Hereticks if none appear from any other more remote Churches still the same plea will serve to exclude them all For my part I much approve the saying of Eugenius in the Council of Florence when they spake of the paucity of Bishops for a General Council That where he and the Emperour and the Patriarch of Constantinople were present there was a General Council though there were no more And Pope Pius the fourth might have saved a great deal of mony in his purse with which he maintained his Bishops Errant at that Council had he been of the same mind But the scene of things was altered in Europe there were such clamours made for a General Council that something must be done to satisfie the world and as long as the Pope knew how to manage the business there would be nothing could breed so great danger in it He therefore barely summons a Council without acquainting any of the Eastern Patriarchs with it as was the custom in the ancient General Councils among whom it was debated after the Emperours indicting of it these summoned by the Emperours order their Metropolitans the Metropolitans the Bishops the Bishops they agreed among themselves who should go to the Council who on that account might be said to represent those Churches from whence they came What was there like this in the Council of Trent What messages were there sent to the Eastern Patriarchs of Constantinople Antioch and Alexanandria What Metropolitans came thence What Bishops by the consent of those Churches And if there were nothing of all this What boldness is it to call this a General Council Just by the same figure that your Church is called the Catholick Church which is by an insufferable Catachresis And must six fugitive Greek-Bishops give vote here for all the Eastern Churches and two fugitive English-Bishops for all the Church of England I do not then at all wonder How easily this might be a General Council though there were so very few persons in most of the Sessions of it But you say There was no need of any particular sending from the Greeks as the case then stood and still continues 't is sufficient they were called by the Pope Sufficient indeed for your purpose but not at all for a General Council For if the Greek Churches had been in condition to have sent an equal number of Eastern to Western Bishops the Popes would rather have lost all than stood to the judgement of such a Council And this you know well enough for all your saying That the Greek Church condemns the Protestants You dread the Greek Churches meeting you in a Free General Council and therefore to prevent that they must be called Schismaticks and excluded as such though you would never permit the debate of the Schism in a Free Council As the case then stood and still continues there was no need of sending And Why so Is it because those Churches were then under persecutions and are still and therefore there is no hopes that the Bishops should come to a General Council But all that thence follows is that as things stood then and do still there can be no truly General Council and that is a just inference but I suppose you rather mean because those Churches were then in Schism and are still which still discovers what a wonderful good opinion you have of your selves and how uncharitable you are to all others And so great is the excellency of your Bishops that one of them may represent a whole Nation and so about fifty will be more than sufficient for the whole world And therefore I rather wonder there were so many Bishops at Trent for if the Pope pleased as he made Patriarchs Primats and Arch-Bishops of such places where they never durst go which he knew well enough it had been but appointing such to stand for such a Nation and such for another and a small number might have served turn without putting any to the trouble of coming from any forein Countries at all For otherwise if we go about to examine the numbers of Bishops by their proportions to the Churches they come from as it ought to be in General Councils we shall find a most pitiful account in the Council of Trent For as his Lordship saith Is it to be accounted a General Council that in many Sessions had scarce ten Arch-Bishops or forty or fifty Bishops present In all the Sessions under Paul 3. but two Frenchmen and sometimes none as in the sixth under Julius 3. when Henry 2. of France protested against that Council And from England but one or two by your own confession and those not sent by Authority And the French he saith held off till the Cardinal of Lorrain was got to Rome As for the Spaniards they laboured for many things upon good grounds but were most unworthily over-born Now to this you have a double Answer ready 1. That mission or deputation is not of absolute necessity but only of Canonical provision when time or state of the Countries whence Bishops are sent will permit in other cases it sufficeth they be called by the Pope 2. For those who were absent the impediment was not on the Councils part and in the latter Sessions wherein all that had been formerly desined by the Council was de Novo confirmed and ratified by the unanimous consent of all the Prelates 't is manifest the Council was so full that in the number of Bishops it exceeded some of the first four General Councils I begin with your first Answer which necessarily implies that a General Council is not so called by representation of the whole Church but by relation to the Popes Summons So that if the Pope make a General Summons that must be called a General Council though none be present but such whom the Pope shall think fit to call thither But Where do you find any such account of a General Council in all Antiquity I have given you instances already of General Councils in which the Popes had nothing at all to do with the summoning of them nay all the four General Councils were called by the Emperour and not by the Pope as any one may see that doth not wilfully blind himself The Pope sometimes did beseech and intreat the Emperour to call a Council but never presumed to do it himself in those daies And this is evident not only from the Historians but from the authentick Acts of the Councils themselves and Perron's distinction of the temporal and spiritual call of Councils is as ill grounded as the Popes temporal and spiritual power there being no foundation at all in Anquity nor any reason in the thing for two such several Calls the one by the Emperour and the other by the Pope But this is a meer evasion the evidence being so clear as to the Emperours calling those Councils the Nicene by Constantine the Constantinopolitan by Theodosius the Ephesine by the Junior Theodosius the Chalcedonian
added by way of explication the word Filioque to the Article which concerned the Holy Ghost and this they did to signifie that the Holy Ghost as true God proceeded from the Son and was not made or created by him as some Hereticks in those times began to teach Neither doth he say you affirm this without citation of some credible authority I could wish you had produced it not only for our satisfaction but of the more learned men of your own side who look on this as an improbable fiction Bellarmin produceth many Arguments against it saying That no mention is made of it in the Councils or Theodoret's History who particularly relates the Letters of the Council to Damasus and his to the Council that Leo 3. caused the Constantinopolitan Creed to be inscribed in a silver Table without that Addition that the third Council of Toledo used the Creed without that Addition that the Greeks did not begin this Controversie till A. D. 600. And how could they possibly charge the Latins with breaking the Canons of the third Oecumenical when according to this opinion it was added in the second Petavius is so great a friend to your opinion that in plain terms he calls it ridiculous and abundantly confutes that imagination of its being inserted because of the Heresie of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Manuel Calecas calls it who with Aristinus are all those worshipful Authorities which this opinion stands on But setting aside the contrary Authorities to these any one who is any thing versed in this Controversie must needs esteem this the most improbable account that can be given of this Addition For if this were true how little did the Latins at the Council at Florence understand their business when if they could have produced such an Addition before the Ephesine Council all the Greeks objections had come to nothing If this were true how little did Leo 3. consult his own or his predecessors honour who disswaded the Legats of the Council at Aquisgrane from continuing in the Creed that Addition of Filioque for when after a great deal of discourse concerning the Article and the Addition the Legats at last tell him That they perceived his pleasure was that it should be taken out of the Creed and so every one left to his liberty His answer is So it is certainly determined by me and I would perswade you by all means to assent to it And to manifest this to be his constant judgment he caused the Constantinopolitan Creed without the Addition of Filioque to be inscribed in a greater silver Tablet and placed publickly in the Church to be read of all as appears by the testimony of Photius and Peter Lombard that so all both Greeks and Latins might see that nothing was added to the Creed Had not this now been a strange action of his if this Addition had been so long before in the time of Damasus Nothing then can be more evident than that in this Leo's time no such Addition was made to the Creed Therefore it seems most probable which the famous Antoninus delivers that this Addition was made by Pope Nicolaus 1. For when he relates he causes why Photius excommunicated him he mentions that in the first place That he had made an Addition to the Creed by making the Spirit to proceed from the Son and therefore had fallen under the sentence of the third Oecumenical Council which prohibited such Additions to be made To which P. Pithaeus subscribes likewise and Petavius seems not to dissent the only thing which is pretended against it is that Andreas Colossensis in the Council at Ferrara saith That though Photius was a known and bitter enemy of the Latin Church yet he never objected this Addition against Nicolaus or Adrian but how strangely overseen Andreas was in these words sufficiently appears by Photius his Encyclical Epistle wherein he doth in terms object this against the Latins as appears by the words already produced So that although you would willingly have set this Addition far enough off from the Schism yet you see how improbable a fiction you produce for it and withall you see that this Addition by the consent of your own most learned and impartial Writers falls just upon the time when the Schism broke out viz. in the time of Nicolaus and Photius and therefore now judge you whether these words were so long added before the Schism that they could give no occasion to it 2. The next thing to be considered is Whether they who added it had power so to do Two things the Greeks insist on to shew that it was not done by sufficient authority 1. Because all such Additions were directly prohibited by the Ephesine Council 2. That supposing them not prohibited yet the Pope had no power to add to the Creed without the consent of the Eastern Churches 1. That such Additions were severely prohibited by the Ephesine Council the Sanction of which Council to this purpose hath been already produced and is extant both in the