hence have proceeded publick Temples Altars Forms of Service appointed Times and the like which are required for open Assemblies yet whilst Men were truly pious all Meetings of Men for mutual help of Piety and Devotion wheresoever and by whomsoever celebrated were permitted without exception But when it was espied that ill affected Persons abus'd private Meetings whether Religious or Civil to evil ends Religiousness to gross impiety as appears in the Ethnick Eleusmia and Baecchanalia and Christian Meetings under the Pagan Princes when for fear they durst not come together in open view were charged with foul imputations as by the report of Christians themselves plainly appears and Civil Meetings many times under pretence of friendly and neighbourly Visits sheltered treasonable Attempts Against Princes and Commonweals Hence both Church and State joyned and jointly gave order for Forms Times Places of Publick Concourse whether for Religious or Civil Ends and all other Meetings whatsoever besides those of which both Time and Place were limited they censured for Routs and Riots and unlawful Assemblies in the State and in the Church for Conventicles So that it is not lawful no not for Prayer for Hearing for Conference for any other Religious Office whatsoever for people to assemble otherwise than by Publick Order is allowed Neither may we complain of this in Times of Incorruption for why should Men desire to do that suspiciously in private which warrantably may be performed in publick But in Times of manifest Corruptions and Persecutions wherein Religious Assembling is dangerous private Meetings howsoever besides publick Order are not only lawful but they are of Necessity and Duty else how shall we excuse the Meetings of Christians for publick Service in time of danger and persecutions and of our selves in Queen Maries days And how will those of the Roman Church amongst us put off the imputation of Conventicling who are known amongst us privately to assemble for Religious Exercise against all established Order both in State and Church For indeed all pious Assemblies in times of persecution and corruptions howsoever practised are indeed or rather alone the lawful Congregations and publick Assemblies though according to form of Law are indeed nothing else but Riots and Conventicles if they be stained with Corruption and Superstition MISCELLANIES How to know the Church MArks and Notes to know the Church there are none except we will make True Profession which is the Form and Essence of the Church to be a Mark. And as there are none so is it not necessary there should be For to what purpose should they serve That I might go seek and find out some Company to mark This is no way necessary For glorious Things are in the Scriptures spoken of the Church not that I should run up and down the World to find the Persons of the Professors but that I should make my self of it This I do by taking upon me the Profession of Christianity and submitting my self to the Rules of Belief and Practice delivered in the Gospel though besides my self I knew no other Professor in the World If this were not the Authors end in proposal of the Title it is but a meer Vanity To the Description of the Church The Church as it imports a visible Company in Earth is nothing else but the Company of Professors of Christanity wheresoever disperst in the Earth To define it thus by Monarchy under one visible Head is of novelty crept up since Men began to change the spiritual Kingdom of Christ to secular Pride and Tyranny and a thing never heard of either in the Scriptures or in the Writings of the Ancients Government whether by one or many or howsoever if it be one of the Churches contingent Attributes it is all certainly it is no necessary Property much less comes it into the Definition and Essence of it I mean outward Government for as for inward Government by which Christ reigns in the Hearts of his Elect and vindicates them from spiritual Enemies I have no occasion to speak neither see I any reference to it in all your Authors Animadversions How Christ is the Head of the Church From the Worlds beginning till the last hour of it the Church is essentially one and the same howsoever perchance in Garment and outward Ceremony it admits of Difference And as it was from the beginning of the World so was it Christian there being no other difference betwixt the Fathers before Christ and us but this As we believe in Christ that is Come so they believed in Christ that was to Come Jesus Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever Reference unto Christ is the very Essence of the Church and there neither is nor ever was any Church but Christ's and therefore the Church amongst the Jews was properly and truly Christian quoad rem as we are Now as this Church at all times is Christ's Body so is Christ the Head of it For it is as impossible for the Church as for the Body to be without its Head it is not therefore as your Author dreams Christ came not to found a New Church or to profess a Visible Headship of it That Relation to this Church which we express when we call him the Head of it is one and the same from the Beginning to all Eternity neither receives it any alteration in this respect because the Person in whom this Relation is founded is sometimes Visible sometimes not 'T is true indeed the Head of the Church sometimes became Visible but this is but contingent and by Concomitancy For Christ the second Person in the Trinity becoming Man to