that ever they should have brought in the Worship of Images and Picturing of God as now it is that they should legitimate Fornication Why may we not think they may in time take away the whole Communion from the Laity as well as they have taken away half of it Why may we not think that any Text and any sense may not be accorded as well as the whole 14. Ch. of the Ep. of S. Paul to the Corinth is reconciled to the Latine service How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden than the Worship of Angels in the Ep. to the Colossians than the teaching for Doctrines Mens commands in the Gospel of S. Mark And therefore seeing we see these things done which hardly any man would have believed that had not seen them why should we not fear that this unlimited Power may not be used hereafter with as little moderation Seeing devices have been invented how Men may worship Images without Idolatry and Kill Innocent Men under pretence of Heresie without Murther who knows not that some tricks may not be hereafter devised by which lying with other Mens Wives shall be no Adultery taking away other Mens Goods no Theft I conclude therefore that if Solomon himself were here and were to determine the difference which is more likely to be Mother of all Heresie the denial of the Churches or the affirming of the Popes Infallibility that he would certainly say this is the Mother give her the Child 12. You say again confidently that if this Infallibility be once impeached every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse which if you mean Discourse not guiding it selfe by Scripture but only by principles of Nature or perhaps by prejudices and popular errors and drawing consequences not by rule but chance is by no means true if you mean by Discourse right reason grounded on Divine revelation and common notions written by God in the hearts of all Men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them if this be it which you mean by Discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happiness should be left unto it and he that follows this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seem to do so follows alwaies God whereas he that followeth a Company of Men may oftimes follow a Company of Beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. John to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider whether they confess Jesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions not whether they acknowledg the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good than S. Peter in commanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them than our Saviour himself in forewarning all his followers that if they blindly followed blind Guides both leaders and followers should fall into the Ditch and again in saying even to the People Yea and why of your selves Judge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or prejudice by want of Reason or not using that they have Men may be and are oftentimes led into Error and mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your self have given them security For what is discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth chap. of this Pamphlet that from truth no man can by good consequence infer falshood Therefore by discourse no Man can possibly be led to Error but if he Err in his conclusions he must of necessity either Err in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some Error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seem to do so 13. You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may Err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural wit and Judgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly Err in her judgment touching this matter yet have we other Directions in it besides the private spirit and the examination of the Contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcilable contradictions but the affirmative it cannot conclude because the Contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not written by Divine inspiration other Direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assured that any parcel of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible Authority of your Church or any other The second because if I cannot have ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church infallible then I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church Infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 16. Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead Men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you you deny the Infallibility of the Church of England Ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the Infallibility of the Roman Church Ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes Infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to the
by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
not go about this noble work presently If he should not How shall we know that the calling of the Council of Trent was not upon his own voluntary motion or upon humane importunity and suggestion and not upon the motion of the Holy Ghost And consequently how shall we know whether he were assistant to it or no seeing he assists none but what he himself moves to And whether he did move the Pope to call this Council is a secret thing which we cannot possibly know nor perhaps the Pope himself 96. If you say your meaning is only That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infalliblyassisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Books be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghosts assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all Errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot do this without taking away their free-will in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their free-will in believing and in professing their belief 97. Obj. To the place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Contr. ep Fund c. 5. Answ I answer That not the Authority of the present Church much less of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone moved Saint Austin to believe the Gospel but the perpetual Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your self have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is proved and which it self needs no proof and to which you have referred this very saying of S. Austin Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi c. p. 55. And in the next place which you cite out of his Book De Util. Cred. c. 14. he shews that his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospel therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to disbelieve Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Universal and Original Tradition lies against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may do well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names instead of Manichaeus unless you can shew the things agrees to them as well as him 98. If you say that S. Austin speaks here of the Authority of the Present Church abstracting from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99. I answer First that it is a vain presumption of yours that the Catholick Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austin speak here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it and its both Personal and Doctrinal succession from the Apostles His Argument will be like a Buskin that will serve any leg It will serve to keep an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholick as well as a Catholick from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the Title of Catholicks and the Church as much as the Papists now do If then you should have come to an Ancient Goth or Vandal whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should have moved him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me do not believe the Homoousians Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Arrians they warn me not to give any Credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say do not believe the Arrians thou shalt not do well to force me to the Faith of the Homoousians because by the Preaching of the Arrians I believed the Gospel it self If you say you did well to believe them commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending the Homoousians Doest thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethink your selves what you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ Commanded any good thing Answ I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible expounder of Scriptures and judge of Controversies nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministry of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commandded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New
Authority of Universal Tradition that we would have them believe Scripture But then as for the Authority which you would have them follow you will let them see reason why they should follow it And is not this to go a little about to leave reason for a short turn and then to come to it again and to do that which you condemn in others It being indeed a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to reason for he that does it to Authority must of necessity think himself to have greater reason to believe that Authority Therefore the confession cited by Brerely you need not think to have been extorted from Luther and the rest It came very freely from them and what they say you practise as much as they 115. And whereas you say that a Protestant admits of Fathers Councils Church as far as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himself I say you admit neither of them nor the Scripture it self but only so far as it agrees with your Church and your Church you admit because you think you have reason to do so so that by you as well as by Protestants all is finally resolved into your own reason 116. Nor do Hereticks only but Romish Catholicks also set up as many Judges as there are Men and Women in the Christian World For do not your Men and Women Judge your Religion to be true before they believe it as well as the Men and Women of other Religions Oh but you say They receive it not because they think it agreeable to Scripture but because the Church tells them so But then I hope they believe the Church because their own reason tells them they are to do so So that the difference between a Papist and a Protestant is this not that the one judges and the other does not judge but that the one judges his guide to be infallible the other his way to be manifest This same pernitious Doctrine is taught by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others It is so in very deed But it is taught also by some others whom you little think of It is taught by S. Paul where he says Try all things hold fast that which is good It is taught by S. John in these words Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. It is taught by S. Peter in these Be ye ready to render a reason of the hope that is in you Lastly this very pernitious Doctrine is taught by our Saviour in these words If the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch And why of your selves Judge you not what is right All which speeches if they do not advise men to make use of their Reason for the choice of their Religion I must confess my self to understand nothing Lastly not to be infinite it is taught by M. Knot himself not in one Page only or Chapter of his Book but all his Book over the very writing and publishing whereof supposeth this for certain that the Readers are to be Judges whether his Reasons which he brings be strong and convincing of which sort we have hitherto met with none or else captious or impertinences as indifferent men shall as I suppose have cause to judge them 117. But you demand What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Commonwealth as these men have framed to themselves a Church Truly if this be all the fault they have that they say Every man is to use his own judgment in the choice of his Religion and not to believe this or that sense of Scripture upon the bare Authority of any Learned man or men when he conceives he has reasons to the contrary which are of more weight than their Authority I know no reason but notwithstanding all this they might be as good Statesmen as any of the Society But what has this to do with Common-wealths where men are bound only to external obedience unto the Laws and Judgments of Courts but not to an internal approbation of them no nor to conceal their Judgment of them if they disapprove them As if I conceived I had reason to mislike the Law of punishing simple Theft with Death as Sir Thomas Moore did I might profess lawfully my judgment and represent my reasons to the King or Common-wealth in a Parliament as Sir Thomas Moore did without committing any fault or fearing any punishment 118. To that place of S. Austin you