Acts of the Ephesine and Florentine Councils in which latter it is insisted on as the Foundation of the Greek's Arguments against the Addition of Filioque by Marcus Ephesius and the reason he there gives of such a Sanction made by the Council at Ephesus is that after the Nicene Council in several Provincial Councils there were above thirty several Expositions made of the Nicene Creed upon which the second Oecumenical Council made a further explication of it explaining those things which belonged to the Divinity of the Spirit and the Incarnation of Christ and because they did not prohibit any Additions the Nestorians easily depraved the Nicene Creed inserting their own opinions into it as appears by the confession of Faith exhibited to the Council by Charisius which being read in the Council and the Fathers thereby understanding how easily after this rate New Creeds might be continually made in the Church they severely prohibited any further Additions to be made to the Creed And therefore although they decreed in that Council the Virgin Mary to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in opposition to Nestorius yet they never offered to insert it into the Creed although they apprehended it necessary to explain the Oeconomy of our Saviour's Incarnation And that which much confirms the meaning of the Decree to be the absolute prohibition of all kind of Additions to the Creed is the Epistle of S. Cyril of Alexandria to Johannes Antiochenus wherein reciting this decree of the Council he adds these words as the explication of it We neither permit our selves or others to change one word or syllable of what is herein contained speaking of the Nicene Creed which Epistle was read and approved in the fourth Oecumenical Council To this the Latins answered them that which is still answered in the same case viz. That this Article of Filioque was only a declaration and not a prohibited Addition
make any Hereticks but such as have reason to believe that she cannot erre in her Definitions From whence Protestants will be in less danger of Heresie than Papists till you give us more sufficient reasons to prove that whatever the Church declares is certainly revealed by God And although you tell us Men may be accounted Hereticks before they are condemned as such by General Councils if they oppose the Doctrine clearly contained in Scripture or generally received by the Church yet you tell us not what the measures are whereby we ought to judge what things are thus clearly contained in Scripture or universally received whether the Churches judgement must be taken or every man 's own judgement if the former the ground of Heresie lyes still in the Churches Definition contrary to what Scotus affirms if the latter then no one can be an Heretick but he that opposeth that which he is or may be convinced is clearly contained in Scripture or generally received by the Church If that which he is convinced then no man is an Heretick but he that goes against his present judgement and so there will be few Hereticks in the world If that which he may be convinced of it must be understood either in his own judgement or yours if in his own judgement then a Heretick is one who dissents to things rashly without using means to inform himself if in yours why may not he say You may as well be convinced of the truth of that which he believes as he be convinced of the truth of that which you believe and so you may be a Heretick to him by the same reason that he is to you But you say further That there are many things which in themselves are matters of Faith yet so obscure in relation especially to unlearned and particular persons that before the decree of the Church we are not Hereticks though we should either doubt of them or deny them because as yet there appears no sufficient reason that can oblige us to believe them although after the Definition of the Church we ought as well to believe them as any other But it is impossible to understand how there can be such things which men might safely not believe but upon the Definition of the Church they are bound to believe them necessarily unless it be clear to them that the Church hath power to make obscure things plain and unnecessary things to become necessary For suppose one of these obscure things be this very Power of the Church in defining such things while this remains so obscure you tell me I may doubt or disbelieve it without Heresie and while I do so I may certainly doubt or disbelieve all she declares But by what means shall this thing become clear must it be by the Churches defining it But that very Power of defining is the thing in question and therefore cannot be cleared by it And if there be any thing then so obscure that men may without sin doubt of it or disbelieve it certainly the Churches Power in defining matters of Faith is such it being not capable by any act of the Church of being made so clear as to oblige men to believe it But we must see how his Lordship hath wronged the Testimony of Scotus For first say you He would perswade his Reader that this Author supposed a real difference between the Ancient Greek and Latin Fathers about the Procession of the Holy Ghost whereas Scotus declares that there was no real difference between them But doth his Lordship say there was doth he not expresly cite Scotus his testimony in an hypothetical manner If there be a true real difference c. and it is evident from Scotus his words that he supposeth If the difference had been real that either the Greeks or Latins were truly Hereticks And therefore you are guilty of a much greater injury to his Lordship than he was to Scotus Again you say He wrongs him in saying That after the Churches Definition it becomes of the substance of Faith Now say you Scotus hath not one word of the substance of Faith much less of Fundamental which he imposes presently upon him but sayes only thus Ex quo Ecclesia declaravit hoc esse tenendum c. tenendum est quod Spiritus Sanctus procedat ab utroque Since the Church hath so declared so it must be held Sure you never expect to be believed but by a very implicit Faith for if one doth but offer to search an Author your Jugling becomes notorious Had you the confidence to say That Scotus has not one word of the substance of Faith I pray who made that c. for you in the sentence If you did it your self you abuse your Readers if another did it for you he abused you For that very c. leaves out those words sicut de substantia fidei and try if you can render that otherwise than as of the substance of Faith to manifest your Forgery the whole place is cited in the Margin Is this your fidelity in quoting Authors even when you charge others with wronging them It may be you will say yet That Scotus doth not say it is to be held sicut de substantia fidei though it be declared by the Church to be so held But what means then the ex quo if men's Faith must not be guided by the Churches Declaration for if it be therefore to be believed necessarily because declared by the Church it must be believed as it is declared by the Church If therefore the Church declares that it is to be held as of the substance of Faith it ought to be held so by such as are bound to believe it on the Churches Declaration Besides you will not say but that it was to be believed before now what alteration is caused by the Declaration of the Church but this That which was before to be believed simply and in it self is now to be believed on the account of the Churches Declaration as of the substance of Faith And thus it is impossible to relieve your self with your old shift of Material and Formal Object which you betake your self to Thus still we see you are that most unhappy person who never begin a charge against your adversary but it falls back most unevitably upon your self who so readily make use of forgeries to prove others guilty of them Upon Scotus his mentioning the Churches Declaration his Lordship inquires What this Declaration is and how far it extends For which his Lordship saith The Master teacheth and his Scholars too that every thing which belongs to the Exposition or Declaration of another intus est is not another contrary thing but is contained within the bowels and nature of that which is interpreted from which if the Declaration depart it is faulty and erronious because instead of declaring it gives another and contrary sense Therefore when the Church declares any thing in Council either that which
them To which you answer 1. It is not credible that Bellarmine who writ so much of Controversie should not have read that Council nor can there be any suspicion of his conâ—ealing the matter had he found it there c. and therefore you suspend your Assent till the Council's words be produced 2. You tell us That it is not enough to prove that Pelagianism was condemned by a General Council because some who were Pelagians were but say you They were condemned not for Pelagianism but Nestorianism and therefore his Lordship shoots wide of the mark Your Argument from Bellarmine will have no great force with them who see no reason to admire his fidelity and they who enquire into the matter of fact in the present debate will have cause to suspect it The short account whereof is this After that Julianus Florus Orontius Fabius and others had been deposed and banished in the Western Churches for the Pelagian Heresie they fly to Constantinople and shroud themselves under the protection of Nestorius the Patriarch there who secretly favoured them and writ several Letters to Pope Celestine in behalf of them who is supposed to have received his Doctrine of the person of Christ from the Pelagians But when he saw that no good was to be done by these Letters but by the daily spreading of Nestorianism the Emperour was forced to summon a Council at Ephesus A. D. 431. The Pelagians accompany Nestorius thither and joyn with Johannes Antiochenus and his party in opposition to the Synod But the Council understanding the proceedings which had been in the Western Churches against the Pelagians ratifies and confirms their deposition as appears by the Synodal Epistle of the Council to Pope Celestine which is extant in the Acts of the Ephesine Council and in the Epistles of Cyril of Alexandria And besides this some of the Canons of that Council do equally concern Celestius and Nestorius the first Canon decreeing as well the favourers of Celestius as Nestorius to be excommunicate and the fourth dereeing the Deposition of all such who should embrace either of them And therefore it is truly said by Jansenius that the Pelagian Heresie and the Bishops who favoured it were again condemned by an Oecumenical Council And thence Prosper in the Epitaph of the Nestorian and Pelagian Heresies as he makes the Nestorian only an Off-spring of the Pelagian so he makes both of them to fall and be condemned together From whence it appears that the Pelagians were not condemned in the Ephesine Council meerly for Nestorianism but for their proper and peculiar sentiments the former deposition of them being ratified by the Council and a new Canon made to that purpose for the future And now let the Reader judge whether his Lordship or Bellarmine were herein the more mistaken His Lordship adds If this Heresie were condemned only by a National Council then the full Authority of the Church here is no more than the full Authority of this Church of Africk And I hope saith he That Authority doth doth not make all Points defined by it to be Fundamental You will say Yes if that Council be