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to the Pope, and to him only, the power to explain the definitions of the council, if any difference arise about the meaning of them. So that if there be any difference about the true fenfe and meaning of any of the definitions of the council, particular paftors have no authority to explain them; and where there is no doubt or difference about the meaning of them, there is no occafion for the explication of them.

2. But fuppofe they had authority to explain them, this can be no infallible security to the people, that they explain them right; both because particular paftors are fallible, and likewife because we fee in experience that they differ in their explications; witnefs the Bishop of Condom's expofition of the catholic faith, and of the definitions of the council of Trent, which is in many material points very different from that of Bellarmine, and many other famous doctors of that church. And which is more, witnefs the many differences betwixt Ambrofius, Catha rinus and Dominicus à Soto, about the definitions of that council, in which they were both prefent, and heard the debates, and themselves bore a great part in them. Now, if they who were prefent at the framing of the definitions of that council, cannot a gree about the meaning of them, much lefs can it be expected from thofe that were absent.

Secondly, This provifion which I have mentioned, is likewife as good a way to prevent and put an end to controverfies in religion, fo far as it is neceffary they should be prevented, or have an end put to them, as any infallible church would be, if there were one. And this is another reafon why an infallible church is fo much infifted upon, that there may be fome way and means for a final decifion of controverfies, which the fcriptures cannot be, because they are only a dead rule, which can end no controverfy without a living judge ready at hand, to interpret and apply that rule upon emergent occafions.

It is not neceffary that all controverfies in religion fhould either be prevented or decided: This the church which pretends to be infallible cannot pretend to have done; because there are manifold controver

hes even in the church of Rome herfelf, concerning matters of religion, which still remain undecided; and in their commentaries upon fcripture, many dif ferences about the fenfe of feveral texts concerning which she hath not thought fit to give an infallible interpretation. And where their Popes, and feveral of their general councils, have thought fit to meddle with fcripture, they have applied and interpreted texts more improperly and abfurdly than even their private doctors. And, which is more, in differences about points of faith, which are pretended on both fides to be fundamental, this church hath not thought fit to put an end to them by her infallible decifion, after two hundred years brangling about them. For instance, in that fierce and long difference about the immaculate conception of the bleffed Virgin, which, on both fides, is pretended to be an article of faith,. and for which, contrary revelations of their canonized faints are so frequently pretended; and yet neither Pope, nor general council, have thought fit to exert their infallibility for the decifion of this controverfy fo that if their church had this talent of infallibility ever committed to them, they have, with the flothful fervant, laid it up in a napkin; and according to our Saviour's rule, have long fince for-feited it, for not making ufe of it.

And whereas it is pretended, that the fcripture is but a dead rule, which can end no controverfies without a living judge ready at hand to interpret and apply that rule upon emergent occafions; the fame objection lies against them, unless a general council, which is their living judge, were always fitting; for the definitions of their councils in writing are liable to the fame, and greater objections than the written rule of the scriptures.

The fum of all is this. In differences about leffer matters, mutual charity and forbearance will fecure the peace of the church, though the differences remain undecided; and in greater matters, an infallible rule fearched into with an honest mind, and due diligence, and with the help of good inftruction, is more likely to extinguish and put an end to fuch dif ferences,

ferences, than any infallible judge, if there were one; because an humble and honest mind is more likely to yield to reason, than a perverse and cavilling temper is to fubmit to the fentence of an infallible judge, unlefs it were backed with an inquifition. The church 'of Rome fuppofeth herself infallible, and yet notwithstanding that, fhe finds that fome queftion and deny her infallibility, and then her fentence fignifies nothing. And of thofe who own it, many difpute the fense and meaning of her fentence; and whether they deny the infallibility of her fentence, or difpute the fenfe of it, in neither of thefe cafes will it prove effectual to the deciding of any difference.

But after all this provifion which we pretend God hath made for honeft and fincere minds, do we not fee that men fall into dangerous and damnable errors, who yet cannot, without great uncharitableness, be fuppofed not to be fincerely defirous to know the truth, and to do the will of God?

