Epistle to the Romans be of sufficient force for their sense of Justification Then certainly an Argument from as express words in the Epistle to the Galatians will be as concluding for mine in which Epistle he also purposely states the same questions Gal. 3.11 The words are Gal. 3.11 That no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God it is evident for the Just shall live by faith Now to live I hope does not signifie to have ones sins forgiven him but to be Saved Therefore unless S. Paul include a right unto Salvation within the compass of Justification that Text might have been spared as nothing at all serving for his purpose Besides Is not Salvation as free as gracious as undeserved an act of God as Remission of sins Is it not as much for Christs sake that we are saved as that our sins are forgiven us Thus much for what I suppose is meant by Justification I will now as briefly and as perspicuously as I can without using Allegories and Metaphorical expressions with which this point is ordinarily much obscured shew you the combination of these two words in what sense I suppose S. Paul may use this proposition We are Justified by Faith without the Works of the Law 38. In the first place therefore I will lay down this Conclusion as an infallible safe foundation That if we have respect to the proper meritorious cause of our Justification we must not take Faith in that Proposition for any virtue or Grace inherent in us but only for the proper and principal object thereof Jesus Christ and his Merits And the meaning of that Proposition must be that we are not justified for the merits of any Righteousness in our selves whether Legal or Evangelical but only for the Obedience and Death of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ Though this be most true yet I suppose that S. Paul in that proposition had not a respect to the Meritorious Cause of our Justification but to that Formal Condition required in us before we be Justified as I think may appear by that which follows 39. I told you even now that I would in this point purposely abstain from using Metaphors and Figurative Allusions and the reason is because I suppose and not without reasonable grounds that the stating of this point of Justification by Metaphors has made this Doctrine which is set down with greater light and perspicuity in holy Scripture than almost any other to be a Doctrine of the most Scholastical subtilty the fullest of shadows and clouds of all the rest For example In that fashion and dress of Divinity as it is now worn slic'd and mangled into Theses and Distinctions we find this point of our Justification thus express'd That Faith is therefore said to Justifie us because it is that which makes Christs righteousness ours it is as it were an instrument or hand whereby we receive lay hold on and apply Christ unto our selves Here 's nought but flowers of Rhetorick Figures and Metaphors which though they are capable of a good sense yet are very improper to state a Controversie withall 40. But let us examine them a little We must not say they conceive of Faith as if it were a Vertue or Grace or any part of Righteousness inherent in us For Faith as a Grace has no influence at all into our Justification Mark the Coherence of these things Faith is considered as an hand or an instrument in our Justification and yet for all it is a Hand it is nothing in or of us for it seems Hands are not parts of mens bodies Again Faith puts on Christ receives him layes hold upon him makes his righteousness ours and yet it does nothing for all that Besides How can Faith be properly call'd an instrument of Justification An Instrument is that which the principal Cause the Efficient makes use of in his operation Now Justification in this sense is an immanent internal action of God in which there is no co-operation of any other agent nor any real alteration wrought in man the object thereof Does God then use Faith as an instrument in producing the Act of Justification No but it is Instrumentum Passivum saith one That is a thing never heard of in nature before and the meaning is sure Faith certainly is something but what a kind of thing we know not By these means it comes to pass that the Doctrine of our Justification as some men have handled it is become as deep as unsearchable a mystery as that of the Trinity 41. Without question there is nothing can be more evident to a man that shall unpartially consider S. Paul's method in his discourse of Justification then that by Faith he intends some operative working grace in us For instance The Apostle proves that we Christians are to seek for Justification the same way that Abraham attained unto it namely by Faith for saith the Scripture in his quotation Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness What was that which was accounted to him His believing That is say some Christ who was the object of his Belief This is a forc'd interpretation certainly and which a Jew would never have been perswaded to But that Christ was not at all intended in that place it is evident for Abraham's belief there had respect to Gods promise made to him of giving him a Son in his old age and by that Son a Seed as innumerable as the stars in heaven as appears Gen. 15.4 5 6. whereas the Promise of Christ Gen. 15.4 5 6. Gen. 18.18 follows three Chapters after to wit Gen. 18.18 Again the Apostle in many places useth these words We are Justified by Faith in Christ and by the Faith of Jesus Christ which speeches of his will admit of no tolerable sense unless by Faith he intends some work or obedience perform'd by us This therefore being taken for granted that by Faith is meant some condition required at our hands and yet my former conclusion of our Justification only for the merits of Christ remaining firm we will in the next place consider what kind of obedience that of Faith is and in what sense it may be said to justifie us 42. What satisfaction I conceive may be given to this Quaery I will set down in this Assertion Assertion That since Justification even as it includes Remission of sins is that Promise to perform which unto us God has oblig'd himself in the New Covenant it must necessarily presuppose in the person to be so justified such an obedience as the Gospel requires namely first Repentance from dead works a conversion to a new obedience of those holy Moral Commands which are ratifi'd in the Gospel and a relying upon Christ as the only meritorious cause of our Justification and Salvation by a particular Evangelical Faith All this I say is pre-required in the person who is made capable of Justification either in the exercise or at least in
between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule then you should make the Church of England the Rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand Upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand Upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it selfe no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say Your Churches infallibility is your ground I demand again some infallible ground both for the Churches infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an Answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no wise man denies it But then this Authority is that of Universal Tradition not of Your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of S. Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church sayes is true That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and enforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understanding can deny For my part I professe if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main Pillar of my faith and for want of it I fear should be much stagger'd in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious Beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his beliefe of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must finde fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Schollers for they all say the same The rest of this Paragragh I am as willing it should be true as you are to have it and so let it passe as a discourse wherein we are wholly unconcerned You might have met with an Answerer that would not have suffered you to have said so much Truth together but to me it is sufficient that it is nothing to the purpose 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understanding's assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the Understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogie must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The eye of the soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the Bodily eye And lastly assenting or believing to the act of Seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposeth the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the object on which it is imployed yet it self is presuppos'd and antecedent to the act of seeing as the cause is alwaies to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the Understanding to assent the Understanding that is the eye and object on which it workes must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the beliefe whereto the Scripture moves and the Underis moved which answers to the act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already To what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed How were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect built a house that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantion indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that jam factum facere and factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you doe and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants
will not stand to S. Austin's judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for Arguments against them we oppose S. Austin out of this heat delivering the Doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apretè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholike Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4. He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ hath recommended the Church to us for an infallible definer of all emergent Controversies but for a credible witness of ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practices of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to Impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austin's time and that by S. Austin himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I answer That though the Visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of God's Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand What visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant Yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your Disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to inferr that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor 165. Neither is it so easie to be determined as you pretend That Luther and other Protestants opposed the whole visible Church in matters of Faith neither is it so evident that the Visible Church may not fall into such a state wherein she may be justly opposed And lastly for calling the distinction of points into Fundamental and not Fundamental an Evasion I believe you will find it easier to call it so than to prove it so But that shall be the issue of the Controversie in the next Chapter CHAP. III. That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is neither pertinent nor true in our present Controversie And that the Catholique Visible Church cannot err in either kind of the said Points THis distinction is abused by Protestants to many purposes of theirs and therefore if it be either untrue or impertinent as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be ruinous and false For if you object their bitter and continued discords in matters of Faith without any means of agreement they instantly tell you as Charity Mistaken plainly shews that they differ only in Points not Fundamental If you convince them even by their own Confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers Points held by the Roman Church against Protestants they reply that those Fathers may nevertheless be saved because those errors were not Fundamental If you will them to remember that Christ must alwayes have a Visible Church on earth with administration of Sacraments and succession of Pastors and that when Luther appeared there was no Church distinct from the Roman whose Communion and Doctrine Luther then forsook and for that cause must be guilty of Schism and Heresie they have an Answer such as it is that the Catholique Church cannot perish yet may err in Points not Fundamental and therefore Luther and other Protestants were obliged to forsake her for such errors under pain of Damnation as if sorsooth it were Damnable to hold an error not Fundamental nor Damnable If you wonder how they can teach that both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved in their several Professions they salve this contradiction by saying that we both agree in all Fundamental Points of Faith which is enough for salvation And yet which is prodigiously strange they could never be induced to give a Catalogue what Points in particular be Fundamental but only by some general description or by referring us to the Apostles Creed without determining what Points therein be Fundamental or not Fundamental for the matter and in what sense they be or be not such And yet concerning the meaning of divers Points contained or reduced to the Creed they differ both from us and among themselves And indeed it being impossible for them to exhibit any such Catalogue the said distinction of Points although it were pertinent and true cannot serve them to any purpose but still they must remain uncertain whether or not they disagree from one another from the ancient Fathers and from the Catholique Church in Points Fundamental which is to say they have no certainty whether they enjoy the substance of Christian Faith without which they cannot hope to be saved But of this more hereafter 2. And to the end that what shall be said concerning this distinction may be better understood we are to observe that there be two precepts which concern the vertue of Faith or our obligation to believe divine Truths The one is by Divines called Affirmative whereby we are obliged to have a positive explicit belief of some chief Articles of Christian Faith The other is temed Negative which strictly binds us not to disbelieve that is not to believe the contrary of any one Point sufficiently represented to our understandings as revealed or spoken by Almighty God The said Affirmative Precept according to the nature of such commands injoyns some Act to
be performed but not at all times nor doth it equally bind all sorts of persons in respect of all Objects to be believed For Objects we grant that some are more necessary to be explicitely and severally believed than other either because they are in themselves more great and weighty or else in regard they instruct us in some necessary Christian duty towards God our Selves or our Neighbour For Persons no doubt but some are obliged to know distinctly more than others by reason of their office vocation capacity or the like For Times we are not obliged to be still in act of exercising acts of Faith but according as several occasions permit or require The second kind of Precept called Negative doth according to the nature of all such commands oblige universally all Persons in respect of all Objects and at all Times semper pro semper as Divines speak This general Doctrin will be more clear by Examples I am not obliged to be always helping my Neighbour because the Affirmative Precept of Charity bindeth only in some particular cases But I am always bound by a Negative Precept never to do him any hurt or wrong I am not always bound to utter what I know to be true yet I am obliged never to speak any one least untruth against my knowledge And to come to our present purpose there is no Affirmative Precept commanding us to be at all times actually believing any one or all Articles of Faith But we are obliged never to exercise any act against any one truth known to be revealed All sorts of Persons are not bound explicitely and distinctly to know all things testified by God either in Scripture or otherwise but every one is obliged not to believe the contrary of any one Point known to be testified by God For that were in fact to affirm that God could be deceived or would deceive which were to overthrow the whole certainty of our Faith wherein the thing most principal is not the Point which we believe which Divines call the Material Object but the chiefest is the Motive for which we believe to wit Almighty God's infallible Revelation or Authority which they term the Formal Object of our Faith In two senses therefore and with a double relation Points of Faith may be called Fundamental and necessary to Salvation The one is taken with reference to the Affirmative Precept when the Points are of such quality that there is obligation to know and believe them explicitely and severally In this sense we grant that there is difference betwixt Points of Faith which D. Potter (a) Pag. 209. to no purpose laboureth to prove against his Adversary who in express words doth grant and explicate (b) Charity Mistaken c. 8. pag. 75. it But the Doctor thought good to dissemble the matter and not to say one pertinent word in defence of his distinction as it was impugned by Charity Mistaken and as it is wont to be applyed by Protestants The other sense according to which Points of Faith may be called Fundamental and necessary to Salvation with reference to the Negative Precept of Faith is such that we cannot without grievous sin and forfeiture of Salvation disbelieve any one Point sufficiently propounded as revealed by Almighty God And in this sense we avouch that there is no distinction in Points of Faith as if to reject some must be damnable and to reject others equally proposed as God's Word might stand with Salvation Yea the obligation of the Negative Precept is far more strict than is that of the Affirmative which God freely imposed and may freely release But it is impossible that he can dispense or give leave to disbelieve or deny what he affirmeth and in this sense sin and damnation are more inseparable from Error in Points not Fundamental than from Ignorance in Articles Fundamental All this I shew by an example which I wish to be particularly noted for the present and for divers other occasions hereafter The Creed of the Apostles contains divers Fundamental Points of Faith as the Deity Trinity of Persons Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour Christ c. It contains also some Points for their matter and nature in themselves not Fundamental as under what Judge our Saviour suffered that he was buried the circumstance of the time of his Resurrection the third day c. But yet nevertheless whosoever once knows that these Points are contained in the Apostles Creed the denial of them is damnable and is in that sense a Fundamental error and this is the precise Point of the present question 3. And all that hitherto hath been said is so manifestly true that no Protestant or Christian if he do but understand the terms and state of the question can possibly deny it In so much as I am amazed that men who otherwise are indued with excellent wits should so enslave themselves to their Predecessors in Protestantism as still to harp on this distinction and never regard how impertinently and untruly it was â—â—plyed by them at first to make all Protestants seem to be of one Faith because forsooth they agree in Fundamental Points For the difference among Protestants consists not in that some believe some Points of which others are ignorant or not bound expressly to know as the distinction ought to be applyed but that some of them disbelieve and directly wittingly and willingly oppose what others do believe to be testified by the Word of God wherein there is no difference between Points Fundamental and not Fundamental Because till Points Fundamental be sufficiently proposed as revealed by God it is not against Faith to reject them or rather without sufficient proposition it is not possible prudently to believe them and the like is of Points not-Fundamental which as soon as they come to be sufficiently propounded as divine Truths they can no more be denied than Points Fundamental propounded after the same manner Neither will it avail them to their other end that for preservation of the Church in being it is sufficient that she do not err in Points Fundamental For if in the mean time she maintain any one Error against Gods revelation be the thing in it self never so small her Error is damnable and destructive of Salvation 4. But D. Potter forgetting to what purpose Protestants make use of their distinction doth finally overthrow it and yields to as much as we can desire For speaking of that measure (c) Pag. 211. and quantity of Faith without which none can be saved he saith It is enough to believe some things by a vertual Faith or by a general and as it were a negative Faith whereby they are not denied or contradicted Now our question is in case that divine Truths although not Fundamental be denied and contradicted and therefore even according to him all such denial excludes Salvation After he speaks more plainly It is true saith he whatsoever (d) Pag. 212. is revealed in Scripture or
