to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
quiver are these arrows taken Is this fair sober Candid Christian dealing have you no way to defend the Authority of your Church but by Questioning the Authority of the Scripture Did ever any of the Fathers of old or any in the world before your selves take this course to plead their interests in any thing they professed Is this Practice Catholick or like many of your Principles singular your own Donatisticall Is it any great sign that you have an interest in that living Child when you are so ready he should be destroyed rather than you would be cast in your Contest with Protestants 2. Do you think that this course of proclaiming to Atheists Turks and Pagans that the Scripture which all Christians maintain against them to be the Word of the Living GOD given by inspiration from Him and on which the Faith of all the Martyrs who have suffered from their opposition rage and cruelty and of all others that truly believe in Jesus Christ was and is founded and whereinto it is resolved hath no Arguments of its Divine Original implanted on it no lines of the Excellencies and Perfections of its Author drawn on it no power or efficacy towards the Consciences of men evidencing its Authority over them no ability of its self to comfort and support them in their tryals and sufferings with the hope of things that are not seen Is this think you an acceptable service unto the Lord Christ who will one day judg the secrets of all hearts according unto that Word or Is it not really to expose Christian Religion to scorn and contempt And do you find so much sweetness in Delus an Virtus quis in hoste requirat as to cast off all Reverence of God and his Word in the pursuit of the supposed Adversaries of your earthly Interests 3. If your Arguments and Objections are effectuall and privalent unto the end for which you intend them will not your direct issue be the utter overthrow of the very foundation of the whole Profession of Christians in the world And are you like Sampson content to pull down the house that must fall upon your selves also so that you may stifle Protestants with its sall It may be it were well you should do so were it an house of Dagon a Temple dedicated unto Idols but to deal so with that wherein dwels the Majesty of the Living GOD is not so justifiable It is true Evert this Principle and you overthrow the foundation on which the faith of Protestants is built but it is no less true that you do the same to the foundation of the Christian Faith in generall wherein wee hope your own concernment also lyes And this is the thing that I am declaring unto you namely that either you acknowledg the Principles on which Protestants build their Faith and Profession or by denying them you open a door unto Atheism at least to the extirpation of Christian Religion out of the world I confess you pretend a relief against the present instance in the Authority of your Church sufficient as you say to give a Credibility unto the Scriptures though its own self-evidencing Power and Efficacy with the Confirmation of it by Catholick Tradition exclusive to your present suffrage be rejected Now I suppose you will grant that the Prop you supply men withall upon your casting down the foundations on which they have laid the weight of their eternall Salvation had need be firm and immoveable And remember that you have to do with them who though they may be otherwise inclineable unto you Non tamen ignorant quid distent aera a lupinis and must use their own judgement in the Consideration of what you tender unto them And they Ask you 1. What will you do if it be as you say with them who absolutely reject the Authority of your Châ—â—ch which is the condition of more than a moyety of the Inhabitants of the world to speak sufficiently within compass And 2. What will you advise us to say to innumerable other Persons that are pious and rational who upon the meer consideration of the lives of many of the most of the guides of your Church your bloody inhumane practices your pursuit of worldly carnall designs your visible secular interest wherein you are combined and united cannot perswade themselves that the Testimony of your Church in and about things that are invisible spirituall heavenly and eternall is at all valuable much less that it is sufficient to bear the weight you would lay upon it 3. Was not this the way and method of Vaninus for the Introduction of his Atheism first to question sleight and sophistically except against the old approved Arguments and Evidences manifesting the beeing and existence of a Divine self-subsisting Power substituting in their room for the confirmation of it his own Sophisms which himself knew might be easily discussed and disproved Do you deal any better with us in decrying the Scripture's self-evidencing Efficacy with the Testimony given unto it by God himself substituting nothing in the room thereof but the Authority of your Church A man certainly can take up nothing upon the sole Authority of your Church untill contrary to the pretensions Reasons and Arguments of far a greater number of Christians than your selves he acknowledge you to be a true Church at least if not the only Church in the world Now how I pray will you bring him into that state and condition that he may rationally make any such judgement How will you prove unto him that there is any such thing as a Church in the World that a Church hath any Authority that its Testimony can make any thing credible or meet to be believed You must prove these things to him or whatever assent he gives unto what you say is from fanaticall credulity To suppose that he should believe you upon your word because you are the Church is to suppose that he believes that which you are yet but attempting to induce him to believe If you persist to press him without other proof not only to believe what you first said unto him but also even this that whatever you shall say to him hereafter that he must believe it because you say it Will not any rationall man nauseate at your unreasonable importunity and tell you that men who have a mind to be befooled may meer with such Alchymisticall pretenders all the world over Will you perswade him that you are the Church and that the Church is furnished with the Authority mentioned by rational Arguments I wish you would inform me of any one that you can make use of that doth not include a Supposition of something unproved by you and which can never be proved but by your own Authority which is the thing in Question or the immediate Authority of God which you reject A number indeed of pretences or it may be Probabilities you may heap together which yet upon examination will not be found so much neither unless a
that you may the easilier be quit of you never examine but only run on in your usual florishes about the use and excellency of Gods Word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit not to heed any thing that may hinder your florishes but if you were kept up in a Chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your veryvaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold have made an end of you The meaning of this Discourse is that the Jews pretence of rejecting Christ upon the Authority and Tradition of their Church was not nor is to be satisfied by Testimonies given in the Scripture unto the Person Doctrine and Work of the Messias The sum of the Objection said down in your Fiat Lux is that which I have now mentioned It was the Plea of the Jews against Christ and his Doctrine managed from the Authority and Tradition of their Church That Christ and his Apostles gave the Answer unto this objection which I have now intimated namely the Testimony of God himself in the Scripture to the Truth of that which they objected against which was to be preferred unto the Authority and Testimony of their Church I have undeniably proved unto you in the Animadversions and it is manifest to every one that hath but read the New Testament with any Consideration or understanding The same way was persisted in by the Antient Fathers as all their writings against the Jews do testifie And I must now tell you that your calling the validity of this Answer into Question is highly injurious unto the honour of Christianity and blasphemous against Christ himself The best interpretation that I can give unto your words is that you are a person wholly ignorant of the Controversies that are between the Jews and Christians and the way that is to be taken for their satisfaction or confutation You tell us indeed in your Fiat that the Jews will reply to these Testimonies of Scripture which are alledged as giving witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Doctrine and contend about the interpretation of them and this you tell me I have the wit to take no notice of which by the way is unduly averred by you and contrary to your own Science and Conscience seeing you profess that you have read over my Animadversions and probably the very place wherein I do take notice of what you said to that purpose and replyed unto it was not far from your eye when you wrote the contrary And as I shewed you what was the opinion of the Antients of that reply of the Jews which you mention so I shall now add that nothing but gross ignorance in these things can give countenance to an imagination that there is any thing but folly and madness in the Rabbinical evasions of the Testimonies of the old Testament given unto our Lord Christ and his Gospel And your substitution of a naked fananical Credo not resolved into the Testimony of the Holy Writ in the room of that express Witness which is given in Holy Scripture unto the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ to oppose therewith the Judaical Plea from their Church State Power and Authority is an Engine fit to undermine the very root of Christianity and to render the whole Gospel highly Questionable Besides it is so absurd as to the Conviction of the Jews such a mere petitio principii or begging of what is in Controversie between Christians and them that I challenge you to produce any one learned man that hath made use of it to that purpose To think that your Credo built on principles which he despiseth which you cannot prove unto him will convince another man of the Truth of what you believe can have no other ground but a magical fancy that the fixing of your imagination shall affect his and conform it unto your apprehension of things Such is your course in telling the Jews of the Authority of your Church and your Credo thereupon which cannot be supposed to have any existence in rerum natura unless it be first supposed that their Church was failed which supposal that it was not is the sole foundation of their objection What end you can propose herein but to expose your self and your profession unto their scorn and contempt I know not Sir the Lord Christ confirmed himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by the Miracles which he wrought and the Doctrine which he taught was testified to be Divine by signs and express words from Heaven He proved it also by the Testimonies out of the Law and Prophets all which was confirmed by his Resurrection from the dead This coming of the promised Messiah the work that he was to perform and the characteristical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of him in application unto the person of Jesus of Nazareth the Apostles and Evangelists proved out of the Scripture to the conviction and conversion of thousands of the Jews and the confusion of the rest And if you know not that the Antients Fathers and learned men of succeeding Ages have undenyably proved against the Jews out the Scripture of the Old Testament and by the Testimony thereof that the promised Messiah was to be God and man in one Person that he was to come at the time of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh that the work which he was to perform was the very same and no other then what was wrought and accomplished by him with all the other important concernments of his Person and office so that they have nothing left to countenance them in their obstinacy but meer senseless trifles you are exceedingly unmeet to make use of their objections or the condition of the controversie between them and Christians For what you add in reference unto my self I shall need only to mind you that the Question is not about any Personal ability of mine to satisfie a Jew which whatever it be when I have a mind to encrease it for somewhat that I know of and which I have learned out of their writings I will not come unto you for assistance but concerning the sufficiency of that Principle for the confronting of Judaical objections taken from the Authority of their Church which I have formerly proved unto you that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of unto that purpose And I will not say that it was from the pregnancy of your wit that whatever heed you took unto the stating of the Case between you and Protestants in the Animadversions parallel unto that between the Jews and the Apostles seeing a very little wit will suffice to direct a man to let that alone which he finds too heavy for him to remove
