undoubtedly the faith of the primitive church: they admitted all into their communion that were of this faith; they condemned no man that did not condemn these; they gave letters communicatory by no other cognizance; and all were brethren who spake this voice, Hanc legem sequentes, Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti, reliquos vero dementes, vesanosque judicantes hæretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere, said the emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, in their proclamation to the people of Constantinople. All that believed this doctrine were Christians and catholics, viz. all they who believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one Divinity of equal majesty in the holy Trinity; which indeed was the sum of what was decreed in explication of the Apostles' Creed in the four first general councils. And what faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace, the surer ligaments of catholic communion, or the firmer basis of a holy life, and of the hopes of heaven hereafter, than the measures which the holy primitive church did hold, and we after them? That which we rely upon is the same that the primitive church did acknowledge to be the adequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief: the way which they thought sufficient to go to heaven in, is the way which we walk; what they did not teach, we do not publish and impose: into this faith entirely, and into no other, as they did theirs, so we baptize our catechumens: the discriminations of heresy from catholic doctrine which they used, we use also, and we use no other: and, in short, we believe all that doctrine which the church of Rome believes, except those things which they have superinduced upon the old religion, and in which we shall prove that they have innovated. So that, by their confession, all the doctrine which we teach the people as matter of faith, must be confessed to be ancient, primitive, and apostolic, or else theirs is not so: for ours is the same, and we both have received this faith from the fountains of scripture and universal tradition; not they from us, or we from them, but both of us from Christ and his apostles. And therefore there can be no question whether the faith of the church of England be apostolic and primitive; it is so confessedly: but the question is concerning many other particulars which were unknown to the holy doctors of the first ages, which were no part of their faith, which were never put into their creeds, which were not determined in any of the four first general councils, revered in all Christen e Dat. 3. Calend. Mart. Thessalonicæ. dom, and entertained every where with great religion and veneration, even next to the four Gospels and the apostolical writings. Of this sort, because the church of Rome hath introduced many, and hath adopted them into their late creed, and imposes them upon the people, not only without, but against the scriptures and the catholic doctrine of the church of God; laying heavy burdens on men's consciences, and making the narrow way to heaven yet narrower by their own inventions; arrogating to themselves a dominion over our faith, and prescribing a method of salvation which Christ and his apostles never taught; corrupting the faith of the church of God, and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men; and lastly, having derogated from the prerogative of Christ, who alone is the Author and Finisher of our faith, and hath perfected it in the revelations consigned in the holy scriptures; therefore it is that we esteem ourselves obliged to warn the people of their danger, and to depart from it, and call upon them to stand upon the ways, and ask after the old paths, and walk in them; lest they partake of that curse which is threatened by God to them, who remove the ancient landmarks which our fathers in Christ have set for us. Now that the church of Rome cannot pretend that all which she imposes is primitive and apostolic, appears in this; that in the church of Rome there is pretence made to a power, not only of declaring new articles of faith, but of making new symbols or creeds, and imposing them as of necessity to salvation. Which thing is evident in the bull of pope Leo X. against Martin Luther, in which, amongst other things, he is condemned for saying, "It is certain that it is not in the power of the church or pope to constitute articles of faith." We need not add that this power is attributed to the bishops of Rome by Turrecremata1, Augustinus Triumphus de Ancona 5, Petrus de Ancorano h, and the famous abbot of Panormo i, that the pope cannot only make new creeds, but new articles of faith; that he can make that of necessity to be believed, which before never was necessary; that he is the measure and rule, and the very notice of all credibilities; f Quod sit metrum, et regula, ac scientia credendorum. Summæ de Ecclesia, 1. 2. C. 203. * Novum symbolum condere solum ad papam spectat, quia est caput fidei Chris. tianæ, cujus authoritate omnia quæ ad fidem spectant firmantur et roborantur. q. 59. a. 1. et art. 2. Sicut potest novum sym bolum condere, ita potest novos articulos h Papa potest facere novos articulos fidei, id est, quod modo credi oporteat, cum sic prius non oporteret. In cap. cum Christus. de Hæret. n. 2. i Papa potest inducere novum articulum fidei. In idem. that the canon law is the Divine law; and whatever law the pope promulges, God, whose vicar he is, is understood to be the promulger. That the souls of men are in the hands of the pope; and that in his arbitration religion does consist: which are the very words of Hostiensisk and Ferdinandus ab Inciso, who were casuists and doctors of law, of great authority amongst them and renown. The thing itself is not of dubious disputation amongst them, but actually practised in the greatest instances, as is to be seen in the bull of Pius the Fourth, at the end of the council of Trent; by which all ecclesiastics are not only bound to swear to all the articles of the council of Trent for the present and for the future, but they are put into a new symbol or creed, and they are corroborated by the same decretory clauses that are used in the Creed of Athanasius: that "this is the true catholic faith;" and that "without this no man can be saved." Now since it cannot be imagined that this power, to which they pretend, should never