by an unfundamental error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging Arguments against us which return more strongly upon your selves 11. But your will is We should remember that Christ must alwaies have a Visible Church Ans Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetual Visibility and perpetual Purity As for the Answer which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholique Church cannot perish yet that she may and did erre in Points not Fundamental and that Protestants were obliged to forsake these errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her errors for that they did not but continued still Members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her error and simply to forsake the Church no more then it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholique but not so much as from the Roman did they separate peromnia but only in those practices which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a form of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawful and then they would not joyn with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your Communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyne with you in Prayers but they must partake with with you in unlawful practices and for this reason they not absolutely but thus farre separate from your Communion And this I say they were obliged to do under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to profess and maintain it and to joyn with others in the practice of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your Communion that they must have done viz. have professed to believe and externally practised your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and hypocrisie I leave it to you to judge You your self tell us within two pages after this That you are obliged never to speak any one least lye against your knowledge § 2. Now what is this but to live in a perpetual lye 12. As for that which in the next place you seem so to wonder at That both Catholiques and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may be saved in their several professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamental points I Answer this Proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justifie For you seem to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of Salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or dye so he dye in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want means to find the Truth and so dye in Error or use the best means they can with industry and without partiality to find the Truth and yet dye in error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these errors may be saved Secondly for those that have means to find the Truth and will not use them they conceive though their case be dangerous yet if they die with a general repentance for all their sins known and unknown their Salvation is not desperate The Truths which they hold of Faith in Christ and Repentance being as it were an Antidote against their Errors and their negligence in seeking the Truth Especially seeing by confession of both sides we agree in much more than is simply and indispensably necessary to salvation 13. But seeing we make such various use of this Distinction is it not prodigiously strange that we will never be induced to give in a particular Catalogue what points be Fundamental And why I pray is it so predigiously strange that we give no answer to an unreasonable demand God himself hath told us (a) Luk 22.48 That where much is given much shall be required where little is given little shall be required To Infants Deaf-men Mad-men nothing for ought we know is given and if it be so of them nothing shall be required Others perhaps may have means only given them to believe (b) Heb. 11.6 That God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him and to whom thus much only is given to them it shal not be damnable that they believe but only thus much Which me thinks is very manifest from the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews where having first said That without Faith it is impossible to please God he subjoyns as his reason For whosoever cometh unto God must believe that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him Where in my opinion this is plainly intimated that this is the minimum quod sic the lowest degree of Faith wherewith in men capable of Faith God will be pleased and that with this lowest degree he will be pleased where means of rising higher are deficient Besides if without this belief That God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him God will not be pleased then his will is that we should believe it Now his will it cannot be that we should believe a Falshood It must be therefore true that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him Now it is possible that they which never heard of Christ may seek God therefore it is true that even they shall please him and be rewarded by him I say rewarded not with bringing them immediately to Salvation without Christ but with bringing them according to his good pleasure first to Faith in Christ and so to Salvation To which belief the Story of Cornelius in the 10. Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and S. Peter's words to him are to me a great inducement For first it is evident he believed not in Christ but was a meer Gentile and one that knew not but men might be worshipped and yet we are assured that his prayers and alms even while he was in that state came up for a memorial before God That his prayer was heard and his Alms had in remembrance in the sight of God ver 4. That upon his Then fearing God and working righteousness such as it was he was accepted with God But how accepted Not to be brought immediately to Salvation but to be promoted to a higher degree of the knowledg of
damnable if the manner of propounding the contrary Truths be not different which for ought I know all Protestants and all that have sense must grant Yet I deny your Illation from hence That the distinction of points into Fundamental and Unfundamental is vain and uneffectual for the purpose of Protestants For though being alike proposed as divine Truths they are by accident alike necessary yet the real difference still remains between them that they are not alike necessary to be proposed 24. Ad § 5. The next Paragraph if it be brought out of the clouds will I believe have in it these Propositions 1. Things are distinguished by their different natures 2. The Nature of Faith is taken not from the matter believed for then they that believed different matters should haue different Faiths but from the Motive to it 3. This Motive is Gods Revelation 4. This Revelation is alike for all objects 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God Therefore they forsake the formal motive of Faith and therefore have no Faith nor Unity therein Which is truly a very proper and convenient Argument to close up a weak Discourse wherein both the Propositions are false for matter confused and disordered for the form and the Conclusion utterly inconsequent First for the second Proposition Who knows not that the Essence of all Habits and therefore of Faith among the rest is taken from their Act and their Object If the Habit be general from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the Motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a Motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the fifth Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various opinions and consequently some of them more enclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptiz'd for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others are equally revealed to you and to another Interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another And would it not be an excellent Inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all Faith and Unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all Faith and Unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second Assumpt Which is That the Church is infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning Points Fundamental or not Fundamental 25. Ad § 7. 8. The Reasons of these two Paragraphs as they were alledged before so they were before answered Cap. 2. and thither I remit the Reader 26. Ad § 9 10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods Truth or propose any thing as his Truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you This excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for Points Fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not Fundamental Answ It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by errour her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to Fundamentals she yet conceived by errour that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this deduction worth any thing unless it be understood of such unfundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says Thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassadour should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no Commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not-fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not Fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that
Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unless we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all Fundamental Points of Faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should contain all Fundamental Points For if the Church may err in Points not Fundamental may she not also err in the particulars which I have specified Can you shew it to be a Fundamental Point of Faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all Points of Faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more than that it is very (c) Pag. 241. probable which is far from reaching to a Fundamental Point of Faith Your probability is grounded upon the Judgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctors as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may err what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctors Scripture is your total Rule of Faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should contain all Fundamental Points of Faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self relie upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other Points of Faith It is then very frivolous to say The Creed containes all Fundamental Points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamental For both these taskes you are to perform who teach that all Truth is not Fundamental and you do but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed (d) Pag. 216. taken in a Catholique e sense comprehendeth all Points Fundamental because with you all Catholique sense is not Fundamental for so it were necessary to Salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least