SOO A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX,
In brief, from the day wlierein man was first created vipon the earth, to the days wherein we live, never did a person or church yield any obedience, or perform any acceptable worship unto God, but what was founded on and regulated by his word, given unto them ante- cedently unto their obedience and worship, to be the sole foundation and rule of it. That you have no concernment in what is or may be truly spoken of the church, we shall afterward show ; but it is not for the interest of truth that we should suffer you, without control, to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men, especially when you pretend to direct them unto a settlement in religion. Alike true is it that "the church gives authority unto the Scripture." Every true church, indeed, gives witness or testimony unto it; and it is its duty so to do. It holds it forth, declares and manifests it, so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all; which is one main end of the institution of the church in this world. But the church no more gives authority to the Scripture than it gives authority to God him- self. He requires of men the discharge of that duty which he hath assigned unto thein, but stands not in need of their suffrage to con- firm his authority. It was not so, indeed, with the idols of old, of whom Tertullian said rightly, " Si deus homini non placuerit, deus non erit." The reputation of their deity dejDended on the testimony of men, as you say that of Christ's doth on the authority of the pope. But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity, having showed already that the Scripture hath all its authority, both in itself and in reference unto us, from him whose word it is ; and we have also made it appear that your assertions to the contrary are meet for nothing but to open a door unto all irreligiousness, profane- ness, and atheism; so that there is ohhh vytsg, — "nothing sound or savoury," — nothing which a heart careful to preserve its loyalty unto God will not nauseate at, — nothing not suited to oppugn the funda- mentals of Christian religion in this your position. This groimd well fixed, you tell us, —
II. " That the church is infallible, or cannot err in what she teacheth to be believed." And we ask you what church you mean, and how far you intend that it is infallible? The only knoiun church which was then in the world was in the wilderness, when Moses was in the mount. Was it infallible vv^hen it made the golden calf, and danced about it, proclaiming a feast unto Jehovah before the calf? Was the same church afterward infallible in the days of the judges, when it zuorshipj^ed Baalim and Ashtaroth? or in the days of Jero- boam, when it sacrificed be/ore the calves at Dan and Bethel? or in the other branch of it in the days of Ahaz, when the high priest set up an altar in the temple for the king to offer sacrifice unto the gods of Damascus? or in the days of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, when the
PEIXCIPLES OF PAPISTS ON THE UNITY OF FAITH. 301
high priest, with the rest of the priests, imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God? or when they pre- ferred the worship of the qveen of heaven before that of the God of Abraham? Or was it infallible when the high priest, with the whole council or sanhedrim of the church, judicially condemned, as far as in them lay, their own Messiah, and rejected the gospel that was preached unto them? You must inform us what other church was then in the world, or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your general maxim is of the church's absolute infallibility. As far, in- deed, as it attends unto the infallible rule given unto it it is so, but not one jot farther. Moreover, we desire to know what church you mean in your assertion, or, rather, what is it you mean by the church ? Do you intend the mystical church, or the Avhole num^ber of God's elect in all ages, or in any age, militant on the earth, which princi- pally is the church of God? Eph. v. 25 ; or do you intend the whole diffused body of the disciples of Christ in the world, separated to God by baptism and the profession of saving truth, which is the church catiiolic visible? or do you mean any particular church, as the Roman or Constantinopolitan, the French, Dutch, or English church? If you intend the first of these, or the church in the first sense, we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible, — that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce, lose, or forsake that faith without which they cannot please God and be saved : this the Scripture teacheth, this Austin confirmeth in a hundred places. If you intend the church in the second sense, Vv^e grant that also so far unerring and infallible, as that there ever was and ever shall be in the world a nuniber of men making profession of the saving truth of the gospel, and yielding professed subjection unto our Lord Jesus Christ according unto it ; wherein consists his visible kingdom in this world, that never was, that never can be, utterly overthrown. If you speak of a church in the last sense, then we tell you that no such church is, by virtue of any promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, freed from erring, yea, so far as to deny the fundamentals of Christi- anity, and thereby to lose the very being of a church. Whilst it continues a church it cannot err fundamentally, because such errors destroy the verv^ being of a church; but those who were once a church, by their failing in the truth, may cease to be so any longer. And a church as such may so fail, though every person in it do not so ; for the individual members of it, that are so also of the mystical church, shall be presei'ved in its apostasy. And so the mystical church and the catholic church of professors may be continued, though all particular churches should fail. So that no person, the church in no sense, is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errors : that is the condition we shall attain in heaven ; here,