DIVERS PAPALHERESIES. 271 Upon which rash and peremptory sentence, touching all ancient divines, we may note: - 1. Is it not strange that an article of faith should be formed upon an ambiguous word, [sacrament,] or a termof art, used withgreat variety? 2. Is it not strange to define a point whereof it is most plain that the fathers were ignorant, wherein they never agreed or resolved any thing ? 3. Yea, whereof they speakvariously? 4. Is it not odd and extravagant to damn or curse people for a point of so little consideration or certainty? 5. Is it not intolerable arrogance and presumption to define, nay, indeed, to make an article of faith, without any manner of ground or colour of authority either from Scripture or the tradition of the ancient fathers?1 The holy Scripture forbids us to "call any man master upon earth," or absolutely to subject our faith to the dictates of any man; it teaches us that the apostles themselves are "not lords of our faith," so as to oblige us to believe their own inventions; it forbids us to swallowwhole "the doctrines and precepts of men"without examina- tion of them; it forbids us to admit "various and strange doctrines."1 Matt. xxiii 8; 2 Cor. i. 24; 1 Thess. v. 21 ; Col. ii. 8; Matt. xv. 9. But the pope and Roman church exact from us a submission to their dictates, admitting them for true, without any farther inquiry or discussion, barely upon his authority : "They who are provided of any benefices whatever, having cure of souls, let them promise and swear obedience to the Roman church."' They require of us without doubt to believe, to profess, to assert, innumerable propositions, divers of them new and strange, no wise deducible from Scripture or apostolical tradition, the very terms of them being certainly unknown to the primitive church, devised by human subtilty, curiosity, contentiousness ; divers of them being (in all appearance, to the judgment of common sense) uncertain, ob- scure, and intricate; divers of them bold and fierce; divers of them frivolous and vain; divers of them palpably false ; namely, all such propositions as have been taught by their great juntos, allowed by the pope, especially that of Trent. "Moreover, all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and oecumenical councils, and especially by the 1 Multa dicuntur a veteribus sacramenta preter ista septem.Bell. de Sam. ii. 24. "Many things are by the ancients called sacraments besides these seven." a A,8axais sra,xiT.a,s, x,4 ;á3,3,3 (.4 srap,Opadi.Heb. xiii. 9. 8 Provisi de beneficiis quibuscunque curam animarum habontibus ... in Romane ecclesie obedientiam spondeant ac jurent.Conc. Trid. sess. xxiv. cap. 12, de Ref. nec noh veram obedientiam summo pontifici spondeant 'et profiteantur. Sess. xxv. cap. 2, de Ref.
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