Nay, we have that reverence for those who succeeded the Apostles, that what they have unanimously delivered to us, as the sense of any doubtful place, we receive it, and seek no farther. There is no dispute whether or no we should entertain

it.

To the Decrees of the Church also we submit in matters of Decency and order; yea, and acquiesce in its authority, when it determines doubtful opinions.

But we cannot receive that as a Doctrine of CHRIST, which we know is but the tradition of man, nor keep the ordinances of the ancient Church in matters of decency, so unalterably as never to vary from them, because they themselves did not intend them to be of everlasting obligation. As appears by the changes that have been made in several times and places; even in some things which are mentioned in the holy Scriptures, being but customs suited to those ages and countries.

In short, Traditions we do receive, but not all that are called by that name. Those which have sufficient authority, but not those which are imposed upon us, by the sole authority of one particular Church, assuming a power over all the rest.—

It is a calumny to affirm, that the Church of England rejects all tradition, and I hope none of her true children are so ignorant, as when they hear that word, to imagine they must rise up and oppose it. No, the Scripture itself is a tradition; and we admit all other traditions, which are subordinate, and agreeable unto that; together with all those things which can be proved to be Apostolical by the general testimony of the Church in all ages: nay, if any thing not contained in Scripture, which the Roman Church now pretends to be a part of God's word, were delivered to us by as universal uncontrolled tradition as the Scripture is, we should receive it as we do the Scripture.

But it appears plainly that such things were at first but private opinions, which now are become the doctrines of that particular Church, who would impose her decrees upon us under the venerable name of Apostolical universal tradition; which I have shown you hath been an ancient cheat, and that we ought not to be so easy as to be deceived by it. But to be very wary,

and afraid of trusting the traditions of such a Church, as hath not only prevented some, abolished others, and pretended them where there hath been none; but been a very unfaithful preserver of them, and that in matters of great moment, where there were some; and lastly, warrants those which it pretends to have kept, by nothing but its own infallibility. For which there is no tradition, but much against it, even in the original tradition, the holy Scriptures; which plainly suppose the Roman Church may not only err, but utterly fail and be cut off from the Body of CHRIST; as they that please may read, who will consult the eleventh chapter to the Romans, v. 20, 21, 22. Of which they are in the greater danger, because they proudly claim so high a prerogative as that now mentioned, directly contrary to the Apostolical admonition in that place: " be not high-minded, but fear." pp. 11. 16. 32.

SHARPE, ARCHBISHOP.-Sermons.

We see from hence how groundlessly, how unreasonably, we Protestants are charged with Heresy by our adversaries. They make no scruple of calling us Heretics, and telling us we shall be damned upon that account, unless we come over to their Belief. Why, what is it they would have us believe? We believe all that JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles taught to the world, so far as we have knowledge of it. We believe all the holy Scriptures, and not only so, but we make them the rule of our Faith. We believe all those articles of Faith, into which all Christians in every country, from CHRIST's time to this, have been baptized, and which by all the ancients have been accounted a perfect summary of the Christian Faith; nor do we hold any thing inconsistent with them. We own both CHRIST's Sacraments; and we administer them entirely. We renounce all the Heresies that were condemned by the ancient general Councils; nay, we are ready to refer ourselves to those Councils, and to the primitive Fathers who lived at that time, for the trial of all the points which are disputed between us. And lastly, we are sure we are not obstinate in our errors, if they should prove so; we are sure

we have no secular ends to serve in the maintaining them; and most of all sure we are, that we are not self-condemned, that our own conscience doth not accuse us for being of this way; (which yet is one of those things that go to the making of an Heretic). Now if all these things can be truly said of us, (as I think they may be truly said of the Church of England, and of all the honest members of it,) how is it possible that we can in any sense be guilty of Heresy? In the sense of the Scriptures and of the Fathers I am sure we are orthodox Christians; and in the sense of the greatest Divines, even in the Roman Communion, I am sure we are no heretics. And if after all that, we must be branded with that name, all that we can say is, that "after the way which they call Heresy, so worship we the God of our Fathers."-Vol. vi. p. 5.

Ibid.

