal let us seriously consider and remember that it is not enough to believe it with our hearts unless we make open and publick profession of it with our Mouths Which brings me To the third Proposition That all who are Baptized and consequently are by this Sacrament of Initiation admitted and received into the Communion and Society of Christians are to make profession of this Faith One Faith One Baptism It was the undoubted Practise of the Church in the first Ages that the Candidates of Baptism should make profession of that Faith into which they were to be Baptized some previous time being allowed for their Instruction in the Doctrine of it as Rufinus a Presbyter of Aquileia who Lived almost 1300 Years since in his Exposition upon the Creed assures us for his own time and says it was then an Ancient Custom and so may be justly referred to the very times of the Apostles 'T is to be acknowledged indeed that St. Luke in the History of the Acts of the Apostles gives us this account only in general that the new Converts were required to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as in the case of the Prison-keeper Converted by the Preaching of St. Paul Acts 16. 31. And that after St. Philip had convinced the Eunuch by Preaching to him Jesus and explaining the Prophesies which fore-told him so as that he desired to become a Proselyte of Christ as he had hitherto been of Moses a Devotion to whose Law had brought him to Jerusalem and had also farther acquainted him that if his request to be Baptized were more than a Complement or Curiosity if it were real and sincere if his Faith proceeded from a thorough conviction of mind he was qualified for Baptism and not otherwise If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest The Eunuch makes no other Confession but this I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Acts 8. 37. But then it is evident that in this one Proposition the whole Doctrine of the Creed is virtually contained and that it draws necessarily all the other along with it and that this general belief was deduced into its severals afterwards and that for a more explicite and particular enumeration of the Articles of the Christian Faith we are to have recourse to the Apostolical writings in which they confirm the new Christians in the Faith which they had been taught to believe and acknowledge By all which it may appear that 1. Divine Faith in general is necessary to the Being of a Christian and that without it we to whom the Gospel is Preach'd and made known cannot pretend either to Christianity or to any hope of Salvation For as the