The letter writ by the last Assembly General of the Clergy of France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their communion together with the methods proposed by them for their conviction / translated into English, and examined by Gilbert Burnet.

Remarks.

THe first part of this Article pro∣ceeds upon Veron's Method of putting us to prove our Doctrines by express words of Scripture, but some more cautious person has added in the conclusion a Salvo for good conse∣quences drawn from them; upon which we yield that this is a very good Method, and are ready to joyn issue upon it. If they intend still to build upon that notion of express words, we desire it may be considered, that the true meaning of all passages is not to be taken only from the bare words, but from the contexture of the Dis∣course, and the design upon which they are made use of; and that Rule of Logick being infallibly true, That what things soever agree in any third thing, they do also agree among themselves, it is certain that a true consequence is as good a proof as a formal passage. Thus did our Saviour prove the Resur∣rection from the Scriptures by a very remote consequence, since God was

said to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and was the God of the Living and not of the Dead. So did the Apostles prove Christ's being the promised Messias, and the obligation to observe the Mosaical Ceremonies to have ceased upon his coming, by many consequences, but not by the ex∣press words of Scripture. All the argu∣ings of the Fathers against the Hereti••ks run on Consequences drawn from Scri∣pture, as may appear in all their Sy∣nodical Letters, more particularly in that formerly cited of Pope Leo to Fla∣vian, to which the Fourth General Council assented. This Plea does very ill become men that pretend such reve∣rence to Antiquity, since it was that upon which all the Ancient Hereticks set up their strength, as the most plau∣sible pretence by which they thought they could cover themselves. So the a Arians at Arimini give this reason for rejecting the word Consubstantial, be∣cause it was not in the Scriptures. The b Macedonians laid hold of the same pretence. c Nestor••us gives this as his chief reason for denying the Virgin to be the Mother of God: And d Eutyches covered himself also with this question, In what Scripture were the two Natures of

Christ to be found? And his followers did afterwards insist so much on this Plea, that Theodoret wrote two large Discourses on purpose to shew the weakness of this pretence. So that af∣ter all the noise they make about the Primitive Church, they follow the same tract in which the Hereticks that were condemned by the first four Ge∣neral Councils, went; and they put us to do the same thing that the He∣reticks then put on the Orthodox: But we make the same answer to it which the Fathers did, That the sense of the Scriptures is to be considered more than the words: So that what is according to the true sense, is as much proved by Scripture, as if it were con∣tained in it in so many express words. And yet this Plea had a much greater strength in it, as it was managed by those Hereticks; for those contests be∣ing concerning mysteries which ex∣ceed our apprehensions, it was not an unreasonable thing at first view to say, that in such things which we cannot perfectly comprehend, it is not safe to proceed by deductions or consequences, and therefore it seemed safer to hold strictly to Scripture Phrases, but in other points into which our understandings

can carry us further, it is much more absurd to exact of us express words of Scripture.

2. Most of the points about which we dispute with the Church of Rom••, are additions made by them to the sim∣plicity of the Christian Religion. So much as we own of the Christian Re∣ligion they own likewise. In the other particulars, our Doctrine with relation to them is made up of Negatives, and theirs is the affirmative; and since all Negatives, especially in matters of Re∣ligion prove themselves, it falls to their share to prove those Additions which they have made to our Faith, and to the Doctrine contained in the Scri∣ptures.

3. Though this is a sure Maxime, yet our Plea is stronger, for there are many things taught by them against the express words of Scripture; as their worshipping Images, their no•• drinking all of the Cup, their worship∣ping of Angels, their not worshipping God in a tongue which the unlearned understand, and to which they can say, Amen; their setting up more Mediato•••• between God and us than one: Where∣as S. Paul exhorting us to make Prayer•• to God, tells us there is one M••di••¦tor,

which shews that he spake there his single Intercession with God on our behalf.

4. We do not only build our Do∣ctrine upon some few passages of the Scripture, in which perhaps a Critical Writer might easily raise much dust, but upon that in which we cannot be so easily mistaken, which is the main scope of the whole New Testament, and the design of Christianity, which we believe is reversed in their Church by the Idolatry and Superstition that is in it.

5. As for the particulars which they call on us to prove, as they are very few, so scarce any of them is of the greatest consequence. The first is a speculative point, about which we would never have broke Communi∣on with them. For the second, that we receive Christ only by Faith, if the third is true, that the Sacra∣ment is still Bread, then that must be also true: Now S. Paul calls it so four several times, as also our Saviour calls the Cup the Fruit of the Vine. As for our denying Purgatory, it is a Ne∣gative, and they must prove it. Nor should we have broken Communion, for their opinion concerning it, if they

had not added to that, the redeeming Souls out of it with Masses, by which the Worship is corrupted, contrary to the institution of the Sacrament. And for the last, in the sense in which ma∣ny of them assert it, we do not raise any Controversie about it, for we know that God rewards our good works, or rather crowns his own Grace in us.

Notes

• a

  Athan. de Syn. Arim. & Sel••uc. Hilary de Synod. Au∣eust. lib. 3. cont. Maxim. cap. 3. & Ep. 74, & 78.
• b

  Nazianz. O∣rat. 37.
• c

  Act. Syn. Eph. Action 1.
• d

  Act. 6. Syn. Const. in Act. 2. Syn. Chalced.