man will swallow amongst them that which is destitute of all Probability but what is included in the evidence given unto it by Divine Revelation which is not yet pleaded unto him It may be then you will work Miracles to confirm your Assertions Let us see them For although very many things are requisite to manifest any works of wonder that may be wrought in the world to be reall Miracles and good Caution be required to judge unto what end Miracles are wrought yet if we may have any tolerable evidence of your working Miracles in Confirmation of this Assertion that you are the true and only Church of God with the other Inferences depending thereon which we are in the Consideration of you will find us very easie to be treated withall But herein also you fail You have then no way to deal with such a man as we first supposed but as you do with us and produce Testimonies of Scripture to prove and confirm the Authority of your Church and then you will quickly find where you are and what snares you have cast your selves into Will not a man who hears you proving the Authority of your Church by the Scripture ask you And whence hath this Scripture its Authority yea that is supposed to be the thing in Question which denying unto it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you yet produce to confirm the Authority of that by whose Authority alone its self is evidenced to have any Authority at all Rest in the Authority of God manifesting its self in the Scripture witnessed unto by the Catholick Tradition of all Ages you will not But you will prove the Scripture to be the Word of God by the Testimony of your Church and you will prove your Châ—â—â—h to be enabled sufficiently to testifie the Scriptures to be of God by the Testimonies of the Scripture Would you knew where to begin and where to end But you are indeed in a Circle which hath neither beginning nor ending I know not when we shall be enabled to say Inventus Chrysippe tui finitor acervi Now do you think it reasonable that we should leave our stable and immoveable firm foundations to run round with you in this endless Circle untill through giddiness we fall into Unbelief or Atheism This is that which I told you before you must either acknowledge our Principle in this matter to be firm and certain or open a door to Atheism and the Contempt of Christian Religion seeing you are not able to substitute and thing in the room thereof that is able to bear the weight that must be laid upon it if we believe For how should you do so shall man be like unto God or equall unto him The Testimony we rest in is Divine fortified from all Objections by the strongest humane Testimony possible namely Catholick Tradition That which you would supply us with is meerly Humane and no more And 4. your Importunity in opposing this Principle is so much the more marvellous unto us because therein you openly oppose your selves to express Testimonies of Scripture and the full Suffrage of the Ancient Church I wish you would a little weigh what is affirmed 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. Psal. 119. 152. Joh. 5. 34 35 36 39. 1 Thess. 2. 13. Act. 17. 11. 1 Joh. 5. 6 10. 1 Joh. 2. 20. Heb. 11. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Act. 26. 22. And will you take with you the consent of the Ancients Clemens Alexand. Strom. 7. speaks fully to our purpose as he doth also lib. 4. where he plainly affirms that the Church proved the Scripture by its selfâ— and other things as the Unity of the Deity by the Scripture But his own words in the former place are worth the recital 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the beginning of Faith or Principle of what we teach we have the Lord who in sundry manners and by divers parts by the Prophets Gospel and holy Apostles leads us to knowledge And if any one suppose that a Principle stands in need of another to prove it he destroys the nature of a Principle or it is no longer preserved a Principle This is that we say The Scripture the Old and New Testament is the Principle of our Faith This is proved by its self to be of the Lord who is its Author and if we cause it to depend on any thing else it is no longer the Principle of our Faith and Profession And a little after where he hath shewed that a Principle ought not to be disputed nor to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any debate he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is meet then that receiving by Faith the most absolute Principle without other demonstration and taking demonstrations of the Principle from the Principle its self that we be instructed by the voice of the Lord unto the knowledge of the Truth That is we believe the Scripture for its own sake and the Testimony that God gives unto it in it and by it and do prove every thing else by it and so are confirmed in the faith or knowledge of the Truth So he further explains himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we do not simply or absolutely attend or give heed unto men determining or defining against whom it is equall that we may define or declare our judgements So it is whilest the Authority of man or men any Society of men in the world is pleaded the Authority of others may be as good reason be objected against it as whilest you plead your Church and its definitions others may on as good grounds oppose theirs unto you therein And therefore Clemens proceeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if it be not sufficient meerly to declare or assert that which appears to be truth but also to make that Credible or fit to be believed which is spoken we seek not after the Testimony that is given by men but we confirm that which is proposed or enquired about with the voice of the Lord which is more full than any demonstration or rather is its self the only demonstration according to the knowledge whereof they that have tasted of the Scriptures are believers Into the voice the Word of God alone the Church then resolved their Faith this only they built upon acknowledging all humane Testimony to be too weak and infirm to be made a foundation for it And this voice of God in the Scripture evidencing its self so to be is the only Demonstration of Faith which they rested in whereupon a little after he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so wee having perfect Demonstrations out of the Scriptures are by Faith demonstratively assured or perswaded of the Truth of the things proposed This was the Profession of the Church of old this the resolution of their faith This is that which Protestants in this Case adhere unto They proved the Scripture to be from God as he elswhere speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam major majorem maxima maximam Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo And again Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Natur â sublimius idest inspiratio facta divinitus divinae irradiation is influxus certus But whence are wee perswaded that it is from the First Verity but from it Self It s own Authority draws us to believe it But whence obtains it this Authority â— we see not God preaching writing teaching but yet as if we had seen him we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering unto it that the Truth in it is more solid though not more clear than in any other way of proposall and all truth hath a power to incline unto belief the greater the Truth the greater its power and the greatest Truth must have the greatest power so to incline us But why then do not all believe the Gospell I answer because all are not drawn of God There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than Nature that is the Divine Inspiration from whence it is and the Divine Irradiation wherewith it is accompanied This is the Principle of Protestants The Sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first Verity this it manifests by its own Light and Efficacy and we are enabled to believe it by the effectuall working of the Spirit of God in our hearts Whence our Saviour asks the Jews Joh 5. If you believe not the writing of Moses how will you believe my words They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture upon the Authority that it hath in its self would not believe if Christ should personally speak unto them So saith Theophylact on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Protestants believe and profess that the End wherefore God gave forth his Word by Inspiration was that it might be a stable Infallible Revelation of his mind and will as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him with that Worship and Obedience which he requireth of them that so they may please him in this world and come unto the fruition of him unto all eternity God who is the formal object is also the prime Cause of all Religious worship What is due unto him as the first Cause last End and Soveraign Lord of all as to the substance of it and what he further appoints himself as to the manner of its performance suited unto his own Holiness and the Condition wherein in reference unto our Last end we stand and are making up the whâ—le of it That he hath given his Word to reveal these things unto us to be our Rule Guide and Direction in our wayes walkings and universal deportment before him is as I take it a fundamentall Principle of our Christian Profession Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it I shall not need therefore to adde any thing in its Confirmation but only mind you again that the calling of it into question is directly against the very heart of all Religion and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians or ever were so Yea and it must be granted or the whole Scripture esteemed a Fable because it frequently declares that it is given unto us of God for this End and Purpose And hence do Protestants inferre two other Conclusions on which they build their Perswasion concerning the Vnity of Faith and the proper means of their Settlement therein 1. That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way compleat namely with respect unto that end whereunto of God it is designed A Perfect and compleat Revelation of the Will of God as to his Worship and our Obedience And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned should not have that sacred Reverence for the Wisdome Goodness and Love of its Author unto mankind as freely to assent unto this Inference and Conclusion He is our Rock and his work is perfect And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word by a supply unto it he hath strictly forbidden them any such addition Deut. 4. 2. 12. 12. Prov. 30. 6. Which if it were not compleat in reference unto its proper End would hold no great correspondency with that Love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him I suppose you know with how many express Testimonies of Scripture its self this Truth is confirmed which added unto that light and evidence which as a deduction from the former fundamental Truth it hath in its self is very sufficient to render it unquestionable You may at your leasure besides these forenamed consult Psal. 19. 8. Esa. 8. 20. Ezek. 28. 18. Mat. 15. 6. Luk. 1. 3 4. ch 16. 29 31. ch 24. 25 27. Job 5. 39. ch 20. 10 Act. 1. 11. ch 17. 2 3. ch 20. 27. chapt 26. 22. Rom. 10. 17. ch 15. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gal. 1. 8. Eph. 2. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Rev 22. 18. For though Texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one anothers heads as you talk in your Fiat yet they are for us to use and insist on in the Confirmation of the Truth if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles for our warrant And it were endless to recite the full and plain Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Councels to this purpose Neither is that my present design though I did somwehat occasionally that way upon the former Principle It shall suffice me to shew that the deny all of this Assertion also as it is inferred from the foregoing Principle is Prejudiciall if not pernicious to Christian Religion in Generall The whole of our Faith and Profession is resolved into the known Excellencies and Perfections of the Nature of God Amongst these there are none that have a more immediate and quickning influence into them than his Wisdom Goodness Grace Care and Love towards them unto whom he is pleased to reveal himself Nor is there any property of his Nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony unto And all of them doth he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signall manner in that Revelation which he hath made of himself his Mind and Will therein I suppose this cannot be denied by any who hath the least sense of the importance of the things revealed Now if the Revelation made for the End before proposed be not perfect
