Concerning Idolatry in the Church of Rome, Points of agreement
Principles Agreed on both sides.
1. THat there is a God from whom man, and all other Creatures had their Being.
2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect, and therefore Justice, Goodness, Wisdom, and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection.
3. That man receiving his Being from God, is thereby bound to obey his will, and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience.
4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God, it is necessary that he know what it is; for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary, both that man may know what he hath to do, and that God may justly punish him if he do it not.
5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true, and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will.
6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice, Wisdom, Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of, to make known his will unto man by.
These thing being agreed on both sides, we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind.
1. AN entire obedience to the will of God being agreed, to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary, to that end, than such whereby man may know what the will of God is.
2. Man being framed a rational Creature, capable of reflecting upon himself, may antecedently to any external Revelation, certainly know the Being of God, and his dependence upon him; and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him, else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature, or any principles of Natural Religion.
3. All supernatural and external Revelation, must suppose the truth of natural Religion; for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God, and that we are capable of knowing him, it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means.
4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation. For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation.
5. There can be no other means imagined, whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation, but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief, which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation, we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so.
6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men, must be Judged in the same way, that the truth of a Divine Revelation is, for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance, and for that end to assure men what the will of God is, the same means must be used for the trial of that, as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men.
7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us, we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others, but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen: and whatever he hath done, we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice, Wisdome, Goodness, and Truth.
8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us, may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind; so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove, that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by, but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us.
9. There are several wayes conceivable by us, how God may make known his Will to us, either by immediate voice from Heaven, or inward inspiration to every particular person; or inspiring some to speak personally to others, or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books, which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages.
10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing, it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end, or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted; the former is repugnant to common sense, for words are equally capable of being understood, spoken, or written, the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God.
11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations, yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages, and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ.
12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible, and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since, they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith; whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation, unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God, that they were never intended for that end, because of their obscurity or imperfection.
13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God, yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him, we may justly say, that it is repugnant to the nature of the design, and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will, for the benefit of Mankind, if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation.
14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect, i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them, is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud, and not delivering his whole mind, or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down, and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly, in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation.
15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed, that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation; there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians, any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews, to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets.
16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians, than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance, as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles, without giving an equal degree of evidence, that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did, viz. by miracles as great, publick, and convincing as theirs were, by which I mean, such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility, and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it.
17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings, and to interpret them, and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings, from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced, such an assistance not being supposed; or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men, is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from whence only they derive their infallibility.
18. There can be no hazard to any person in mistaking the meaning of any particular place in those books, supposing he use, the best means for understanding them, comparable to that which every one runs, who believes any person or society of men to be infallible who are not: for in this latter he runs unavoidably into one great errour, and by that may be led into a thousand, but in the former God hath promised either he shall not erre, or he shall not be damned for it.
19. The assistance which God hath promised to those who sincerely desire to know his will, may give them greater assurance of the truth of what is contained in the bookes of Scripture, than it is possible for the greatest infallibility in any other persons to doe, supposing they have not such assurance of their infallibility.
20. No mans faith can therefore be infallible meerly because the Proponent is said to be infallible; because the nature of Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us, but is agreeable to the evidence we have of it in our minds; for assent is not built on the nature of things but their evidence to us.
21. It is therefore necessary in order to an infallible assent, that every particular person be infallibly assisted in Judging of the matters proposed to him to be believed, so that the ground on which a necessity of some external infallible Proponent is asserted, must rather make every particular person infallible, if no divine faith can be without an infallible assent, and so renders any other infallibility useless.
22. If no particular person be infallible in the assent he gives to matters proposed by others to him, then no man can be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible; and so the Churches infallibility can signifie nothing to our infallible assurance without an equal infallibility in our selves in the belief of it.
23. The infallibility of every particular person being not asserted by those, who plead for the infallibility of a Church, and the one rendring the other useless (for if every person be infallible, what need any representative Church to be so) and the infallibility of a Church being of no effect, if every person be not infallible in the belief of it, we are farther to inquire what certainty men may have in matters of faith, supposing no external proponent to be infallible.
