V. CHAP. nical council, for none can be more distant from Catholic than that where no more than two or three are met together. 3. That text belongs only to those assemblies which are truly convened in God's name, with hearts sincerely bent to the honouring of Him; whereas many assemblies among men have been, and still may be convened with mixtures of worldly and carnal interest, and then no part of the promised presence belongs to them. 4. Christ may by His power and illumination, and even directive grace be present, and in the midst of those who yet through the corruption, and blindness, and obstinacy of their own hearts, do not make use of His guidance to the finding out of truth, but oft resist the conviction and light which is offered them by Christ. And so there is not the least colour of force in that argument. Acts xv. 28. 4. Secondly, that place is produced out of John xvi. 13, that "when the Spirit of truth is come He will guide them into all truth;" and again, that "He shall abide with them for ever." But neither hath that any propriety to general, or indeed to any kind of councils. Every particular Christian, since the descent of the Holy Ghost, is as much rendered infallible by these texts as any the most numerous assembly; for to each of those this promise made to the Apostles is as regularly applicable as to any of these. And the matter is notorious, that before there was ever any œcumenical council in the world the Church of God was led into all truth; the greatest foundations of faith being by the Apostles' preaching, from the very first plantation, long before the council of Nice, deposited in every Church. 5. Thirdly, they produce the form of the conciliar decretal epistle, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." But that can be of no force in this matter: 1. Because the Apostles, that certainly did not err, and were so assisted by the Spirit that they should not err in the discharge of their office apostolical, can be no precedent to every or any other human assembly. 2. Because this decree of theirs belonging to matters of practice, not of belief, that form of it can no further be imitable to other councils than that in like matters of practice, such are rites, and ceremonies, and usages in a Church, they assume authority of defining and commanding, and deem that backed by the Holy Ghost, who hath XIII. given them their authority; but in matters of faith they SEC T. must have nothing from themselves. And accordingly this hath been the practice in the Church, as hath formerly appeared from Athanasius, to prefix to their canons of order and rites this form, visum est, "it seemed good to us," or ἔδοξε τὰ ὑποτεταγμένα, " these things seemed good to us ;" but for matters of faith, οὕτως πιστεύει ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκληoía, so the "Catholic Church believes;" neither inserting mention of their own judgment, nor yet pretending to any other revelation from the Holy Ghost than what was from the beginning found to have been in the Church. To which purpose also was, I suppose, the second versicle in the doxology,—the orthodoxal form of acknowledging the Trinity,— sicut erat in principio, "as it was in the beginning," as it stood by original tradition apostolical, ❝is now and ever shall be world without end." No new doctrine ever to be brought into the Church by whatsoever council, but only that which the Apostles had delivered. 6. Fourthly, some places they bring and apply to councils which the Scripture delivers only of the Church in general, as that the "gates of hell shall not prevail against it," which [Matt. xvi. 18.] can no way belong to this matter, unless all the members of the Church were met together in that council; for if there be any left out, why may not the promise be good in them, though the gates of hell should be affirmed to prevail against the council. The first Nicene was by the acknowledgment of all an œcumenical council, yet was not the whole Church of God convened in that assembly. In case all the three hundred and eighteen bishops which were there assembled had in one minute been taken up to heaven, or by any violence of the Arian party massacred, could it with any truth be said that the whole Church of God had then been destroyed? Infallibly it could not; and no more could it be said, in case a major part of them had agreed in any error, that the Túλai adov, the 'power' or 'gates of hell,' or death, or destruction had prevailed against them; because as it is clear there were many thousands of bishops and presbyters, many millions of brethren or believing Christians, without the walls of that council, which had not been involved in that error. [Vide sect. 9. p. 353.] V. CHAP. And indeed the very supposal that the council assembled represents the Church diffusive, and was never entrusted by them to define any error at their convention, is an evidence that there is without the doors of that council an universal, which those few there present were designed to represent. And those that have given their proxies for certain uses, are not imagined so to have put their lives or souls in the hands of those proxies as that by the death of the proxies they shall be supposed to die also. [nor from their an 7. And as there is no evidence from the written word of God whereon this may be grounded as a matter of faith, that a general council cannot err, so neither is there any part of the Apostles' depositum entrusted to the Church from which the conclusion can with any semblance of reason be inferred, or that is by any Romanist that I know of made use of to that purpose. 