Point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be known and believed by all that whosoever fails therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more than this All Points of the Creed in a sense necessary to Salvation are necessary to Salvation Or All Points Fundamental are Fundamental After this manner it were an easie thing to make many true Prognostications by saying it will certainly rain when it raineth You say the Creed (f) Pag. 216. was opened and explaind in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. But how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more Fundamental or may seem more clear than that wherein we believe JESUS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of Man-kind and the Founder and Foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different Doctrins are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said main Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in JESUS CHRIST doth justifie alone that Sacraments have no efficiency in Justification That Baptism doth not avail Infants for Salvation unless they have an Act of Faith That there is no Sacerdotal Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from God's grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to sin after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or Intercession of Saints No inherent Justice No supream Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Real presence No Transubstantiation with divers others And why Because forsooth these Doctrins derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe divers Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether D. Potter or others do really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish Points Fundamental from those which they say are not Fundamental If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamental That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamental but that men may disagree and deny it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deal so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your own Doctrin and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of Fundamental Points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople (g) Pag. 216. Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth your assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councel nor then till it was declared by another c. So now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient to distinguish betwixt fundamental and not fundamental points 7. I come to the second part That the Creed doth not contain all main and principal Points of Faith And to the end we may not strive about things either granted by us both or nothing concerning the point in question I must premise these Observations 8. First That it cannot be denyed but that the Creed is most full and complete to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular Points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred And therefore in respect of Gentiles the Creed doth mention God as Creator of all things and for both Jews and Gentiles the Trinity the Messias and Saviour his birth life death resurrection and glory from whom they were to hope remission of sinnes
his judgment in this matter this express limitation of his former resolution he makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can be made for you and your Store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111. D. Potter p. 131. sayes That errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must pass against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all Disputes and setling Peace and Unity in Government But this Collection is deceitful and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to do so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luther's person and none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justifie and therefore I pass it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said and done especially of them whom Bellarmine believes in such a long train to have gone to the Divel then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable judges will esteem it not unpardonable in the great and Heroical spirit of Luther if being opposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies he were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospel Unless you desire to hear of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a mind to be askt Whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Divellish means 113 Ad § 44 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deal of reading and wit and reason against some men who pretending to honour and believe the Doctrin and practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgment cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrin of your Church then must they believe this doctrin that they are to return to your Communion And therefore if they do not so it cannot be avoided but they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your Doctrin which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrin of Protestants and therefore in a Work which you profess to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schism BEcause Vice is best known by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as far as belongs to our present purpose we shall pass on with ease to the definition of heresie and so be able to discern who be Heretiques And this I intend to do not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some general grounds either already proved or else yielded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernatural End of Beatitude by supernatural means it was requisite that his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and Means by a supernatural knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible and that Faith should believe nothing more certainly than that it self is a most certain Belief and so be able to bear down all gay probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid means and end of Beatifical Vâ—sion do fat exceed the reach of natural wit the certainty of faith could not always be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane natural Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arm of flesh but he who glories should glory (a) 2 Cor. 1â— in our Lord. Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknown or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernatural evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we ow to our God not only by submitting our will to his Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Understanding to his Wisdom and words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Understanding (b) 2 Cor. 10.5 to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made clear to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstain from believing by suspending our Judgments or exercising no act one way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which faith proposeth as the example of innumerable Arch-heretiques can bear witness This obscurity of faith we learn from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the (c) Heb. 11. substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glass (d) 1 Cor. 13. in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter faith Which you do well attending unto as to (e) 2 Pet. 1.19 a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from natural Sciences and yet being
most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâ—â—â— Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hâ—â—â—â— never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â— believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mâ—n of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ— must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
neither can deceive nor be deceived 7 By this orderly deduction our Faith cometh to be endued with those qualities which we said were requisite thereto namely Certainty Obscurity and Prudence Certainty proceeds from the infallible Testimony of God propounded and conveyed to our understanding by such a mean as is infallible in it self and to us is evidently known that it proposeth this point or that and which can manifestly declare in what sense it proposeth them which means we have proved to be only the visible Church of Christ Obscurity from the manner in which God speaks to Mankind which ordinarily is such that it doth not manifeilly shew the person who speaks nor the truth of the thing spoken Prudence is not wanting because our faith is accompanied with so many arguments of Credibility that every well disposed Understanding may and ought to judge that the doctrins so confirmed deserve to be believed as proceeding from divine Authority 8 And thus from what hath been said we may easily gather the particular nature or definition of Faith For it is a voluntary or free infallible obscure assent to some truth because it is testified by God and is sufficiently propounded to us for such which proposal is ordinarily made by the Visible Church of Christ I say Sufficiently propused by the Church not that I purpose to dispute whether the proposal of the Church enter into the formal Object or Motive of Faith or whether any error be an heresie formally and precisely because it is against the proposition of the Church as if such proposal were the formal Object of Faith which D. Potter to no purpose at all labours so very hard to disprove But I only affirm that when the Church propounds any Truth as revealed by God we are assured that it is such indeed and so it instantly grows to be a fit object for Christian faith which inclines and enables us to believe whatsoever is duly presented as a thing revealed by Almighty God And in the same manner we are sure that whosoever opposeth any doctrin proposed by the Church doth thereby contradict a truth which is testified by God As when any lawful Superiour notifies his will by the means and as it were proposal of some faithful messenger the subject of such a Superiour in performing or neglecting what is delivered by the Messenger is said to obey or disobey his own lawful Superiour And therefore because the testimony of God is notified by the Church we may and we do most truly say that not to believe what the Church proposeth is to deny God's holy word or testimony signified to us by the Church according to that saying of S. Irenaeus We need not go (m) Lib. 3. com Haeres cap. 4. to any other to seck the truth which we may easily receive from the Church 9 From this definition of faith we may also know what Heresie is by taking the contrary terms as Heresie is contrary to Faith and saying Heresie is a voluntary error against that which God hath revealed and the Church hath