24. There are different degrees of certainty to be attained according to the different degrees of evidence, and measure of divine assistance; but every Christian by the use of his reason, and common helps of Grace may attain to so great a degree of certainty, from the convincing arguments of the Christian Religion and authority of the Scriptures, that on the same grounds on which men doubt of the truth of them, they may as well doubt of the truth of those things which they Judge to be most evident to sense or reason.
25. No man who firmly assents to any thing as true, can at the same time entertaine any suspition of the falshood of it, for that were to make him certain and uncertain of the same thing: it is therefore absurd to say, that those who are certain of what they believe, may at the same time not know but it may be false, which is an apparent contradiction and overthrowes any faculty in us of judging of truth or falshood.
26. Whatever necessarily proves a thing to be true, doth at the same time prove it impossible to be false; because it is impossible the same thing should be true and false at the same time. Therefore they who assent firmly to the doctrine of the Gospel as true, doe thereby declare their belief of the Impossibility of the falshood of it.
27. The nature of certainty doth receive several names, either according to the nature of the proof or the degrees of the assent. Thus moral certainty may be so called, either as it is opposed to Mathematical evidence, but implying a firme assent upon the highest evidence, that Moral things can receive: or as it is opposed to a higher degree of certainty in the same kind; so Moral certainty implies only greater probabilities of one side than the other; in the former sense we assert the certainty of Christian faith to be moral, but not only in the latter.
28. A Christian being thus certain to the highest degree of a firme assent that the Scriptures are the word of God, his faith is thereby resolved into the Scriptures as into the rule and measure of what he is to believe, as it is into the veracity of God as the ground of his believing what is therein contained.
29. No Christian can be obliged under any pretence of infallibility to believe any thing as a matter of faith, but what was revealed by God himself in that book wherein he believes his will to be contained, and consequently is bound to reject whatsoever is offered to be imposed upon his faith, which hath no foundation in Scripture, or is contrary thereto; which rejection is no making Negative Articles of faith, but only applying the general grounds of faith to particular instances, as because I believe nothing necessary to salvation, but what is contained in Scripture, therefore no such particular things which neither are there nor can be deduced thence.
30. There can be no better way to prevent mens mistakes in the sense of Scripture, (which men being fallible are subject to) than the considering the consequence of mistaking in a matter wherein their salvation is concerned: And there can be no sufficient reason given why that may not serve in matters of faith, which God himself hath made use of, as the means to keep men from sin in their lives: unless any imagine that errours in opinion are far more dangerous to mens souls, than a vitious life is, and therefore God is bound to take more care to prevent the one than the other.
It followeth that,
1. There is no necessity at all, or use of an infallible Society of men to assure men of the truth of those things, which they may be certain without, and cannot have any greater assurance, supposing such infallibility to be in them.
2. The infallibility of that Society of men, who call themselves the Catholick Church, must be examined by the same faculties in man, the same rules of tryal, the same motives by which the infallibility of any divine revelation is.
3. The less convincing the miracles, the more doubtful the marks, the more obscure the sense of either what is called the Catholick Church or declared by it, the less reason hath any Christian to believe upon the account of any who call themselves by the name of the Catholick Church.
4. The more absurd any opinions are and repugnant to the first principles of sense and reason, which any Church obtrudes upon the faith of men, the greater reason men still have to reject the pretence of infallibility in that Church as a grand imposture.
5. To disown what is so taught by such a Church, is not to question the veracity of God, but so firmly to adhere to that, in what he hath revealed in Scriptures, that men dare not out of love to their souls reject what is so taught.
6. Though nothing were to be believed as the will of God, but what is by the Catholick Church declared to be so, yet this doth not at all concern the Church of Rome, which neither is the Catholick Church, nor any sound part or member of it. This may suffice to shew the validity of the principles on which the faith of Protestants stands, and the weakness of those of the Church of Rome. From all which it followes, that it can be nothing but willful Ignorance, weakness of Judgement, strength of prejudice, or some sinful passion, which makes any one forsake the Communion of the Church of England, to embrace that of the Church of Rome.
The End.
End of the text · Edward Stillingfleet, Concerning Idolatry in the Church of Rome (1671)