An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry, Treatise · Part 1 · Objection 24
Obj. 24. Agreement with the Church of Rome is more desirable on the terms described by Dr. Heylin in A. B. Lauds life, and you would make it impossible?
Ans. We are for a just concord with all Christians; but true Popery we cannot agree with; and as to Papists they are but a part (a third or fourth part saith your Primate Bishop Bramhall) of the Catholick Church. We must unite with the whole Church, or else we are Schismaticks. To embody in the faction of the Papists is as Schismatical, as to do it with a smaller faction. And if you will unite with all Christians, I still say, you must unite on Vinc. Lirinensis terms, on that which all Christians are agreed in, that indeed deserve the name of Christians.
Now if you establish your concord on the Scripture, and on universal terms, all Christians in the world will confess that your Religion, yea all your Religion is certain truth, and that it hath also all things universally necessary to Salvation; and this is a fair degree of unity, though they say that yet you want their Traditions. And then you can tell a Papist quickly, where your Religion was before Luther, Even where ever the Scripture was received. And you do not wilfully and resolvedly cut off your selves from Communion with all the Protestant Churches, who do not hold the Traditions and Decrees of Rome. But you are united with all the Christians in the world in Christianity, and so far as they have any union among themselves. And then all those that will needs go further, do run the hazard of their own additions. We will live in peace with them, if they will live in peace with us. But if the Papists be such men, that they will hold no communion with any that hold not all their Religion, that is, all the Decrees of their Councils, than neither Abassines, Armenians, Greeks, nor Protestants can be received into their Communion. And do you think it desirable to comply and embody with them in such a schism and factious combination against all the rest of the Churches of God? If you will deal like Christians, Catholicks and wise men, let us first be as moderate as may be in our Doctrinals, and not pretend that we are further disagreed with Papists or any other Christians than indeed we are. I am one of those who believe that in many Doctrines, quarrelsome ignorant men have made differences where there are none; and have made those that be seem, wider than they are; cut off these superfluities and spare not; and then reduce your terms of Union and Communion to the Primitive simplicity of Doctrine, Worship, and Discipline; and if any will have more, let it be a matter of liberty and not of necessity; or if they will not be limited as we are, let them take their scope. Or if you your selves will needs have more, yet hold it with liberty, as matter of conveniency, and not of necessity to the union or communion of the Church. If you will take this course, we shall deny Papists no love, no peace, no communion with us on our terms (which they justifie for the truth of them) in our Churches. And if they will fly from us, and refuse our Communion, or will put unlawful terms on us, and drive us from them, we shall have no accusation for this by our consciences, or any wise man. He is the Schismatick that maketh communion impossible by his Additions or Impositions, or runs away from those that will not receive all his Supernumeraries. Usurpation is the peace breaker in the Church of God. Christs sheep know his voice and follow him; but they will not be so obedient to an unknown voice. Why cannot a man be content to be a Lord Bishop, and to have many hundred or thousand pound a year, for promoting the preaching and practice of Christianity, and for punishing Hereticks, rebels, drunkards, sensualists, &c. and serve God himself with what garb, or forms, or ceremonies he please, as well as to have the same wealth and honour, to prosecute much wiser and better men than himself, with a burning zeal, for not swearing obedience to him, or for not subscribing that his Books are faultless, or for not wearing a Surplice, or signing Children with the transient Image of the Cross.
But we must suppose that we cannot make Papists to be Protestants; If they will not turn Protestants, and we will not turn Papists, the contrivance or supposition of a turn, or half-turn, is but a vain imagination, not the way to unity and peace. We must take them as they are, and they must take us as we are, and we must take all the Christian Churches as they are, in our design for concord, if we will do any good in it. The question is not how, or how far we shall change one anothers minds, or be changed, but how we shall maintain so much love and peace as is due to one another in the capacity that we are in; and how far we shall endure the different opinions and practices of another to such an end. And such a Conciliator with Rome I would be my self, and magnifie the design as much as Heylin doth, and be as zealous in it as Grotius, Laud or Forbes were in theirs. For it is but the service of Love and Peace, and that is certainly the service of God. I would treat with any Papists on such a design. If peevish or suspious Protestants should try out on me, and defame me for such a design, (as some have done) I would no more regard it than the crying of a child. If Christian Princes would make such a Treaty their business by their Embassadors, that Love and Liberty might be regulated by the just rules of Equality, and not be pretended only by a faction for their own ends, even by them that will seek Liberty but will not give it, I would bless God for such Princes, and for so good a work. And I would be (and am) ready to manifest to all wise impartial men, whose Religion is Love and not Malice under the name of Zeal, that in many Doctrines that we are by some supposed to differ in Fundamentals, ignorance hath feigned the difference to be doubly greater than it is. And I think many of Forbes and Spalato's Arguments (in his very Learned Books de Republ. Eccles.) to be worthy the serious study of every Learned man. I know Luther took the Doctrine of uncertainty of Salvation alone, to be cause enough of our unreconcileableness with Rome; and yet I know as well, that it is not one godly person of many, yea very many of them that are farthest from the Papists, who do say that they are certain of their own Salvation. I know that many excellent Protestants have made it the sense of that article of the Creed, I believe that my own sins are pardoned, and say that this Proposition, My sins are pardoned, is de fide Divina And yet I know that in propriety and strictness of speech (which should be used in Controversies) it is not true. I know that many of the School-mens assertions are commonly rejected as erroneous, because they are not commonly understood. I know that Luther maketh the Doctrine of Justification to be Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae; and yet I know that Ludovicus le Blank of Sedan in his Theses hath greatly narrowed the difference, and understands it much better than Luther seemeth to have done. Which I may say also of Bucer, Conradus Bergius, (In Praxi Cathol.) Ludov. Crocius, and many other such Conciliators. And that Luther on the Galatians is so acceptable to the Antinomians, that I conceive divers passages in it have need of as candid an foreign as the Doctrine of Scotus, and many Papists on that point. I am my self a Christian, and that is my Religion; and I own the name Protestant for no greater reason than because it is the Protestant Religion to be meer Christians, and to protest against the Roman Superadditions, and depravations of it. And so to be a Protestant, and to be a meer Christian adhering to Scripture sufficiency as the test and terms of Union and Communion, are all one. Yea, if any one doubted of the Canonicalness of the Canticles, Esther, or some one or few Books, and acknowledg the main body of the Scriptures and the ancient articles of faith I would not cast such a one from my Communion. And these terms or none (I have foretold it you oft) must heal the Church if ever it be healed.