To this I fhall briefly return these two things:

1. That the fame errors are not equally damnable to all. The innocent, and (humanly fpeaking) almost invincible prejudices of education in fome perfons even against a fundamental truth; the different capacities of men, and the different means of conviction afforded to them; the greater and leffer degrees of obftinacy, and a faulty will in oppofing the truths proposed to them; all these, and perhaps feveral other confiderations befidês, may make a great difference in the guilt of mens errors, and the danger of them.

2. When all is done, the matter must be left to God, who only knoweth the hearts of the children of men. We cannot fee into the hearts of men, nor know all their circumftances, and how they may have provoked God to forfake them, and give them up to error and delufion, because they would not receive the truth in the love of it, that they might be faved. And as on the one hand God will confider all mens circumstances, and the disadvantages they were under for coming to the knowledge of the truth, and make allowance to men for their invincible errors,

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and forgive them upon a general repentance: fo, on the other hand, he who fees the infincerity of men, and that the errors of their understandings did proceed from grofs faults of their lives, will deal with them accordingly. But if men be honest and fincere, God, who hath faid if any man will do his will, he fhall know of the doctrine, will certainly be as good as his word.

It now remains only to draw fome inferences from this difcourfe, and they fhall be thefe three.

Firft, From this text, and what hath been discour. fed upon it, we may infer how flender and ill-grounded the pretence of the church of Rome to infallibility is, whether they place it in the Pope, or in a general council, or in both. The laft is the most gene. ral opinion; and yet it is hard to underftand how infallibility can refult from the Pope's confirmation of a general council, when neither the council was infallible in framing its definitions, nor the Pope in confirming them. If the council were infallible in framing them, then they needed no confirmation: if they were not, then infallibility is only in the Pope that confirms them, and then it is the Pope only that is infallible. But no man that reads thefe words of our Saviour, If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, would ever imagine that the Bithop of Rome (whoever he fhall happen to be) were fecured from all fatal errors in matters of faith, much less that he were endowed with an infallible spirit in judging what doctrines are from God, and what not, For it cannot be denied, but that many of their Popes have been notorioufly wicked and vicious in their lives: Nay, Bellarmine himself acknowledgeth, that for a fucceffion of fifty Popes together, there was not one pious and virtuous man that fat in that chair; and fome of their Popes have been condemned and depofed for herefy; and yet, for all this, the Pope, and the governing part of that church, would bear the world in hand that he is infallible. But if this faying of our Saviour be true, that if any man will do his will, he shall know of his doctrine, whether it be of God; then every honeft man that fincerely de

fires to do the will of God, hath a fairer pretence to infallibility, and a clearer text for it, than is to be found in the whole Bible for the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome. What would the church of Rome give, that there were but as express a text in fcripture for the infallibility of their Popes, as this is for the fecurity of every good man, in his judgement of doctrines; which makes infallibility needlefs? What an infufferable noife, and what endless triumphs would they make upon it, if it had been any where faid in the Bible, That if any man be the Bishop of Rome, and fit in St Peter's chair, he shall know of my doc. trine, whether it be of God? Had there been but fuck a text as this, we fhould never have been troubled with their impertinent citation of texts, and their remote and blind inferences from pafce oves, and fuper hanc petram; feed my sheep: and upon this rock will I build my church; to prove the Pope's infallibility. And yet no man of fenfe or reafon ever extended the text I am fpeaking to, fo far as to attempt to prove from it the infallibility of every good man; but only his fecurity from fatal errors and mistakes in religion. The largest promises that are made in fcripture of fecurity from error and mistake about divine things, are made to good men, who fincerely defire to do the will of God. And if this be fo, we must conclude feveral Popes to have been the farthest from infallibility of any men in the world. And indeed there is not a more compendious way to perfuade men that the Chriftian religion is a fable, than to fet up a lewd and vicious man for the oracle of it.

Nay, I will go farther yet; that there are no other promifes made in fcripture, of direction or affiftance, or fecurity from mistake, to any church, but the fame are made in as full and exprefs terms to every good man that fincerely defires to know the truth, and to practise it. Is it promifed to the church, or to the paftors of it, I will be with you always? and hath not our Saviour promifed the fame to every one that is obedient to his word, John xiv. 23. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abste VOL. V.

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