confirmed by the Pope And then I must ever wonder why S. Augustine should say The full Authority of the Church and not bestow one word upon the Pope by whose Authority only that Council as all other have their fulness of Authority in your judgement An inexpiable Omission if this Doctrine concerning the Pope were true To this you answer That there was no need of any special mention of the Pope in speaking of the Authority of the Church because his Authority is alwaies chiefly supposed as being Head of the whole Church But by whom was this supposed by you or by S. Augustine Can you prove that S. Austin or any of the African Fathers did ever suppose any such thing that the Pope being Head of the Church his Authority is chiefly supposed in the Acts of National Councils Where was the supposal of this Authority in the Dispute between the African Fathers and the Popes in the case of Appeals These are suppositions only to be obtruded upon ignorant Novices and such who look no further into Antiquity than the Implicit Faith in their Priests will give them leave But what a stranger to all true Antiquity this supposition of the Pope's being Head of the Church is we shall see abundantly when we come to the Controversie of the Pope's Authority Yet granting the Supposition true than which nothing can be more false when the main strength lyes not in the bare Definition of a National Council which you grant of it self hath not full Authority but in the confirmation of that Decision by the Pope which makes that Authority full which was not so before Was it not necessary to declare that the Pope did concurr to the giving it full Authority which without it could not be had You do not say That all National Councils have this full Authority not being confirmed by the Pope if therefore S. Augustine designed to shew that Council to have full Authority the only way to prove it was to produce the Pope's Confirmation of it which cannot therefore be otherwise looked on than as an inexpiable Omission if your Doctrine be true for he left out that which was only pertinent and material to the business Your parallel between S. Austin and your self which is a very worthy one in leaving out the mention of the Pope's Authority when it is understood will then hold when you produce as great evidence that S. Austin was a Jesuit as we have from your principles that you are When you give as manifest proof that the Pope's Power is necessary to all Definitions of Councils as there is in our Laws for our Kings assenting to Acts of Parliament we may give you leave to parallel the Omission of the express mention of one with the other If the Definitions of Ancient Councils did run in the name of Pope and Council as our Acts of Parliament in the name of the King and both Houses we might easily say the Authority of them came from the Pope as of these from the King but there is nothing of that nature but much of the contrary as will appear in due time When you therefore prove that the Pope's Power is implied though it be not mentioned you must prove it by some evident Confession that no Authority of a Council was full unless the Pope concurred with it else you may as well say That the great Mogul hath no full Authority to decree any thing without the Pope's consent for I dare say There is no denial of it in any of his Laws And yet that is more than can be said here for we have sufficient testimony from the records of that age That the Pope's Authority was not supposed necessary to Councils from his being Head of the Church What follows p. 34. n. 5 6. depends wholly upon the
believed as Fundamental when once the Church hath determined them 5. The Church of England prescribes only to her own Children and by those Articles provides but for her own peaceable consent in those Doctrines of Truth But the Church of Rome severely imposes her Doctrine upon the whole world under pain of damnation To all these very considerable Instances of our Churches Moderation your Answer is The Question is not Whether the English Congregation or the Roman Church be more severe but Whether the English Protestants Severity be not unreasonable supposing she be subject to errour in defining those Articles For after many words to the same i. e. little purpose the reason you give for it is That every just Excommunication inflicted for opposing of Doctrine must necessarily suppose the Doctrine opposed to be infallibly true and absolutely exempt from errour otherwise the Sentence it self would be unreasonable and unjust as wanting sufficient ground From whence you charge Protestants with greater Tyranny and Injustice towards their people than they can with any colour or pretence of reason charge upon the Roman Church which excommunicates no man but for denying such Doctrine as is both infallibly True and also Fundamental at least as to its formal Object This is the strength of all you say which will be reduced to this short Question Whether the proceedings of that Church be more unreasonable which excommunicates such as openly oppose her Doctrine supposing her Fallible or of that Church which excommunicates all who will not believe whatever she defines to be Infallibly true This is the true State of the Controversie which must be judged by the resolving another Question Whether it be not a more unreasonable Vsurpation to bind men upon pain of damnation hereafter and excommunication here to believe every thing Infallible which a Church defines or to bind men to peace to a Churches Determinations reserving to men the liberty of their judgements on pain of Excommunication if they violate that peace For it is plain on the one side where a Church pretends Infallibility the Excommunication is directed against the persons for refusing to give Internal Assent to what she defines But where a Church doth not pretend to that the Excommunication respects wholly that Overt Act whereby the Churches Peace is broken And if a Church be bound to look to her own Peace no doubt she hath power to excommunicate such as openly violate the bonds of it which is only an Act of Caution in a Church to preserve her self in Vnity but where it is given out that the Church is Infallible the Excommunication must be so much the more unreasonable because it is against those Internal Acts of the mind over which the Church as such hath no direct power And thus I hope you see how much more just and reasonable the proceedings of our Church are then of yours and that eo nomine because she pretends to be infallible and ours doth not His Lordship shews further in Vindication of the Church of England and her grounds of Faith that the Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture and her Negative do refute there where the thing affirmed by them is not affirmed by Scripture nor directly to be concluded out of it And this he saith is the main principle of all Protestants that Scripture is sufficient to Salvation and contains in it all things necessary to it The Fathers are plain the Schoolmen not strangers in it And Stapleton himself confesses as much Nay and you dare not deny it as to all material Objects of Faith and your formal here signifies nothing And when A. C. saith That the Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture if themselves may be Judges in their own cause His Lordship answers We are contented to be judged by the joynt and constant belief of the Fathers which lived within the first four or five hundred years after Christ when the Church was at the best and by the Councils held within those times and to submit to them in all those Points of Doctrine This Offer you grant to be very fair and you do for your selves promise the same and say You will make it good upon all occasions Which we shall have tryal of before the end of this Book To what his Lordship saith concerning the Negative Articles That they refute where the thing affirmed by them is either not affirmed in Scripture or not directly to be concluded out of it A. C. replies That the Baptism of Infants is not expresly at least not evidently affirmed in Scripture nor directly at least not demonstratively concluded out of it Here two things his Lordship answers 1. To the Expression 2. To the thing 1. To the Expression That he is no way satisfied with A. C. his addition not expresly at least not evidently for saith he What means he If he speak of the lâ—tter of Scripture then whatsoever is expresly is evidently in the Scripture and so his addition is in vain If he speak of the meaning of Scripture then his addition is cunning For many things are expresly in Scripture which yet in their meaning are not evidently there And as little satisfied his Lordship declares himself with that other nor directly at least not demonstratively because many things are directly concluded which are not demonstratively To the first you answer That a Point may be exprest yet not evidently exprest otherwise there could be no doubt concerning what were exprest in Scripture since men never question things that are evident Now say you the Baptism of Infants must not only â—e exprest but evidently exprest to prove it sufficiently i. e. undeniably by Scripture alone But the Question being concerning matters of Doctrine and not meer words those things are expresly affirmed which are evidently and no other For it is one thing for words to be expresly in Scripture and another for Doctrines to be so For these latter are no further expresly affirmed there than as there is evidence that the meaning of such words doth contain such a Doctiine in them As to take your own Instance This is my Body we grant the words to be express but we deny that which he had then in his hands was his real Body for his hands were part of his real Body Now we do not say That the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is expresly but not evidently contained here for we say The Doctrine is not there at all but only that those are the express words This is my Body as it is in other figurative expressions in Scripture But that which causeth this litigation about words is That you look upon that which is evident and undeniable to be all one whereas there may be sufficient evidence where all men are not perswaded by it And so you would put his Lordship to prove out of Scripture Infant-Baptism evidently and demonstratively i. e. undeniably whereas his Lordship supposeth it