cite lib. 32. cont Faust You see that you go about to overthrow all Authority of Scripture and that every mans mind may be to himself a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Scripture I shall need give no other Reply but only to desire you to speak like an honest man and to say whether it be all one for a man to allow and disallow in every Scripture what he pleases which is either to dash out of Scripture such Texts or such Chapters because they cross his opinion or to say which is worse Though they be Scripture they are not true Whether I say for a man thus to allow and disallow in Scripture what he pleases be all one and no greater fault than to allow that sense of Scripture which he conceives to be true and genuine and deduced out of the words and to disallow the contrary for Gods sake Sir tell me plainly In those Texts of Scripture which you alledge for the infallibility of your Church do not you allow what sense you think true and disallow the contrary And do you not this by the direction of your private reason If you do why do you condemn it in others If you do not I pray you tell me what direction you follow or whether you follow none at all If none at all this is like drawing Lots or throwing the Dice for the choice of a Religion If any other I beseech you tell me what it is Perhaps you will say the Churches Authority and that will be to dance finely in a round thus To believe the Churches Infallible Authority because the Scriptures avouch it and to believe that Scriptures say and mean so because they are so expounded by the Church Is not this for a Father to beget his Son and the Son to beget his Father For a foundation to support the house and the house to support the foundation Would not Campian have cryed out at it Ecce quos gyros quos Maeandros And to what end was this going about when you might as well at first have concluded the Church infallible because she says so as thus to put in Scripture for a meer stale and to say the Church is infallible because the Scripture says so and the Scripture means so because the Church says so which is infallible Is it not most evident therefore to every intelligent man that you are enforced of necessity to do that your self which so Tragically you declaim against in others The
that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular Man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says that the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. C. M. proceeds and tells us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith If they have and so cannot Err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone C. H. And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the Doctrine of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot Err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chooser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches decrees which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Error obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not Erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this methinks should be no impediment but that we may have certainmeans of not Erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me how I can be sure that I know the true â—â—aning of these places I ask you again can you be 〈◊〉 that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles Preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do if not to what end did they hear them If they could why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledg of your Church If you do not how know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the Notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these Notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot Err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if whosoever had a Horse must presently get up and Ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the Priviledge of not being in possibility of Erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly Err how can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your Eye-sight may deceive you how can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they Dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid Error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground that it is all one to have means of avoiding Error and to be in no danger nor possibility of Error You infer upon us as an absurd conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be
nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair Cards for the Title of Apostolick Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millinaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to Judge all Controversies by methinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be Judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some Principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book of S. Austines to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can Challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can Challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these means is but hypocrital for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is Infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You confer places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrin not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the objects of our Faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the well-being of it Iraeneus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrin of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused An assurance it may be to himself but no argument to another As for the Infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of the Scriptures incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing that there is an infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in those places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations how can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were how then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churches omission to teach it for some ages as an article of faith nay degrading it from the number of articles of faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 29. And then for the other part of it that never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold asseveration but extreamly false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of S. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not with what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabes I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregories time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it after this matter Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Machabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most vigilant keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this conclusion follow out of these Premises Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes
Church were Infallible therefore the Clurch is Infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austin's account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was always a Tradition of the ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church Infallible not so much in consigning ancient Traditions as in defining emergent controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrins which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrins for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet happily it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingeniously with you and the world I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it nor that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the nearness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falsehood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrin so believed or the custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own Opinions but as Apostolick Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrines must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrines of the Ancient Church of some age or ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholick at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrine of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian a De Corona Militis c 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Council of Trents profession to receive them and the written Word with the like affection of Piety are now rejected and neglected by the Church of Rome For example Immersion in Baptism Tasting a mixture of Milk and Honey presently after Abstaining from Bathes for a week after Accounting it an impiety to pray kneeling on the Lords day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in the 3. chap. He adds another in the fourth of the Veiling of Women And then adds Since I find no law for this it follows that Tradition must have given this observation to custom which shall gain in time Apostolick authority by the interpretation of the reason of it By these examples therefore it is declared that the observing of unwritten Tradition being confirmed by custom may be defended The perseverance of the observation being a good testimony of the goodnest of the Tradition Now custom even in civil affairs where a law is wanting passes for a law Neither is it material whether it be grounded on Scripture or reason seeing reason is commendation enough for a law Moreover if law be grounded on reason all that must be law which is so grounded A quocunque productum Whosoever is the producer of it Do ye think it is not lawful Omni fideli for every faithful man to conceive and constitute Provided he constitute only what is not repugnant to Gods will what is conducible for discipline and available to salvation seeing the Lord says why even of our selves judge ye not what is right And a little after This reason now demand saving the respect of the Tradition A quocunque Traditore censetur nec auctorem respiciens sed Auctoritatem From whatsoever Traditor it comes neither regard the Author but the Authority Quicunque traditor any Author whatsoever is founder good enough for them And who can secure us that Humane inventions and such as came à quocunque Traditore might not in a short time gain the reputation of Apostolick Seeing the direction then was b Hier. Precepta majorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 46. But let us see what S. Chrysostom says They the Apostles delivered not all things in writing who denies it but many things also without writing who doubts of it and these also are worthy of belief Yes if we knew what they were But many things are worthy of belief which are not necessary to be believed As that Julius Caesar was Emperor of Rome is a thing worthy of belief being so well testified as it is but yet it is not necessary to be believed a man may be saved without it Those many works which our Saviour did which S. John supposes would not have been contained in a World of Books if they had been written or if God by some other means had preserved the knowledge of them had been as worthy to be believed and as necessary as those that are written But to shew you how much a more faithful keeper Records are than report those few that were written are preserved and believed those infinity more that were not written are all lost and vanished out of the memory of men And seeing God in his providence hath not thought fit to preserve the memory of them he hath freed us from the obligation of
writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in unity of Faith and to keep us from Error and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in unity in all necessary points of Faith and to guard us from all pernitious Error 81. If yet you be not satisfied but will still pretend that all these words by you cited seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally infallible without which Unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin I Ans That to you which will not understand that there can be any means to conserve the unity of Faith but only that which conserves your authority over the Faithful it is no marvel that these words seem to prove that the Church nay that your Church is universally Infallible But we that have no such end no such desires but are willing to leave all men to their liberty provided they will not improve it to a Tyranny over others we find it no difficulty to discern between dedit and promisit he gave at his Ascension and he promised to the Worlds end Besides though you whom it concerns may happily flatter your selves that you have not only Pastors and Doctors but Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and those distinct from the former still in your Church yet we that are disinteressed persons cannot but smile at these strange imaginations Lastly though you are apt to think your selves such necessary instruments for all good purposes and that nothing can be well done unless you do it that no unity or constancy in Religion can be maintained but inevitably Christendom must fall to ruin and confusion unless you support it yet we that are indifferent and impartial and well content that God should give us his own favours by means of his own appointment not of our choosing can easily collect out of these very words that not the Infallibility of your or of any Church but the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists c. which Christ gave upon his Ascension were designed by him for the compassing all these excellent purposes by their preaching while they lived and by their writings for ever And if they fail hereof the Reason is not any insufficiency or invalidity in the means but the voluntary perversness of the Subjects they have to deal with who if they would be themselves and be content that others should be in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to Heaven is no narrower now than Christ left it his yoak no heavier than he made it that the belief of no more difficulties is required now to Salvation than was in the Primitive Church that no Error is in it self destructive and exclusive from Salvation now which was not then if instead of being zealous Papists earnest Calvinists rigid Lutherans they would become themselves and be content that others should be plain and honest Christians if all men would believe the Scripture and freeing themselves from prejudice and passion would sincerely endeavour to find the true sense of it and live according to it and require no more of others but to do so nor denying their Communion to any that do so would so order their publick service of God that all which do so may without scruple or hypocrisie or protestation against any part of it joyn with them in it who does not see that seeing as we suppose here and shall prove hereafter all necessary Truths are plainly and evidently set down in Scripture there would of necessity be among all men in all things necessary unity of Opinion And notwithstanding any other differences that are or could be unity of Communion and Charity and mutual Toleration By which means all Schism and Heresie would be banished the World and those wretched contentions which now rend and tear in pieces not the Coat but the Members and Bowels of Christ which mutual pride and Tyranny and cursing and killing and damning would fain make immortal should speedily receive a most blessed Catastrophe But of this hereafter when we shall come to the question of Schism wherein I perswade my self that I shall plainly shew that the most vehement accusers are the greatest offenders and that they are indeed at this time the greatest Schismaticks who make the way to Heaven narrower the yoak of Christ heavier the differences of Faith greater the conditions of Ecclesiastical Communion harder and stricter than they were made at the beginning by Christ and his Apostles they who talk of Unity but aim at Tyranny and will have peace with none but with Slaves and Vassals In the mean while though I have shewed how Unity of Faith and Unity of Charity too may be preserved without your Churches Infallibility yet seeing you modestly conclude from hence not that your Church is but only seems to be universally Infallible meaning to your self of which you are a better judge than I Therefore I willingly grant your conclusion and proceed 86. As for your pretence That to find the meaning of those places you confer divers Texts you consult Originals you examin Translations and use all the means by Protestants appointed I have told you before that all this is vain and hypocritical if as your manner and your doctrin is you give not your self liberty of judgment in the use of these means if you make not your selves Judges of but only Advocates for the doctrin of your Church refusing to see what these means shew you if it any way make against the doctrin of your Church though it be as clear as the light at noon Remove prejudice even the ballance and hold it even make it indifferent to you which way you go to heaven so you go the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the means and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 88. Whereas you say that it were great impiety to imagin that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties than Gods Commandments make Certainly God is no way obliged either by his promise or his love to give us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I have proved at large
the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no! If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations from whom you learnt it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater Sacriledg than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lie seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then was it a full and formal Article of Faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued If they did the latter how are they such faithful depositaries of Apostolick Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the old and true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Council So that Councils as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Council though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publick peace sake 20. Ad § 7.8 9. I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutual courteous acknowledgment of his assertion That the Creed is a sufficient summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda 21. First then § 8. You have these words That it cannot be denied that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learnt and remembred These words I say being fairly examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgment of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the doctrin of repentance from dead works which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the doctrin of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were doctrins more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Jews and Gentiles than these under what judge our Saviour suffered that he was buried and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamental 22. And upon this grant I will ask no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high doctrines as Repentance and Charity to restrain your assertion as D. Potter does his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of faith which are meerly Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such general heads of faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sence of your words than this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospel was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more than so necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easie learn'd and remembred therefore the Apostles intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say the
the Word is Preached and the Sacraments are administred They make the Church Visible to whom themselves are visible but not to others As where your Sacraments are administred and your Doctrine Preached it is visible that there is a Popish Church But this may perhaps be visible to them only who are present at these performances and to others as secret as if they had never been performed 20. Obj. But S. Austin saith it is an impudent abominable detestible speech c. to say the Church hath Perished Answ 1. All that S. Austin says is not true 2. Though this were true it were nothing to your purpose unless you will conceive it all one not to be and not to be conspicuously visible 3. This very speech that the Church Perished might be false and impudent in the Donatists and yet not so in the Protestants For there is no incongruity that what hath lived 500. Years may perish in 1600. 21. Obj. While Protestants deny the perpetuity of a visible Church they destroy their own present Church Answ I do not see how the Truth of any present Church depends upon the perpetual Visibility nay nor upon the perpetuity of that which is past or future For what sense is there that it should not be in the power of God Almighty to restore to a flourishing Estate a Church which oppression hath made Invisible to repair that which is ruined to reform that which was corrupted or to revive that which was dead Nay what reason is there but that by ordinary means this may be done so long as the Scriptures by Divine Providence are preserved in their integrity and Authority As a Common-wealth though never so far collapsed and overrun with disorders is yet in possibility of being reduced unto its Original State so long as the Ancient Laws and Fundamental Constitutions are extant and remain inviolate from whence men may be directed how to make such a Reformation But S. Austin urges this very Argument against the Donatists and therefore it is good I answer that I doubt much of the Consequence and my Reason is because you your selves acknowledge that even general Councils and therefore much more particular Doctors though Infallible in their determinations are yet in their Reasons and Arguments whereupon they ground them subject to like Passions and Errors with other men 22. Obj. Lastly whereas you say That all Divines define Schism a Division from the true Church and from thence collect That there must be a known Church from which it is possible for men to depart Answer I might very justly question your Antecedent and desire you to consider whether Schism be not rather or at least be not as well a division of the Church as from it A separation not of a part from the whole but of some parts from the other And if you liked not this definition I might desire you to inform me in those many Schisms which have happened in the Church of Rome which of the parts was the Church and which was divided from it But to let this pass certainly your consequence is most unreasonable For though whensoever there is a Schism it must necessarily suppose a Church existent there yet sure we may define a Schism that is declare what the word signifies for Defining is no more though at this present there were neither Schism nor Church in the World Unless you will say that we cannot tell wat a Rose is or what the word Rose signifies but only in the Summer when we have Roses or that in the World to come when men shall not Marry it is impossible to know what it is to Marry or that the Plague is not a Disease but only when some Body is infected or that Adultery is not a sin unless there be Adulterers or that before Adam had a Child he knew not and God could not have told him what it was to be a Father Certainly Sir you have forgot your Metaphysicks which you so much glory in if you know not that the connexions of essentiall predicates with their subjects are Eternal and depend not at all upon the actual existence in the thing defined This Definition therefore of Schism concludes not the existence of a Church even when it is defined much less the perpetual continuance of it and least of all the continuance of it in perpetual visibility and purity which is the only thing that we deny and you are to prove 23. Ad § 12.47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55. The remainder of this Chapter offers Arguments to convince Luther and all that follow him to be Schismaticks 24. First then to prove us Schismaticks you urge from the nature of Schism thus Whosoever leave the external Communion of the visible Church are Schismaticks But Luther and his followers left the external Communion of the visible Church of Christ Therefore they are Schismaticks The Minor or second Proposition of this Argument you prove by two other The first is this They which forsook the external Communion of all Visible Churches must needs forsake the external Communion of the true visible Church of Christ But Luther and his followers forsook the external Communion of all Visible Churches Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true visible Church The Second Argument stands thus The Roman Church when the separation was made by Luther c. was the true Visible Church of Christ But Luther c. forsook the external Communion of the Roman Church Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true Visible Church of Christ The Proposition you confirm by these Reasons 1. The Roman Church had the Notes of the Church assigned by Protestants viz. The true Preaching of the Word and due administration of Sacraments Therefore she was the true Church 2. Either the Roman Church was the true visible Church or Protestants can name and prove some other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrine or else they must say there was no visible Church But they will not say there was no Church They cannot name and prove any other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with the Protestants in their particular Doctrines because this cannot be the Greek Church nor that of the Waldenses Wicklifites Hussites nor that of the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians which you confirm by several Arguments Therefore they must grant that the Roman Church was the true Visible Church 25. Now to all this I briefly answer thus That you have played the unwise builder and erected a stately structure upon a false Foundation For whereas you take for granted as an undoubted Truth That whosoever leave the external Communion of the visible Church are Schismatical I tell you Sir you presume too much upon us and would have us grant that which is the main point in Question For either you suppose the external Communion of the Church corrupted and that there was a necessity for them that would Communicate with this