Redeem this Church and manifest the way of Truth unto it It so fell out that the Head of the Church became Visible Of this Visibility he left no Successor no Doctrine no Use as being a thing meerly accidental I ask Had the Church before Christ any Visible Head if it had then was not Christ the first as here our Teacher tells us If it had none why then should the Church more require a Visible Head than it did from the Beginning To speak the Truth at once All these Questions concerning the Notes the Visibility the Government of the Church if we look upon the Substance and Nature of the Church they are meerly Idle and Impertinent If upon the End why Learned Men do handle them it is nothing else but Faction Of Peter's Ministerial Headship of the Church In your Author's Paragraphs concerning the visible Encrease or Succession of the Church there is no Difference betwixt us As for the Proofs of Peters Ministerial Headship this first concerning his being the Rock of the Church that cannot prove-it For Peter was the Rock then when our Saviour spake but then could he not be the visible Head for Christ himself then was living and by our Teachers Doctrine supplied that room himself Peter therefore howsoever or in what sense soever he were the Rock yet could he not be the visible Head
particular whether it were because of their own interests or that they saw not the Truth or for what other cause God only doth know their Judgments many times to speak most gently are justly to be suspected Which that you may see we will range all Schism into two ranks For there is a Schism in which only one Party is the Schismatick for where cause of Schism is necessary there not he that separates but he that occasions the separation is the Schismatick Secondly There is a Schism wherein both Parties are the Schismaticks For where the occasion of separation is unnecessary neither side can be excused from the guilt of Schism But you will ask Who shall be the Judge what is necessary Indeed that is a Question which hath been often made but I think scarcely ever truly answered not because it is a Point of great depth or difficulty truly to assoil it but because the true solution carries fire in the tail of it For it bringeth with it a piece of Doctrine which is seldom pleasing to Superiours To you for the present this shall suffice If so be you be Animo defoecato if you have cleared your self from froath and grounds if neither sloth nor fears nor ambition nor any tempting Spirits of that nature abuse you for these and such as these are the true Impediments why both that and other Questions of the like danger are not truly answered if all this be and yet you see not how to frame your resolution and settle your self for that doubt I will say no more of you than was said of Papias St. John's own Scholar you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your abilities are not so good as I presumed But to go on with what I intended and from which that interloping Question diverted me that you may the better judge of the nature of Schisms by their occasions you shall find that all Schisms have crept into the Church by one of these three ways either upon matter of Fact or matter of Opinion or point of Ambition For the first I call that matter of Fact when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawful So the first notable Schism of which we read in the Church contained in it matter of fact for it being upon Error taken for necessary that an Easter must be kept and upon worse than Error if I may so speak for it was no less than a point of Judaism forced upon the Church upon worse than Error I say thought further necessary that the ground for the time of our keeping that Feast must be the rule left by Moses to the Jews there arose a stout Question Whether we were to celebrate with the Jews on the 14th Moon or the Sunday following This matter though most unnecessary most vain yet caused as great a Combustion as ever was in the Church the West separating and refusing Communion with the East for many years together In this fantastical Hurry I cannot see but all the World were Schismaticks neither can any thing excuse them from that imputation excepting only this that we charitably suppose that all Parties out of Conscience did what they did A thing which befel them through the ignorance of their Guides for I will not say their malice and that through the just judgment of God because through sloth and blind obedience Men examined not the things which they were taught but like Beasts of Burden patiently couched down and indifferently underwent whatsoever their Superiours laid upon them By the way by this you may plainly see the danger of our appeal unto Antiquity for resolution in controverted points of Faith and how small relief we are to expect from thence For if the discretion of the chiefest Guides and Directors of the Church did in a Point so trivial so inconsiderable so mainly fail them as not to see the Truth in a Subject wherein it is the greatest Marvel how they could avoid the sight of it can we without imputation of extreme grosness and folly think so poor-spirited Persons competent Judges of the Questions now on foot betwixt the Churches Pardon me I know not what Temptation drew that Note from me The next Schism which had in it matter of fact is that of the Donatist who was perswaded at least so he pretended that it was unlawful to converse or communicate in holy Duties with Men stained with any notorious Sin For