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.

IT is not unwisely done to call this a Method that is to pass without dispute, for it will not bear one: And 1. There is this difference between the principles of Protestants and those of the Church of Rome, that whereas the latter are bound to justifie whatever has been decreed in a General Council as a rule either of Faith or Manners; the sor∣mer are not so tied, and much less are they bound by the decision of a National Council, though never so solemn. It is na∣tural for all Judicatories to raise their own authority as high as they can, and so if any Synod has made any such Decla∣ration, it lies on them to justifie it, but the rest of those who have separated from the corruptions of the Church of Rome are not concerned in it.

2. The principle of Protestants, with relation to the majority even in a Ge∣neral Council, is, That when any Doctrines are established or condemned upon the Authorities of the Scriptures, those who differ from them, and do think ••hat the Council misunderstood the Scri∣ptures are bound to suspect themselves a little, and to review the matter with

greater application, and not to adhere to their former opinions out of pride or obstinacy: They are also bound to consider well of their opinions, though they appear still to be true, yet if ••hey are of that importance that the publish∣ing them is necessary to Salvation; for unless it is so, the Peace of the Church is not to be rent by them: Yet if they are required to profess that they believe opinions which they think false, if t••ey were never so inconsiderable, no man ought to go against his Conscience: But if a man after his strictest enqui∣ries, is still persuaded that a Council has decreed against the true meaning of the Scriptures, in a point necessary to Salvation, then he must prefer God to Man, and follow the sounder, though it should prove to be the much lesser party: And if any Company or Synod of Protestants have decreed any thing contrary to this, in so far they have departed from the Protestant princi∣ples.

3. Difference is to be made also be∣tween Heresie and Schism in a Legal and a Vulgar sense, and what is truly such in the sight of God. The Sen∣tence of a Supream Court from which there lies no Appeal, makes one le∣gally

a Criminal: But if he is inno∣cent, he is not the less innocent be∣cause a hard Sentence is past against him. So Heresie and ••chism may take their denominations from the Sentence of a National or General Council: But in that which is the sense of those words that makes them Criminal, Heresie is nothing but an obstinate persisting in errours, contrary to Divine Revelation, after one has had a sufficient means of In••truction: and Schism is an ill grounded Separation from the Body of the Church: So it must be the Divine Revelation, and not the authority of a Synod that can prove one who holds contrary opinions to be an Heretick, and the grounds of the Separation must be likewise examined before one can be concluded a Schismatick.

4. Though the Conclusions and De∣finitions made by the Synod of Dort are perhaps generally received in France, yet that does not bind them up to sub∣scribe every thing that was asserted in that Synod: Nor do they found their assent to those opinions on the authori∣ty of that Synod, but upon the Evidence of those places of Scripture from which they deduced them.

5. Since those of that Communion object a National Synod to the Prote∣stants, this may be turned back on them with greater advantage, in some points established by Councils, which they esteem not only General but Infal∣lible. In the Third Council of the La∣teran it was decreed, That all Princes who favoured Hereticks did forfeit their Rights, and a Plenary Indulgence was granted to all that fought against them. In the Fourth Council at the same place it was decreed, That the Pope might not only declare this forfeiture, but absolve the Subjects from their Oaths of Obedience, and transfer their Dominions upon others. In the First Council at Lions they joyned with the Pope in thundring the Sentence of De∣position against the Emperour Frede∣rick the First, which in the preamble is grounded on some places of Scri∣pture, of which if they were the Infal∣lible Expositors, then this power is an Article of Faith. And in the last p••ace the Council of Constance decreed, That the Faith of a Safe-Conduct was not to be kept to an Heretick, that had come to the place of Judgement relying on it, even though he would not have come without it. When Cruelt••, Re∣bellion

and Treachery were thus de∣creed in Courts, which among them are of so sacred an authority; It is vi∣sible how much gre••ter advantages we have of them in this point than any they can pretend against us.

6. For the Synod of Dort I will not undertake the Apology neither for their Decrees nor for their Assertions▪ and will not stick to say that how true soever many of their Conclusions may be, yet the defining such mysterious matters as the order of the Divine Decrees, and the Influences of Gods Grace on the wills of men, in so positive a manner, and the imposing their Assertions on all the Ministers of their Communion, was that which many as sincere Pro∣testants as any are, have ever disliked and condemned, as a weakening the Union of the Protestant Church, and an assuming too much of that authority which we condemn in the Church of Rome. For though they supposed that they made their definitions upon the grounds of Scripture▪ so that in this sense the authority of the Synod was meerly Declarative; yet the question will still recur, Whether they under∣stood the passages which they built on, right or not? And if they understood

them wrong, then according to Pro∣testant principles, their Decrees had no such binding authority, that the receding from them could make one guilty either of Heresie or Schism.