what you had to say that in the Animadversions after the discovery of the falsity of the Assertions that it arose from I suffered your supposition to pass and shewed you the weakness of your Inference upon it And the reason of my so doing was this that because though the Papists brought not the Gopel first into England yet I do not judge it impossible but that they may be the means of communicating it unto some other place or People and I would be loth to grant that they who receive it from them must either alwayes embrace their Popery or renounce the Gospel I confess a great intanglement would be put on the thoughts and minds of such Persons by the Principle of the Infallibility of them that sent your Teachers whereinto it may be also they would labour to resolve your belief But yet if withal you shall communicate unto them the Gospel its self as the great Repository of the Mysteries of that Religion wherein your instruct them there is a sufficient foundation laid for their reception of Christianity and the rejection of your Popery For when once the Gospel hath evidenced its self unto their consciences that it is from God as it will do if it be received unto any benefit or advantage at all they will or may easily discern that those who brought it unto them were themselves in many things deceived in their apprehensions of the mind of God therein revealed especially as to your pretence of the Infallibility of any man or men any further then his conceptions agree with what is revealed in that Gospel which they have received and now for its own sake believe to be from God And once to imagine that when the Scripture is received by faith and hath brought the soul into subjection to the Authority of God exerting it self in it and by it that it will not warrant them in the rejection of any respect unto men whatever is to err not knowing the Scripture nor the Power of God In this condition of things men will bless God for any means which he was pleased to use in the communicating the Gospel unto them and if those who were employed in that work shall persist in obtruding upon their faith and worship things that are not revealed they will quickly discover such a contradiction in their Principles as that it is utterly impossible that they should rationally assent unto and embrace them all but either they must renounce the Gospel which they have brought them or reject those other Principles which they would impose upon them that are contrary thereunto And whither of those they will do upon a supposition that the Gospel hath now obtained that Authority over their consciences and minds which it claims in and over all that receive it it is no hard matter to determine Men then who have themselves mixed the Doctrine of the Gospel with many abominable errors of their own may in the Providence of God be made instrumental to convey the Gospel unto others At the first tender of it they may for the Truths sake which they are convinced of receive also the errors that are tendered unto them as being as yet not able to discern the chaff from the wheat But when once the Gospel is rooted in their minds and they begin to have their senses exercised therein to discern between good and evil and their faith of the Truth they receive is resolved into the Authority of God himself the Author of the Gospel they have their warrant for the rejection of the Errors which they had before imbibed according as they shall be discovered unto them For though they may first consider the Gospel on the proposition of them that first bring them the tidings of it as the Samaritans came to our Saviour upon the information of the woman yet when they come to experience themselves its power efficacy they believe it for its own sake as those did also in our Lord Jesus Christ upon his own account when this is done they will be enabled to distinguish as the Prophet speaks between a dream and a prophecy between chaff and wheat between error and Truth And thus if we should grant that the first News of Christianity was brought into England by Papists yet it doth not at all follow that if we reject Popery we must also reject the Gospel or esteem it a Romance For if we should have received Popery we should have received it only upon the credit and Authority of them that brought it but the Truth of Christianity we should have received on the Authority of the Gospel which was brought unto us So that our entertainment of Popery and Christianity standing not on the same bottom or foot of account we might well reject the one and retain the other But this consideration as to us is needless they were not Papists which brought Christianity first into this Land Wherefore well knowing that the whole strength of their reasoning depends on the supposition that they were so you proceed to confirm it in your manner that is by saying it over again But we will hear you speaking your own words We had not our Christianity immediately from the East nor from Joseph of Arimatheâ— we Englishmen had not For as he delivered his Christianity unto some Britans when our Land was not called England but Albion or Brittany and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Britans or Kimbrians so likewise did that Christianity and the whole news of it quite vanish being suddenly overwhelmed by the entient deluge of Paganism nor did it ever come from them to us nay the Brittans themselves had so forgot and lost it that they also needed a second Conversion which they received from Pove Eleutherius And that was the only news of Christianity which prequiled and lasted even amongst the very Britans which seems to me a great seeret of Divine Providence in planting and governing his Church as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting but what was immediately fixed by and seated upon that Rock for all other conversions have variety and the very seats of the other Apostles failed that all might the better cement in the unity of one head Nay the Tables which God wrote with his own hand were broken but the other written by Moses remained that we might learn to give a due respect unto him whom God hath set over us as our Head and Ruler under him and none exalt himself against him I know you will laugh at this my Observation but I cannot but tell you what I think Where I speak then of the news of Christianity first brought to this Land I mean not that which was first brought upon the earth or soyle of this Land and spoken to any body then dwelling here but which was delivered to the forefathers of the now present Inhabitants who were Saxons or English men And I say that we the now present Inhabitants of England off spring of the Saxons
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
A VINDICATION â—F THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX Wherein the Principles OF THE ROMAN CHURCH As to Moderation Unity and Truth are Examined And sundry Important Controversies concerning the Rule of Faith Papal Supremacy the Mass Images c. Discussed By John Owen D. D. LONDON Printed for Ph. Stephens at the Gilded-Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard and George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate Hill 1664. Imprimatur Tho. Grigg R. in Christ. P. D. Humfr. Episc. Lond. à Sac. domesticis Decemb. 9. 1663. TO THE READER Christian Reader ALthough our Lord Jesus Christ hath laid blessed and stable foundations of Unity Peace and Agreement in judgement and affection amongst all his Disciples and given forth Command for their attendance unto them that thereby they might glorifie him in the world and promote their own spiritual advantage yet also foreknowing what effect the crafts of Satan in conjunction with the darkness and lusts of men would produce that no offence might thence be taken against him or any of his wayes he hath sorewarned all men by his Spirit what Differences Divisions Schisms and Heresies would ensue on the publication of the Gospel and arise even among them that should profess subjection unto his Authority and Law And accordingly it speedily came to pass For what Solomon sayes that he discovered concerning the first Creation namely that God made man upright but he sought out many inventions or immixed himself in endless questions the same fell out in the new creation or erection of the Church of Christ. The state of it was by him formed upright and all that belonged unto it were of one heart and one soul. But this harmony and perfection of beauty in answer to his Will and Institution lasted not long among them many who mixed themselves with those Primitive converts or succeeded them in their profession quickly seeking out perverse inventions Hence in the dayes of the Apostles themselves there were not only schisms and divisions made in sundry Churches of their own planting with disputes about Opinions and needless impositions by those of the Circumcision who believed but also opposition was made unto the very fundamental Doctrines of the Deity and Incarnation of the Son of God by the Spirit of Antichrist then entring into the world as is evident from their Writings and Epistles But yet as all this while our Lord Jesus Christ according to his promise preserved the root of Love and Vnity amongst them who sincerely believed in him entire as he doth still and will do to the end by giving the one and selfsame spirit to guide sanctifie and unite them all unto himself so the care and Authority of the Apostles during their abode in the flesh so far prevailed that notwithstanding some temporary impeachments of Love and Union in or amongst the Churches yet no signal prejudice of any long continuance befell them For either the miscarriages which they fell into were quickly retrieved by them the truth infallibly cleared and provision made for Peace Vnity and Moderation in and about things of less concernment or else the evil guilt and danger of them remained only with and upon some particular persons the notoriety of whose wickedness and folly cast them out by common consent from the communion of all the Disciples of Christ. But no sooner was that sacred Society 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with their immediate successors as Egesippus speaks in Eusebius departed unto their rest with God but that the Church it self which untill then was preserved a pure and incorruppted Virgin began to be vexed with abiding contention and otherwise to degenerate from its primitive original purity From thence forward especially after the heat of bloody and fiery persecutions began to abate far the greatest part of Ecclesiastical Records consists in relations of the Divisions Differences Schisms and Heresies that fell out amongst them who professed themselves the Disciples of Christ. For those failings errors and mistakes which were found in men of peaceable minds the Church indeed of those dayes extended her Peace and Vnity if Justin Martyr and others may be believed to such as the seeming warmer zeal and really colder charity of the succeeding Ages could not bear withal But yet divisions and disputes were multiplyed into such an excess as that the Gentiles fetcht advantage from them not only to reproach all Christians withall but to deterr others from the proâ—ession of Christianity So Celsus in his third Book deals with them for saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At first when they were but a few they were of one mind or agreed well enough But being increased and the multitude of them scattered abroad they were presently divided again and again and every one would have his own party or division and as in a divided multitude opposed and reproved one another so that they had no communion among themselves but only in name which for shame they retain So doth he for his purpose as is the manner of men invidiously exaggerate the differences that were in those early times amongst Christians for he wrote about the dayes of Trajan the Emperour That others of them took the same course is testified by Clemens Stromat lib. 7. Augustin lib. de Ovib. c. 15. and sundry others of the antient Writers of the Church But that no just offence as to the truth or any of the wayes of Christ might hence be taken we are as I said before forewarned of all these things by the Lord himself and his Apostles as also of the use and necessity of such events and issues Whence Origen cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most admirable unto me seems the saying of Paul There must be Heresies amongst you that those who are approved may be manifest Nor can any just excception be hence taken against the Gospel it self For it doth not belong unto the excellency or â—ignity of any thing to free it self from all opposition but only to preserve it self from being prevailed against and to remain victorious as the sacred truths of Christ have done and will do unto the end Not a few indeed in these evil dayes wherein we live the ends of the world and the difficulties with which they are attended being come upon us persons ignorant of things past and regardless of things to come in bondage to their present lusts and pleasures are ready to make use of the pretence of divisions and differences among Christians to give up themselves unto Atheism and indulge to their pleasures like the beasts that perish Let us eat and drink for too morrow we shall dye Quid aliud inscribi poterat sepulchro bovis But whatever they pretend to the contrary it may be easily evinced that it is their personal dislike of that holy obedience which the Gospel requireth not the differences that are about the Doctrines of it which alienates their minds from the truth They will not some of them foregoe all Philosophical inquiries after the
unto one of your great Masters to be acquainted with the genuine sense of one of your Churches Proposals this being the way that he takes for his satisfaction First he speaks unto the Article or Question to be considered in Generall then gives the different senses of it according to these and those famous Masters the most of which he confutes who yet all of them professed themselves to explain and to speak according to the sense of your Church and lastly gives his own interpretation of it which it may be within a few moneths is confuted by another 3. Suppose a man have attained a knowledge of all that your Church hath determined and proposed to be believed and to a right understanding of her precise sense and meaning in all her determinations and proposals which I believe never yet man attained unto yet what assurance can he have if he live in any place remote from Rome but that your Church may have made some new Determinations in matters of faith whose embracement in the sense which she intends belongs unto his keeping the Unity of Faith which yet he is not acquainted withall Is it not simply impossible for him to be satisfied at any time that he believes all that is to be believed or that he holds the Vnity of Faith Your late Pontific all Determination in the Case of the Jansenists and Molinists is sufficient to illustrate this instance For I suppose you are equally bound not to believe what your Church condemneth as Hereticall as you are bound to believe what it proposeth for Catholick Doctrine 4. I desire to know when a man who lives here in England begins to be obliged to believe the Determinations of your Church that are made at Rome It may be he first hears of them in a Mercury or weekly News book or it may be he hath notice of them by some private Letters from some who live near the place or it may be he hath a knowledge of them by common report or it may be they are printed in some Books or that there is a brief of them published somewhere under the name of the Pope or they are put into some Volume written about the Councels or some Religious Persons on whom he much relyes assures him of them I know you believe that your Churches Proposition is a sufficient means of the Revelation of any Article to make