obedience to all Courts of civil judicature yet he says not they are bound to think that determination lawful and that sentence just Nay it is plain he says that they must do according to the Judges sentence though in their private opinion it seem unjust As if I be wrongfully cast in a suit at Law and sentenced to pay an hundred pound I am bound to pay the money yet I know no Law of God or man that binds me in conscience to acquit the Judge of error in his sentence Neither is there any necessity as you say that he must either acknowledge the Universal Infallibility of the Church or drive men into dissembling against their Conscience seeing nothing hinders but I may obey the sentence of a Judge paying the mony he awards me to pay or forgoing the house or land which he hath judged from me and yet withal plainly profess that in my Conscience I conceive his Judgment erroneous To which purpose they have a saying in France that whosoever is cast in any cause hath liberty for ten days after to rail at his Judges 110. But observe I pray that Mr. Hooker says not absolutely and in all their causes but onely in litigious causes of the quality of those whereof he there treats In such matters as have plain Scripture or reason neither for them nor against them and wherein men are perswaded this or that way upon their own only probable collection in such cases This perswasion saith he ought to be fully setled in mens hearts that the will of God is that they should not disobey the certain commands of their lawful Superiors upon uncertain grounds But do that which the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determin For the purpose a Question there is whether a Surplice may be worn in Divine Service The authority of Superiors injoyns this Ceremony and neither Scripture nor reason plainly forbids it Sempronius notwithstanding is by some inducements which he confesses to be onely probable lead to this perswasion that the thing is unlawful The quaere is whether he ought for matter of practice follow the injunction of authority or his own private and only probable perswasion M. Hooker resolves for the former upon this ground that the certain commands of the Church we live in are to be obeyed in all things not certainly unlawful As for requiring a blind and an unlimited obedience to Ecclesiastical decisions universally and in all cases even when plain Text or reason seems to controul them M. Hooker is as far from making such an Idol of Ecclesiastical Authority as the Puritans whom he writes against I grant saith he that proof derived from the authority of mans judgment is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof And therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence concerning any point of Religion whatsoever yet one demonstrative reason alledged or one manifest testimony cited from the word of God himself to the contrary could not choose but over-weigh them all in as much as for them to be deceived it is not impossible it is that Demonstrative Reason or Divine Testimony should deceive And again Whereas it is thought that especially with the Church and those that are called mans authority ought not to prevail It must and doth prevail even with them yea with them especially as far as equity requireth and farther we maintain it not For men to be tied and led by authority as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment and though there be reason to the contrary not to listen to it but to follow like beasts the first in the Herd this were brutish Again that authority of men should prevail with men either against or above reason is no part of our belief Companies of learned men be they never so great and reverend are to yield unto reason the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by the simplicity of his person which doth alledge it but being found to be sound and good the bare opinion of men to the contrary must of necessity stoop and give place Thus M. Hooker in his Seventh Section of his Second Book 112. Ad § 43. The next Section hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justifie and therefore I pass it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said and done especially of them whom Bellarmine believes in such a long train to have gone to the Devil then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable Judges will esteem it not unpardonable in the great and Heroical spirit of Luther if being oposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies he were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospel Unless you desire to hear of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a mind to be ask't whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Devilish means CHAP. VI. The ANSWER to the Sixth CHAPTER Shewing that Protestants are not Hereticks Ad § 1. HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatness of his evidence do equal if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yielded on all sides and after to raise a firm and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meer and vain pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforced by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous Building upon a weak and sandy foundation 2. Ad § 2 3. First for your grounds a great part of them is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his natural wit and industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernatural and eternal happiness nor of the means by which his pleasure was to bestow this happiness upon him And therefore your first ground is good That it was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and means by a knowledge supernatural I say this is good if you mean by knowledge an apprehension or belief 3. But then whereas you add that if a such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our
mad than to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seem great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismaticks because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrows and undoes it all again and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he had said for you by adding after that they were Schismaticks because they bad not the fellowship of Communion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. John writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground Extra septem Ecclesias quicquid for is est alienum est Now I pray tell me do you esteem the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolick Churches was a certain mark of Heresie or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages heretical If not how is their authority a greater argument for the Roman than for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schism only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urged this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might do that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresie apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 33. You see S. Austins words make very little or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinal Perrons rule is much more to be regarded than his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretation a You do ill to translate it the Principality of the Sea Apostolick as if there were but one whereas S. Austin presently after speaks of Apostolical Churches in the plural number and makes the Bishops of them joynt Commissioners for the judging of Ecclesiastical causes I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in Succession touching the great question of Appeals wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so far in the first or second Milevitan Council as to b The words of the Decree which also Bellarmine l. 1. de Matrim c. 17. assures us to have been formed by S. Austin are these Si qui Africani ab Episcopis provocandum putaverint non nisi ad Africana provocent Concilia vel ad Primates provinciarum suarum Ad transmarina antem qui putaverit appellandum à nullo intra Africam in Communionem suscipiatur This Decree is by Gratian most impudently corrupted For whereas the Fathers of that Council intended it particularly against the Church of Rome he tells us they forbad Appeals to all excepting only the Church of Rome decree any African Excommunicate that should appeal to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes clearly and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of Faith that Union and Conformity with the Doctrin of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholick and by Gods command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Unless you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or else so horribly impious as believing this doctrin of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeals derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemn it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeal unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferior Clergy and Laity And Cardinal Perrons pretence of the contrary is a shameless falshood repugnant to the plain a The words are these Praefato debito salutationis officio impendio deprecamur ut deinceps ad aures vestras hinc venientes non faciliùs admittatis nec à nobis excommunicates ultra in Communionem velitis recipere quia hoc etiam Niceno Concilio definitum facile advertet venerabilitas tua Nam si de inferioribus Clericis vel Laicis videtur id praecavert quanto magis hoc de Episcopis voluit observari words of the Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34. Obj. Tertullian saith Praescrip cap. 36. If thou be near Italy thou bast Rome whose Authority is near at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles have poured all Doctrin together with their blood Ans Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of sincerity For you produce with great ostentation what he says of the Church of Rome but you and your fellows always conceal and dissemble that immediately before these words he attributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolick Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived near Italy so those near Achaia he sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Go to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the business of thy salvation run over the Apostolical Churches wherein the Chairs of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein their Authentick Epistles are recited sounding out the voyce and representing the face of every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is near at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles poured forth all their Doctrine together with their Blood c. Now I pray Sirtell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urged by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the Judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullians judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Hereticks had especially in conjunction with other Apostolick Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a Fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the authority of
