evident and plain letter of faith, are as great recessions from the obligation, as they are from the simplicity and certainty of the article. And this I also affirm, although the church of any one denomination, or represented in a council, shall make the deduction or declaration. For unless Christ had promised his Spirit to protect every particular church from all errors less material, unless he had promised an absolute universal infallibility etiam in minutioribus,' unless superstructures be of the same necessity with the foundation, and that God's Spirit doth not only preserve his church in the being of a church, but in a certainty of not saying any thing that is less certain; and that too, whether they will or no, we may be bound to peace and obedience, to silence and to charity, but have not a new article of faith made; and a new proposition, though consequent (as it is said) from an article of faith, becomes not, therefore, a part of the faith, nor of absolute necessity. "Quid unquam aliud ecclesia conciliorum decretis enisa est, nisi ut quod antea simpliciter credebatur, hoc idem postea diligentius crederetur," said Vincentius Lirinensis: whatsoever was of necessary belief, is so still, and hath a new decree, added by reason, of a new light, or a clear explication; but no propositions can be adopted into the foundation. The church hath power to intend our faith, but not to extend it; to make our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive. For Christ and his apostles concealed nothing that was necessary to the integrity of Christian faith, or salvation of our souls: Christ declared all the will of his Father, and the apostles were stewards and dispensers of the same mysteries, and were faithful in all the house, and therefore concealed nothing, but taught the whole doctrine of Christ; so they said themselves. And indeed, if they did not teach all the doctrine of faith, an angel or a man might have taught us other things. than what they taught, without deserving an anathema, but not without deserving a blessing, for making up that faith entire which the apostles left imperfect, Now, if they taught. all the whole body of faith, either the church, in the following ages, lost part of the faith ;-and then, where was their infallibility, and the effect of those glorious promises to which she

Contra Hæres. cap. 32.

pretends, and hath certain title? for she may as well introduce a falsehood as lose a truth, it being as much promised to her that the Holy Ghost shall lead her into all truth, as that she shall be preserved from all errors; as appears, John, xvi. 13.: or, if she retained all the faith which Christ and his apostles consigned and taught, then no age can, by declaring any point, make that be an article of faith, which was not so in all ages of Christianity before such declaration. And, indeed, if the church, by declaring an article can make that to be necessary, which before was not necessary, I do not see how it can stand with the charity of the church so to do, especially after so long experience she hath had, that all men will not believe every such decision or explication; for, by so doing, she makes the narrow way to heaven narrower, and chalks out one path more to the devil than he had before, and yet the way was broad enough, when it was at the narrowest. For, before, differing persons might be saved in diversity of persuasions; and now, after this declaration, if they cannot, there is no other alteration made, but that some shall be damned, who before, even in the same dispositions and belief, should have been beatified persons. For, therefore, it is well for the fathers of the primitive church, that their errors were not discovered; for if they had been contested (for that would have been called discovery enough), "vel errores emendassent, vel ab ecclesiâ ejecti fuissent." But it is better as it was; they went to heaven by that good fortune, whereas otherwise they might have gone to the devil. And yet there were some errors; particularly that of St. Cyprian, that was discovered; and he went to heaven, it is thought: possibly they might so too, for all this pretence. But suppose it true, yet, whether that declaration of an article, of which, with safety, we either might have doubted, or been ignorant, does more good than the damning of those many souls occasionally, but yet certainly and foreknowingly, does hurt, I leave it to all wise and good men to determine. And yet, besides this, it cannot enter into my thoughts, that it can possibly consist with God's

Vide Jacob. Almain. in 3. Sent. d. 25. Q. Unic. Dub. 3. Patet ergo, quod nulla veritas est catholica ex approbatione ecclesiæ vel papæ. Gabr. Biel. in 3. Sent. Dist. 25. q. Unic. art. 3. Dub. 3. ad finem.

Bellar. de Laicis, l. iii. c. 20. sect. ad Primam Confirmationem.

goodness, to put it into the power of man so palpably and openly to alter the paths and inlets to heaven, and to straiten his mercies, unless he had furnished these men with an infallible judgment, and an infallible prudence, and a neverfailing charity, that they should never do it but with great. necessity, and with great truth, and without human ends and designs; of which I think no arguments can make us certain, what the primitive church hath done in this case. I shall afterwards consider, and give an account of it; but, for the present, there is no insecurity in ending there where the apostles ended, in building where they built, in resting where they left us, unless the same infallibility which they had, had still continued, which, I think, I shall hereafter make evident it did not. And, therefore, those extensions of creed, which were made in the first ages of the church, although, for the matter, they were most true, yet because it was not certain that they should be so, and they might have been otherwise, therefore, they could not be in the same order of faith, nor in the same degrees of necessity to be believed with the articles apostolical; and, therefore, whether they did well, or no, in laying the same weight upon them, or whether they did lay the same weight or no, we will afterwards consider.