And till the Papists will see the equity of these terms, it is our great advantage that the certain truth of all our Religion is so fully acknowledged.
But, 2. as long as we let others alone with their additions, why may they not live in peace with us, and let us alone without them? All men are united in the Essentials of Humanity, though they are not all of one complection, stature or degree of strength. And if any be so peevish that he will associate with none that are not of his own complection, the separation is the effect of his folly, which may possibly be cured; and till it be cured, both the fault and the suffering is his own. If a Law were made that none shall live in the Kings Dominions but men of a Sanguine complection, and of a strait and comely person, and of such a proportion of tallness and of strength, and of flaxen hair, this Law would necessitate a separation and diminution of the Kings subjects from generation to generation. But if the Law be that all English men that will live after the rules of Reason, Honesty, and Society, shall have the priviledges of subjects, if an hundred thousand had got a conceit that they may not lawfully be of the same Kingdom with any but men of their own complection and stature as aforesaid, this is a cureable folly; and the Law-makers may say, we have done our parts for universal society, and it is not we that make it impossible, or hinder it, and men in time may come to reason. We refuse not them, but they refuse us. If you make things necessary, and of common agreement to be your terms of Union, Greeks, Abassines, Armenians Romans, may take their own way, and every one without injury enjoy his own (be it wisdom or folly) upon these terms. But if you unite upon any other terms, you make Laws for schism, even for the exclusion of all that are not of your mind. For Hales his Doctrine is true in the judgment of all men save the guilty, that the Imposer of unnecessary doubtful things is the Schismatick, or cause of all the schism. So that there is no true union to be expected with Rome or any others, but on the terms of primitive simplicity, or which all true Christians are agreed in. And they are no good terms which induce the authors through the force of interest, to say that none in the world are good Christians, that are not of their cut and strain, and wear not their livery, and lace not their coats in the Imposers mode.
4 And as long as we take nothing from the men of various modes and fashions, by unity in the Essentials of Humanity and Christianity, to imagine that it is the way to union to force all Dissenters to their modes, is but to renounce union, and to gratifie a distant party so far as to make them laugh at us as fools, and hope ere long to get us at their mercy, and thereby to lose, disoblige and destroy those that are nearer to us, and would indeed be our friends and strength; and to become enemies to our own families, rather than to displease the people of France by not wearing their fashions.
5. And if you had attained a seeming union with the Papists, you are not sure it will hold seven year. For their Religion still thriveth, and thereby changeth, and is yet far short of its maturity in all likelihood. For General Councils make their Religion; and who knoweth how many General Councils (of forty Bishops perhaps like that at Trent, for a great part of the time) there may yet be, and what alterations of Religion they may make? And are you sure you can go along with them in all as far as they will go? If you must break at last, unite not on such mutable terms at first.
But there's no talking to men whose interest and passion, and partiality is the maker of their Religion. It is not my purpose to speak any of this, either to one of Grotius's mind (if Saraviad, and the Book called Grotius Papirans be credible, or if he be that man that wrote the Discussio Apolog. Rivet; who would have us unite upon the acceptance of all the Councils even that of Trent) nor to such as come as near them as Mr. Thorndike, nor any of that degree of affinity. For I suppose they are already gone out of the hearing of such a voice as mine.
Yet still remember that I am not setting a Law, (no not Christs Law) to your selves for the rule of your own opinions or practices. If you will please the Papists by coming yet nearer them (even nearer than the learned Forbes Bishop of Edenburgh did), if you will have more of their Doctrine, Discipline and Worship, take it if it will do you any good? But why must all others needs be of your judgment? or those be of your way that are not of your judgment? And why cannot you unite with the Papists (if you will) without destroying the Protestants, or renouncing them. Unite in things necessary, and hold and use the rest as matters of liberty, and it will better attain your just ends than violence can do.