Argument drawn from Communicating of Infants as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility p. 68. V. An Argument against Infallibility drawn from the Doctrin of the Millenaries p. 80. VI. A Letter relating to the same subject p. 89. VII An Argument against the Roman Churches Infallibility taken from the Contradictions in their Doctrin of Transubstantiation p. 91. VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto p. 94. IX A Discourse concerning Tradition p. 103. The Reader is desired to take notice of a great mistake of the Printer and to Correct it That he has made this the running Title over most of the Additional Pieces viz. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar which should only have been set over the first there are also some literal mistakes as pag. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like not to be imputed to the Author A CONFERENCE BETWIXT Mr. CHILLINGWORTH AND Mr. LEWGAR Thesis THE Church of Rome taken diffusively for all Christians communicating with the Bishop of Rome was the Judge of Controversies at that time when the Church of England made an alteration in her Tenents Argu. She was the Judge of Controversies at that time which had an Authority of deciding them But the Church of Rome at that time had the Authority of deciding them Ergo. Answ A limited Authority to decide Controversies according to the Rule of Scripture and Universal Tradition and to oblige her own Members so long as she evidently contradicted not that Rule to obedience I grant she had but an unlimited an infallible Authority or such as could not but proceed according to that Rule and such as should bind all the Churches in the World to Obedience as the Greek Church I say she had not Quest When your Church hath decided a Controversie I desire to know whether any particular Church or person hath Authority to reexamine her decision whether she hath observed her Rule or no and free himself from the obedience of it by his or her particular judgment Answ If you understand by your Church the Church Catholick probably I should answer no but if you understand by your Church that only which is in Subordination to the See of Rome or if you understand a Council of this Church I answer yea Arg. That was the Catholick Church which did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity But the Church of Rome at that time was the only Church that did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity Ergo. Quest What mean you by Apostolick Unity Answ I mean the Unity of that Fellowship wherein the Apostles Lived and Died. Quest Wherein was this Unity Answ Herein it consisted that they all professed one Faith obeyed one Supream Tribunal and communicated together in the same Prayers and Sacraments Solut. Then the Church of Rome continued not in this Apostolick Unity for it continued not in the same Faith wherein the Apostles Lived and Died for though it retained so much in my judgment as was essential to the being of a Church yet it degenerated from the Church of the Apostles times in many things which were very profitable as in Latin Service and Communion in one kind Argu. Some Church did continue in the same Faith wherein the Apostles lived and died But there was no Church at that time which did continue in the Apostles Faith besides the Roman Church Ergo. Answ That some Church did continue in the Apostles Faith in all things necessary I grant it that any did continue in the Integrity of it and in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable I deny it Quest Is it not necessary to a Churches continuing in the Apostles Faith that she continue in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable Answ A perfect conformity in all things is necessary to a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith but to an imperfect continuance an imperfect conformity is sufficient and such I grant the Roman Church had Quest Is not a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith necessary to a Churches continuance in Apostolick Unity Asw It is necessary to a perfect continuance in Apostolick Unity Argu. There was some one company of Christians at the time of Luthers rising which was the Catholick Church But there was no other company at that time besides the Roman Ergo the Roman at that time was the Catholick Church Answ There was no one company of Christians which in opposition to and Exclusion of all other companies of Christians was the Catholick Church Argu. If the Catholick Church be some one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies then if there was some one company she was one in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies But the Catholick Church is one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of c. Ergo There was then some one company which was the Catholick Church in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies The Minor proved by the Testimonies of the Fathers both Greek and Latin testifying that they understood the Church to be one in the sense alledged 1. If this Unity which cannot be separated at all or divided is also among Hereticks what contend we farther Why call we them Hereticks S. Cypr. Epist 75. 2. But if there be but one Flock how can he be accounted of the Flock which is not within the number of it Id Ibid. 3. When Parmenian commends one Church he condemns all the rest for besides one which is the true Catholick other Churches are esteemed to be among Hereticks but are not S. Optat. lib. 1. 4. The Church therefore is but one this cannot be among all Hereticks and Schismaticks Ibid. 5. You say you offer for the Church which is one this very thing is part of a lie to call it one which you have divided into two Id Ibid. 6. The Church is one which cannot be amongst us and amongst you it remains then that it be in one only place Id Ibid. 7. Although there be many Heresies of Christians and that all would be called Catholicks yet there is always one Church c. S. August de util credend c. 7. 8. The question between us is where the Church is whether with us or with them for she is but one Id de unitat c. 2. 9. The proofs of the Catholick prevailed whereby they evicted the Body of Christ to be with them and by consequence not to be with the Donatists for it is manifest that she is one alone Id. Collat. Carthag lib. 3. 10. In illud cantic 6.7 There are 60 Queens and 80 Concubines and Damosels without number but my Dove is one c. He said not my Queens are 60 and my Concubines c. but he said my Dove is but one because all the Sects of
requiring men upon only probable and Prudential motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of Faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some Texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your Calumnies against Protestants in general are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one Error which may well be termed the Capital and Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their Heresie in affirming that the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted Succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the Infallibility of such a publick Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse and talk not here of holy Scripture for if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private Spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else epon natural wit and judgment for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of Gods Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by Divine Inspiration or that all the Contents are infallibly true which are the direct Errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his Soul would live or die in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholicks while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but jointly he must be left to his own wit and ways and must abandon all infused Faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which Discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that the denyal of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denialaof the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one Error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The Doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Popes Infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur it a facis Sir Why do you thus but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume he deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up himself In as much as he that requires that his Interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his Interpretations should be the Laws and he that is firmly prepared in mind to believe and receive all such Interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgment they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeys only the Interpreter As if I should submit to the Laws of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sence which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it accordingly to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it who would not say that I were a Christian in pretence only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the Law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any foul interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this Power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primative Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
of God also this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due to so Sovereign Majesty and Power Which those whom the use thereof cannot persuade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confess for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose rather to commend the vertue of an Enemy than to flatter the vice and imbecility of a Friend And so much for this matter 24. Again what if the Names of the Priests and Altars so frequent in the Ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resumed and more commonly used in England than of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominal with the Ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominal may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a State in this regard more justifiable against the Roman than formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these Names are objected we also use the Names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the Corporal Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25. What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the Ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with sincerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsly said by you that you know that to some Protestants I clcarly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or wentabout to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censured somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affirming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two Hundren Years Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proof of this scandalous Calumny 26. As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them always have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of Faith though not the Infallibility of it That there is Inherent Justice though so imperfect that it cannot justifie That there are Traditions though none necessary That Charity is to be preferred before knowledg That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that Faith alone justifies though that Faith justifies not which is alone And Secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been Anciently without breach of Charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist the Lawfulness of some kind of Prayers for the Dead the Estate of the Fathers Souls before Christs Ascension Freewil Predestination Universal Grace the Possibility of keeping Gods Commandments The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion anongst Protestants it is justified to my hand by a witness with you beyond exception even your great Friend M. Brerely whose care exactness and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9 10 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your self proved an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine begins of late to be altered in these points Whereas M Brerely will inform you they have been anciently and even from the begininng of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the Stream and Current of their Doctors run one way and only some Brook or Rivulet of them the other 27. It remains now in the last place that I bring my self fairly off from your foul Aspersions that so my Person may not be any disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. First upon Hearsay you charge me with a great number of false and impious Doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The Summ of them all is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason it opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical to be the Infallible Word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any Mans Liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation either by the Catholick Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholick Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace 29. But what are all Personal matters to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is nevertheless Truth nor reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or Damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these Impostures and regard not the Person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to persuade him unless it be truth whereunto I persuade him 30. The last Accusation is That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest whch indeed were to the purpose
exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recovered himself from that Disease which he undertakes to cure or against a Guide in a way that at first before he had experience himself mistook it and afterwards found his error and amended it That noble writer Michael de Montai'gne was surely of a far different mind for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such Diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montai'gne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres when thou art converted strengthen by Brethren gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need Conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this Charitable Function 41. The Motives then hitherto not answered were these 42. I. Because perpetual visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation II. Because Luther and his followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the world upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the World which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks III. Because if any credit may be given to as credible records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholicks hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and Divine Miracles IV. Because many points of Protestant Doctrine are the damned Opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church V. Because the Prophecies of the Old Testament touching the Couversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholick Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it VI. Because the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the Confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compass of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal VII Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine VIII Because Luther to Preach against the Mass which contains the most material points now in controversie was persuaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devil IX Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversie writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty X. Because by denying all humane Authority either of Pope or Councils or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 43. To the first God hath neither drecreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible Company of Men free from all Error in it self Damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external Communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my Conscience that I believe some Error tho never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me Her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with Supernatural and Divine Miracles which for number and Glory out-shine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the Confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after Ages great Signs and Wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false Doctrine and that I am not to believe any Doctrine which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true Doctrine should in all Ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the Members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the Fourth All those were not a See this acknowledged by Bellar de Scrip Eccles in Philastrio by Petavius Animad in Epiph de inscrip operis By S. Austin Lib. de Haeres Haer. 80. Hereticks which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Hereticks To the Fifth Kings and Nations have been and may be Converted by Men of contrary Religions To the Sixth The Doctrine of Papists is confessed by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the Seventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have Authority from it to Preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or Practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to do a necessary work of Charity after a peacable manner when there is no body else that can or will do it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some
all Let not the Weapons of your Warfare be Carnal such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all means either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you do and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you do so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2. For neither is that true which you pretend That we possess the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Universal Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither If it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to Poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so far with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as clear as the Sun if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conform your Doctrine to them or reform it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a persuasion that you could qualifie them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgment who were prepossessed with this persuasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. Whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of Supream and sole judge to holy Writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this means controversies are encreased and not ended What indifferent and unprejudiced man may not easily conceive another cause which I do not say does but certainly may prevert your Wills and avert your understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a Tryal by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this means you would fall into of losing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your Power and Authority over mens Consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectual though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent Tryal of your Religion by Scripture and making them yield up and captivate their judgment unto yours As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to judge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirm it without proof as if the thing were evident of it self And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well content my self to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie how shall that touching the Church and the Notes of it be determined And if it be the sole Judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it self is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by natural reason the only Principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4. Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this Opinion That Controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgments to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to do so it were impossible but that all Controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5. In the next Words we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only we deny that it excludes unwritten Tradition As if you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgment or retract your retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a Rule of Faith as a Writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a Writing is capable of both these properties 6. That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect rule of its self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or less perfect in its kind as it is more or less fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a rule so far as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7. Now that a Writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sun answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writing all these which she pretends to be Divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written
be drawn out of uncertain Principles by thirteen or fourteen more uncertain consequences He that can believe it let him All these Reasons I hope will convince you that though we have and have great necessity of Judges in Civil and Criminal causes yet you may not conclude from thence that there is any publick authorized Judge to determine Controversies in Religion nor any necessity there should be any 24. But the Scripture stands in need of some watchful and unerring eye to guard it by means of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure Very true but this is no other than the watchful Eye of Divine providence the goodness whereof will never suffer that the Scriptures should be depraved and corrupted but that in them should be always extant a conspicuous and plain way to Eternal happiness Neither can any thing be more palpably unconsistent with his goodness than to suffer Scripture to be undiscernably corrupted in any matter of moment and yet to exact of men the belief of those verities which without their fault or knowledge or possibility of prevention were defaced out of them So that God requiring of men to believe Scripture in its purity ingages himself to see it preserved in sufficient purity and you need not fear but he will satisfie his ingagement You say we can have no assurance of this but your Churches Vigilancy But if we had no other we were in a hard case for who could then assure us that your Church has been so vigilant as to guard Scripture from any the least alteration There being various Lections in the ancient Copies of your Bibles what security can your new raised Office of Assurance give us that that reading is true which you now receive and that false which you reject Certainly they that anciently received and made use of these divers Copies were not all guarded by the Churches vigilancy from having their Scripture altered from the purity of the Original in many places For of different readings it is not in nature impossible that all should be false but more than one cannot possibly be true Yet the want of such a protection was no hindrance to their Salvation and why then shall the having of it be necessary for ours But then this Vigilancy of your Church what means have we to be ascertain'd of it First the thing is not evident of it self which is evident because many do not believe it Neither can any thing be pretended to give evidence to it but only some places of Scripture of whose incorruption more than any other what is it that can secure me If you say the Churches vigilancy you are in a Circle proving the Scriptures uncorrupted by the Churches vigilancy and the Churches vigilancy by the incorruption of some places of Scripture and again the incorruption of those places by the Churches vigilancy If you name any other means than that means which secures me of the Scriptures incorruption in those places will also serve to assure me of the same in other places For my part abstracting from Divine Providence which will never suffer the way to Heaven to be blocked up or made invisible I know no other means I mean no other natural and rational means to be assured hereof than I have that any other Book is uncorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rational and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath been preserved from any material alteration yet my assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Moral assurances and neither Physical or Mathematical 25. To the next argument the Reply is obvious That though we do not believe the Books of Scripture to be Canonical because they say so For other Books that are not Canonical may say they are and those that are so may say nothing of it yet we believe not this upon the Authority of your Church but upon the Credibility of Universal Tradition which is a thing Credible of it self and therefore fit to be rested on whereas the Authority of your Church is not so And therefore your rest thereon is not rational but meerly voluntary I might as well rest upon the judgment of the next man I meet or upon a chance of a Lottery for it For by this means I only know I might Err but by relying on you I know I should Err. But yet to return you one suppose for another suppose I should for this and all other things submit to her direction how could she assure me that I should not be mis-led by doing so She pretends indeed infallibility herein but how can she assure us that she hath it What by Scriptures That you say cannot assure us of its own Infallibility and therefore not of yours What then by Reason That you say may deceive in other things and why not in this How then will she assure us hereof By saying so Of this very affirmation there will remain the same Question still How it can prove it self to be infallibly true Neither can there be an end of the like multiplied Demands till we rest in something evident of it self which demonstrates to the World that this Church is infallible And seeing there is no such Rock for the Infallibility of this Church to be setled on it must of necessity like the Island of Delos flote up and down for ever And yet upon this point according to Papists all other Controversies in Faith depend 26. To the 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 § The sum and substance of the Ten next Paragraphs is this That it appears by the Confessions of some Protestants and the Contentions of others that the Questions about the Canon of Scripture what it is and about the Various reading and Translations of it which is true and which not are not to be determined by Scripture and therefore that all Controversies of Religion are not decidable by Scripture 27. To which I have already answered saying That when Scripture is affirmed to be the rule by which all Controversies of Religion are to be decided Those are to be excepted out of this generality which are concerning the Scripture it self For as that general saying of Scripture He hath put all things under his Feet is most true though yet S. Paul tells us That when it is said he hath put all things under him it is manifest he is excepted who did put all things under him So when we say that all Controversies of Religion are decidable by the Scripture it is manifest to all but Cavillers that we do and must except from this generality those which are touching the Scripture it self Just as a Merchant shewing a Ship of his own may say all my substance is in this Ship and yet never intended to deny that his Ship is part of his substance nor yet to say that his Ship is in it self Or as a man may