8. The main thing that is pretended is the conciliar pracnexing tice and custom of annexing anathemas to their definitions, anathemas which it were not reasonable for them to do if they did not finitions.] verily believe their definitions were infallibly true. But to to their de this the answer is obvious. 1. That they may think them- XIII. all, Sóyμata evσeßeíasd in the Apostles' thirty-seventh canon, SECT. the disbelief whereof may obstruct or hinder good life here and salvation hereafter. SECT. 14. THAT IT IS ONE OF THE PIE CREDIBILIA, THAT A GENERAL COUNCIL 1. This then of the inerrableness of general councils being thus far evidenced to be no matter of faith, because not founded in any part of Scripture or tradition,--nor consequently the contrary any matter of heresy, the utmost that can be said of it is, that it is a theological verity, which may piously be believed. 2. And so I doubt not to pronounce of it, that if we consider God's great, and wise, and constant providence and care over His Church, His desire that all men should be saved, and in order to that end come to the knowledge of all necessary truth, His promise that He will not suffer His faithful servants to be tempted above what they are able, nor permit scandals and false teachers to prevail to the seducing of the very elect, His most pious, godly servants; if, I say, we consider these and some other such like general promises of Scripture, wherein this question seems to be concerned, we shall have reason to believe that God will never suffer all Christians to fall into such a temptation as it must be, in case the whole Church representative should err in matters of faith, by way of ellipsis,-define against, or leave out of their creed any article of that body of credenda which the Apostles delivered to the Church,—and therein find approbation and reception among all those bishops and doctors of the Church diffused which were out of the council. 3. And though in this case the Church might remain a Church, and so the destructive gates of Hades not prevail against it, and still retain all parts of the Apostles' depositum in the hearts of some faithful Christians, which had no power in the council to oppose the decree, or out of it to resist the general approbation, yet still the testimony of such [See note p, page 340.] V. CHAP. a general council so received and approved would be a very strong argument, and so a very dangerous temptation to every the most meek and pious Christian, and it is piously to be believed, though not infallibly certain, (for who knows what the provocations of the Christian world, of the pastors, or the flock, may arrive to, like the violence of the old world, that brought down the deluge upon them?) that God will not permit His servants to fall into that temptation. SECT. 15. [The Church of A RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION OF THIS MATTER CONCERNING HERESY. 1. It is time now to draw to a conclusion of this whole matEngland ter, and from the premises to complete and abbreviate that plea, which will, I doubt not, secure the Church of England from all colourable charge of heresy. For that secured from the charge of heresy.] 2. First, it confessedly receives the whole word of Christ, the entire canon of the New Testament. 3. Secondly, it retains entire the symbol of the apostolic faith, as that was delivered to the Churches in all the apostolic plantations. 4. Thirdly, it understands both Scripture and creed, according to that traditive interpretation which the first four, or if you will six, or indeed any of the œcumenical councils truly so called, have discovered and declared to be the sense of all the apostolic Churches in the world, and were universally received by all Churches in such their declaration. 5. Fourthly, that we never rejected any Catholic testimony,-offered in behalf of any doctrine,-nor council, but such as even our enemies grant, or evidence of the matter proclaims, not to have been œcumenical. 6. Fifthly, that we do not believe that any general council, truly such, ever did or shall err in any matter of faith; nor shall we further dispute the authority when we shall be duly satisfied of the universality of any such. 7. Lastly, that we are willing to proceed and enlarge all this from the Church collected in a council to the Church diffused, or the principal pastors thereof out of council, and |