have been reduced to act; and that it is not credible they should publish so invidious and ill-sounding doctrine to no purpose, and to serve no end; it may without further evidence be believed by all discerning persons, that they have need of this doctrine, or it would not have been taught: and that consequently, without more ado, it may be concluded that some of their articles are parts of this new faith; and that they can therefore in no sense be apostolical, unless their being Roman makes them so. To this may be added another consideration, not much less material, that, besides what Eckius told the elector of Bavaria, that the doctrines of Luther might be overthrown by the Fathers, though not by scripture, they have also many gripes of conscience concerning the Fathers themselves, that they are not right on their side; and of this they have given but too much demonstration by their expurgatory indices. The serpent, by being so curious a defender of his head, shews where his danger is, and by what he can most readily be destroyed. But besides their innumerable corruptings of the Fathers' writings, their thrusting in that which was spurious, and, like Pharaoh, killing the legitimate sons of Israel m, k Super 2. Decret. de Jurejur. c. nimis D. I. 1 Apud Petrum Ciezam, t. 2. instit. per. c. 69. m Johannes Clemens aliquot folia Theodoreti laceravit et abjecit in focum, in though in this they have done quibus contra transubstantiationem præclare disseruit. Et cum non ita pridem Origenem excuderent, totum illud caput sextum Johannis et quod commentabatur Origenes omiserunt, et mutilum ediderunt librum propter eandem causam. very much of their work, and made the testimonies of the Fathers to be a record infinitely worse than of themselves uncorrupted they would have been, (of which divers learned persons have made public complaint and demonstration,) they have at last fallen to a new trade, which hath caused more disreputation to them, than they have gained advantage, and they have virtually confessed, that in many things the Fathers are against them. For first, the king of Spain gave a commission to the inquisitors to purge all catholic authors; but with this clause, iique ipsi privatim, nullisque consciis, apud se indicem expurgatorium habebunt, quem eundem neque aliis communicabunt, neque ejus exemplum ulli dabunt: that "they should keep the expurgatory index privately, neither imparting that index, nor giving a copy of it to any." But it happened, by the Divine providence so ordering it, that about thirteen years after, a copy of it was gotten and published by Johannes Pappus and Franciscus Junius, and since it came abroad against their wills, they find it necessary now to own it, and they have printed it themselves. Now by these expurgatory tables, what they have done is known to all learned men. In S. Chrysostom's works printed at Basil, these words, "The church is not built upon the man, but upon the faith," are commanded to be blotted out; and these, "There is no merit, but what is given us by Christ:" and yet these words are in his sermon upon Pentecost, and the former words are in his first homily upon that of S. John, Ye are my friends, &c. The like they have done to him in many other places, and to S. Ambrose, and to S. Austin, and to them all", insomuch that Ludovicus Saurius, the corrector of the press at Lyons, shewed and complained of it to Junius, that he was forced to cancellate or blot out many sayings of S. Ambrose in that edition of his works which was printed at Lyons 1559. So that what they say on occasion of Bertram's book, "In the old catholic writers we suffer very many errors, and extenuate and excuse them, and finding out some commentary, we feign some convenient sense when they are opposed in disputations," they do indeed practise, but esteem it not sufficient; for the words which make against them, they wholly leave out of their editions. Nay they correct the very tables or indices made by n Sixtus Senensis Epist. Dedicat. ad omnium catholicorum scriptorum, ac Pium Quint. laudat Pontificem in hæc præcipue veterum Patrum scripta." verba, "Expurgari et emaculari curasti the printers or correctors; insomuch that out of one of Froben's indices they have commanded these words to be blotted; The use of images forbidden―The eucharist no sacrifice, but the memory of a sacrifice-Works, although they do not justify, yet are necessary to salvation-Marriage is granted to all that will not contain-Venial sins damn-The dead saints after this life cannot help us. Nay out of the index of S. Austin's works by Claudius Chevallonius at Paris 1531, there is a very strange deleatur, Dele, solus Deus adorandus, that "God alone is to be worshipped," is commanded to be blotted out, as being a dangerous doctrine. These instances may serve instead of multitudes, which might be brought of their corrupting the witnesses, and razing the records of antiquity, that the errors and novelties of the church of Rome might not be so easily reproved. Now if the Fathers were not against them, what need these arts? Why should they use them thus? Their own expurgatory indices are infinite testimony against them, both that they do so, and that they need it. But besides these things, we have thought it fit to represent in one aspect some of their chief doctrines of difference from the church of England, and make it evident that they are indeed new, and brought into the church, first by way of opinion, and afterwards by power, and at last, by their own authority decreed into laws and articles. SECTION II. The church has no power to make new articles. The Roman church has many ready for the stamp. Council of Trent's new article against the necessity of communicating infants, against the sense of divers Fathers. FIRST, we allege, that this very power of making new articles is a novelty, and expressly against the doctrine of the primitive church; and we prove it, first by the words of the apostle, saying, If we, or an angel from heaven, shall preach unto you any other gospel (viz. in whole or in part, for there is the same reason of them both) than that which we have preached, let him be anathema: and secondly, by the sentence of the Fathers in the third general council, that at Ephesus, "That it should not be o Index Expurgator. Madr. 1612. in Indice libror. expurgatorum p. 39. p Gal. i. 8. q Part. 2. act. 6. c. 7. |