that the matters to be believed are not so clear to us as demonstrations I will not gainsay it but if you mean obscurity or want of evidence as to the reason inducing me to believe I utterly deny any such obscurity to belong to Faith or to be consistent with it For God doth not require us to believe any thing without sufficient grounds for our believing it and those grounds do bear a proportionable evidence to the nature of that assent which he requires If he requires an Infallible assent he gives Infallible grounds if he requires a firm and certain assent he gives firm and certain grounds if he requires only a probable assent he gives only probable evidence But still such as the nature of the assent is such is the evidence he gives for it To make this plainer by an Instance That Christ was the true Messias he requires an assent built upon Infallible grounds and therefore God gave such Infallible evidence of it by the Miracles which he wrought That these Miracles were once really done he requires our firm assent and therefore gives certain evidence by an Universal and uncontrouled tradition but whether St. Paul or any other Apostolical person were Authour of the Epistle to the Hebrews he requires only an assent built on the most probable grounds and therefore he hath given us no more for it But still as the assent is so the evidence must be For Faith being an act of the mind whose nature is to judge according to reason we cannot suppose any act of it to proceed in a brutish manner by a meer impulse of the will I deny not but the will may be said to have some kind of influence upon the understanding both in furthering and hindering assent but it is not by any command it hath over the mind in its acts but as it can divert the mind from or incline it to the searching into the evidence of the things Therefore when we commonly say Facile credimus quae volumus and so on the contrary it is not because of the wills immediate power upon the understanding but as the desire of a thing makes us inquisitive after it so the dislike of it makes us unwilling to hear the reasons for it and ready to entertain any pretence against it Thus I grant the will may have power upon the mind as to the eliciting the act of Faith not that I can assent to a thing as true because I desire it to be true but this inclination of the will removes those impediments which would obstruct my discovery of the evidence which is in it You havs certainly a mind of another mould then others have that can believe thing which do not appear credible to you yet such a kind of Faith as this is very necessary for your Churches Infallibility and for that your discourse of believing by the impulse of the will is very proper and seasonable But other persons may think it an Imperfection in their minds that they cannot believe any thing any further than it appears credible that is that they can go no further than they have legs nor see when their eyes are shut or the room dark But it may be you will tell me All this discourse proceeds on supposition that Faith were a natural act of the mind but you speak of a supernatural Faith It may be so but I hope you speak not of an irrational Faith which must believe things beyond the evidence of their Credibility Faith whether natural or supernatural acquired or infused is still an act of the mind and let it have but what belongs to it as such and call it what you will I deny not a peculiar Operation of Grace in the eliciting the Act of Divine Faith but still I say The manner whereby it is wrought must be agreeable to the nature of the Vnderstanding and by discovering the Credibility which is in the Objects of Faith If you say The Assent is infused I must say The Evidence is first infused for as Christ when he healed the blind did not make them see Objects which did not appear visible so neither doth the Spirit of God in planting Faith make men discern Objects which do not appear credible and the stronger the Assent is the greater is the Evidence and Credibility of the Object And can you call then that any free inevident Assent which goes no further than the Object appears credible It cannot be then any Act of the Will but meerly of the Mind which yields assent to any Object propounded as credible to it So that in what way and manner Assent is required in that same manner doth God give proportionable evidence I deny not but that Assent is required to Objects inevident to sense and reason but then I say The Assent is not required to what is obscure and inevident but to what is evident to us and therefore credible In the Incarnation of the Son of God the manner of the Hypostatical Vnion is to us inevident but then God doth not require our Assent to the Manner but to the Truth of the thing it self Where-ever God requires us to believe any thing as True he gives us evidence that it is so where-ever it appears the thing is inevident we may lawfully suspend our Assent and for all that I know it is our duty so to do But yet you have not done with this profound discourse For you very learnedly distinguish a double proceeding in probations the one is per principia intrinseca which you very well English by intrinsecal Principles i. e. such as have a necessary natural connexion with the things proved and do manifest and lay open the objects themselves the other is per principia extrinseca by extrinsecal Principles that is such as have no natural or necessary connexion with nor do produce any such evident manifestation of the things proved but their efficacy viz. whereby they determine the understanding to assent doth wholly depend on the worth and vertue of that external Principle whereby such probations are made This you apply to Knowledge and Faith that as Knowledge proceeds in the former way so Faith doth in the latter which depends purely upon extrinsecal Principles viz. the Authority Veracity Goodness and Knowledge of God affirming it which was immediately known to the Prophets and Apostles but mediately to us which howâ—ver must be infallibly conveyed to us which can only be by the testimony of the Church This is the substance of your third Section to which I answer 1. That all Certainty in the acts of the Mind whether in Knowledge or Faith must equally suppose the Truth of some extrinsecal Principles viz. the veracity and goodness of God for otherwise we cannot certainly judge of those you call Principia intrinseca to know what things have necessary and natural connexion with the things proved For unless I suppose that God is so True and Good as not to suffer me to be deceived in
this tedious Controversie But this containing very little new in it and therefore deserves not to be handled apart will on that account admit of a quicker dispatch In which the first Section begins with S. Austin's Testimony which should have been considered before and now it comes out with the same Answer attending it which was given so lately concerning primary and infallible and secondary and probable Motives of Faith the vanity of which is sufficiently discovered Whereas in your Margent you bring an example of such a probable Motive viz. when S. Austin saith to Faustus That as constant Tradition was sufficient for him to believe that that Epistle was Manichaeus his which went under his name so the same Tradition was sufficient to him to prove the Gospel was S. Matthew 's which was so universally received for his ever since the writing of it I am so far from thinking this a meer probable Motive that it is the highest evidence the matter is capable of and so S. Austin thought Your paralleling the saying of Waldensis That if the Church should speak any thing contrary to Scripture he would not believe her with another which you pretend to be S. Austin's If the Scripture should speak any thing contrary to the Church we could not believe that neither and then saying that both proceed on an impossible supposition must imply that it is an equal impossibility for the Church to deliver any thing contrary to the Doctrine of Scripture as for the Scripture to contradict it self for to say The Scripture should contradict the Church signifies nothing because the Being of the Church is founded on the Doctrine of Scripture All that S. Austin saith in the place you referr us to comes to no more than this If the Church were found deceived in the Writings of Scripture then there could be no ground of any firm assent to them And is this I pray a fit parallel for that speech of Waldensis Is this to say If the Scripture speak any thing against the Church it is not to be believed In your next Sect. N. 2 3. you fall from Parallels to Circles and Semicircles as you call them in which you only shew us your faculty of mumbling the same things over and over concerning his Lordships mistating the Question about Infallible and Divine Faith Apostolical Tradition the formal Object of Faith which I must out of charity to the Readers patience beg him to look back for the several Answers if he thinks any thing needs it for I am now quite tired with these Repetitions there being not one word added here but what hath been answered already But lest thâ—se should not enough tire us the next Sect. N. 4. consists of the old puff-paste of ultimate Motive and formal Object of the Infallibility which is not simply Divine and others of a like nature whose vanity hath been detected in the very entrance into this Controversie It seems you had a great mind to give the Bishop a blow when you reach as far as from p. 103 to p. 115. to do it and yet fall short of it at last for though you charge him with a false citation of S. Austin for these words fidei ultima resolutio est in Deum illuminantem yet in that Chapter though not the words yet the sense is there extant when he gives that account of Christian Faith That it comes not by the authority of men but from God himself confirming and inlightening our mind Is not here a plain resolution of Faith in Deum illuminantem And therefore your charge of false citation and your confident denial That there is any such Text to be found either there or any where else in all S. Augustine argue you are not careful what you say so you may but throw dirt in your adversaries face though we may easily know from whence it comes by the foulness of your fingers And for your other challenge of producing any Testimony of the Fathers which saith That we must resolve our Faith of Scripture into the Light of Scriptures I hope the Testimonies I have in this Chapter mentioned may teach you a little more modesty and for the other part of it That we cannot believe the Scripture infallibly for the Churches authority as far as a Negative can be proved I dare appeal to the judgement of any one Whether it be possible to believe that the Fathers judged the Certainty much less Infallibility of Christian Faith did depend on the Churches Infallible Testimony and yet never upon the most just occasion do so much as mention it but rather speak very much to the contrary His Lordship having thus at large delivered his mind in this important Controversie to make what he had said the more portable summs up the substance of it in several Considerations Which being only a recapitulation of what hath been fully discussed already will need the shorter Vindication in some brief strictures where you unjustly quarrel with them To his 1. That it seems reasonable that since all Sciences suppose Principles Theology should be allowed some too the chiefest of which is That the Scriptures are of Divine Authority your Answer is considerable viz. that he confounds Theology a discoursive Science with Faith which is an act of the Vnderstanding produced by an Impulse of the Will c. But not to examine what hath been already handled of the power of the Will in the act of Faith it is plain when his Lordship speaks of Theology he means Theology and not Faith and the intent of this Consideration was to shew the unreasonableness of starting this Question in a Theological Dispute about the Church In your Answer to the second you say That Fallible Motives cannot produce Certainty which if you would prove you would do more to the purpose than you have done yet and by this argument I could not be certain whether you had done it or no unless you brought some Infallible Motives to prove it The third you pass over The fourth you grant though not very consistently with what you elsewhere say As to what you say in answer to the fifth concerning Miracles I agree with you in it having elsewhere sufficiently declared my self as to them For the sixth you referr to your former Answer and so do I to the reply to it In the seventh his Lordship proves the necessity of some revelation from God rationally and strongly and thence inferrs That either there never was any such Revelation or that the Scripture is that Revelation and that 's it we Christians labour to make good against all Atheism Prophaneness and Infidelity To which you have two Exceptions 1. That this cannot be proved by the meer Light of Scripture which His Lordship never pretended to 2. That he leaves out the Word only which was the cause of the whole Controversie What between Christians and Atheists For of that Controversie he there speaks but since