it necessary to be believed but I desire to know what is necessary to Cause a man to receive any Dictate or Doctrine as your Churches proposition not only upon this account that you are not very well agreed upon the Requisita unto the making of such a Proposition but also because be you as infallible as you please in your Proposals the means and wayes you use to communicate those Proposals you make unto Individuals in whom alone the faith whereof we treat exists are all of them fallible Now that which I desire to know is What is or what are those certain means and wayes of communicating the Propositions of your Church unto any Person wherein he is bound to acquiesce and upon the application of them unto him to believe them fide divina cui non potest subesse falsum Is it any one thing or way or means that the hinge upon which his assent turns Or is it a Complication of many things concurring to the same purpose If it be any one thing way or medium that you fix upon pray let us know it and we shall examine its fitness and sufficiency for the use you put it unto I am sure we shall find it to be either infallible or fallible If you say the former and that particular upon which the Assent of a mans mind unto any thing to be the proposall of your Church depends must in the testimony it gives and evidence that it affords be esteemed infallible then you have as many infallible Persons things or writings as you make use of to acquaint one another with the determinations of your Church that is upon the matter you are all so though I know in particular that you are not If the latter notwithstanding the first pretended infallible Proposition your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information For what will it advantage me that the proposall of your Church cannot deceive me if I may be deceived in the Communicating of that Proposall unto me And I can with no more firmness certainty or assurance believe the thing proposed unto me than I do believe that it is the Proposall of the Church wherein it is made For you pretend not unto any self-evidencing efficacy in your Churches Propositions or things proposed by it but all their Authority as to me turns upon the Assurance that I have of their relation unto your Church or that they are the Proposals of your Church concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence and so cannot possibly believe them with Faith Divine and Supernaturall If you shall say that there are many things concurring unto this Communication of your Churches Proposals unto a man as the notoritty of the Fact suitable proceedings upon it books written to prove it Testimonies of good men and the like I cannot but mind you that all these being sigillatim every one apart fallible they cannot in their Conspiracy improve themselves into an Infallibility Strengthen a Probability they may testifie infallibly they neither do nor can So that on this account it is not only impossible for a man to know whether he holds the Vnity of Faith or no but indeed whether he believe any thing at all with Faith Supernaturall and Divine seeing he hath no infallible evidence for what is proposed unto him to believe to build his faith upon 5. Protestants are not satisfied with your generall implicit assent unto what your Church teacheth and determineth which you have invented to solve the difficulties that attend your Description of the Vnity of Faith Of what use it may be unto other purposes I do not now dispute but as to this of the preservation of the Vnity of Faith it is certainly of none at all The Vnity of Faith consists in all mens express believing all that all men are bound expresly to believe be it what it will Now you would have this preserved by mens not believing what they are bound to believe For what belongs to this keeping the Vnity of Faith they are bound to believe expresly and what they believe implicitly they do indeed no more but not expresly disbelieve for if they do any more than not disbelieve they put forth some act of their understanding about it and so farre expresly believe it So that upon the matter you would have ment to keep the Unity of Faith by a not believing of that which that they may keep the Unity of Faith they are bound expresly to believe Nor can you do otherwise whilest you make all the Propositions of your Church of things to be
we also do Strom. 4. To this purpose speaks Salvianus de Gub. Lib. 3. Alia omnia idest humana dicta argumentis testibus egent Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them the Word of God is witness to its self For whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospell or things preached from it yet as to the belief of the Scripiure with faith Divine and Supernaturall to be the Word of God they required but these two things 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needfull for an indemonstrable Principle from which and by which all other things are to be demonstrated And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it Thus Austin in his Confessions Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi ô Domine Deus non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos sed eos qui non crederent new audiendesesse siqui mihi forte dicerent Unde scis illos libres unius veracissimi Dei Spirituesse humano generi ministratos idipsum enim maximè credendum erat O Lord God thou hast perswaded me that not they who believe thy Books which with so great Authority thou hast setled almost in all Nations were to be blamed but those who believe them not and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance to say unto me Whence dost thou know those Books to be given out unto mankind from the Spirit of the only True GOD for that is the thing which principally was to be believed In which words the holy man hath given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that Question which some used it seems in his dayes A great Testimony of the Antiquity of your Principles Adde hereunto what he writes in the 11 th Book and 3 d Chapter of the same Treatise and wee have the summe of the Resolution and Principle of his Faith Audiam saith he intelligam quomodo fecisti Coelam terram Scripsit hoc Moses scripsit abiit transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est nam si esset tenerem eum rogaremeum per Teobsecrarem ut mihi ist a paâ—derct praberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ere ejus At si Hebraea voce loqueretur frustra pulsaret sensum meum nec inde mentem meam tangeret si autem Latinè scirem quid diceret sed Unde scirem an verum dicoret quod si hoc scirem num ab illâ— scirem Intus utique mihi intus in domicilio cogitationis nec Hebraea nec Graeca nec Latina nec barbara verityas sine oris linguae organis sine strepitu syllabarum diceret verum diâ—it ego statim â—â—tus confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem Verumolits Cum ergo illum interrogare non possim Te quo 〈◊〉 vera dixit Veritas rogo Te Deus meus rogo partepeccatis meis qui illi servo tuo dedisti haec dicere 〈◊〉 mihi haEc intelligere I would bear and understand O Lord how thou hast made the Heavens and the earth Moses wrote this he wrote it and is gene and he is gone to Thee For now he is not present with mee if he were I would lay hold on him and ask him and beseech him for thy sake that he would unfold these things unto me and I would cause the ears of my body to attend unto the words of his mouth But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense and my mind within would not be affected with it If he speak in Latine I should know what he sayed but whence should I know that he spake the Truth should I know this also from him The Truth that is neither Hebrew Greck Latine nor expressed in any Barbarous Language would say unto me inwardly in the dwelling place of my thoughts without the organs of mouth or tongue or noyse of syllables He speaks the Truth and I with confidaence should say unto him thy servam Thou speakest the Truth Seeing therefore I cannot enquire of him I beseech Thee that art Truth with whom he being filled spake the Truth I beseech thee O my God pardon my sinnes and thou who gavest unto him by servant to speak these things grant unto me tounderstand Thus this holy man ascribes his assent into the one unquestionable Principle of the Scripture as to the effecting of it in himself to the work if Gods Spirit in his heart As Basil also doth on Psal. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith which draws the soul unto consent above the efficacy of all rational wayes or methods of perswasion Faith that is wrought and begotten in us not by geometricall enforcements or demonstrations but by the effectuall operations of the Spirit And both these Principles are excellently expressed by one amongst your selves even Baptista Mantuanus Lib. de Patientia Cap. 32 33. Saepenumerò faith he mecum cogitavi Unde tam sâ—adibilis esset ista Scriptura ut tam potenter insluat in animos auditorum unde tantum habeat energiae ut non adopinandum sed ad solidè credendum omnes inflectat I have often thought with my self Whence the Scripture is so perswasive whence it doth so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers whence it hath so much efficacy that it should incline and bow all men not to think as probable but solidly to believe the things it proposeth Non saith he est hoc imputandum rationum evidentiaequas non adducit non artis industriae verbis suavibus ad persuadendum accommodatis quibus non utitur It is not to be ascribed unto the evidence of Reasons which it bringeth not neither to the excellency of Art sweet words and accommodated unto per swasion which it makes no use of Sed vide an id in causa sit quod persuasi sumus eam à prima veritate flâ—xisse But see if this be not the Cause of it that wee are perswaded that it proceeds from the prime Verity He proceeds Sed unde sumus ita persuasi nisi ab ipsa quasi ad ei credendum non sua ipsiâ—â— trahat Authoritas Sed unde quaeso hanc sibi Authoritatem vindicavit Neque enim vidimus nos Deum concionantem scribentem docentem tamen ac si vidissemus credimus tenemus à Spiritu Sancto fluxisse quod legimus Forsitan
flattering your selves with an imagination of any other Priviledge is that which hath wrought your ruine You are deceived if in this matter you are of Menander's mind who sayed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all will of its own accord fall out well with you though you sleep securely As for all other Churches in the world besides your own wee have your concession not only that they were and are fallible but that they have actually erred long since and the same hath been proved against yours a thousand times and your best Reserve against particular charges of Errour lyes in this impertinent generall pretence that you cannot erre It may be you will ask for you use so to do and it is the design of your Fiat to promote the â—nquiry If the Church be fallible that is to propose unto us the things and Doctrines that we are to believe How can we with faith infallible believe her proposals And I tell you truly I know not how we can if we believe them only upon her Authority or she propose them to be believed solely upon that account but when she proposeth them unto us to be believed on the Authority of God speaking in the Srciptures we both can and do believe what she teacheth and proposeth and that with faith infallible resolved into the Veracity of God in his Word and we grant every Church to be so farre infallible as it attends unto the only Infallible Rule amongst men When you prove that any one Church is by any promise of Christ any grant of Priviledge expressed or intimated in the Scripture placed in an unerring condition any farther than as in the use of the means appointed she attends unto the only Rule of her preservation or that any Church shall be â—ecessitated to attend unto that Rule whether she will or no whereby she may be preserved or can give us an instance of any Church since the foundation of the world that hath been actually preserved and absolutely from all errour other than that of your own which you know we cannot admit of as you will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great and memorable work so we shall grant as much as you can reasonably desire of us upon the account of the Assertion under consideration But untill you do some one or all of these your crying out The Church the Church the Church cannot erre makes no other noyse in our ears than that of the Jews The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Law shall not fail did in the ears of the Prophets of old Neither do we speak this of the Church or any Church as though we were concerned to question or deny any just Priviledges belonging unto it thereby to secure our selves from any pretensions of yours but meerly for the sake of Truth For we shall manifest anon unto you that you are as little concerned in the Priviledges of the Church be they what they will more or less as any Society of the Professours of Christianity in the world if so be that you are concerned in them at all So that if the Truth would permit us to agree with you in all things that you assign unto the Church yet the difference between you and us were never the nearer to an end for we should still differ with you about your share and interest therein and for ever abhor your frowardness in appropriating of them all unto your selves And herein as I sayed hath lyen a great part of your ruine Whilest you have been sweetly dreaming of an Infallibility you have really plunged your selves into errours innumerable and when any one hath jogged you to awake you out of your fatall sleep by minding you of your particular errours your dream hath left such an impression upon your imagination as that you think them no errours upon this only ground because you cannot erre I am perswaded had it not been for this one errour you had been freed from many others But this perfectly disiâ—ables you for any candid Inquisition after the Truth For why should he once look about him or indeed so much as take care to keep his eyes open who is sure that he can never be out of his way Hence you inquire not at all whether what you profess be Truth or not but to learn what your Church teacheth and defend it is all that you have to do about Religion in this world And whatever Absurdities or Inconveniencies you find your selves driven unto in the handling of particular points all is one they must be right though you cannot defend them because your Church which cannot erre hath so declared them to be And if you should chance to be convinced of any Truth in particular that is contrary to the determination of your Church you know not how to embrace it but must shut your eyes against its light and evidence and cast it out of your minds or wander up and down with a various assent between Contradictions Well said he of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is flat folly namely for a man to live in rebellion unto his own light But you adde III. That your selves that is the Pope with those who in matters of Religion adhere unto him and live in subjection unto him are this Church in an assent unto whose infallible teachings and Determinations the Vnity of Faith doth consist Could you prove this Assertion I confess it would stand you in good stead But before we enquire aftes that we shall endeavour a little to come unto a right understanding of what you say When you affirm tâ—at the Roman Church is the Church of Christ you intend either that it is the only Church of Christ all the Church of Christ and so consequently the Catholick Church or you mean that it is a Church of Christ which hath an especiall Prerog ative enabling it to require obedience of all the Disciples of Christ. If you say the former we desire to know 1. when it became so to be It was not so when all the Church was together at Hierusâ—lem and no foundation of any Church at all laid at Rome Acts 1. 