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ART. We must also have a certain rule to know when the Popes judge as private persons, and when they judge infallibly: with whom they must consult, and what solemnities are necessary to make them speak ex cathedra, or infallibly. For if this infallibility comes as a privilege from a grant made by Christ, we ought to expect, that all those necessary circumstances to direct us, in order to the receiving and submitting to it, should be fixed by the same authority that made the grant. Here then are very great difficulties: let us now see what is offered to make out this great and important claim.

The chief proof is brought from these words of our SaMatth. xvi. viour, when upon St. Peter's confessing, that he was the 16, 18, 19. Christ, the Son of the living God; he said to him, Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This begins with an allusion to his name; and discourses built upon such allusions are not to be understood strictly or grammatically. By the Rock upon which Christ promises to build his Church, many of the Fathers have understood the person of Christ, others have understood the confession of him, or faith in him, which indeed is but a different way of expressing the same thing. And it is certain that, strictly speaking, the Church can only be said to be founded upon Christ, and upon his doctrine. But in a secondary sense it may be said to be founded upon the Apostles, and upon St. Peter as the first in order; which is not to be disputed.

Now though this is a sense which was not put on these words for many ages; yet when it should be allowed to be their true sense, it will not prove any thing to have been granted to St. Peter, but what was common to the Eph. ii. 20. other Apostles; who are all called the foundations upon Rev. xxi. which the Church is built. That which follows, of the

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gates of hell not being able to prevail against the Church, may be either understood of death, which is often called the gate to the grave; which is the sense of the word that is rendered hell: and then the meaning of these words will be, that the Church, which Christ was to raise, should never be extinguished, nor die, or come to a period, as the Jewish religion then did: or, according to the custom of the Jews, of holding their courts and councils about their gates, by the gates of hell may be understood, the designs and contrivances of the powers of dark

XIX.

ness, which should never prevail over the Church to root ART. it out, and destroy it; for the word rendered prevail, does signify an entire victory: this only imports, that the Church should be still preserved against all the attempts of hell, but does not intimate that no error was ever to get into it.

By the words kingdom of heaven, generally through the whole Gospel, the dispensation of the Messias is understood. This appears evidently from the words with which both St. John Baptist and our Saviour began their preaching, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand: Matt. iii. 2. and the many parables and comparisons that Christ gave of iv. 17. the kingdom of heaven, can only be understood of the preaching of the Gospel. This being then agreed to, the most natural and the least forced exposition of those words must be, that St. Peter was to open the dispensation of the Gospel. The proper use of a key is to open a door: and as this agrees with these words, he that hath the key of the Rev. iii. 7. house of David, that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth; and with the phrase of the key of Luke xi.52. knowledge, by which the lawyers are described; for they had a key with writing-tables given them, as the badges of their profession: so it agrees with the accomplishment of this promise in St. Peter, who first opened the Gospel to the Jews, after the wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost: and more eminently when he first opened the door to the Gentiles, preaching to Cornelius, and baptizing him and his household, to which the phrase of the kingdom of heaven seems to have a more particular relation. This dispensation was committed to St. Peter, and seems to be claimed by him as his peculiar privilege in the council at Jerusalem. This is a clear and plain sense of these words. For those who would carry them further, and understand by the kingdom of heaven our eternal happiness, must use many distinctions; otherwise, if they expound them literally, they will ascribe to St. Peter that which certainly could only belong to our Saviour himself. Though at the same time it is not to be denied, but that, under the figure of keys, the power of discipline, and the conduct and management of Christians, may be understood. But as to this, all the pastors of the Church have their share in it; nor can it be appropriated to any one person. As for that of binding and loosing, and the confirming in heaven what he should do in earth, whatever it may signify, it is no special grant to St. Peter: for the same words are spoken by our Saviour elsewhere to all the Apostles: so this is given equally to them all.

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ART. The words binding and loosing are used by the Jewish writers, in the sense of affirming or denying the obligation of any precept of the Law that might be in dispute. So according to this common form of speech, and the sense formerly given to the words, kingdom of heaven, the meaning of these words must be, that Christ committed to the Apostles the dispensing his Gospel to the world, by which he authorised them to dissolve the obligation of the Mosaical laws; and to give other laws to the Christian Church, which they should do under such visible characters of a divine authority, impowering and conducting them in it, that it should be very evident, that what they did on earth was also ratified in heaven. These words, thus understood, carry in them a clear sense, which agrees with the whole design of the Gospel. But whatsoever their sense may be, it is plain that there was nothing given peculiarly to St. Peter by them, which was not likewise given to the rest of the Apostles. Nor do these words of our Saviour to St. Peter import any thing of a successive infallibility that was to be derived from him with any distinction beyond the other Apostles: unless it were a priority of order and dignity; and whatever that was, there is not so much as a hint given, that it was to descend from him to any see or succession of Bishops.