proposed for such Neither doth it import whether the error concern points in themselves great or small fundamental or not fundamental For more being required to an act of Vertue than of Vice if any truth though never so small may be believed by faith as scon as we know it to be testified by divine revelation much more will it be a formal Heresie to deny any least point sufficiently propounded as a thing witnessed by God 10 This divine Faith is divided into Actual and Habitual Actual faith or faith actuated is when we are in act of consideration and belief of some mysterie of Faith for example that our Saviour Christ is true God and Man c. Habitual faith is that from which we are denominated Faithful or Believers as by Actual faith they are stiled Believing This Habit of faith is a Quality enabling us most firmly to believe Objects above humane discourse and it remaineth permanently in our Soul even when we are sleeping or not thinking of any Mysterie of faith This is the first among the three Theological Vertues For Charity unites us to God as he is infinitely Good in himself Hope ties us to him as he is unspeakably Good to us Faith joyns us to him as he is the Supreme immoveable Verity Charity relies on his Goodness Hope on his Power Faith on his divine Wisdom From hence it followeth that Faith being one of the Vertues which Divines term Infused that is which cannot be acquired by humane wit or industry but are in their Nature and Essence supernatural it hath this property that it is not destroyâ—d by little and little contrarily to the Habits called acquisiti that is gotten by humane endeavour which as they are successively produced so also are they lost successively or by little and little but it must either be conserved entire or wholly destroyed And since it cannot stand entire with any one act which is directly contrary it must be totally overthrown and as it were demolished and razed by every such act Wherefore as Charity or the love of God is expelled from our soul by any one act of Hatred or any other mortal sin against his Divine Majesty and as Hope is destroyed by any one act of voluntary Desperation so Faith must perish by any one act of Heresie because every such act is directly and formally opposite thereunto I know that some sins which as Divines speak are ex genere suo in their kind grievous and moâ—tal may be much lessened and fall to be venial ob levitatem materiae because they may happen to be exercised in a matter of small consideration as for example to steal a penny is venial although Theft in his kind be a deadly sin But it is likewise true that this Rule is not general for all sorts of sins there being some so inexcusably wicked of their own nature that no smalness of matter nor paucity in number can defend them from being deadly sins For to give an instance what blasphemy against God or voluntary false Oath is not a deadly sin Certainly none at all although the salvation of the whole world should depend upon swearing such a falshood The like hapneth in our present case of Heresie the iniquity redounding to the injury of God's supreme wisdom and goodness is always great and enormous They were no precious stones which David (n) 1. Reg. 17. pickt out of the water to encounter Golias yet if a man take from the number but one and say they were but four against the Scripture affirming them to have been five he is instantly guilty of a damnable sin Why Because by this substraction of One he doth deprive God's Word and Testimony of all credit and infallibility For if either he could deceive or be deceived in any one thing it were but wisdom to suspect him in all And seeing every Heresie opposeth some Truth revealed by God it is
must have a very favourable construction or else they will not be sense For who can make any thing of these words taken properly that faith must be an unknown unevident assent or an assent absolutely obscure I had always thought that known and unknown obscure and evident had been affections not of our Assent but the Object of it not of our belief but the thing believed For well may we assent to a thing unknown obscure or unevident but that our assent it self should be called therefore unknown or obscure seems to me as great an impropriety as if I should say Your sight were green or blew because you see something that is so In other places therefore I answer your words but here I must answer your meaning which I conceive to be That it is necessary to faith that the Objects of it the points which we believe should not be so evidently certain as to necessitate our understanding to an Assent that so there might be some merit in faith as you love to speak who will not receive no not from God himself but a penny-worth for a penny but as we some obedience in it which can hardly have place where there is no possibility of disobedience as there is not where the understanding does all and the will nothing Now seeing the Religion of Protestants thought it be much more credible than yours yet is not pretended to have the absolute evidence of sense or demonstration therefore I might let this doctrin pass without exception for any prejudice that can redound to us by it But yet I must not forbear to tell you that your discourse proves indeed this condition requisite to the merit but yet not to the essence of faith without it faith were not an act of obedience but yet faith may be faith without it and this you must confess unless you will say either the Apostles believed not the whole Gospel which they preached or that they were not cy-witnesses of a great part of it unless you will question S. John for saying that which we have seen with our eys which our hands have handled c declare we unto you nay our Saviour himself for saying Thomas because thou seest thou believest Blessed are they which have not seen yet have believed Yet if you will say that in respect of the things which they saw the Apostles assent was not pure and proper and meer faith but somewhat more an assent containing faith but superadding to it I will not contend with you for it will be a contention about words But then again I must crave leave to tell you that the requiring this condition is in my judgment a plain revocation of the former For had you made the matter of faith either naturally or supernaturally evident it might have been a fitly attempered and duly proportioned object for an absolute certainty natural or supernatural But requiring as you do that faith should be an absolute knowledge of a thing not absolutely known an infallible certainty of a thing which though it be in it self yet it is not made appear to us to be infallibly certain to my understanding you speak impossibilities And truly for one of your Religion to do so is but a good Decorum For the matter and object of your Faith being so full of contradictions a contradictions faith may very well become a contradictious Religion Your faith therefore if you please to have it so let it be a free necessitated certain uncertain evident obscure prudent and foolish natural and supernatural unnatural assent But they which are unwilling to believe non-sense themselves or to perswade others to do so it is but reason they should make the faith wherewith they believe an intelligible compossible consistent thing not define it by repugnancies Now nothing is more repugnant than that a man should be required to give most certain credit unto that which cannot be made appear most certainly credible and if it appear to him to be so then is it not obscure that it is so For if you speak of an acquired rational discursive faith certainly these Reasons which make the object seem credible must be the cause of it and consequently the strength and firmity of my assent must rise and fall together with the apparent credibility of the object If you speak of a supernatural infused faith then you either suppose it infused by the former means and then that which was said before must be said again for whatsoever effect is wrought meerly by means must bear proportion to and cannot exceed the vertue of the means by which it is wrought As nothing by water can be made more cold than water nor by fire more hot than fire nor by honey more sweet than honey nor by gall more bitter than gall Or if you will suppose it infused without means then that power which infuseth into the understanding assent which bears Analogy to sight in the eye must also infuse Evidence that is Visibility into the Object and look what degree of assent is infus'd into the understanding at least the same degree of evidence must be infused into the Object And for you to require a strength of credit beyond the appearance of the object 's credibility is all one as if you should require me to go ten miles an hour upon an horse that will go but five to discern a man certainly through a myst or cloud that makes him not certainly discernable to hear and sound more clearly than it is audible to understand a thing more fully than it is intelligible and he that doth so I may well expect that his next injunction will be that I must see something that is invisible hear something inaudible understand something that is wholly unintelligible For he that demands ten of me knowing I have but five does in effect as if he demanded five knowing that I have none and by like reason you requiring that I should see things farther then they are visible require I should see something invisible and in requiring that I believe something more firmly than it is made to me evidently credible you require in effect that I believe some thing which appears to me incredible and while it does so I deny not but that I am bound to believe the truth of many Texts of Scripture the sense whereof is to me obscure and the truth of many Articles of faith the manner whereof is obscure and to humane understandings incomprehensible But then it is to be observed that not the sense of such Texts not the manner of these things is that which I am bound to believe but the truth of them But that I should believe the truth of any thing the truth whereof cannot be made evident with an evidence proportionable to the degree of faith required of me this I say for any man to be bound to is unjust and unreasonable because to do it is impossible 8 Ad § 4 5 6 7 8.9 10 11 12. Yet