howsoever Austin and others do specify only the Thurificati Traditores and Libellatici and the like as if he separated only from those whom he found to be such yet by necessary proportion he must refer to all notorious Sinners Upon this he taught that in all places where good and bad were mixt together there could be no Church by reason of Pollution evaporating as it were from Sinners which blasted righteous Persons who conversed with them and made all unclean On this ground separating himself from all whom he list to suspect he gave out that the Church was no where to be found but in him and his Associates as being the only Men among whom wicked Persons found no shelter and by consequence the only clean and unpolluted Company and therefore the only Church Against this Saint Augustine laid down this Conclusion Unitatem Ecclesiae per totum orbem dispersae propter nonnullorum peccata non esse deserendam which is indeed the whole sum of that Father's Disputation against the Donatist Now in one part of this Controversie betwixt St. Augustine and the Donatist there is one thing is very remarkable The Truth was there where it was by meer chance and might have been on either side any Reasons brought by either Party notwithstanding For though it were de facto false that pars Donati shut up in Africk was the only Orthodox Party yet it might have been true notwithstanding any thing St. Augustine brings to confute it and on the contrary though it were de facto true that the part of Christians dispersed over the Earth were Orthodox yet it might have been false notwithstanding any thing St. Augustine brings to confirm it For where or amongst whom or amongst how many the Church shall be or is is a thing indifferent it may be in any Number more or less it may be in any Place Country or Nation it may be in All and for ought I know it may be in none without any prejudice to the definition of the Church or the Truth of the Gospel North or South many or few dispersed in many places or confined to one none of these either prove or disprove a Church Now this Schism and likewise the former to a wise Man that well understands the matter in Controversie may afford perchance matter of pity to see Men so strangely distracted upon fancy but of doubt or trouble what to do it can yield none For though in this Schism the Donatist be the Schismatick and in the former both Parties
except we will grant the Church to have had two visible Heads at once Secondly The Keys of Heaven committed to Peter and Command to feed his Sheep import no more than that common Duty laid upon all the Disciples To teach all Nations for this Duty in several respects is exprest by several Metaphors Teaching as it signifies the opening of the way to Life so is it called by the name of Keys but as it signifies the Strengthning of the Soul of Man by the Word which is the Souls spiritual Food so is it called Feeding Thus much is seen by the Defenders of the Church of Rome and therefore they fly for refuge to a Circumstance It is observed that our Saviour delivered this Doctrine to Peter alone as indeed sometimes he did in this it is supposed that some great Mystery rests For why should our Saviour thus single out Peter and commend a common Duty to him if there were not something extraordinary in it which concerned him above the rest This they interpret a Pre-eminence that Peter had in his Business of Teaching which they say is a Primacy and Head-ship inforcing thus much that all the rest were to depend from Him and from Him receive what they were to preach For Answer Grant me there were some great Mystery in it yet whence is it proved that this is that Mystery For if our Saviour did not manifest it then might there be a thousand Causes which Mans Conjecture may easily miss It is great boldness out of Causes concealed to pick so great Consequences and to found Matters of so great weight upon meer Conjectures Thirdly The Prayer for Confirmation of Peters Faith whence it came the Course of the Story set down in the Text doth shew It was our Saviours Prevision of Peters danger to relapse which danger he had certainly run into had not our Saviour extraordinarily prayed for confirmation of his Faith And the Precept of confirming his Brethren is but that charitable Office which is exacted at every Christians hand that when himself had escaped so great a Wrack to be careful in warning and reclaiming others whom common frailty drives into the like Distress These Circumstances that Peter is first named amongst the Disciples that he made the first Sermon and the like are two weak Grounds to build the Soveraignty over the World upon and that he spake Ananias and Sapphira dead argues spiritual Power but not temporal But that Peter called the first Council in the Acts is a Circumstance beyond the Text for concerning the calling of the Council there is no word all that is said is but this that the Disciples and Elders met no Syllable of Peters calling them together That Peter was 25 Years Bishop of Rome is not to be proved out of Antiquity before St. Hierom who shuffled it into Eusebius's Chronicle there being no such thing extant in his Story Yea that he was Bishop at all as now the name of Bishop is taken may be very questionable For the Ancients that reckon up the Bishops of Rome until their times as Eusebius and before him Tertullian and before them both Iraeneus never account Peter as Bishop of that See And Epiphanius tells us that Peter and Paul were both Bishops of