Doctrine the Pope could not be Infallible there for you restrain his Infallibility to a General Council and do not assert that it belongs to the particular Church of Rome As well then may any other Provincial Synod determine matters of Faith as that of Rome since that hath no more Infallibility belonging to it as such then any other particular Church hath and the Pope himself you say may erre when he doth not define matters of Faith in a General Council To his Lordships second instance of the Council of Gangra about the same time condemning Eustathius for his condemning marriage as unlawful you answer to the same purpose That Osius was there Pope Sylvester's Legat but what then if the Pope had been there himself he had not been Infallible much less certainly his Legat who could have only a Second-hand Infallibility To the third of the Council of Carthage condemning rebaptization about 348. you grant That it was assembled by Gratus Bishop of Carthage but that no new Article was defined in it but only the perpetual tradition of the Church was confirmed therein Neither do we plead for any power in Provincial Councils to define any new Articles of Faith but only to revive the old and to confirm them in opposition to any Innovations in point of Doctrine and as to this we profess to be guided by the sense of Scripture as interpreted by the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the four first General Councils To the fourth of the Council of Aquileia A. D. 381. condemning Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie St. Ambrose being present you answer That they only condemned those who had been condemned already by the Nicene Council and St. Ambrose and other Bishops of Italy being present Who can doubt but every thing was done there by the Popes authority and consent But if they only enforced the decrees of the Council of Nice What need of the Pope's authority to do that And do you think that there were no Provincial Councils in that part of Italy which was particularly distinguished from the suburbicarian Churches under the Bishop of Rome wherein the Pope was not present either by himself or Legats If you think so your thoughts have more of your will then understanding in them But if this Council proceeded according to that of Nice Will it not be as lawful for other Provincial Councils to reform particular Churches as long as they keep to the Decrees not barely of Nice but of the four General Councils which the Church of England looks on as her duty to do In the two following Instances of the second Council of Carthage declaring in behalf of the Trinity and the Milevitan Council about the Pelagian Heresie you say The Bishops of Rome were consulted But what then Were they consulted as the Heads of the Church or only as eminent members of it in regard of their Faith and Piety Prove the former when you are able and as to the latter it depends upon the continuance of that Faith and Piety in them and when once the reason is taken away there can be no necessity of continuing the same resort The same answer will serve for what you say concerning the second Council of Aurange determining the Controversies about Grace and Free-will supposing we grant it assembled by the means of Felix 4. Bishop of Rome as likewise to the third of Toledo We come therefore to that which you call his Lordships reserve and Master-allegation the fourth Council of Toledo which saith he did not only handle matters of Faith for the reformation of that people but even added also something to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so to reform those several places and the Church it self by parts but they did openly challenge this as their right and due and that without any leave asked of the See of Rome For in this fourth Council of Toledo they decree that If there happen a cause of Faith to be setled a general that is a National Synod of all Spain and Gallicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. where you see it was then Catholick Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a competent Judge in a cause of Faith But here still we meet with the same Answer That all this might be done with a due subordination to the See Apostolick but that it doth not hence follow that any thing may be done in Provincial Councils against the authority of it Neither do we plead that any thing may be done against the just authority of the Bishop of Rome or any other Bishop but then you must prove that he had a just authority over the Church of England and that he exercised no power here at the Reformation but what did of right belong to him But the fuller debate of these things must be left to that place where you designedly assert and vindicate the Pope's Authority These things being thus in the general cleared we come to the particular application of them to the case of the Church of England As to which his Lordship say's And if this were practised so often and in so many places Why may not a National Council of the Church of England do the like As she did For she cast off the Pope's usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighths time And by the Records in the Archbishops office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part for being thus call'd together by Regal power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by acts of State and the Royal assent In this Synod the Positive truths which are delivered are more then the Polemicks So that a meer calumny it is that we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative verity being ever included in the Negative to a falshood As for any errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation if
and by an Epistle of Pelagius 1. A. D. 555. it appears that the Bishops of Aquileia and Milan were wont to ordain each other which though he would have believed was only to save charges in going to Rome yet as that learned and ingenuous person Petrus de Marcâ observes the true reason of it was because Milan was the Head of the Italick Diocese as appears by the Council of Aquileia and therefore the ordination of the Bishop of Aquileia did of right belong to the Bishop of Milan and the ordination of the Bishop of Milan did belong to him of Aquileia as the chief Metropolitan of the general Synod of the Italick Diocese Although afterwards the Bishops of Rome got it so far into their hands that their consent was necessary for such an ordination yet that was only when they began more openly to encroach upon the liberties of other Churches But as the same learned Author goes on those Provinces which lay out of Italy did undoubtedly ordain their own Metropolitans without the authority or consent of the Bishop of Rome which he there largely proves of the African Spanish and French Churches It follows then from the scope of the Nicene Canon and the practice of the Church that the Bishop of Rome had a limited Jurisdiction as the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch and other Primates had 2. That what Churches did enjoy priviledges before had them confirmed by this Canon as not to be altered For it makes provision against any such alteration by ordaining that the ancient Customs should be in force still And accordingly we find it decreed in the second Canon of the Constantinopolitan Council That the same limits of Dioceses should be observed which were decreed in the Council of Nice and that none should intrude to do any thing in the Dioceses of others And by the earnest and vehement Epistles of Pope Leo to Anatolius we see the main thing he had to plead against the advancement of the Patriarch of Constantinople was that by this means the most sacred Decrees of the Council of Nice would be violated We see then that those priviledges which belonged to Churches then ought still to be inviolably observed so that those Churches which then had Primates and Metropolitans of their own might plead their own right by virtue of the Nicene Canon So we find it decreed in that Council of Ephesus in the famous case of the Cyprian Bishops for their Metropolitan being dead Troilus the Bishop of Constance the Bishop of Antioch pretended that it belonged to him to ordain their Metropolitan because Cyprus was within the civil Jurisdiction of the Diocese of Antioch upon this the Cyprian Bishops make their complaint to the General Council at Ephesus and ground it upon that ancient custom which the Niccne Canon insists on viz. that their Metropolitan had been exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Antioch and was ordained by a Synod of Cyprian Bishops which priviledge was not only confirmed to them by the Ephesine Council but a general decree passed That the rights of every Province should be preserved whole and inviolate which it had of old according to ancient custom Which was not a decree made meerly in favour of the Cyprian Bishops but a common asserting the rights of Metropolitans that they should be held inviolate Now therefore it appears that all the Churches then were far from being under one of the three Patriarchs of Rome Antioch or Alexandria for not only the three Dioceses of Pontus Asia and Thracia were exempt although afterwards they voluntarily submitted to the Patriarch of Constantinople but likewise all those Churches which were in distinct Dioceses from these had Primates of their own who were independent upon any other Upon which account it hath not only been justly pleaded in behalf of the Britannick Churches that they are exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop but it is ingenuously confessed by Father Barns That the Britannick Church might plead the Cyprian priviledge that it was subject to no Patriarch And although this priviledge was taken away by force and tumult yet being restored by the consent of the Kingdom in Henry 8. time and quietly enjoyed since it ought to be retained for peace sake without prejudice of Catholicism and the brand of Schism If so certainly it can be no Schism to withdraw from the usurped Authority of the Roman Church But these things have been more largely insisted on by others and therefore I pass them over 3. From thence it follows that there was then an equality not only among the Patriarchs whose name came not up till some time after the Council of Nice but among the several Primates of Dioceses all enjoying equal power and authority over their respective Dioceses without subordination to each other But here it is vehemently pleaded by some who yet are no Friends to the unlimited power of the Roman Bishop That it is hardly conceivable that he should have no other power in the Church but meerly as Head of the Roman Diocese and that it appears by the Acts of the Church he had a regular preheminence above others in ordering the Affairs of the Church To which I answer 1. If this be granted it is nothing at all to that Vniversal Pastorship over the Church which our Adversaries contend for as due by divine right and acknowledged to be so by consent of the Church Let the Bishop of Rome then quit his former plea and insist only on this and we shall speedily return an Answer and shew How far this Canonical Primacy did extend But as long as he challengeth a Supremacy upon other grounds he forfeits this right whatever it is which comes by the Canons of the Church 2. What meerly comes by the Canons of the Church cannot bind the Church to an absolute submission in case that authority be abused to the Churches apparent prejudice For the Church can never give away her Power to secure her self against whatever incroachments tend to the injury of it This power then may be rescinded by the parts of the Church when it tends to the mischief of it 3. This Canonical preheminence is not the main thing we dispute with the Church of Rome let her reform her self from all those errours and corruptions which are in her communion and reduce the Church to the primitive purity and simplicity of Faith and Worship and then see if we will quarrel with the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons or any regular preheminence in him meerly in order to the Churches Peace and Unity But this is not the case between us and them they challenge an unlimited power and that by divine right and nothing else will satisfie them but this although there be neither any ground in Scripture for it nor any evidence of it in the practice of the Ancient Church But however we must see what you produce for it First