new Observations the first that the Pope having threatned the Bishops of Asia to excommunicate them Polycrates the Bishop of Ephesus and Metropolitan of Asia despised the Popes threats as it appears by the answer of the same Polycrates to Pope Victor Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Hieron in Hieron in script Eccl. in Polyer which is inserted in the writings of Eusebius and of Saint JEROM and which JEROM seemeth to approve when he saith he reports it to shew the spirit and authority of the man And the second that when the Pope pronounced anciently his Excommunications he did no other thing but separate himself from the Communion of those that he excommunicated and did not thereby separate them from the universal communion of the Church To the first then we say that so farr is this Epistle of Polycrates from abating and diminishing the Popes authority that contrariwise it greatly magnifies and exalts it For although Polycrates blinded with the love of the custom of his Nation which he believed to be grounded upon the Word of God who had assigned the fourteenth of the Moneth of March for the observation of the Pasche and upon the example of S. JOHN'S tradition maintains it obstinately Nevertheless this that he answers speaking in his own Name Exod. 12. Hieronym ubi supra and in the name of the Council of the Bishops of Asia to whom he presided I fear not those that threeaten us for my Elders have said It is better to obey God than man Doth it not shew that had it not been that be believed the Pope's threat was against the express Word of God there had been cause to fear it and he had been obliged to obey him for m who knows not that this answer It is better to obey God than men is not to be made but to those whom we were obliged to obey if their commundements were not contrary to the commandements of God And that he adds that he had called the Bishops of Asia Euseb Hist Eccl l. 5. c. 23. to a National Council being n summoned to it by the Pope doth it not insinuate that the other Councils whereof Eusebius speaks that were holden about this matter through all the Provinces of the Earth and particularly that of Palestina Bâ—da in frag de Aequinociio veâ—â—aâ— which if you believe the act that Beda said came to his hands Theophilus Archbishop of Cesarea had called by the auctority of Victor were holden at the instance of the Pope and consequently that the Pope was the first mover of the Universal Church And that the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople of Ephesus embraced the Censure of Victor and excommunicated those that observed the custom of Polycrates that was deceived in believing that the Popes commandement was against Gods commandement And that S. JEROM himself celebrates the Paschal Homilies of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria which followed the Order of Nicea concerning the Pasche doth it not justifie that when S. JEROM saith That he reports the Epistle of Polycrates to shew the spirit and authority of the man he intends by authority not authority of right but of fact that is to say the credit that Polycrates had amongst the Asians and other Quarto decimans These are the Cardinal's words the most material and considerable passages whereof to save the trouble of repetition I have noted with letters of reference whereunto my answers noted respectively with the same letters follow now in order a If Eusebius were an Arrian author it is nothing to the purpose what he writes there is no Arrianism nor any thing towards it Never any error was imputed to the Arrians for denying the Authority or the infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome Besides what Eusebius says he says out of Irenaeus Neither doth or can the Cardinal deny the story to be true and therefore he goes about by indirect Arts to foil it and cast a blurr upon it Lastly whensoever Eusebius says any thing which the Cardinal thinks for the advantage of his side he cites him and then he is no Arrian or at least he would not take that for an answer to the arguments he draws out of him b That Ruffinus was enemy to the Roman Church is said but not proved neither can it be c Eusebius says the same also of caeteri omnes Episcopi all the other Bishops That they advised Victor to keep those things that belonged to peace and unity and that they sharply reprehended Victor for having done otherwise d This is said but no offer made of any proof of it The Cardinal thinks we must take every thing upon his word They to whom the Tradition was delivered Polycrates and the Asian Bishops knew no such matter nay professed the contrary And who is more likely to know the Truth they which lived within two ages of the fountain of it or the Cardinal who lived sixteen ages after it e How can it make against those that object it seeing it is evident from Irenaeus his Reprehension that he thought Victor and the Roman Church no infallible nor sufficient Judge of what was necessary to be believed and done what not what was universal Tradition what not what was a sufficient ground of Excommunication and what not and consequently that there was no such necessity as is pretended that all other Churches should in matters of faith conform themselves to the Church of Rome f This is to suppose that Excommunication is an Act or Argument or sign of Power and Authority in the party excommunicating over the party excommunicated whereas it is undeniably evident out of the Church-Story that it was often used by Equals upon Equals and by Inferiours upon Superiours if the Equals or Inferiours thought their Equals or Superiours did any thing which deserved it g And what is this but to confess that they thought that a small cause of Excommunication and unsufficient which Victor and his adherents thought great and sufficient And consequently that Victor and his Part declared that to be a matter of faith and of necessity which they thought not so And where was then their conformity h True you have so expounded it but not proved nor offered any proof of your exception This also we must take upon your Authority Irenaeus speaks not one Word of any other power to which he compares or before which he preferrs the power of the Roman-Church And it is evident out of the Council of Chalcedon * Cant. 28. That all the Principality which it had was given it not by God but by the Church in regard it was seated in the Imperial City Whereupon when afterwards Constantinople was the Imperial City they decreed that that Church should have equal Priviledges and dignity and preheminence with the Church of Rome All the Fathers agreed in this Decree saving only the Legats of the Bishop of Rome shewing plainly that they never thought of any Supremacy given the Bishops of Rome by
Charity may be considered Towards God Our own soul The soul of our Neighbour Our own life or goods and the life or goods of our Nighbour God is to be beloved above all things both Objectivè as the Divines speak that is we must with or desire to God a good more great perfect and noble than to any â—or all other things namely all that indeed He is a Nature Infinite Independent Immense c. and also Appretiativè that is we must sooner lose what good soever than leave and abandon him In the other Objects of Charity of which I spake this order is to be kept We may but are not bound to preferre the life and goods of Neighbour before our own we are bound to preferre the soul of our Neighbour before our own temporal goods or life if he happen to be in extreme spiritual necessity and that we by our assistance can succour him according to the saying of Saint John In this we have known (b) 1. Joan. 3. v. 16. the Charity of God because he hath yeelded his life for us and we ought to yeeld our life for our Bretheren And S. Augustine likewise saith A Christian will not doubt (c) De mendac cap. 6. to lose his own temporal life for the eternal life of his Neighbour Lastly we are to preferre the spiritual good of our own soule before both the spiritual and temporal good of our Neighbour because as Charity doth of its own Nature chiefly encline the person in whom it resides to love God and to be united with him so of it self it enclines him to procure those things whereby the said Union with God is effected rather to himself then to others And from hence it follows that in things necessary to salvation no man ought in any case or in any respect whatsoever to preferre the spiritual good either of any particular person or of the whole world before his own soul according to those words of our Blessed Saviour What doth it (d) Mat. 6 avail a man if he gain the whole would and sustain the damage of his own soul And therefore to come to our present purpose it is directly against the Order of Charity or against Charity as it hath a reference to our selves which Divines call Charitas propria to adventure either the omitting of any means necessary to salvation or the committing of any thing repugnant to it for whatsoever respect and consequently if by living out of the Roman Church wâ— put our selves in hazard either to want something necessarily required to salvation or else to perform some act against it we commit a most grievous sin against the vertue of Charity as it respects our selves and so cannot hope for salvation without repentance 3. Now of things necessary to salvation there are two sorts according to the doctrin of all Divines Something 's say they are necessary to salvation necessitate praecepti necessary only because they are commanded For If thou wilt (e) Matth. 19.17 enter into life keepe the Commandements In which kind of things as probable ignorance of the Law or of the commandement doth excuse the party from all faulty breach thereof so likewise doth it not exclude salvation in case of ignorance Some other things are said to be necessary to salvation necessitate medii finis or salutis because they are Means appointed by God to attain our End of eternal salvation in so strict a manner that it were Presumption to hope for Salvation without them And as the former means are said to be necessary because they are commanded so the latter are commonly said to be commanded because they are necessary that is Although there were no other special precept concerning them yet supposing they be once appointed as means absolutely necessary to salvation there cannot but arise an obligation of procuring to have them in vertue of that universal precept of Charity which obligeth every man to procure the salvation of his own soul In this sort divine infallible Faith is necessary to salvation as likewise Repentance of every deadly sin and in the doctrin of Catholiques Baptism in re that is in Act to Children and for those who are come to the use of reason in voto or hearty desire when they cannot have it in act And as Baptism is necessary for remission of Original and Actual sin committed before it so the Sacrament of Confession or pennance is necessary in re or in voto in act or desire for the remission of mortal sins committed after Baptism The minister of which Sacrament of Pennance being necessarily a true Priest true Ordination is necessary in the Church of God for remission of sins by this Sacrament as also for other ends not belonging to our present purpose From hence it riseth that no ignorance or impossibility can supply the want of those means which are absolutely necessary to salvation As if for example a sinner depart this world without repenting himself of all deadly sins although he die suddenly or unexpectedly fall out of his wits and so commit no new sin by omission of repentance yet he shall be eternally punished for his former sins committed and never repented of If an Infant die without Baptism he cannot be saved not by reason of any actuall sin committed by him in omitting Baptism but for Original sin not forgiven by the means which God hath ordained to that purpose Which doctrin all or most Protestants will for ought I know grant to be true in the Children of Infidels yea not only Lutherans but also some other Protestants as M. Bilson late of Winchester (f) In his true difference c. Part. 4. pag 168. 