1 2 3 4 5. It was not so when the first Church of the Gentiles was gathered at Antioch and the Disciples first began to be called Christians for as yet we have no tydings of any Church at Rome It was not so when Paul wrote his Epistles for he makes express mention of many other Church in other places which had no relation unto any Churches at Rome more than they had one to another in their common Profession of the same faith and therein enjoyed equall gifts and Priviledges with it It was not so in the dayes of the Primitive Fathers of the first three hundred years who all of them not one excepted took the Roman to be a local particular Church and the Bishop of Rome to be such a Bishop as they esteemed of all other Churches and Bishops
And what was herein done or spoken amiss as yet I cannot discern But I am perswaded that if you had not supposed that you had some of little judgement and less ingenuity to give satisfaction unto you would never have pleased your self with the writing of such empty Trifles in a business wherein you pretend so great a concernment Pag. 31. You observe that I say the Schoolmen were the hammerers and forgers of Popery And add Alas Sir I see that anger spoyls your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapter you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years before any Schoolmen were extant And thorefore tell me that I hate the Schoolmen as the Frenchmen do Talbot for having been frightened with them formerly Sed risu inepto res ineptior nulla est I confess the language of your Schoolmen is so corrupt and barbarous many of the things they sweat about so vain curious unprofitable their way of handling things and expressing the notions of their minds so perplexed dark obscure and oftentimes unintelligibe divers of their Assertions and suppositions so horrid and monstrous the whole system of their pretended Divinity so aliene and forreign unto the mysterie of the Gospel that I know no great reason that any man hath much to delight in them These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learnedest men that ever lived in the Communion of your own Church What one said of old of others may be well applyed unto them Statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei Calumniosis litibus Fidem minutis dissecant ambagibus Vt quisque est linguar nequior Solvunt ligantque quaestionum vincula Per Syllogismos plectiles Indeed to see them come forth harnassed with Syllogismes and Sophisms attended with Obs and Sols speaking part the language of the Jews and part the language of Ashdod fighting and contending amongst themselves as if they had sprung from the teeth of Cadmus Serpent subjecting all the properties decrees and actions of the holy God to your profane bablings might perhaps beget some fear in the minds of men not much guilty of want of Constancy as the sight of the Harpyes did of old to Aenaeas and his Companions of whom they gave that account Tristius hand illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit undis Viaimus subita gelidus formidine sanguis Diriguit cecidêre animi But the Truth is there is no real cause of fear of them They are not like to do mischief to any unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the Authority of this or that Philosopher and forego all solid rational consideration of things to betake themselves to Sophistical canting and the winding up of subtilty into plain non-sence which oftentimes befalls the best of them Whence Melchior Canus one of your selves sayes of some of your learned Disputes Puderet me dicere non intelligere si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt I should be ashamed to say I did not understand them but that they understood not themselves Others may be entangled by them who if they cannot unty your knots they may break your webbs especially when they find the Conclusions as oftentimes they are directly contrary to Scripture right reason and natural sense it self For they are the genuine off-spring of the old Sophisters whom Lucian talks of in his Menippus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tells us that in hearing the Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That saith he which seemed the most absurd of all was that when they disputed of things absolutely contrary they yet brought invincible and perswasive reasons to prove what they said so that I durst not speak a word against him that affirmed hot and cold to be the same although I knew well enough that the same thing could not be hot and cold at the same time And therefore he tells us that in hearing of them he did like a man half asleep sometimes nod one way and sometimes another which is certainly the deportment of the generality of them who are conversant in the wrangles of your Schoolmen But whatever I said of them or your Church is perfectly consistent with its self and the Truth I grant that before the Schoolmen set forth in the world many unsound opinions were broached in and many Superstitious practices admitted into your Church and a great pretence raised unto a Superintendency over other Churches which were parts of that Mass out of which your Popery is formed But before the Schoolmen took it in hand it was rudis indigestaque moles an heap not an house As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant Traditions of his own time among the Jews into a body or Systeme which is called the Mishnae or Duplicate of their Law wherein he composed a new Religion for them sufficiently distant from that which was professed by their fore-fathers so have your Schoolmen done also Out of the passant Traditions of the dayes wherein they lived blended with Sophistical corrupted notions of their own countenanced and gilded with the sayings of some Ancient Writers of the Church for the most part wrested or misunderstood they have hammered out that Systeme of Philosophical Traditional Divinity which is now enstamped with the Authority of the Tridentine Council being as far distant from the Divinity of the New Testament as the Farrago of Traditions collected by Rabbi Juda and improved in the Talmuds is from that of the old Pag. 33 34 35. Having nothing else to say you fall again upon my pretended mistake of considering that as spoken absolutely by you which you spake only upon supposition and talk of Metaphysical Speculations in your Fiat which you conceive me very unmeet to deal withal and direct me to Bellarmines Catechism as better suiting my inclination and capacity But Sir we are not wont here in England to account cloudy dark Sophistical declamations to be Metaphysical Speculations nor every feigned supposition to be a Philosophical abstraction I wish you would be perswaded that there is not the least tincture of any solid Metaphysicks in your whole Discourse It may be indeed you would be angry with them that should undeceive you and cry out Pol me occidistis amici Non Servâstis As he did Cui demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error You may perhaps please your self with conceits of your Metaphysical atchievements but yonr friends cannot but pitty you to see your vanity The least youth in our Vniversities will tell you that to make a general Supposition true or false and to flourish upon it with words of a seeming probability without any cogency or proof belongs to Rhetorick and not at all to Metaphysicks And this is the very nature of your Discourse Nor do I mistake your aim in it as you pretend I grant in the place you would be thought to reply unto though you speak not one word to
readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest upon the Authority of the Author of the whole is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed But as I said your Concernment lyes not therein who are not able to prove that Protestants have rejected any one part much less substantial part of Religion and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errours and practises or the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion is very infirm The ground of all your Sophistry lyes in this that men who receive Christian Religion are bound to resolve their faith unto the Authority of them that preach it first unto them whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute Infallibility and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon they have no firm foundation left for their assent unto the things which as yet they do not question and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion For whereas it proposeth the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith no foundation for it to be built upon or Principle to be resolved into For how can Divine faith arise out of humane Authority For acts being specificated by their objects such as is the Authority on which a man believes such is his faith humane if that be humane divine if it be divine But resolving as we ought all our faith into the Authority of God revealing things to be believed and knowing that Revelation to be entirely contained in the Scriptures by which we are to examine and try whatever is by any man or men proposed unto us as an object of our faith they proposing it only upon this consideration that it is a part of that which is revealed by God in the Scripture for us to believe without which they have no ground nor warrant to propose any thing at all unto us in that kind we may reject any of their proposals which we find and discern not to be so revealed or not to be agreeable to what is so revealed without the least weakning of our assent unto what is revealed indeed or making way for any man so to do For whilest the formal reason of faith remains absolutely unimpeached different apprehensions about particular things to be believed have no efficacy to weaken faith its self as we shall farther see in the examination of your ensuing Discourse The same way and means that lopt off some branches will do the like to others and root too but the errours and mistakes of men are not branches growing from the root of the Gospel A Vilification of that Church wherein they find themselves who have a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture and power of interpreting it light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman Catholick Church this lately separated the Presbyterians from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian and the Quakers from the other Independent And this left good maintains nothing of Christian Religion but the moral part which indeed and truth is but honest Paganism This speech is worthy of all serious Consideration That which this Discourse seems to amount unto is that if a man question or reject any thing that is taught by the Church whereof he is a member there remains no way for him to come unto any certainty in the remaining parts of Religion but that he may on as good grounds question and reject all things as any As you phrase the matter by mens vilifying a Church which a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture c. though there is no consequence in what you say yet no man can be so mad as to plead in justification of such a proceeding For it is not much to be doubted but that he who layeth such a foundation and makes such a beginning of a separation from any Church will make a progress suitable thereunto But if you will speak unto your own purpose and so as they may have any concernment in what you say with whom you deal you must otherwise frame your hypothesis Suppose a man to be a member of any Church or to find himself in any Church state with others and that he doth at any time by the light and direction of the Scripture discover any thing or things to be taught or practised in that Church whereof he is so a member which he cannot assent unto unless he will contradict the Revelation that God hath made of himself his mind and will in that compleat Rule of all that Religion and worship which are pleasing unto him and therefore doth suspend his assent thereunto and therein dissent from the determination of that Church then you are to assert for the promotion of your design that all the Consequents will follow which you expatiate upon But this supposition fixes immoveably upon the penalty of forfeiting their interest in all saving truth all Christians whatever Greeks Abissines Armenians Protestants in the Churches wherein they find themselves and so makes â—â—ustrate all their attempts for their reconciliation to the Church of Rome For do you think they will attend unto you when you perswade them to a relinquishment of the Communion of that Church wherein they find themselves to joyn with you when the first thing you tell them is that if they do so they are undone and that for ever And yet this is the summ of all that you can plead with them if there be any sense in the Argument you make use of against our relinquishment of the opinions and practises of the Church of Rome because we or our forefathers were at any time members thereof or lived in its communion But you would have this the special Priviledge of your Church alone Any other Church a man may leave yea all other Churches besides he may relinquish the principles wherein he hath been instructed yea it is his duty to renounce their Communion only your Church of Rome is wholly sacred a man that hath once been a member of it must be so for ever and he that questions any thing taught therein may on the same grounds question all the Articles of faith in the Christian Religion And who gave you leave to suppose the only thing in Question between us and to use it as a medium to educe your Conclusion from is it your business to take care bullatis ut tibi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo We know the condition of your Roman Church to be no other then that of other Churches if it be not worse