say that a whole House is supported by the Foundation and yet never mean to exclude the Foundation from being a part of the House or to say that it is supported by it self Or as you your selves use to say that the Bishop of Rome is head of the whole Church and yet would think us but Captious Sophisters should we infer from hence that either you made him no part of the whole or else made him head of himself Your negative conclusion therefore that these Questions touching Scripture are not decidable by Scripture you needed not have cited any Authorities nor urged any reason to prove it it is evident of it self and I grant it without more ado But your Corollary from it which you would insinuate to your unwary reader that therefore they are to be decided by your or any Visible Church is a meer inconsequence and very like his collection who because Pamphilus was not to have Glycerium for his Wife presently concluded that he must have her as if there had been no more men in the World but Pamphilus and himself For so you as if there were nothing in the World capable of this Office but the Scripture or the present Church having concluded against Scripture you conceive but too hastily that you have concluded for the Church But the truth is neither the one nor the other have any thing to do with this matter For first the Question whether such or such a Book be Canonical Scripture though it may be decided negatively out of Scripture by shewing apparent and irreconcilable contradictions between it and some other Book confessedly Canonical yet affirmatively it cannot but only by the Testimonies of the ancient Churches any Book being to be received as undoubtedly Canonical or to be doubted of as uncertain or rejected as Apocryphal according as it was received or doubted of or rejected by them Then for the Question of various readings which is the true it is inreason evident and confessed by your own Pope that there is no possible determination of it but only by comparison with ancient Copies And lastly for Controversies about different Translations of Scripture the Learned have the same means to satisfie themselves in it as in the Questions which happen about the Translation of any other Author that is skill in the Language of the Original and comparing Translations with it In which way if there be no certainty I would know what certainty you have that your Doway Old and Rhemish New Testament are true Translations And then for the unlearned those on your Side are subject to as much nay the very same uncertainty with those on ours Neither is there any reason imaginable why an ignorant English Protestant may not be as secure of the Translation of our Church that it is free from Error if not absolutely yet in matters of moment as an ignorant English Papist can be of his Rhemish Testament or Doway Bible The best direction I can give them is to compare both together where there is no real difference as in the Translation of controverted places I believe there is very little there to be confident that they are right where they differ therefore to be prudent in the choice of the guides they follow Which way of proceeding if it be subject to some possible Error is it the best that either we or you have and it is not required that we use any better than the best we have 28. You will say Dependance on your Churches infallibility is a better I answer it would be so if we could be infallibly certain that your Church is infallible that is if it were either evident of it self and seen by its own light or could be reduced unto and setled upon some Principle that is so But seeing you your selves do not so much as pretend to enforce us to the belief hereof by any proofs infallible and convincing but only to induce us to it by such as are by your confession only probable and prudential motives certainly it will be to very little purpose to put off your uncertainty for the first turn and to fall upon it at the second to please your selves in building your House upon an imaginary Rock when you your selves see and confess that this very Rock stands it self at the best but upon a frame of Timber I answer secondly that this cannot be a better way because we are infallibly certain that your Church is not infallible and indeed hath not the real prescription of this priviledge but only pleaseth her self with a false imagination and vain presumption of it as I shall hereafter demonstrate by may unanswerable arguments 31. But seeing the belief of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but Cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine Verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material Objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether their were any Scripture or no. Those Barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the means and instrumental Objects 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Heb. the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgment of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no
such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these Words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and Testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet methinks you should not deny but it may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian Heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such Tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the New Testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books must be discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in Reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or Seal in the End The End of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and Authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament
knoweth no Man but the Spirit of Man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us believe that we do not believe what we know we do But if I may think verily that I believe the Scripture and yet not believe it how know you that you believe the Roman Church I am as verily and as strongly persuaded that I believe the Scripture as you are that you believe the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Again what more ridiculous and against sense and experience than to affirm That there are not Millions amongst you and us that believe upon no other reason than their Education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the Opinion they have of them The tenderness of the subject and aptness to receive impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from Heaven all those believers of your own Creed who do indeed lay the Foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper than upon the Authority of their Father or Master or Parish Priest Certainly if these have no true Faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the Holiness of his Life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose have no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Do these remain as very Pagans after their Conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their Souls and obey in their Lives the Gospel of Christ only to be Tantalized and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets Faith in them What if their motive to believe be not in reason sufficient Do they therefore not believe what they do believe because they do it upon sufficient motives They choose the Faith imprudently parhaps but yet they do choose it Unless you will have us believe that that which is done is not done because it is not done upon good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one Holy Man which apparently has no ends upon me joyned with the goodness of the Christian Faith might not be a far greater and more rational motive to me to embrace Christianity than any I can have to continue in Paganism And therefore for shame if not for Love of Truth you must recant this fancy when you write again and suffer true Faith to be many times where your Churches Infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we believe not enough and not go about to persuade us we believe nothing for fear with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty Sophisms you may happily bring us to make us believe we believe nothing but Wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophistical And therefore as he that could not answer Zeno's subtilties against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should give me a hundred Arguments to persuade me because I do not believe Transubstantiation I do not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not unty yet I should cut them in pieces with doing that and knowing that I do so which you pretend I cannot do 53. It is superfluous for you to prove out of S. Athanasius and Austine that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Understanding by Church as here you explain your self The Credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradidition which involves an evidence of Fact and from Hand to Hand from Age to Age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour Himself commeth to be confirmed by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole Doctrine or the Infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alledged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholick Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostles Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholick Church the Church of all Ages fince Christ was to be understood As for the Council of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the Book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal Books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular Book they may happily Err and think that Book received as Canonical which was only received as Profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what Language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted I HIL Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second Book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concertain not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist clearly intimates a Neque enim sic posuit integritas atque notitia literarum quamlibet illustris Episcopi
