" At velut in somnis oculos ubi languida pressit Nocte quies, neqiiicquam avidos extendere cursus A''elle videmur, et in mediis conatibus tegri Succidimus." Virg. ^n. xii. 908.
Being destitute of any real foundation, your attempts are but like the fruitless endeavours of men in their sleep, wherein great work- ings of spirits and fancy produce no effects. I confess, notwithstand- ing all this, others may be moderate towards you ; I judge it their duty so to be, I desire they may be so ; but how you should exercise moderation towards others, I cannot so well discern. Only as unto the former, so much more am I relieved as unto this principle, from the persuasion I have of the candour and ingenuity of many indivi- dual persons of your profession, which will not suffer them to be capti- vated under the power of such corrupt prejudices as these. And for my part, if I could approve of external force in any case in matters of re- ligion, it would be against the promoters of the principle mentioned.
" Cogeudus "
" In mores lioinincnique C'rcou." Htatius, 'J'lieb. xii. 1(35.
PROTESTANT DOCTRINE ON UNITY OF FAITH. 257
When men, under pretence of zeal for religion, depose all sense of the laws of nature and humanity, some earnestness may be justified in unteaching them their untoward catechisms, which lie indeed not only against the design, spirit, principles, and letter of the gospel, but " terrarum leges et mundi foedera," — the very foundations of rea- son on which men coalesce into civil society. But, as we observed before, out of one of the ancients, " Force hath no place in or about the law of Christ," one way or other.
That which gave occasion unto this discourse was your insinuation of the Scripture's insufficiency for the settlement of men in the unity of faith, the contrary whereof being the great principle of Protestancy, I was willing a little to enlarge myself unto the consideration of your principles and ours, — not only with reference unto the unity of faith, but also as unto that moderation which you pretend to plead for, and the want whereof you charge on Protestants, premising it unto the ensuing discourse, wherein you will meet with a full and a direct answer unto your question.
CHAPTER VII.
Uiiity of faith, whei'ein it consists — Principles of Protestants as to the settling- men in religion and unity of faith, proposed and confirmed.
The next thing proposed as a good to be aimed at, is unity in faith, and settlement or infallible assurance therein. This is a good desirable for itself; whereas the moderation treated of is only a me- dium of rehef against other evils until this may be attained. And therefore, though it be, upon supposition of our differences, earnestly to be endeavoured after, yet it is not to be rested in, as though the utmost of our duty consisted in it, and we had no prospect beyond it. It is a catholic unity in faith which all Christians are to aim at; and so both you and we profess to do, only we differ both about the nature of it and the proper means of attaining it. For the nature of it, you conceive it to consist in the " explicit or imjjlicit belief of all things and doctrines determined on, taught, and proposed by your church [to] be believed, and nothing else (with faith supernatural) but what is so taught and proposed." But this description of the unity of faith we can by no means admit of: — 1. Because it is novel. It hath no footstep in, any writings of the apostles, nor of the first fathers or writers of the church, nor in the practice of the disciples of Christ for many ages. That the determination of the Roman church, and its proposal of things or articles to be believed, should be the ade- quate rule of faith unto all believers, is a matter as foreign unto all
VOL. XIV. 17
258 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
antiquity as that the prophecies of Montanus should be so. 2. Be- cause it makes the unity of faith, after the full and last revelation of the will of God, Jiux, alterable, and unstable, liable to increase and decrease; whereas it is uniform, constant, always the same in all ages, times, and places, since the finishing of the canon of the Scriptures. For we know, and all the world knows, that your church hath deter- mined many things lately — some %^js xa/ t/jw'/jv, as it were but yes- terday— to be believed, which itself had never before determined, and so hath increased the rule of faith, moved its centre, and extended its circumference ; and Avhat she may farther determine and propose to-morroAV, no man knows. And your duty it is to be ready to believe whatever she shall so propose; whereby you cannot certainly know unto your dying day whether you do believe all that may Ijelong to the unity of faith or no. Nay, — 3. Your church hath determined and proposed to be believed express contradictions : which determina- tions abiding on record, you are not agreed which of them to adhere unto ; as is manifest in your conciliary decrees about the power of the Pope and the Council, unto which of them the pre-eminence is due. Now, this is a strange rule of the unity of faith, that is not only ca- pable of increase, changes, and alterations, so that that may belong unto it one day which did not belong unto it another, — as is evident from your Tridentine decrees, wherein you made many things neces- sary to be believed which before were esteemed but probable, and were the subjects of sophistical altercations in 3^our schools, — but also compriseth in itself express contradictions; which cannot at all belong unto faith, because both of them may be false, one of them must be so ; nor to unity, because contrary and adverse. 4. Whereas holding " the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," or the unity of faith, is so great and imj)ortant a duty unto all Christians, that they can no way discharge their consciences unto God without a well-gi'ounded satisfaction that they live in the performance of it, this description of its nature renders it morally impossible for any man explicitly to know (and that only a man knows which he knows explicitly) that he doth answer his duty herein. For, (L) The determinations of your church of things to be believed are so many and various, that it is not within the compass of an ordinary diligence and ability to search and find them out. Nor, when a man hath done his utmost, can he obtain any tolerable security that there have not other determinations been made, that he is not as yet come to an acquaintance with all, or that he ever shall so do ; and how in this case he can have any satis- factory persuasion that he keeps the unity of faith, is not as yet made evident. (2.) In the determinations he may meet withal, or by any means come to the knowledge of, he is to receive and believe the things determined and proposed unto liim in the sense intended by the