369. and others hold it to be true even in the Children of the faithful And if Protestants in general disagree from Catholiques in this point it cannot be denyed but that our disagreement is in a point very fundamental And the like I say of the Sacrament of Pennance which they deny to be necessary to salvation either in act or in desire which error is likewise fundamental because it concerns as I said a thing necessary to salvation And for the same reason if their Priesthood and Ordination be doubtful as certainly it is they are in danger to want a means without which they cannot be saved Neither ought this rigour to seem strange or unjust For almighty God having of his own Goodness without our merit first ordained man to a supernatural end of eternal felicity and then after our fall in Adam vouchsafed to reduce us to the attaining of that End if his blessed Will be pleased to limit the attaining of that End to some means which in his infinite Wisdome he thinks most fit who can say Why dost thou so Or who can hope for that End without such means Blessed be his divine Majesty for vouchsafing to ordain us base creatures to so sublime an End by any means at all 4 Out of the foresaid difference followeth another
absurdities nor do not own and acknowledge but disclaim and detest them And this is all the answer which I should make to this discourse if I should deal rigidly and strictly with you Yet that you may not think your self contemn'd nor have occasion to pretend that your arguments are evaded I will intreat leave of my Reader to bring to the test every particle of it and to censure what deserves a censure and to answer what may any way seem to require an answer and then I doubt not but what I have affirm'd in general will appear in particular Ad § 1. To the First then I say 1. It was needless to prove that due Order is to be observed in anything much more in Charity which being one of the best things may be spoil'd by being disordered Yet if it stood in need of proof I fear this place of the Canticles He hath ordered Charity in me would be no enforcing demonstration of it 2. The reason alledged by you why we ought to love one object more then another because one thing participates the Divine Goodness more then another is phantastical and repugnant to what you say presently after For by this rule no man should love himself more than all the world which yet you require unless he were first vainly perswaded that he doth more participate the Divine Goodness than all the world But the true reason why one thing ought to be lov'd more then another is because one thing is better then another or because it is better to us or because God commands us to do so or because God himself does so and we are to conform our affections to the will of God 3. It is not true that all objects which we believe do equally participate the Divine Testimony or Revelation◠For some are testified more evidently and some more obscurely and therefore whatsoever you have built upon this ground must of necessity fall together with it And thus much for the first number 6. Ad § 2. In the Second many passages deserve a censure For 1. it is not true that we are to wish or desire to God a nature infinite independent immense For it is impossible I should desire to any person that which he hath already if I know that he hath it nor the perpetuity of it if I know it impossible but he must have it for perpetuity And therefore Rejoycing only and not Welwishing is here the proper worke of love 2. Whereas you say That in things necessary to salvation no man ought in any case or in any respect whatsoever to prefer the spiritual good of the whole world before his own soul In saying this you seem to me to condemn one of the greatest acts of Charity of one of the greatest Saints that ever was I mean S. Paul who for his bretheren desir'd to be an Anathema from Christ And as for the Text alleadged by you in confirmation of your saying What doth it avail a man if he gain the whole world and sustain the damage of his own soul It is nothing to the purpose For without all question it is not profitable for a man to do so but the question is whether it be not lawful for a man to forgo and part with his own particular profit to procure the universal spiritual and eternal benefit of others 3. Whereas you say It is directly against Charity to our selves to adventure the omitting of any means necessary to salvation this is true But so is this also that it is directly against the same Charity to adventure the omitting any thing that may any way help or conduce to my salvation that may make the way to it more secure or less dangerous And therefore if the errors of the Roman Church do but hinder me in this way or any way endanger it I am in Charity to my self bound to forsake them though they be not destructive of it 4. Whereas you conclude That if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazzard to want something necessary to Salvation we commit a grievous sin against the vertue of Charity as it respects our selves This consequence may be good in those which are thus perswaded of the Roman Church and yet live out of it But the supposition is certainly false We may live and dy out of the Roman Church without putting our selves in any such hazard Nay to live and dye in it is as dangerous as to shoot a gulf which though some good ignorant souls may do and escape yet it may well be feared that not one in a hundred but miscarries Ad § 3. I proceed now to the third Section and herein first I observe this acknowledgement of yours That in things necessary only because commanded a probable ignorance of the commandement excuses the Party from all fault and doth not exclude Salvation From which Doctrin it seems to me to follow that seeing obedience to the Roman Church cannot be pretended to be necessary but only because it is commanded therefore not only an invincible but even a probable ignorance of this pretended command must excuse us from all faulty breach of it and cannot exclude Salvation Now seeing this command is not pretended to be expresly delivered but only to be deduced from the word of God and that not by the most cleer and evident consequences that may be and seeing an infinity of great Objections lies against it which seem strongly to prove that that is no such command with what Charity can you suppose that our ignorance of this command is not at the least probable if not all things considered plainly invincible Sure I am for my part that I have done my true endeavour to finde it true and am still willing to do so but the more I seek the farther I am from finding and therefore if it be true certainly my not finding it is very excusable and you have reason to be very charitable in your censures of me 2. Whereas you say that besides these things necessary because commanded there are other things which are commanded because necessary of which number you make Divine infallible faith Baptism in act for Children and in Desire for those who are come to the use of Reason and the Sacrament of Confession for those who have committed mortal sin In these words you seem to me to deliver a strange Paradoxe viz. That Faith and Baptism and Confession are not therefore necessary for us because God appointed them but are therefore appointed by God because they were necessary for us antecedently to his appointment which if it were true I wonder what it was beside God that made them necessary and made it necessary for God to command them Besides in making Faith one of these necessary means you seem to exclude Infants from Salvation For Faith comes by hearing and they have not heard In requiring that this Faith should be divine and infallible you cast your Credence into infinite perplexity who cannot
possibly by any sure Mark discern whether their Faith be Divine or humane or if you have any certain signe whereby they may discern whether they believe your Churches infallibility with Divine or only with humane faith I pray produce it for perhaps it may serve us to shew that our faith is divine as well as yours Moreover in affirming that Baptism in act is necessary for Infants and for men only in desire You seem to me in the later to destroy the foundation of the former For if a desire of Baptism will serve men in stead of Baptism then those words of our Saviour Unless a man be born again of water c. are not to be understood literally and rigidly of external Baptism for a desire of Baptism is not Baptism and so your foundation of the absolute necessity of Baptism is destroyed And if you may gloss the Text so far as that men may be saved by the desire without Baptism it self because they cannot have it Why should you not gloss it a litle farther that there may be some hope of the salvation of unbaptized infants to whom it was more impossible to have a desire of Baptism than for the former to have the thing it self Lastly for your Sacrament of Confession we know none such nor any such absolute necessity of it They that confess their sins and forsake them shall find mercy though they confess them to God only and not to men They that confess them both to God and men if they do not effectually and in time forsake them shall not find mercy 3. Whereas you fay that supposing these means once appointed as absolutely necessary to salvation there cannot but arise an obligation of procuring to have them you must suppose I hope that we know them to be so appointed and that it is in our power to procure them otherwise though it may be our ill fortune to fail of the end for want of the means certainly we cannot be obliged to procure them For the rule of the Law is also the dictate of common reason and equity That no man can be obliged to what is impossible We can be obliged to nothing but by vertue of some command now it is impossible that God should command in earnest any thing which he knows to be impossible For to command in earnest is to command with an intent to be obeyed which is not possible he should do when he knows