by Martian and Valentinian And this is so clear that Bellarmine in his Recognitions confesseth his mistake about the Constantinopolitan Council being called by the Letters of Pope Damasus and acknowledges that to be true which I at large proved before That the Synodical Epistle was not sent by the General Council but by another the year after If then the calling of Councils belongs not of right to the Pope it is not his summoning which can make a General Council without mission and deputation from those Churches whom they are to represent And any other sense of a General Council is contrary to the sense of Antiquity and is forced and unreasonable in it self For it must be either absolutely general or by representation none ever imagined yet an absolutely General Council and therefore it must be so called as it doth represent if so then there is a necessity of such a deputation But here a Question might arise Whether those Deputies of Churches have power by their own votes to oblige the Churches they are sent from by conveying in a General Council or else only as they carry with them the sense of those Churches whom they represent and this latter seems more agreeable to the nature of a truly General Council whose acts must oblige the whole Church For that can only be said to be the act of the whole Church which is done by the Bishops delivering the sense of all particular Churches and it is not easie to understand How the Vniversal Church can be obliged any other way unless it be proved that General Councils are instituted by some positive Law of Christ so that what is done by the Bishops in them must oblige the Catholick Church and then we must find out not only the Institution it self but the way and manner how General Councils should be called of which the Scripture is wholly silent And therefore there is no reason that there should be any other General Council imagined but by such a representation and in order to this the consent of all those Churches must be known by the particular Bishops before they can concurr with others so as to make a General Council The most suitable way then to a General Council is that the Summons of them being published by the consent of Christian Princes every Prince may call together a National Synod in which the matters to be debated in the Council are to be discussed and the sense of that Synod fully declared which those Bishops who are appointed by it to go to the General Council are to carry with them and there to declare the sense of their particular Church and what all these Bishops so assembled do all agree in as the sense of the whole Church may be called the decree of a General Council Or in case some great impediment happen that such Bishops cannot assemble from all Churches but a very considerable number appearing and declaring themselves which upon the first notice of it is universally received by all particular Churches that may ex post-facto be called a General Council as it was with the first four Oecumenical Councils And yet that in them there was such a deputation as this is appears by that expression in the Synodical Epistle of the Bishops of Constantinople before mentioned for in that they give this account Why they could not do what the Western Bishops desired because they brought not with them the consent of the Bishops who remained at home to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And concerning this only Council viz. at Constantinople have we brought the consent of those Bishops which remain in the Provinces So that they looked on the consent of the other Bishops to be necessary as well as their own But now if we examine your Council of Trent by this Rule How far is it from any appearance of a General Council What Bishops were there sent from the most of Christian Churches Those that did appear What equality and proportion was there among them For Voices in General Councils ought not to go by the number of Bishops but by the number of Churches so that if six were sent from the Church of England or France delivering the sense of that Church they come from they have equal Votes with the greatest number of Italian Bishops But here lay the great imposture of that Council first that the Councils being general depended upon the Popes general Summons though never so few Bishops appeared next that the Decrees of the Council were to be carried by most Voices and the Bishops to give their bare placet these things being thus laid when there was any fear that businesses would not go right it was but the Legats using some art in delaying it and sending intelligence to Rome and forty Bishops are made together and posted to Trent to help out the number of voices and thus it was in the case of the Institution and Residence of Bishops And this is that you call a General Council 2. To your other That what was wanting in number at first was made up at last when all former Decrees were confirmed by a full number of Bishops it is soon replied That this is as all the rest of the proceedings of that Council was but a meer Artifice For it appears by the History of that Council that in the last Session under Pius 4. a Proposition was made that all the Decrees under Paul and Julius should be approved which was opposed because they said it would be a derogation to the Authority of the Council of those times if it should seem that the things then done had need of a new confirmation of the Fathers and would shew that this and that was not all one because none can confirm his own things But upon the French Bishops earnest insisting upon it it was determined simply to read them and no more And Do you call this a confirming and ratifying them de novo So that for all appears by this last Session the Authority of those Decrees must as far as concerns the Council depend upon the number of the Bishops then present which was but very small certainly for a General Council there being not so many in most of the Sessions as were in the Donatists Council in Africa so far were they from the number of the ancient General Councils But here comes your grand Objection in the way That nothing is pretended by us against the Council of Trent which might not have been in effect as justly objected by the Arrians against the Council of Nice But Is not there easily discernable a vast disparity between these two which way soever we conceive them The one called by the Emperour who in person sate in the Council to prevent all disorders and clancular actions the other by the Pope who presided in it by his Legats and ordered all things by his directions In that of Nice the Arrian Bishops were as freely admitted to debate as
the Infallibility of General Councils that I believe a Philosopher might hear them repeated a hundred times over without ever imagining any such thing as a General Council much less concluding thence that they are Infallible But because you again cavil with another expression of his Lordships in that he saith That no one of them doth infer much less inforce Infallibility from whence you not infer but inforce this consequence that he was loath to say all of them together did not I shall therefore give you his Lordships Answer from all of them together Which is likewise sufficient for every one of them And for all the places together saith he weigh them with indifferency and either they speak of the Church including the Apostles as all of them do and then all grant the voyce of the Church is Gods voyce Divine and Infallible Or else they are general unlimited and appliable to private assemblies as well as General Councils which none grant to be Infallible but some mad Enthusiasts Or else they are limited not simply to all truth but all necessary to salvation in which I shall easily grant a General Council cannot err suffering it self to be led by this Spirit of Truth in Scripture and not taking upon it to lead both the Scripture and the Spirit For suppose these places or any other did promise assistance even to Infallibility yet they granted it not to every General Council but to the Catholick body of the Church it self and if it be in the whole Church principally then is it in a General Council but by consequent as the Council represents the whole And that which belongs to a thing by consequent doth not otherwise nor longer belong unto it then it consents and cleaves to that upon which it is a consequent And therefore a General Council hath not this assistance but as it keeps to the whole Church and Spouse of Christ whose it is to hear his Word and determine by it And therefore if a General Council will go out of the Churches way it may easily go without the Churches truth Which words of his contain so full an Answer to all these places together that till that be taken off there is no necessity at all to descend to the particular places especially those which are acknowledged by your selves to speak primarily of the Churches Infallibility Yet for your satisfaction more than any intelligent Readers I shall add somewhat further to shew the impertinency of the former places and then consider the force of the two last which have not yet been handled 1. There can be nothing drawn from promises made to the diffusive body for the benefit of the representative unless the maker of those promises did institute that representation Therefore supposing that Infallibility were by these promises bestowed upon the Catholick Church yet you cannot thence inferr that it belongs to a General Council unless you prove that Christ did appoint a General Council to represent the Church and in that representation to be Infallible For this Infallibility coming meerly by promise it belongs only to those to whom the promise is made and in that capacity in which it is made to it For Spiritual gifts are not bequeathable to Heirs nor can be made over to Assigns if the Church be promised Infallibility she cannot pass away the gift of it to her Assigns in a General Council unless that power of devolution be contained in the Original Grant For she can give no more then is in her power to bestow but this Infallibility