greatly desire to give some countenance unto that is an universal visible Pastor over the whole Catholick Church in the place and room of Christ himself First You tell us that the Apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed Christ in his care But to have one succeed another in his care infers that that other â—â—â—sâ—â— o take and exercise the Care which formerly he haâ— and exercised which in this case is highly blasphemous once to imagine I wish you would â—ake more Care of what you say in things of this nature aâ—d not suffer the impetuous 〈…〉 your interest to cast you upon expressions so 〈◊〉 to thâ— honour oâ— Christ and safety of his Churâ—â— And how do you prove that the Apostles had any such expectations as that which you mention Our Saviour gave them equal commission to teach all Nations told them that as his father had sent him so he sent them that he had chosen them twelve but that one of them was a Devil never that one of them should be Pope Their Institution Instruction Priviledges Charge Calling were all equal How then should they come to have this expectation that one of them should be chosen to succeed Christ in his Care when they were all chosen to serve under him in the continuance of his care towards his Church That which you obscurely intimate from whence this expectation of yours might arise is the contest that was amongst them aâ—â—â—t preheminence Luk. 22. 24. There was a strife â—mongst them which of them should be the greatest 〈◊〉 you suppose was upon their perswasion that one should be chosen in particular to succeed the Lord Christ in his Care whereupon they fell into difference about the place But 1. Is it not somewhat strange unto your self how they should contest about a succession unto Christ in his absence who had not once thought that he would ever be absent from them nor could bear the mention of it without great sorrow of heart when afterwards he began to acquaint them with it 2. How should they come in your apprehension to quarrel about that which as you suppose and contend was somewhile before determined For this contest of yours was somewhile after the promise of the Keys to Peter and the saying of Christ that he would build his Church on the Rock Were the Apostles think you as stupid as Protestants that they could not see the Supremacy of Peter in those passages but must yet fall at variance who should be Pope 3. How doth it appear that this strife of theirs who should be greatest did not arise from their apprehension of an earthly Kingdom a hope whereof according to the then current perswasion of the Judaical Church to be erected by their master whom they believed in as the true Messiah they were not delivered from until after his Resurrection when they were filled with the Spirit of the New Testament Act. 1. Certainly from that root sprang the ambitious desire of the Sons of Zebedee after preheminence in his Kingdom and the designing of the rest of them in this place from the manner of its management by strife seems to have had no better a spring 4. The stop put by our Lord Jesus unto the strife that was amongst them makes it manifest that it arose from no such expectation as you imagine or that at least if it did yet your expectation was irregular vain and groundless For 1. He tells them that there should be no such greatness in his Church as that which they contended about being like to the Soveraignty exercised by and in the Nations of the earth from which he that can shew a difference in your Papal Rule erit mihi magnus Apollo 2. He tells them that his Father had equally provided a Kingdom that is heavenly and eternal for all them that believed which was the only greatness that they ought to look or enquire after 3. That as to their Priviledge in his Kingdom it should be equal unto them all for they should all fit on Thrones judging the twelves tribes of Israel so ascribing equal power Authority and dignity unto them all which utterly overthrows the figment of the supremacy of any one of them over the rest Luk. 22. 30. Matth. 19. 28. And 4. Yet further to prevent any such conceit as that which you suppose them to have had concerning the prelation of any one of them he tells them that one was their Master even Christ and that all they were brethren Mat. 23. 8. so giving them to understand that he had designed them to be perfectly every way equal among themselves So ill have you layed the foundation of your Plea as that it guides us to a full determination of the contrary to your pretence and that given by our Saviour himself with many reasons perswading his Disciples of the equity of it and unto an acquiescency in it And what you add that he presently appointed one to the preheminence you imagine is altogether inconsistent with what you would conclude from the striâ—e about it For the appointment you fancy preceded this contention and had it been real and to any such purpose would certainly have prevented it Thus you do neither prove from the Gospel what you pretend unto namely that Bishops are above Ministers so well do you plead your Cause nor what you intend namely that the Pope is appointed over them all Only you wisely add a caution about what a Bishop ought to be and do de jure and what any one of them may â—o or be de facto because it is impossible for any â—an to find the least difference between the domination which our Saviour expresly condemns and that which your Pope doth exercise Although I know not whither you would think meet to have him devested of that Authority on the pretence whereof he so domineers in the world Finding your self destitute of any countenance from the Gospel you proceed to the Laws of the Land To what purpose to prove that Christ appointed one amongst his Apostles to preside with plenitude of Power over all the rest of them and consequently over the whole Catholick Church succeeding him in his care certainly you will find little countenance in our Laws to this purpose But let us hear your own words again As for the Laws of the Land say you it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and Authority of the whole Kingdom not only that Bishops are our Ministers but that the Kings Majesty is head of the Bishops also in the line of Hierarchy from whose hand they receive both their places and jurisdiction This was established not only by one but by several Parliament Acts both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth What will hence follow that there is one universal Bishop appointed to succeed Christ in his Care over the Church Catholick the thing you attempted to prove in the words immediately foregoing Do not the same Laws which assert
only and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholick Church which you would perswade us to believe that he is Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure but Authority from God immediately in and about them they have none nor can have any whilest your Imaginary Monarchy takes place This one fundamental Principle of your Religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your florish about Kingly Authority in Ecclesiastical things seeing upon a supposition of it they can have none at all But you stay not here for 3. You ascribe unto your Popes an universal Dominion even in Civil things over all Christian Kings and their subjects In the explanation of this Dominion I confess you somewhat vary among your selves but the thing it self is generally asserted by you and made a foundation of practice Some of you maintain that the Pope by Divine right and Constitution hath an absolute supream Dominion over the whole world This opinion Bellarmine Lib. 5. de Pont. cap. 1. confesseth to be maintained by Augustinus Triumphus Alvarus Pelagius Hostiensis and Panoruitanus And himself in the next words condemns the opinion of them who deny the Pope to have any such temporal power as that he may command secular Princes and deprive them of the Kingdoms and Principalities not only as false but as down right Heresie And why doth he name the first opinion as that of four or five Doctors when it is the Common opinion of your Church as Baronius sufficiently manifests in the life of Gregory the seventh That great preserver of your Pontificial omnipotency in his Bull against Henry the German Emperour affirms that he hath power to take away Empires Kingdoms and Principalities or what â—ver a mortal man may have as Platina records it in his life As also Pope Nicholas the second in his Epistle ad Mediolanens asserts that the rights both of the heavenly and earthly Empires are committed unto him And he that hath but looked on the Dictates of the forenamed Gregory confirmed in a Council at Rome and defended by Baronius or into their Decretals knows that you give both swords to the Pope and that over and over Whence Carerius Lib. 1. c. 9. affirms that it is the Common opinion of the School Divines that the Pope hath plenissimam Potestatem plenary power over the whole world both in Ecclesiastical and Temporal matters and you know the old comparison made by the Canonists cap. de Major Obed. between the Pope and the Emperour namely that he is as the Sun the Emperour as the Moon which borrows all its light from the other Bellarmine and those few whom he follows or that follow him maintain that the Pope hath this Power only indirectly and in order unto spiritual things the meaning of which assertion as he explains himself is that besides that direct power which he hath over those Countreys and Kingdoms which on one pretence or other he claims to be Feaudatory to the Roman See which are no small number of the chiefest Kingdoms of Europe he hath a Power over them all to dispose of them their Kings and Rulers according as he judgeth it to conduce to the good and interest of the Church which as it really differs very little from the â—ormer opinion so Barclay tells us that Pope Sixtus was very little pleased with that seeming depression of the Papal Power which his words intimate But the stated Doctrine of your Church in this matter is so declared by Bozius Augustinus Triumphus Carerius Schioppius Marta and others all approved by her Authority that there can be no question of it Moreover to make way for the putting of this indirect Power into direct Execution you declare 4. That the Pope is the supream Judge of faith and his Declarations and Determinations so far the Rule of it as that they are to be received and finally submitted unto not to do so is that which you express Heresie or Schism or Apostacy About this Principle also of your Profession there have been as about most other things amongst you great Disputes and wranglings between the Doctors and props of your Church Much debate there hath been whither this power be to be attributed unto the Pope without a Council or above a Council or against one About these Chimaera's are whole volumes filled with keen and subtil argumentations But the Popes Personal or at least Cathedral Determination hath at length prevailed For whatever some few of you may whisper unto your own trouble and disadvantage to the impeachment of his Personal Infallibility you are easily decryed by the general voice of your Doctors and besides those very persons themselves wherever they would place the Infallibility of the Church that they fancy are forâ—ed to put it so far into the Popes hand and management as that whatever he determines with the necessary solemnities in matters of faith is ultimately at least to be acquiesced in So your self assure us averring that he who doth not so forfeits his Christianity and consequently all the Priviledges which thereby he enjoyes and we have reason sufficient from former experience to believe that the Pope have he ability unto his will is ready enough to take the forfeiture Whither upon a Princes falling into Heresie in not acquiescing in your Papal determinations his subjects are discharged ipso facto from all obedience unto him as Dominicus Bannes and others maintain or whither there needs the Denunciation of a sentence against him by the Pope for their absolution you are not agreed But yet 5. You affirm that in Case of such Disobedience unto the Pope he is armed with Power to depose Kings and Princes and to give away and bestow their Kingdoms and Dominions on others Innumerable are the instances whereby the Popes themselves have justified their claim of this Power in the face of the world and it were endless to recount the Emperours Kings and free Princes that they have attempted to ruine and destroy in the persuit of some wherof they actually succeeded with the desolations of Nations that have ensued thereon I shall mention but one and that given us in the dayes of our Fathers and it may be in the memory of some yet alive Pope Pius V takes upon him contrary to the advice and entreaties of the Emperour of Germany and others to depose Queen Elizabeth and to devote her to destruction To this end he absolved all her Subjects from their Allegiance and gave away her Kingdoms and Dominions to the Spaniard assisting him to his utmost in his attempt to take possession of his grant and all for refusing obedience to the See of Rome You cannot I presume be offended with my mention of that which is known unto all for these things were not done in a corner And is it not hence evident that all the power which you grant unto Kings is meerly precarious which they hold of your Pope