Rome at once by which it is plain he took the Title of Bishop in another sense than now it is used For now and so for a long time upward two Bishops can no more possess one See than two Hedge-Sparrows dwell in one Bush St. Peters time was a little too early for Bishops to rise Answer to the Bishop of Romes Practice of Supremacy To the first That so many of the Bishops of Rome were Martyrs What makes that to the purpose Is Martyrdom an Argument of the Supremacy To the second That Victor indeavoured to excommunicate the Asiatick Bishops is true but withal it is as true that he was withstood for his Labour For the Bishops of Asia themselves did sharply reprove him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Words of Eusebius and Iraeneus wrote against him for it To the third That the first four Councils were called by the Popes is an open Falshood for in the two first the Bishops of Rome are not so much as mentioned save only as persons cited In the two last they are mentioned only as Petitioners to the Emperour There are extant the Stories of Eusebius Socrates Ruffinus Theodoret Sozomenus the Acts of the Councils themselves at least some of them the Writings and Epistles of Leo Bishop of Rome In all these there is not one word of the Pope farther than a Supplicant and the whole calling of the Bishops together is attributed to the Emperour Take for Example but the last of them Leo Bishop of Rome was desirous that some things done in a meeting of Divines at Ephesus should be disannulled for this he becomes a Suitor to Theodosius the junior to have a General Council but could never procure it of him After his death he continues his suit to Marcianus Successor to Theodosius who granted his request But whereas Leo had requested the Council might be held in Italy the Emperour would not hear him nay which is more the Pope upon good reason had besought the Emperour to put off the day design'd for the holding of the Council but the Emperour would not hear him So that Leo could do nothing neither for the calling the Council nor for the Place nor for the Time And all this appears by Leo's own Epistles If the Popes could do so little well near 500 years after Christ how little could they do before when their horns were not yet so long The Plea of the Protestants concerning the Corruption of the Church of Rome which by them is confessed sometimes to have been pure is no more prejudicial to Christs Promise to his Church that the Gaits of Hell shall not prevail against her than the known corruption of the Churches in Asia in St. John's time or of other Churches after The Close of all is a Demonstration A Word unfortunately used by your Author to bewray his Logick For indeed a Reason drawn from so poor and empty a sign falls many bows wide of demonstrative Proof First it is false that all the rest of Patriarchal Sees are extinct The See of Constantinopel yet stands and shews her Succession of Bishops from St. Andrew till this day as well as the Church of Rome can from St. Peter The See of Alexandria yet subsists and the Bishop of that place calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judge of the World as my self have seen in some of his Letters a Title to which he hath as good Right as the Bishop of Rome hath to be the Worlds Sovereign If any reply they are poor in misery in persecution and affliction this can make no difference since with Christ there is neither rich nor poor but a new Creature And again their case now is as good as was the Bishops of Rome under the Ethnick Emperors for their Lot then was no other than those Bishops is now But grant that it had lasted longest what then Some of them must needs have consisted longer than the other except we would suppose that they should have fallen all together Peradventure the reason of her so long lasting is no other but that which the Cyclops gives Ulysses in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ulysses should be eaten last of all However it be this Vant seems but like that of the wicked Servant in the Gospel tardat Dominus venire and we doubt not but a day of the Lord shall overtake him who now eats and drinks and revels with the World and beats his fellow Servants FINIS * Plin. Nat. Hist l. 28. c. 10.
upon the receiving of the Sacrament I would it were so we should not have so many doubting Christians who yet receive the Sacrament oft enough We teach it to be Viaticum morientium whereby we abuse many distressed Consciences and sick Bodies who seek for comfort there and finding it not conclude from thence I speak what I know some defect in their Faith The participation of the Sacrament to sick and weak Persons what unseemly events hath it occasioned the vomiting up of the Elements anon upon the receipt of them the resurging the Wine into the Cup before the Minister could remove his hand to the interruption of the action Now all these Mistakes and Errors have risen upon some ungrounded and fond practices crept long since God knows how into the Church and as yet not sufficiently purged out I will be bold to inform you what it is which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the main fundamental fallacy whence all these abuses have sprung There hath been a fancy of long subsistance in the Churches That in the Communion there is something given besides Bread and Wine of which the Numerality given Men have not yet agreed Some say it is the Body of God into which the Bread is transubstantiated Some say it is the same