We do not find, that in the controversies which arose in the ancient Church about matters of Faith, the guides of the Church ever made use of this argument of the Church's infallibility for the quieting and ending of them: which yet, had they known of any such thing, had been the properest and the easiest means they could have used. Nay further we know, that the ancient Fathers had another method of confuting Heretics and Schismatics than by appealing to the Church's infallibility: namely, by bringing their doctrines to be tried by the ancient usages and doctrines of the Apostolic Churches, and especially by the Divine oracles of Scripture, which they looked upon as the entire and only Rule of Faith.-Vol. vii. p. 61.

POTTER, ARCHBISHOP.-Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Oxford.

To begin with Faith, the foundation of all other Christian duties. You cannot be ignorant, what attempts have lately been made, and are still daily further advancing, to destroy some of the principal doctrines, not of ours only, but of the Catholic Church in all ages; and I wish I could not say, to weaken and

undermine all the rest: "these things have not been done in a corner."

Great industry hath been used, and that with too much success, to revive the Arian and Semi-arian Heresies; and with the professors thereof to unite almost all other sects of Christians, however they may differ from one another as to opinion, in the same visible Communion. So that instead of rejecting those, who deprave the Christian Faith, as St. Paul commands; or, in obedience to St. John, of refusing even to "receive them into our houses," or to "bid them GoD speed;" should this design prevail, we must pray with them, and partake with them, of the LORD'S Table, and associate together in all other parts of religious worship; and those alone will be reputed Schismatics, who separate themselves from the Communion of Heretics.

Some have so far proceeded in this scheme of general comprehension, or rather confusion, as to assert, that all sorts of error, except those which immediately relate to practice, are innocent and unblameable. With these men one may, perhaps, deserve the name of an Heretic, who outwardly professeth something he inwardly disbelieves, and in that sense condemns himself: but in any other case, besides this of acting directly against the dictates of conscience, under which it is on all hands confessed to be a fault to defend the truth itself, they plainly intimate, that there is no harm in maintaining even the doctrine of Mahomet, or any other, though ever so opposite to the Christian Revelation. We must not, therefore, wonder to hear it affirmed, that in order to be justified before God, there is no need of anything more, than to act agreeably to our present inward persuasion, or in other terms, with sincerity: or, that equal degrees of this quality will in all cases (for I find no exception made), entitle men to equal degrees of Divine favour: whence it follows, that they who denied, or even crucified our SAVIOUR, provided they did it without remorse or hesitation, might deserve an equal reward with those, who are martyrs for Him.

We have been accustomed, and this agreeably to the judgment of all other Churches, and the most evident principles both of

Natural and Revealed Religion, to think it the duty of Christian princes to maintain God's true Religion and virtue; and the Church, our Mother, hath taught us in the Communion office to pray, that all in authority under them may do the same. Now, if by GoD's true Religion nothing be meant, but that moral virtue, from which it is plainly distinguished in this place, then our new masters may still perhaps allow the magistrate to execute this part of his office; but, if God's true religion signifies that, which it always hath signified among Christians, the worship of One True GOD, as opposed to that of idols and false gods, or the way of worship prescribed in the holy Scripture, in opposition to Heathenish, and other superstitions; or, if God's true Religion be understood to imply the belief of Three Persons in one Godhead, of the Incarnation, sufferings, and satisfaction of CHRIST, of the Resurrection of the Body, or of any other doctrine ever so plainly revealed by GoD; then it is openly declared, that the Christian Magistrates to discourage false Religion, even in the least degree, or to favour and encourage that which is true, is to do something highly inconsistent both with the nature and ends of their own authority, and with the kingdom of CHRIST.

This may seem strange doctrine in a Christian country: but, since the Faith was for several ages maintained without the favour or protection of the civil magistrate, they, who advance these and the like novel opinions, may perhaps be thought more excusable, if they endeavour to recompense for the loss of these temporal advantages by their hearty concern and just zeal for that spiritual power, which our LORD hath left in His Church. But instead of this, these men describe the Church, rather as a number of persons disunited from, and independent on one another, than as an orderly society under lawful governors of Divine, or necessary appointment; and thus root up, as far as in them lieth, the very foundation of all Ecclesiastical authority at once. It might easily be shown, how by the schemes lately published, every branch of this authority hath been very much weakened and impaired; or, rather, totally subverted and destroyed : but I shall confine myself to the subject, of which I have been