your out-cry at its entrance First You observe that I say Joseph of Arimathea was in England but that he taught the same religion that is now in England Unto which you reply But what is that Religion and this enquiry I have observed you elsewhere to insist upon But I told you before that I intend the Protestant Religion and that as confirmed and established by Law in this Kingdom and the advantage you endeavour from some differences that are amongst us is little to your purposes and less to the commendation of your ingenuity For besides that there are differences of as high a nature and considering the Principles you proceed upon of greater importance among your selves and those agitated with as great animosities and subtilties as those amongst any sort of men at variance about Religion in the world you that so earnestly seek and press after a forbearance for your profession besides and against the established law should not me thinks at the same time be so forward in reproaching us that there are dissenters in the Kingdom from some things established by Law especially considering how utterly inconsiderable for the most part they are in comparison of the things wherein you differ from us all This I fear is the reward that they have cause to expect from many of you who are enclined to desire that you amongst others might be partakers of indulgence from the extremity of the Law though from others of you for whose sakes they are enclined unto those desires I hope they may look for better things and such as accompany charity moderation and peace so that your first exception gives a greater impeachment unto your own Candor and ingenuity then unto the Truth or Sobriety of my story You proceed and say that I tell you that the story of Fugatius and Damianus Missioners of Pope Eleutherius is suspected by me for many reasons and reply because you assign none I am therefore moved to think they may be all reduced unto one which is that you will not acknowledge any good thing ever to have come from Rome But see what it is for a man to give himself up unto vain surmizes You know full well that I plead that you are no way concerned in what was done at Rome in the dayes of Eleutherius who was neither Pope nor Papist nor knew any thing of that which we reject as Popery so that I had no reason to disclaim or deny any good thing that was then done at Rome or by any from thence Besides I can assure you that to this day I would willingly own embrace and rejoyce in any good that is or may be done there may I be truly and impartially informed of it and should be glad to hear of more then unprejudiced men have been able of late Ages to inform us of I am far from making an enclosure of all goodness unto any party of men in the world and far from judging or condemning all of any party or supposing that no good thing can be done by them or proceed from them Such conceits are apt to flow from the high towring thoughts of Infallibility and supremacy and the confining of Christianity to some certain company of men in some parts of the world which I am a stranger unto I know no party among Christians that is in all things to be admired nor any that is in all things to be condemned and can perfectly free you if you are capable of satisfaction from all fears of my dislike of any thing because it came or comes from Rome For to me it is all one from whence Truth and Virtue come They shall be welcome for their own sakes But you seem to be guided in these and the like surmizes by your own humour Principles and way of managing things in Religion a Lesbian Rule which will suffer you to depart from the Paths of Truth and Charity no oftener then you have a mind so to do To deliver you from your mistake in this particular I shall now give you some of those reasons which beget in me a suspicion concerning the Truth of that story about Fagatius and Damianus as it is commonly told only intimating the heads of them with all possible brevity First then I suppose the whole story is built on the Authority of the Epistle of Elutherius unto Lucius which is yet extant other foundations of it that I know of is neither pleaded nor pretended Now there want not Reasons to prove that Epistle as the most of those fathered on the old Bishops of Rome to be supposititious For 1. The Author of that Epistle condemneth the Imperial Laws and rejecteth them as unmeet to be used in the Civil Government of this Nation which Eleutherius neither ought to have done nor could safely do 2. It supposeth Lucius to have sent unto Eleutherius to have the Roman Law sent unto him which had been long before exercised in this Nation and was well known in the whole Province as he witnesseth of dayes before these Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Brittannos 2. The first Reporters of this Story agree not in the time wherein the matter mentioned in it should fall out Beda lib. 1. cap. 4. assigns it unto the year 156. which was twenty two years before Eleutherius was Bishop as Baronius manifests Henricus de Erfordia ascribes it unto the nineteenth year of the reign of Verus the Emperour who reigned not so many years at all Ado refers it unto the time of Commodus with some part of whose reign the Episcopacy of Eleutherius did indeed contemporate 2. Geoffrey of Monmouth the chief promoter of this report joyneth it with so many lyes and open fictions as may well draw the Truth of the whole story into Question So that divers would have us believe that some such thing was done at one time or other but when they cannot tell 3. Both the Epistle of Eleutherius and the reporters of it do suppose that Lucius to whom he wrote was an Absolute Monarch in England King over the whole Kingdom with Supreme Authority and Power ruling his Subjects by the Advice of his Nobles without being obnoxious unto or dependent in his Government on any others But this Supposition is so openly repugnant to the whole story of the State of things in the Province of England in those dayes so that it is beyond the wit of man to make any reconciliation between them For besides that Caesar and Tacitus do both plainly affirm that in the dayes of the Romans â—â—ance upon this Island there was no such King or Monarch among the Brittans but that they were all divided into several Toparchies and 〈◊〉 â—ortal feuds and variance among themselves 〈…〉 de for the conquest of them all it was now become a Presidiary Province of the Roman Empire and had been so from the dayes of Claudius as Suetonius Tacitus and Dio inform us Especially was it reduced into and settled in that form by Pub.
and righteousness of his wayes against their proud repinings Pray be as angry with me as you please but take heed of justifying any against God The task will prove too hard for you And yet to this purpose are your following contemptuous expressions For unto my observation that after these times the Goths and Vandals with others overflowed the Christian world you subjoyn either to punish them we may believe or to teach them how to mend their manners Sir I know not what you believe or do not believe or whither you believe any thing of this kind or no. But I will tell you what I am perswaded all the world believes who know the story of those times and are not Atheists and it is that though the Goths and Vandals Saxons Huns Francks and Longobards with the rest of the barbarous Nations who divided the Provinces of the Western Empire amongst them had it may be no more thoughts to punish the Nations professing Christianity for their sins wickedness and superstition though one of their Chief Leaders proclaimed himself the Scourge of God against them then had the King of Babylon to punish Judah for her sins and Idolatry in especial yet that God ordered them no less then he did him in his Providence for those ends which you so scorn and despise that is either to punish them for their sins or to provoke them to leave them by repentance Take heed of being a scoffer in these things least your bands be made strong God is not unrighteous who exerciseth judgement The Judge of all the world will do right Nor doth he afflict any people much less extirpate them from the face of the earth without a Cause Many wicked provoking sinful Idolatrous Nations he spareth in his patience and forbearance and will yet do so but he destroyes none without a Cause And all that I intended by the remembrance of the sins of those Nations which were exposed unto devastation was but to shew that their destruction was of themselves You leap unto another clause which you rend out of mydiscourse that these Pagans took at last unto Christianity and say happily because it was a more loose and wicked life then their own Pagan Profession But are you not ashamed of this trifling doth this disprove my Assertion Is it not true Did they not do so Did not the above mentioned Nations when they had settled themselves in the Provinces of the Empire take upon them the Profession of the Christian Religion Did not the Saxons do so in Brittany the Francks in Gaule the Goths and Longobards in Italy the Vandals in Africk the Huns in Bannonia I cannot believe you are so ignorant in these things as your exceptions bespeak you Nor do I well understand what you intend by them they are so frivolous and useless nor surely can any man in his right wits suppose them of any validity to impeach the evidence of the known stories which my discourse relates unto But you lay more weight on what you cull out in the next place which as you have layed it down is That these now Christened Pagans advanced the Popes authority when Christian Religion Was now grown degenerate and say now we come to know how the Roman Bishop became a Patriarch above the rest by means namely of the new converted Pagans But I wonder you speak so nicely in their chief affair As though that were the Question whether the Bishop of Rome according unto some Ecclesiastical constitutions were made a Patriarch or no and that whither he were not esteemed to have some kind of preheminence in respect of those other Bishops who upon the same account were so stiled When we have occasion to speak of this Question we shall not be backward to declare our thoughts in it For the present you represent the Pope unto us as the absolute Head of the Church Catholick the supream Judge of all controversies in Religion the sole fountain of Unity and spring of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction c. Nor did I say that your Pope was by these Nations after their conversion advanced unto the height you labour now to fix him in but only that his Authority was signally advanced by them which is so certain a Truth that your own Historians and Annalists openly proclaim it and you cannot deny it unless you would be esteemed the most ungrateful Person in the world But this is your way and manner all that is done for you is meer duty which when it is done you will thank no man for Are all the Grants of Power Priviledges and Possessions made unto your Papal See by the Kings of this Nation both before and since the Conquest by the Kings of France and Emperours of the Posterity of Charles the Great by the Kings of Poland Denmark and Sweden by the Longobards in Italy not worth your thanks It is well you have got your ends the net may be cast away when the fish is caught But an odd chance you say it was that they should think of advancing him to what they never heard either himself or any other advanced unto before among Christians but yet this was done and no such odd chance neither Your Popes had for a season before been aspiring to greater heights then formerly they had attained unto and used all wayes possible to commend themselves and their Authority not what truly it was but what they would have it to be unto all with whom they had to do and thereupon by sundry means and artifices imposed upon the nations some undue conceits of it though it was not fully nor so easily admitted of as it may be you may imagine But in many things they were willing to gratifie him in his pretensions little knowing the tendency of them many things he took the advantage of their streights and divisions to impose upon them many things he obtained from them by flattery and carnal compliances untill by sundry serpentine advances he had brought them all unto his bow and some of the greatest of them to his stirrup It was yet more odd say you and strange that all Christendome should calmly submit unto a power set up anew by young converted Pagans no Prince or Bishop either here or of any either Christian Kingdom either then or ever after to this day excepting against it Had not all the Bishops and Priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world acknowledged by an hundred experiments the supream Spiritual Authority of the Roman Patriarch in all times before this deluge of Goths and Vandals But why do I expostulate with you who write these things not to judicious Readers but to fools and children who are not more apt to tell a truth then to believe a lye But Sir you shall quickly see whose discourse yours or mine stand in need of week and credulous Reader That which you have in this place to oppose is only this that your Papal Authority received a signal advancement