Body with which the Bread is consubstantiated Some that the Bread remaining what it was there passes with it to the Soul the real Body of God in a secret unknown manner Some that a further degree of Faith is supplied us Others that some degree of God's grace whatsoever it be is exhibited which otherwise would be wanting All which variety of conceits must needs fall out as having no other ground but conjecture weakly founded To settle you therefore in your Judgment both of the thing it self and of the true use of it I will commend to your consideration these few Propositions First In the Communion there is nothing given but Bread and Wine Secondly The Bread and Wine are signs indeed but not of any thing there exhibited but of somewhat given long since even of Christ given for us upon the Cross sixteen hundred years ago and more Thirdly Jesus Christ is eaten at the Communion-Table in no sense neither Spiritually by virtue of any thing done there nor really neither Metaphorically nor Literally Indeed that which is eaten I mean the Bread is called Christ by a Metaphor but it is eaten truly and properly Fourthly The Spiritual eating of Christ is common to all places as well as the Lord's Table Last of all The Uses and Ends of the Lord's Supper can be no more than such as are mentioned in the Scriptures and they are but two First The commemoration of the Death and Passion of the Son of God specified by himself at the Institution of the Ceremony Secondly To testify our Union with Christ and Communion one with another which end St. Paul hath taught us In these few Conclusions the whole Doctrine and Use of the Lord's Supper is fully set down and whoso leadeth you beyond this doth but abuse you Quicquid ultra quaeritur non intelligitur The proof of these Propositions would require more than the Limits of a Letter will admit of and I see my self already to have exceeded these Bounds I will therefore pass away to consider the second part of your Letter In this second Part I would you had pleased to have done as in the first you did That is not only set down the Proposition of the Catholick but some Answer of the Protestant by which we might have discovered his Judgment I might perchance have used the same Liberty as I have done before namely discovered the mistakes of both Parties for I suspect that as there they did so here they would have given me cause enough Now I content my self barely to speak to the Question The Question is Whether the Church may Err in Fundamentals By the Church I will not trifle as your Catholick doth and mean only the Protestant Party as he professeth he doth only the Roman Faction But I shall understand all Factions in Christianity All that entitle themselves to Christ wheresoever dispersed all the World over First I Answer That every Christian may err that will for if Men might not err wilfully then there could be no Heresie Heresie being nothing else but wilful Error For if we account mistakes befallen us through humane Frailties to be Heresies then it will follow That every Man since the Apostles time was an Heretick for never yet was there any Christian the Apostles only excepted who did not in something concerning the Christian Faith mistake himself either by addition or omission or misinterpretation of something An evident sign of this Truth you may see in this by the Providence of God the Writings of many learned Christians from the Spring of Christianity have been left unto posterity and amongst all those scarcely any is to be found who is not confess'd on all hands to have mistaken some things and those mistakes for the most part stand upon Record by some who purposely observed them Neither let this I beseech you beget in you a conceit as if I meant to disgrace those whose Labours have been and are of infinite benefit in the Church For if Aristotle and Aphrodiseus and Galen and the rest of those Excellent Men whom God had indued with extraordinary portions of natural Knowledge have with all thankful and ingenuous Men throughout all Generations retained their Credit entire notwithstanding it is acknowledged that they have all of them in many things swerved from the Truth Then why should not Christians express the same ingenuity to those who have laboured before us in the Exposition of the Christian Faith and highly esteem them for their Works sake their many infirmities notwithstanding You will say that for private Persons it is confess'd they may and daily do err but can Christians err by whole Shoals by Armies meeting for the defence of the Truth in Synods and Councils especially General which are countenanced by the great Fable of all the World the Bishop of Rome I answer To say that Councils may not err though private Persons may at first sight is a merry speech as if a Man should say That every single Soldier indeed may run away but a whole Army cannot especially having Hannibal for their Captain and since it is confess'd That all single Persons not only may but do err it will prove a very hard matter to gather out of these a multitude of whom being gathered together we may be secured they cannot err I must for mine own part confess That Councils and Synods not only may and have erred but considering the means how they are managed it were a great marvel if they did not err For what Men are they of whom those great Meetings do consist are they the best the most learned the most vertuous the most likely to walk uprightly No the greatest the most ambitious and many times