being out of her disposal the utmost that can be given to a General Council is a power to oblige the Church by the acts of it which falls much short of Infallibility Besides this representation of the Church by a General Council is a thing not so evident from whence it should come that from a promise made to one it must necessarily be understood of the other For as Pighius sayes It cannot be demonstrated from Theological grounds that a General Council which is so far from being the whole Church that it is not a thousandth part of it should represent the whole Church For either saith he it hath this from Christ or from the Church but they cannot produce one tittle from Scripture where Christ hath conveyed over the power and authority of the whole Church to a hundred or two hundred Bishops If they say It is from the Church there are two things to be shewed first that it is done and secondly that it is de jure or ought to be so done First it can never be shewed that such a thing ever was done by the Vniversal Church for if it were it must either be by some formal act of the Church or by a tacit consent It could not be by any formal act of the Church For then there must be some such act of the Vniversal Church preceding the being of any General Council for by that act they receive their Commission to appear in behalf of the Vniversal Church And this could not be done in a General Council because that is not pretended to be the whole Church but only to represent it and therefore it must have this power to represent the Church by something antecedent to its being Else it would only arrogate this power to it self without any act of the Church in order to it Now that the Vniversal Church did ever agree in any such act is utterly impossible to be demonstrated either that it could be or that it was Yet such a delegation to a General Council must be supposed in order to its representation of the whole Church and this delegation must not only be before the first General Council but for all that I can see before every one For how can the Church by its act in one age bind the Church in all ages succeeding to the acts of those several Councils which shall be chosen afterwards If it be said That such a formal act is not necessary but the tacit consent of the whole Church is sufficient for it then such a consent of the Church must be made evident by which they did devolve over the power of the whole Church to such a representative And all those must consent in that act whose power the Council pretends to have and so it cannot be sufficient to say That those who choose Bishops for the Council do it for then they could only represent those who chose them and so their authority will fall much short of that of the whole Church But suppose such a thing were done by the whole Church of which no footsteps at all appear we must further enquire by what right or authority this is done for the authority of the Church being given it by Christ it cannot be given from it self without his commission for doing it Which if we stay till it can be produced in this case we may stay long enough before we see any such Infallible
act of the Will which results from an apprehension of infinite excellency which is only in the Supreme Being very few if any of the more intelligent Heathens were ever guilty of it But if the formal reason of their Idolatry lay in offering up those devotions to that which was not God which only belong to an Infinite Being I see not but the same charge will hold on the same grounds against those who Invocate Saints with those external acts of devotion which are confessed to be the same with those wherewith we call on God But nothing can be more unreasonable than that Bellarmin should except Sacrifices and things belonging thereto from being common to the first and second sort of Adoration and not except Invocation For Is it possible to conceive any act which doth more express our sense of an Infinite Excellency and the profession of our subjection to it than Invocation doth which doth it far more than Sacrifice doth for that being a meer external act is consistent with the greatest mockery of God but solemn Invocation implies in its own nature our dependence upon God and an acknowledgement of his Infinite Knowledge and Power For Invocation lyes chiefly in the internal acts and denotes primarily the inward desire of obtaining something from a Being above our own So that though I should grant the meer external acts of bowing and kneeling to be common to Adoration given to infinite and finite perfections yet I utterly deny that these acts are common to both when the circumstances do determine the end and design of them As no man by the meer bowing of Abraham to the Children of Heth could tell whether it were civil or divine Adoration which he meant but none who understood all the circumstances of it would have any reason to question it But suppose it had been declared before that these men expected a more than civil Adoration and that all the rites of solemn Invocation which Abraham at any time used to God must be used to them too then the same external acts must have received a new denomination So that though the meer external acts be common to civil and religious Worship yet as those acts are considered with their several circumstances they are appropriated to one or the other of them Thus though a man may use the same form of words to an Emperour on his Throne and the same external posture which he doth use after his death in a Temple consecrated to him yet in the one they are meerly signs of Civil Worship but in the other they become Testimonies of Religious Adoration So although in the Invocation of Saints no other words were used but such as denote them to be Creatures still yet if they be used with all the rites of solemn Invocation in places appropriate to Divine Worship and in Sacred Offices they thereby declare the Adoration intended to be greater than any meer creature is capable of For we must consider that as God is owned to be Infinite in himself and to have incommunicable perfections so by reason of them there ought to be some appropriated acts or signs of Worship to declare our subjection to him which being determined for this end either by the Law of God or the consent of people the attributing of them to any else but him is a publick violation of his honour Although in so doing men profess that they intend them only as expressions of a lower kind of Worship than is due to the Supreme Being But in such cases the protestation avails not where the fact is evident to the contrary For when men in the most solemn manner in publick places of devotion and in sacred offices do invocate Saints and yet think they dishonour not God by it because they say they do not worship them as God it is just as if a man should upon all occasions in the Presence-Chamber address himself to one of the King's subjects as to the King himself and being questioned for it should only say he did not dishonour the King by it because he meant it not to him as a King but as a Subject But by so much is the dishonour greater because the Soveraignity of the King doth require that the rights of Majesty should not be given to any Subject whatsoever So that it is but a vain pretence when men use all the expressions whereby we declare our sense of the Infinite Perfections which are in God to any Creatures to say They give them not that Worship which belongs to God meerly because they do believe they are Creatures still But Is it possible for men to give the honour which is due to God to the Creatures or no acknowledging them to be Creatures still or Is it not If not then none of the Heathens could be guilty of Idolatry in worshipping Daemons Heroes and Deified Emperours if it be possible then the acknowledging the Saints not to be God cannot excuse men from the same kind of Idolatry in the Invocation of them And it is as frivolous a plea which is made for those forms of Invocation which are made to the Saints in plain terms not to intercede with God for them but to bestow upon them both temporal and spiritual Blessings of which multitudes have been produced by our Writers viz. That though the form of words be the same that is used to God yet the sense is wholly that they would pray to God to bestow them For How should any other sense be understood when these forms are allowed in Invocation For although the Scripture may sometimes attribute the effect to the subordinate Instrument as when S. Paul is said to save some yet certainly the Scripture is far from allowing such a liberty in solemn Invocation For upon this ground it might have been lawful for men to have fallen down upon their knees to St. Paul and have intreated him to save them Do you think St. Paul would have approved such phrases in Invocation So that it is not the meer phrase but as it is joyned with all rites of Invocation which makes it look so like the most gross Idolatry When you pray to the Virgin Mary to protect you from your enemies and receive you in the hour of death and to the Apostles to heal your spiritual maladies which forms are acknowledged by Bellarmin Can any reasonable man think that the meaning of them only is that they would pray to God to do these things for them If one should bring his Petition to a Courtier for his Pardon and in plain terms beg that of him which the King only can grant What man that had his wits about him would ever imagine that he only meant by it that he would entreat the King to do it for him But God is more jealous of his honour than to be put off by such Mockeries as these are Nay when your great men at the end of their most elaborate works conclude with a Laus Deo beatissimae
you say The Pope's Confirmation was required to all new elected Patriarchs To that I shall return the full and satisfactory Answer of the late renowned Arch-Bishop of Paris Petrus de Marcâ where he propounds this as an Objection out of Baronius and thus solves it That the confirmation of Patriarchs by the Bishop of Rome was no token of Jurisdiction but only of receiving into Communion and a testimony of his consent to the consecration already performed And this was no more than was done by other Bishops in reference to the Bishop of Rome himself for S. Cyprian writing to Antonianus about the election of Cornelius saith That he was not only chosen by the suffrage of the people and testimony of the Clergy but that his election was confirmed by all their consent May not you then as well say That the Bishop of Carthage had power over the Bishop of Rome because his ordination was confirmed by him and other African Bishops But any one who had understood better than you seem to do the proceedings of the Church in those ages would never have made this an argument of the Pope's Authority over other Patriarchs since as the same Petrus de Marcâ observes It was the custom in those times that not only the Patriarchs but the Roman Bishop himself upon their election were wont to send abroad Letters testifying their ordination to which was added a profession of Faith contained in their Synodical Epistles Upon the receipt of which Communicatory Letters were sent to the person newly ordained to testifie their Communion with him in case there were no just impediment produced So that this was only a matter of Fraternal Communion and importing nothing at all of Jurisdiction but the Bishops of Rome who were ready to make use of all occasions to advance their own Grandeur did in time make use of this for quite