the thing commanded to be impossible Lastly whosoever is obliged to do any thing and does it not commits a fault but Infants commit no fault in not procuring to have Baptism therefore no obligation lies upon them to procure it 4. Whereas you say that if Protestants dissent from you in the point of the necessity of Baptism for infants it cannot be denyed but that our disagreement it in a point fundamental If you mean a point esteemed so by you this indeed cannot be denyed But if you mean a point that indeed is fundamental this may certainly be denyed for I deny it and say that it doth not appear to me any way necessary to Salvation to hold the truth or not to hold an errour touching the condition of these Infants This is certain and we must believe that God will not deal unjustly with them but how in particular he will deal with them concernes not us and therefore we need not much regard it 5. Whereas you say the like of your Sacrament of Penance you only say so but your proofs are wanting Lastly whereas you say This rigour ought not to seem strange or unjust in God but that we are rather to bless him for ordaining us to Salvation by any means I answer that it is true we are not to question the known will of God of injustice yet whether that which you pretend to be Gods will be so indeed or only your presumption this I hope may be question'd lawfully and without presumption and if we have occasion we may safely put you in mind of Ezechiel's commination against all those who say Thus saith the Lord when they have no certain warrant or authority from him to do so 8. Ad § 4. In the fourth Paragraph you deliver this false and wicked Doctrin that for the procuring our own salvation we are alwaies boundunder pain of mortal sin to take the safest way but for avoyding sin we are not bound to do so but may follow the opinion of any probable Doctors though the contrary way be certainly free from sin and theirs be doubtfull Which doctrin in the former part of it is apparently false For though wisdom and Charity to our selves would perswade us alwaies to do so yet many times that way which to our selves and our salvation is more full of hazard is notwithstanding not only lawful but more charitable and more noble For example to fly from a persecution and so to avoid the temptation of it may be the safer way for a mans own salvation yet I presume no man ought to condemn him of impiety who should resolve not to use his liberty in this matter but for Gods greater glory the greater honour of truth and the greater confirmation of his bretheren in the faith choose to stand out the storm and endure the fiery trial rather than avoid it rather to put his own soul to the hazard of a temptation in hope of Gods assistance to go through with it than to baulk the opportunity of doing God and his bretheren so great a service This part therefore of this Doctrin is manifestly untrue The other not only false but impious for therein you plainly give us to understand that in your judgement a resolution to avoid sin to the uttermost of your power is no necessary means of Salvation nay that a man may resolve not to do so without any danger of damnation Therein you teach us that we are to do more for the love of our selves and our own happiness than for the love of God and in so doing contradict our Saviour who expresly commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our strength and hath taught us that the love of God consists in avoiding sin and keeping his commandements Therein you directly cross S. Pauls doctrin who though he were a very probable Doctor and had delivered his judgement for the lawfulness of eating meats offered to Idols yet he assures us that he which should make scruple of doing so and forbear upon his scruple should not sin but only be a weak brother whereas he who should do it with a doubtful conscience though the action were by S. Paul warranted lawful yet sheuld sin and be condemn'd for so doing You pretend indeed to be rigid defenders and stout champions for the necessity of good works but the truth is you speak lies in hypocrisie and when the matter is well examin'd will appear to make your selves and your own functions necessary but obedience to
and come short of the glory of God Thus much for the Law of Works 29. The state of mankind without Christ being so deplored so out of al hope as I told you Almighty God out of his infinite mercy and goodness by his unspeakable wisdom found out an attonement accepting of the voluntary exinanition and humiliation of his dearly beloved Son who submitted himself to be made flesh to all our natural infirmities sin only excepted and at last to dye that ignominious accursed death of the Cross for the Redemption of mankind Who in his death made a Covenant with his Father that those and only those who would be willing to submit themselves to the obedience of a new Law which he would prescribe unto mankind should for the merits of his obedience and death be justified in the sight of God have their sins forgiven them and be made heirs of everlasting glory Now that Christ's death was in order of Nature before the giving of the Gospel is I think evident by those words of St. Paul Heb. 9.16 17. where comparing the old Covenant of the Jews with that of Christ he saith Where a Testament is Heb. 9.16.16 there must of necessity be the death of the Testatour for a Testament is of force after men are dead otherwisâ— it is of no strength at all while the Testatour liveth whereupon neither the first Covenant was dedicated without bloud It was necessary therefore saith he ver 23. that the patterns of things in heaven should be purified with these i. e. with the bloud of Beasts but the heavenly things themselves with better things than those namely with the bloud of Christ 30. Which Covenant of Christ call'd in Scripture the New-Covenant the Covenant of Grace the grace of God the Law of Faith according to the nature of all Covenants being made between two parties at the least requires conditions on both sides to be perform'd and being a Covenant of Promise the conditions on man's part must necessarily go before otherwise they are no conditions at all Now man's duty is comprehended by St. Paul in this word Faith and God's promise in the word Justification And thus farr we have proceeded upon sure grounds for we have plain express words of Scripture for that which hath been said But the main difficulty remains behind and that is the true sense and meaning of these two words Faith and Justification and what respect and dependance they have one of the other Which difficulty by Gods assistance and with your Christian charitable patience I will now endeavour to dissolve 31. For the first therefore which is Faith we may consider it in several respects to wit first as referring us to and denoting the principal object of Evangelical Faith which is Christ Now if Faith be meant in this sense as by many good Writers of our Reformed Churches it is understood then the meaning of that so often repeated saying of St. Paul We are justified by Faith without the works of the Law must be We are justifi'd only for the obedience of Christ and not for our righteousness of the Law which is certainly a most Catholick Orthodox sense and not to be deny'd by any Christian though I doubt it does not express all that St. Paul intended in that Proposition Secondly Faith signifies the Act or exercise or duty of Faith as it comprehends all Evangelical Obedience call'd by St. Paul The Obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 Rom. 16.26 4.13 9.13 10.6 The Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4 13. 9.13 10.6 And it is an inherent grace or vertue wrought in us by the powerful operation of God's Spirit Or thirdly Rom. 10.9 it may be taken for the Doctrin of Faith call'd also by him the Word of Faith Act. 20.32 Gal. 3.2 Rom. 3.27 Rom. 10.8 and the Word of Gods Grace Act. 20.32 and the hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 In which sense as if he meant the Word St. Paul may seem to resolve us Rom. 3.27 where he saith that boasting is excluded by the Law of Faith which words are extant in the very heat of the controversie of Justification Now these senses of Faith if they be apply'd to that conclusion of St. Paul We are justified by Faith come all to one pass for in effect it is all one to say We are justifi'd by our Obedience or Righteousness of Faith and to say We are justifi'd by the Gospel which prescribes that Obedience As on the contrary to say We are justifi'd by the Law or by works prescribed by the Law is all one There is a fourth acception of Faith taken for the single Habit or Grace of Faith and apply'd to this proposition only of all Christians that I have heard of by the Belgick Remonstrants which being a new invented fancy and therefore unwarrantable yet I shall hereafter have occasion it may be to say something of it 31. St. Paul's Proposition I am perswaded excludes none of these senses it is capeble of them all But before I shew you how they may consist together I will in the first place declare of what nature that righteousness is which God by vertue of his New Covenant requires at our hands before he will make good his promise unto us First then God requires at our hands a sincere Obedience unto the substance of all Moral duties of the Old Covenant and that by the Gospel And this obedience is so necessary that it is impossible any man should be saved without it The pressing of this Doctrine takes up by much the greatest part of the Evangelical Writings Now that these Duties are not enforc'd upon us as conditions of the Old Covenant of Works is evident because by Christ we are freed from the Obligation of the Old Covenant God forbids that we should have a thought of expecting the hope of righteousness upon those terms For that Covenant will not admit of any imperfection in our works and then in what a miserable case are we There is no hope for us unless some course be taken that not only our imperfections but our sins and those of a high nature be pass'd by and overlook'd by Almighty God as if He had lost his eyes to see them or his memory to remember them 32. The substance then of the Moral Law is enjoyn'd us by the New-Covenant but with what difference I shall shew you presently And hereupon it is that our Saviour saith to the Pharisees who were willing to make any mis-construction of his Doctrine Think you that I am come to destroy the Law I by all means say we God forbid else for unless the old Law be destroy'd we are undone as long as that is alive we are dead If the Law of Works have its natural force still woe be to us Therefore that must not be Christ's meaning His intent is as if he should say Think you that I am come to destroy the righteousness of the Law to dis-oblige men from