13. But to return. I consider that a foundation of faith cannot alter; unless a new building be to be made, the foundation is the same still; and this foundation is no other but that which Christ and his apostles laid, which doctrine is like himself, yesterday and to-day, and the same for ever. So that the articles of necessary belief to all (which are the only foundation), they cannot be several in several ages, and to several persons. Nay, the sentence and declaration of the church cannot lay this foundation, or make any thing of the foundation, because the church cannot lay her own foundation; we must suppose her to be a building, and that she relies upon the foundation, which is, therefore, supposed to be laid before, because she is built upon it; or, to make it more explicit, because a cloud may arise from the allegory of building and foundation, it is plainly thus: the church being a company of men obliged to the duties of faith and obedience, the duty and obligation, being of the faculties of will and understanding to adhere to such an object, must pre

suppose the object made ready for them; for as the object is before the act, in the order of nature, and, therefore, not to be produced or increased by the faculty, which being receptive, cannot be active upon its proper object; so the object of the church's faith is, in order of nature, before the church, or before the act and habit of faith, and, therefore, cannot be enlarged by the church, any more than the act of the visive faculty can add visibility to the object. So that if we have found out what foundation Christ and his apostles did lay, that is, what body and system of articles simply necessary they taught and required of us to believe, we need not, we cannot go any farther for foundation, we cannot enlarge that system or collection. Now then, although all that they said is true, and nothing of it to be doubted or disbelieved, yet, as all that they said is neither written or delivered (because all was not necessary), so we know that of those things which are written, some things are as far off from the foundation as those things which were omitted; and, therefore, although now accidentally they must be believed by all that know them, yet it is not necessary all should know them; and that all should know them in the same sense and interpretation, is neither probable nor obligatory; but, therefore, since these things are to be distinguished by some differences of necessary and not necessary,-whether or no, is not the declaration of Christ and his apostles, affixing salvation to the belief of some great comprehensive articles, and the act of the apostles rendering them as explicit as they thought convenient, and consigning that creed, made so explicit, as a tessera of a Christian, as a comprehension of the articles of his belief, as a sufficient disposition and an express of the faith of a 'catechumen,' in order to baptism: whether or no, I say, all this be not sufficient probation that these only are of absolute necessity, that this is sufficient for mere belief in order to heaven, and that, therefore, whosoever believes these articles heartily and explicitly, eòs Mével év aur, as St. John's expression is, "God dwelleth in him,”—I leave it to be considered and judged of from the premises. Only this: if the old doctors had been made judges in these questions, they would have passed their affirmative; for to instance in one for all,— of this it was said by Tertullian", "Regula quidem fidei una

Lib. de Veland. Virg.

omnino est sola immobilis et irreformabilis," &c. "Hâc lege fidei manente, cætera jam disciplinæ et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante scilicet, et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei:"This symbol is the one sufficient, immovable, unalterable, and unchangeable rule of faith, that admits no increment or decrement; but if the integrity and unity of this be preserved, in all other things men may take a liberty of enlarging their knowledges and prophesyings, according as they are assisted by the grace of God.'

SECTION II.

Of Heresy, and the Nature of it; and that it is to be accounted according to the strict Capacity of Christian Faith, and not in Opinions speculative, nor ever to pious Persons.

1. AND thus I have represented a short draught of the object of faith, and its foundation. The next consideration, in order to our main design, is to consider what was, and what ought to be, the judgment of the apostles concerning heresy for although there are more kinds of vices than there are of virtues, yet the number of them is to be taken by accounting the transgressions of their virtues, and by the limits of faith we may also reckon the analogy and proportions of heresy, that as we have seen who were called faithful by the apostolical men, we may also perceive who were listed by them in the catalogue of heretics, that we, in our judgments, may proceed accordingly.

2. And, first, the word heresy is used in Scripture indifferently; in a good sense, for a sect or division of opinion, and men following it; or sometimes in a bad sense, for a false opinion, signally condemned: but these kind of people. were then called Antichrists and false prophets, more frequently than heretics, and then there were many of them in the world. But it is observable that no heresies are noted ‘signanter' in Scripture, but such as are great errors practical, ‘in materiâ pietatis,' such whose doctrines taught impiety, or such who denied the coming of Christ directly or by consequence, not remote or withdrawn, but prime and immediate; and,