Platin. vita Gregor 6. Sigon de Reg. lib. 8. From that time forward untill the Reformation no one age can be instanced in wherein great open and signal opposition was not made unto the Papal Authority which you seek again to introduce The instances already given are sufficient to convince the vanity of your pretence that never any opposition was made unto it Of the same nature is that which you nextly affirm of all the Bishops and Priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world by an hundred experiments acknowledging the supream spiritual Authority of the Roman Patriarch I must I see still mind you of what it is that you are to speak unto It is not the Patriarchate of your Pope with the Authority Priviledges and preheminences which by virtue thereof he layes claim unto but his singular succession to Christ and Peter in the absolute Headship of the whole Catholick Church that you are treating about Now supposing you may be better skilled in the affairs of the Eastern Church then for ought as I can yet perceive you are in those of the Western let me crave this favour of you that you would direct me unto one of those hundred experiments whereby the acknowledgment you mention preceding the Conversion of the Nothern Nations may be confirmed It will I confess unto you be a singular kindness seeing I know not where to find any one of that nature within the time limited noâ— to tell you the Truth since unto this day For I suppose you will not imagine that the faigned Prosessions of subjection which poverty and hopes of supplies from the Court of Rome hath extorted of late from some few mean persons whose Titles only were of any Consideration in the world will deserve any place in this disquisition Untill you are pleased therefore to favour me with your information I must abide in my ignorance of any such experiments as those which you intimate The Artifices I confess of your Popes in former dayes to draw men especially in the Eastern Church to an acknowledgement of that Authority which in their several seasons they claimed have been many and their success various Sometimes they obtained a seeming compliance in some and sometimes they procured their Authors very shrewd rebukes It may not be amiss to recount some of them 1. Upon all occasions they set forth themselves the dignity and preheminence of your See with swelling Encomiums and Titles asserting their own Primacy and Power Such self assumings are many of the old Papal Epistles stuffed withall A sober humble Christian cannot but nauseate at the reading of them For it is easily discernable how Antievangelical such Courses are and how unbecoming all that pretend themselves to be Disciples of Jesus Christ from these are their chiefest Testimonies in this Case taken and we may say of them all they bear witness to themselves and that contrary to the Scripture and their witness is not true 2. When and wherever such Letters and Epistles as proclaimed their Priviledges have been admitted through the inadvertency of Modesty of them to whom they were sent unwilling to quarrel with them about the good opinion which they had of themselves which kind of entertainment they yet sometimes met not withall the next successors allwayes took for granted and pleaded what their predecessours had presumptuously broached as that which of right and unquestionably belonged unto them And this they made sure of that they would never lose any ground or take any one step backwards from what any of them had advanced unto 3. Wherever they heard of any difference among Bishops they were still imposing their Vmpirage upon them which commonly by the one or other of the parties at variance to ballance thereby some disadvantages that they had to wrestle withall was admitted yea sometimes they would begin to take part with them that were openly in the wrong even Hereticks themselves that they might thereby procure an address to them from others which afterwards they would interpret as an express of their subjection And wherever their Vmpirage was admitted they were never wanting to improve their own interest by it like the old Romans who being chosen to determine a Controversie between other People about some lands adjudged them unto themselves 4. If any Person that was really injured or pretended so to be made any Address unto them for any kind of Relief immediately they laid hold of their Address as an Appeal to their Authority and acted in their behalf accordingly though they were sometimes chidden for their pains and advised to meddle with what they had to do withall 5. Did any Bishops of note write them Letters of respect presently in their rescripts they return them thanks for their profession of subjection to the See Apostolick so supposing them to do that which in truth they did not they promise to do for them that which they never desired and by both made way for the enlargment of the confines of their own authority 6. Where any Prince or Emperour was entangled in his affairs they were still ready to crush them into that condition of trouble from whence they could not be delivered but by their assistance or to make them believe that their adherence unto them was the only means to preserve them from ruine and so procured their suffrage unto their Authority Unto these and the like heads of Corrupt and sinful Artifices may the most of the Testimonies commonly pleaded for the Popes Supremacy be referred By such wayes and means hath it been erected Yet far enough from any such prevalency for seven hundred years as to afford us any of the experiments which you boast of The next thing you except against in my story is my affirming that Austin the Monk who came hither from Rome was a man as far as appears by story the little acquainted with the Gospel In the repetition of which words to keep your hand in ure you leave out that expression as far as appears by the story which is the evidence whereunto I appeal for the Truth of my Assertion and add to aggravate the matter the word very very little and then add here is the thanks that good St. Austin hath who out of his love and kindness entred upon the wild forrest of our Paganism with great hazards and inexpressible sufferings of hunger cold and other corporal inconveniencies But in the place you except against I acknowledge that God made him a special instrument in bringing the Scripture or Gospel amongst us which I presume also he declared according to the light and ability which he had But you are your own Mothers Son nothing will serve your turn but absolute most pure and perfect For what I have further intimated of him there are sundry things in the History of his coming hither and proceedings here that warrant the suggestion The Questions that he sent for Resolution unto Gregory at Rome discover what manner of man he
Syriack transposeth the words and interprets the Sacrifice intended in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when they were fasting and praying unto the Lord. Praying together with prophesying and preaching was their Ministry not Sacrificing To the same purpose all antient Translations not one giving countenance unto your fancy So well have you the plain words of the sacred Text for you 7. Are you not ashamed to boast that you have all Antiquity for your sense and meaning Produce any one antient Author if you can that gives the least countenance unto it This boasting is uncomely because untrue Bellarmine out of whom you took your Plea from this place and your qâ—otation of Erasmus in your Fiat cannot produce the suffrage of any one of the Antients for your interpretation of the words no more can any of your Commentators The Homilies of Chrysostom on that passage are lost Oecumenius is quite blank against you so is Cajetan Erasmus and Vatablus of your own and do you not now see what is become of your boasting And are not your Countrymen beholding unto you for endeavouring so industriously to draw them off from the Institution of Christ to place their Confidence and devotion in that which hath not the least footstep in Scripture or Antiquity but is expresly condemned by them both But to tell you my judgement you will prevail with very few of them to answer your desires Will they judge it meet and equal think you to change a blessed Sacrament that Christ hath appointed to embrace a Sacrifice that you have invented to leave calling upon God according to the sense of their wants with understanding as they do in that Celebration of the Eucharist which now they enjoy to attend unto a Priest sometimes muttering sometimes saying sometimes singing a deal of Latine whereof they understand never a word To forego that internal humility self abasement and prostration of soul unto God which they are enured unto in that Sacrament to become spectators of the Theatrical gestures of your Sacrificers Besides they are not able to comply with your request and to make your Mass the sum of their Devotion and worship of God without offering the highest violence to their Faith as they are Christians their Reason as they are men and that Sense which they have in common with other Creatures And what are you or what have you done for them that you should at once expect such a profuse largeness at their hands I. For your Faith if it be grounded on the Scripture as every true Protestants is your Sacrifice if admitted will unquestionably evert it To accept of a worship pretended to be of such huge importance as to be available for the impetration of Grace Mercy Pardon of sins removal of punishment life eternal for the living and the dead destitute of all foundation in or countenance from the Scripture absolutely inconsistent with their faith 2. It is no less to have a Sacrament which is given unto us of God as a pledge and token of his Love and Grace turned into a Sacrifice which is a thing by us offered unto God and accepted by him so that they differ as in other things so in their terms à quo and ad quem from what they proceed and by whom they are accepted 3. Besides they will quickly discover your pretensions to be contrary unto what the Scripture teacheth them both concerning the Sacrifice of Christ and also his institution of his last supper which is your Rule and comprizeth the whole of your Duty in the administration of it They do not find that therein Christ offered himself unto his Father but to his Disciples not to him to be accepted of him but to them to be by faith received 4. And whereas the Apostle expresly affirms that he offered himself but once if he offered himself a Sacrifice in his last Supper you must maintain that he offered himself twice unless you will deny his Sacrifice on the Cross. 5. Moreover it is greatly opposite to your Countreymens faith about the Priesthood of Christ and his real Sacrifice which are to them things of that moment that whosoever shakes their faith in and about them shakes the very foundations of their hope consolation and salvation They have been taught that Christ remains an High Priest for ever and the multiplication of Priests in succession arising meerly from the mortality and death of them that preceded they believe that no Priest can be sustituted unto him in his office to offer a proper Sacrifice unto God the same which he offered himself without a supposition of an insufficiency in him for his work It is true there are persons who in his name and Authority as he is the great Prophet of the Church do Minister unto it whom some of them either as the word may be an abreviation of Presbyter or out of analogy unto them who of old served at the altar do call Priests but that any should intervene between God and Christ in Sacrificing or the discharge of his Priestly office you will not find your Countrymen ready to believe For they are perswaded there are as many Mediators and Sureties as Priests or Sacrificers of the New Covenant 6. Moreover they believe that the Sacrifice of the Mass is an high derogation from the vertue and efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and to be set up in competition with it 7. They are at a stand at the whole matter to see you turning bread and Wine into that very body and blood of Christ which suffered on the Cross and then to worship them and then to pray to God to accept at your hands that Christ which you have made and then to eat him But when they consider that by so doing you suppose your selves to effect that which they believe to be wrought only by the blood of the Cross of Christ once offered for all and therein fancy a Sacrifice of Christ wherein he dyeth not contrary to so many express Testimonies of Scripture they are utterly averse from it For whereas they look for Redemption Forgiveness of sins and Reconciliation with God by the one Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross wherein consists the foundation of their hope and consolation because it being absolutely perfect was every way able and sufficient without any repetition as the Apostle teacheth them to take away sin and for ever to consummate them that are Sanctified you teach them now to look for the same things from this Sacrifice of yours which would make them question the validity and perfection of that of Christ. 8. And when they have so done yet they would still be forced to question the validity of yours because it is a pretended Sacrifice of Christ without his death which they know to have been indispensably required to render his Sacrifice valid and effectual 9. And they cannot but think that this repeated Sacrifice being pretended to be for the very same ends and purposes with