other ends than it was primarily intended for in case of any suspicions and jealousies of any thing that might tend to the dis-service of their See they would then deny their Communicatory Letters as Simplicius did in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria And in that Confirmation of Anatolius by Leo 1. which Baronius so much insists on Leo himself gives a sufficient account of it viz. to manifest that there was but one entire Communion among them throughout the world So that if the Pope's own judgement may be taken this Confirmation of new elected Patriarchs imported nothing of Jurisdiction But in case the Popes did deny their Communicatory Letters that did not presently hinder them from the execution of their office as appears by the instance of Flavianus the Patriarch of Antioch for although three Roman Bishops successively opposed him Damasus Syricius and Anastasius and used great importunity with the Emperour that he might not continue in his place yet because the Churches of the Orient Asia Pontus and Thracia did approve of him and communicate with him he opposed their consent against the Bishops of Rome Upon which and the Emperour 's severe checking them for their pride and contention they at last promised the Emperour that they would lay aside their enmity and acknowledge him So that notwithstanding whatever the Roman Bishops could do against him he was acknowledged for a true Patriarch and at last their consent was given only by renewing Communion with him which certainly is far from being an instance of the Pope's power over the other Patriarchs Whereby we also see What little power he had in deposing them although you tell us That it belonged likewise to him to depose unworthy ones restore the unjustly deposed by others But that the power of deposing Bishops was anciently in Provincial Councils appears sufficiently by the fifth Canon of the Nicene Council and by the practice of the Church both before and after it and it is acknowledged by Petrus de Marcâ that the sole power of deposing Bishops was not in the hands of the Bishop of Rome till about eight hundred years since and refutes the Cardinal Perron for saying otherwise and afterwards largely proves that the Supreme authority of deposing Bishops was still in Provincial Councils and that the Pope had nothing to do in it till the decree of the Sardican Synod in the case of Athanasius which yet he saith did not as is commonly said decree Appeals to be made to Rome but only gave the Bishop of Rome power to Review their actions but still reserving to Provincial Councils that Authority which the Nicene Council had established them in All the power which he then had was only this that he might decree that the matters might be handled over again but not that he had the power himself of deposing or restoring Bishops Which is proved with that clearness and evidence by that excellent Author that I shall refer you to him for it and consider the instances produced by you to the contrary We read say you of no less than eight several Patriarchs of Constantinople deposed by the Bishop of Rome Surely if you had read this your self you would have quoted the place with more care and accuracy than you do for you give us only a blind citation of an Epistle of Pope Nicolaus to the Emperour Michael neither citing the words nor telling us which it is when there are several and those no very short ones neither But however it is well chosen to have a Pope's testimony in his own cause and that such a Pope who was then in contest with the Patriarch of Constantinople and that too so long after the encroachments of the Bishops of Rome it being in the ninth Century and yet for all this this Pope doth not say those words which you would fasten upon him that which he saith is That none of the Bishops of Constantinople or scarce any of them were ejected without the consent of the Bishop of Rome And then instanceth in Maximus Nestorius Accacius Anthimus Sergius Pyrrhus Paulus Petrus but his design in this is only to shew that Ignatius the Patriarch ought not to have been deposed without his consent But what is all this to the Pope's sole power of deposing when even at that time the Pope did not challenge it But supposing the Popes had done it before it doth not follow that it was in their power to do it and that the Canons had given them right to do it but least of all certainly that they had a Divine right for it which never was in the least acknowledged by the Church as to a deposition of Patriarchs which you contend for But besides this you say Sixtus the third deposed Polychronius Bishop of Hierusalem Whereas Sixtus only sent eight persons from a Synod at Rome to Hierusalem who when they came there did not offer to depose Polychronius by vertue of the Popes power but a Synod of seventy or more neighbour Bishops were call'd by whom he was deposed and yet after all
this Binius himself condemns those Acts which report this story for spurious there being a manifest repugnancy in the time of them and no such person as Polychronius ever mentioned by the Ecclesiastical Historians of that time and other fabulous Narrations inserted in them Yet these are your goodly proofs of the Popes power to depose Patriarchs But we must see whether you have any better success in proving his power to restore such as were deposed for which you only instance in Athanasius and Paulus restored by Julius whose case must be further examined which in short is this Athanasius being condemned by the Synods of Tyre and Antioch goes to Rome where he and Paulus are received into Communion by Julius who would not accept of the Decree of the Eastern Bishops which was sent after him to Rome For Pope Julius did not formally offer to restore Athanasius to his Church but only owned and received him into Communion as Bishop of Alexandria and that because he looked on the proceedings as unjust in his condemnation And all that Julius himself pleads for is not a power to depose or restore Patriarchs himself but only that such things ought not to have been done without communicating those proceedings to him which the Vnity of the Church might require And therefore Petrus de Marca saith that Baronius Bellarmin and Perron are all strangely out in this story when they would infer That the causes of the Eastern Bishops upon appeal were to be judged by the Bishop of Rome whereas all that Julius pleads for is that such things should not be done by the Eastern Bishops alone which concerned the deposition of so great a person in the Church as the Patriarch of Alexandria but that there ought to be a Council both of the Eastern and Western Bishops on which account afterwards the Sardican Synod was call'd But when we consider with what heat and stomack this was received by the Eastern Bishops how they absolutely deny that the Western Bishops had any more to do with their proceedings then they had with theirs when they say that the Pope by this usurpation was the cause of all the mischief that followed we see what an excellent instance you have made choice of to prove the Popes power of restoring Bishops by Divine right and that this was acknowledged by the whole Church The next thing to be considered is that speech of St. Augustine That in the Church of Rome there did alwayes flourish the Principality of an Apostolick chair As to which his Lordship saith That neither was the word Principatus so great nor the Bishops of those times so little as that Principes and Principatus are not commonly given them both by the Greek and Latin Fathers of this great and learnedst age of the Church made up of the fourth and fift hundred years alwayes understanding Principatus of their spiritual power and within the limits of their several jurisdictions which perhaps now and then they did occasionally exceed And there is not one word in St. Augustine that this Principality of the Apostolick chair in the Church of Rome was then or ought to be now exercised over the whole Church of Christ as Bellarmin insinuates there and as A. C. would have it here To all this you say nothing to purpose but only tell us That the Bishop by this makes way to some other pretty perversions as you call them of the same Father For we must know say you that he is entering upon that main Question concerning the Donatists of Africk and he is so indeed and that not only for clearing the meaning of St. Augustine in the present Epistle but of the whole Controversie to which a great light will be given by a true account of those proceedings Thus then his Lordship goes on And to prove that St. Augustine did not intend by Principatus here to give the Roman Bishop any power out of his own limits which God knows were far short of the whole Church I shall make it most manifest out of the same Epistle For afterwards saith St. Augustine when the pertinacy of the Donatists could not be restrained by the African Bishops only they gave them leave to be heard by forraign Bishops And after that he hath these words And yet peradventure Melciades the Bishop of the Roman Church with his Colleagues the transmarine Bishops non debuit ought not to usurp to himself this judgement which was determin'd by seventy African Bishops Tigisitanus sitting Primate And what will you say if he did not usurp this power for the Emperour being desired sent Bishops Judges which should sit with him and determine what was just upon the whole cause In which passage saith his Lordship there are very many things observable As first That the Roman Prelate came not in till there was leave for them to go to Transmarine Bishops Secondly That if the Pope had come in without this leave it had been an Vsurpation Thirdly That when he did thus come in not by his own Authority but by Leave there were other Bishops made Judges with him Fourthly That these other Bishops were appointed and sent by the Emperour and his power that which the Pope least of all will endure Lastly Lest the Pope and his Adherents should say this was an Vsurpation in the Emperour St. Austin tells us a little before in the same Epistle still that this doth chiefly belong ad curam ejus to the Emperours care and charge and that he is to give an account to God for it And Melciades did sit and judge the business with all Christian Prudence and Moderation So at this time the Roman Prelate was not received as Pastour of the whole Church say A. C. what he please nor had he Supremacy over the other Patriarchs In order to the better shaping your Answer to this Discourse you pretend to give us a true Narrative of the Donatists proceedings by the same figure that Lucians Book is inscribed De vera historia There are several things therefore to be taken notice of in your Narrative before we come to your particular Answers whose strength depends upon the matters of fact First You give no satisfactory account at all Why if the Popes Vniversal Pastourship had been then owned the first appeal on both sides was not made to the Bishop of Rome for in so great a Schism as that was between the different parties of Caecilian and Majorinus To whom should they have directly gone but to Melchiades then Bishop of Rome How comes it to pass that there is no mention at all of his judgement by either party till Constantine had appointed him to be one of the Judges St. Austin indeed pleads in behalf of Caecilian why he would not be judged by the African Synod of LXX Bishops that there were thousands of his Colleagues on the other side the Sea whom he might be tryed by But why not by the Bishop