Luke xxii. 32.

John xxi.

As for our Saviour's praying that St. Peter's faith might not fail; and his restoring him to his apostolical function, 15, 16, 17. by a thrice repeated charge, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, that has such a visible relation to his fall, and to his denying him, that it does not seem necessary to enlarge further on the making it out, or on shewing that these words are capable of no other signification, and cannot be carried further.

The importance of this argument, rather than the difficulty of it, has made it necessary to dwell fully upon it: so much depends upon it, and the missionaries of the Church of Rome are so well instructed in it, that it ought to be well considered; for how little strength soever there may be in the arguments brought to prove this infallibility, yet the colours are specious, and they are commonly managed both with much art, and great confidence.

ARTICLE XX.

Of the Authority of the Church.

The Church hath Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and Authority in Matters of Faith. And pet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anp thing that is contrary to God's Word written; neither map it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and keeper of Holy Writ, pet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anp thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation.

THIS

HIS Article consists of two parts; the first asserts a power in the Church both to decree rites and ceremonies, and to judge in matters of faith: the second limits this power over matters of faith to the Scriptures: so that it must neither contradict them, nor add any articles as necessary to salvation to those contained in them. This is suitable to some words that were once in the fifth Article, but were afterwards left out; instead of which the first words of this Article were put in this place, according to the printed editions; though they are not in the original of the Article signed by both Houses of Convocation, that are yet extant.

As to the first part of the Article, concerning the power of the Church, either with relation to ceremonies or points of faith, the dispute lies only with those who deny all Church power, and think that Churches ought to be in all things limited by the rules set in Scripture; and that where the Scriptures are silent, there ought to be no rules made, but that all men should be left to their liberty; and in particular, that the appointing new ceremonies, looks like a reproaching of the Apostles, as if their constitutions had been so defective, that those defects must be supplied by the inventions of men: which they oppose so much the more, because they think that all the corruptions of Popery began at some rites which seemed at first not only innocent, but pious; but were afterwards abused to superstition and idolatry, and swelled up to that bulk as to oppress and stifle true religion with their number and weight. A great part of this is in some respect true; yet that we

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ART. may examine the matter methodically, we shall first conXX. sider, what power the Church has in those matters; and then, what rules she ought to govern herself by in the use of that power. It is very visible, that in the Gospels and Epistles there are but few rules laid down as to ritual matters in the Epistles there are some general rules given, Rom. xiv. that must take in a great many cases: such as, Let all things be done to edification, to order, and to peace: and in 1 Cor. xiv. the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, many rules are given in such general words, as, Lay hands suddenly on no man, that in order to the guiding of particular cases by them, many distinctions and specialities were to be interposed to the making them practicable and useful. In matters that are merely ritual, the state of mankind in different climates and ages is apt to vary; and the same thing that in one scene of human nature may look grave, and seem fit for any society, may in another age look light, and dissipate men's thoughts. It is also evident that there is not a system of rules given in the New Testament about all these; and yet a due method in them is necessary to maintain the order and decency that become divine things. Gal. ii. 4. This seems to be a part of the Gospel liberty, that it is not a law of ordinances; these things being left to be varied according to the diversities of mankind.

-iv. 9. v. 1.

The Jewish religion was delivered to one nation, and the main parts of it were to be performed in one place; they were also to be limited in rituals, lest they might have taken some practices from their neighbours round about them, and so by the use of their rites have rendered idolatrous practices more familiar and acceptable to them: and yet they had many rites among them in our Saviour's time, which are not mentioned in any part of the Old Testament; such was the whole constitution of their synagogues, with all the service and officers that belonged to them they had a Baptism among them, besides several rites added to the Paschal service. Our Saviour reproved them for none of these; he hallowed some of them to be the fœderal rites of his new dispensation; he went to their synagogues; and though he reproved them for overvaluing their rites, for preferring them to the laws of God, and making these void by their traditions, yet he does not condemn them for the use of them. And while of the Matt. xxiii. greater precepts he says, These things ye ought to have done; he adds concerning their rites and lesser matters, and not to have left the other undone.

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If then such a liberty was allowed in so limited a religion, it seems highly suitable to the sublimer state of the