ΟΣ

TRUE RELIGION,

HERESY, SCHISM, TOLERATION;

AND

WHAT BEST MEANS MAY BE USED,

AGAINST THE

GROWTH OF POPERY.*

BY JOHN MILTON, ESQ.

The Author of Paradise Lost.

Ir is unknown to no man, who knows aught of concernment among us, that the increase of Popery is at this day nofmall trouble and offence to the greateft part of the nation; and the rejoicing of all good men that it is fo the more their rejoicing, that God hath given a heart to the people to remember ftill their great and happy deliverance from Popish thraldom, and to esteem fo highly the precious benefit of his gofpel, fo freely and fo peaceably enjoyed among them. Since therefore fome have already in publick with many confiderable arguments exhorted the people to beware the growth of this Romish weed; I thought it no less than a common duty to lend my hand, how unable foever, to fo good a purpose. I will not now enter into the labyrinth of Councils and Fathers,an intangled wood which the papifts love to fight in, not with hope of victory, but to obfcure the fhame of an open overthrow: which yet in that kind of combat, many heretofore,

* Printed in the Year 1673.

and

and one of late, hath eminently given them. And fuch manner of difpute with them, to learned men is ufeful and very commendable. But I fhall infist now on what is plainer to common apprehension, and what I have to say, without longer introduction.

Religion.

True religion is the true worship and fervice of God, Of True learnt and believed from the word of God only. No man, or angel, can know how God would be worshipped and ferved, unless God reveal it. He hath revealed and taught it us in the Holy Scriptures by infpired minifters, and in the Gospel by his own Son and his Apostles, with ftrictest command to reject all other traditions, or additions, whatsoever. According to that of St. Paul, Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema, or accurfed.” And Deut. iv. 2. "Ye fhall not add to the word which I command you, neither fhall you diminish aught from it." Rev. xxii. 18, 19. "If any man fhall add, &c. If any man fhall take-away from the words," &c. With good and religious reafon, therefore all Proteftant churches with one confent, and particularly the church of England in her thirty-nine articles, artic. 6th, 19th, 20th, 21ft, and elsewhere, maintain these two points, as the main principles of true religion: that the rule of true religion is the word of God only: and that their faith ought not to be an implicit faith, that is, to believe, though as the church believes, againft, or without, exprefs authority of Scripture. And, if all Proteftants, as univerfally as they hold these two principles, fo attentively and religiously would obferve them, they would avoid and cut-off many debates and contentions, fchifms, and perfecutions, which too oft have been among them, and more

What Heresy is.

firmly unite against the common adversary. For hence it directly follows, that no true Proteftant can perfecute, or not tolerate, his fellow-proteftant, though diffenting from him in fome opinions, but he must flatly deny and renounce thefe two his own main principles, whereon true religion is founded; while he compels his brother from that which he believes as the manifeft word of God, to an implicit faith (which he himself condemns) to the endangering of his brother's foul, whether by rafh belief, or outward conformity for "whatfoever is not of faith, is fin."

I will now as briefly fhow what is falfe religion or herefy, which will be done as eafily: for of contraries the definitions must needs be contrary. Herefy therefore is a religion taken-up and believed from the traditions of men and additions to the word of God. Whence alfo it follows clearly that of all known fects, or pretended religions, at this day in Chriftendom, Popery is the only, or the greatest, Herefy: and he who is fo forward to brand all others for Hereticks, the obftinate Papift, the only, Heretick. Hence one of their own famous writers found just cause to stile the Romish Church Mother of error, fchool of Herefy." And, whereas the Papist boasts himself to be a Roman-Catholick, it is a mere contradiction, one of the Pope's bulls, as if he should say, universal particular, a CaThe true tholick fchifmatick. For Catholick in Greek fignifies meaning of the phrase univerfal: and the Chriftian Church was fo called. Catholick as confifting of all nations to whom the Gospel was to be preached, in contradiftinction to the Jewish Church, which confifted, for the most part, of Jews only.

Church.

Of Sects.

Sects may be in a true Church as well as in a falfe, when men follow the doctrine too much for the teacher's

fake

fake, whom they think almost infallible; and this becomes, through infirmity, implicit faith; and the name Sectary pertains to fuch a disciple.

Sectaries,

between

Schifm is a rent, or divifion, in the church, when it Schism. comes to the feparating of congregations; and may also happen to a true church, as well as to a false; yet in the true needs not tend to the breaking of communion, if they can agree in the right adminiftration of that wherein they communicate, keeping their other opinions to themselves, not being deftructive to Faith. The Pharifees and Sadducees were two fects; yet.both met-together in their common worship of God at Jerufalem. But here the Papifts will angrily demand, what! are Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptifts, Socinians, Arminians, no Hereticks? I answer, all these may have fome errors, but are no Hereticks. Herefy is in the Difference will and choice profeffedly against Scripture; error is Heresy and against the will, in mifunderstanding the Scripture after all fincere endeavours to understand it rightly: Hence it was faid well by one of the ancients, "Err I may, but a Heretick I will not be." It is a human frailty to err, and no man is infallible here on earth. But fo long as all thefe profefs to fet the word of God only before them as the rule of faith and obedience; and ufe all diligence and fincerity of heart, by reading, by learning, by ftudy, by prayer for Illumination of the Holy Spirit, to understand the rule and obey it, they have done what man can do: God will affuredly pardon them, as he did the friends of Job: good and pious men, though much mistaken, as there it appears, in fome points of doctrine.

But fome will fay, "with Chriftians it is otherwise, whom God hath promised by his fpirit to teach all things." True, all things abfolutely neceffary to falva

Error.

tion: But the hotteft difputes among Proteftants, calmly and charitably enquired-into, will be found lefs than fuch. The Lutheran holds Consubstantiation an error indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinift is taxed with Predestination, and to make God the author of fin; not with any dishonourable thought of God, but, it may be, over-zealously afferting his abfolute power, not without plea of Scripture. The Anabaptist is accused of denying infants their right to baptifm; again they fay, they deny nothing but what the Scripture denies them. The Arian and Socinian are charged to difpute against the Trinity: They affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, according to Scripture and the Apoftolick Creed; as for terms of Trinity, Trini-unity, Co-essentiality, Tri-personality, and the like, they reject them as fcholaftick notions, not to be found in Scripture, which, by a general Proteftant maxim, is plain and perfpicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the propereft words, belonging to fo high a matter, and fo neceffary to be known; a mystery indeed in their fophiftick fubtilities, but in Scripture a plain doctrine. Their other opinions are of less moment. They difpute the fatisfaction of Chrift, or rather the word "Satisfaction," as not Scriptural : but they acknowledge him both God and their Saviour. The Arminian, laftly, is condemned for fetting-up free will against free grace; but that imputation he difclaims in all his writings, and grounds himfelf largely upon Scripture only. It cannot be denied that the authors, or late revivers, of all these fects, or opinions, were learned, worthy, zealous, and religious men, as appears by their lives written; and the fame [may be faid] of their many eminent and learned followers, perfect and powerful in the Scriptures, holy and unblameable in