so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatress so often translates false Or if you say she was you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholick Church may Err in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonical 92. Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman Church which hath delivered at several times Scriptures in many places different and repugnant for Authentical and Canonical which is most evident out of the place of Malacby which is so quoted for the Sacrifice of the Mass that either all the Ancient Fathers had false Bibles or yours is false Most evident likewise from the comparing of the story of Jacob in Genesis with that which is cited out of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews according to the vulgar Edition But above all to any one who shall compare the Bibles of Sixtus and Clement so evident that the wit of man cannot disguise it 93. Thus you see what reason we have to believe your Antecedent That your Church it is which must declare what Books be true Scripture Now for the consequence that certainly is as liable to exception as the Antecedent For if it were true that God had promised to assist you for the delivering of true Scripture would this oblige him or would it follow from hence that He had obliged himself to teach you not only sufficiently but effectually and irrisistably the true sense of Scripture God is not defective in things necessary neither will he leave himself without witness nor the World without means of knowing his will and doing it And therefore it was necessary that by his Providence he should preserve the Scripture from any undiscernable corruption in those things which he would have known otherwise it is apparent it had not been his will that these things should be known the only means of continuing the knowledg of them being perished But now neither is God lavish in superfluities and therefore having given us means sufficient for our direction and power sufficient to make use of these means he will not constrain or necessitate us to make use of these means For that were to cross the end of our Creation which was to be glorified by our free obedience whereas necessity and freedom cannot stand together That were to reverse the Law which he hath prescribed to himself in his dealing with men and that is to set Life and Death before him and to leave him in the hands of his own Counsel God gave the Wisemen a Star to lead them to Christ but he did not necessitate them to follow the guidance of this Star that was left to their liberty God gave the Children of Israel a Fire to lead them by Night and a Pillar of Cloud by Day but he constrained no man to follow them that was left to their liberty So he gives the Church the Scripture which in those things which are to be believed or done are plain and easie to be followed like the Wisemens Star Now that which he desires of us on our part is the Obedience of Faith and love of the Truth and desire to find the true sense of it and industry in searching it and humility in following and Constancy in professing it all which if he should work in us by an absolute irresistible necessity he could no more require of us as our duty than he can of the Sun to shine of the Sea to Ebb and Flow and of all other Creatures to do those things which by meer necessity they must do and cannot choose Besides what an impudence is it to pretend that your Church is infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of the Scripture whereas there are Thousands of places of Scripture which you do not pretend certainly to understand and about the Interpretation whereof your own Doctors differ among themselves If your Church be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of Scripture why do not your Doctors follow her infallible direction And if they do how comes such difference among them in their Interpretations 94. Again why does your Church thus put her Candle under a Bushel and keep her Talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly thus long wrapt up in Napkins Why sets she not forth Infallible Commentaries or Expositions upon all the Bible Is it because this would not be profitable for Christians that Scripture should be Interpreted Is it blasphemous to say so The Scripture it self tells us All Scripture is profitable And the Scripture is not so much the Words as the Sense And if it be not profitable why does she imploy particular Doctors to interpret Scriptures fallibly unless we must think that fallible Interpretations of Scripture are profitable and infallible Interpretations would not be so 95. If you say the Holy Ghost which assists the Church in interpreting will move the Church to interpret when he shall think fit and that the Church will do it when the Holy Ghost shall move her to do it I demand whether the Holy Ghosts moving of the Church to such works as these be resistible by the Church or irresistible If resistible then the Holy Ghost may move and the Church may not be moved As certainly the Holy Ghost doth always move to an Action when he shews us plainly that it would be for the good of men and Honour of God As he that hath any sense will acknowledge that an infallible exposition of Scripture could not but be and there is no conceivable reason why such a work should be put off a day but only because you are conscious to your selves you cannot do it and therefore make excuses But if the moving of the Holy Ghost be irresistible and you are not yet so moved to go about this work then I confess you are excused But then I would know whether those Popes which so long deferred the calling of a Council for the Reformation of your Church at length pretended to be effected by the Council of Trent whether they may excuse themselves for that they were not moved by the Holy Ghost to do it I would know likewise as this motion is irresistible when it comes so whether it be so simply necessary to the moving of your Church to any such publick Action that it cannot possibly move without it That is whether the Pope now could not if he would seat himself in Cathedra and fall to writing expositions upon the Bible for the directions of Christians to the true sense of it If you say he cannot you will make your self ridiculous If he can then I would know whether he should be infallibly directed in these expositions or no If he should then what need he to stay for irresistible motion Why does he
Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an Universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the Fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c so new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our Faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily persuade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a fair way to make the Faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not Usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one Age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the Shell as the Popes Infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalities of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolick Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others and some things which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgment of those that have Wisdom and Experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not the Scripture 103. To this I answer As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Judge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Judge otherwise you might make your self Judge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Judge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with Sopistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to infer in the end which indeed was more than you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Judge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still run upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Judge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say Thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Judge of Controversies that they have the Authority of Fathers to warrant their manner of speaking as of * Contra Parmen l. 5. in Prin. Optatus 104. But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Judge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both do what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intellible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether they be learned or unlearned And my reason hereof is convincing and demonstrative because nothing is necessary to be believed
Church you say is Infallible I am very doubtful of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirms it as in the 59. of Esau My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confess I find there these words but I am still doubtful whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ and if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church says so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begged but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proof otherwise why brought you this Text to prove it Nor is it of such a strange quality above all other Propositions as to be able to prove it self What then remains but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But Reasons cannot convince me unless I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to relie on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurdity and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire me to make use of it 119. But Universal Tradition you say and so do I too is of it self credible and that has in all Ages taught the Churches Infallibility with full consent If it have I am ready to believe it But that it has I hope you would not have me take upon your word for that were to build my self upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appear for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrine as Gualterius in his Chronology undertakes to do but with so ill success that I heard an able Man of your Religion profess that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places have indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500 years after Christ that does say in plain terms The Church of Rome is Infallible What shall we believe your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to go into the Circle which made us giddy before To prove the Church Infallible because Tradition says so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church says so which is Infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shews nothing to the Blind or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot prove any thing to him that either has not or uses not his reason to judge of them 120. Thus you have excluded your self from all proof of your Churches Infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you fly lastly to Reason it self for succour may not it justly say to you as Jephte said to his Brethren Ye have cast me out and banished me and do you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you aledge for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not if not why do you propose them If I may why do you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choice of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to have been the chiefest end why Reason was given them 121. Ad § 22. An Heretick he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a Divine Revelation he is convinced in Conscience by any means whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe propounders of Faith A most strange and illogical deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrine is Divine Revelation and yet though he be a true propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proof and consequently not be a safe propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men Divine Revelations and do they not sometimes convince men in Conscience by evident proof from Scripture that the things they speak are Divine Revelations And whosoever being thus convinced should oppose this Divine Revelation should he not be an Heretick according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your self well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the means of Proposal what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the Discourse of the Devil himself yet if I be I will not say convinced but persuaded though falsly that it is a Divine Revelation and shall deny to believe it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretick For he that believes though falsly any thing to be Divine Revelation and yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrine is the formality of an Heretick 122. And how it can be any way advantagious to Civil Government that men without warrant from God should Usurp a Tyranny over other mens Consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometimes against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I do not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say that a Man may be a passionate and Seditious Creature from whence you would have us infer that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his Passion and raise Sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you do made private men infallible interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as Instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harm they can do by their passionate or seditious interpretations but only endanger both their Temporal and Eternal happiness I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Judge yet we do not deny but that there are Judges which may proceed with certainty enough against all Seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebels and Traytors and Thieves and Murderers 123. Ad §
And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to the succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him 38. Ad § 16. To this Paragraph which pretends to shew that if the Catholick Church be fallible in some points it follows that no true Protestant can with assurance believe the Universal Church in any one point of Doctrin I Answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she says yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or Universal Tradition be it Fundamental or be it not Fundamental This you say we cannot in points not Fundamental because in such we believe she may err But this I know we can because though she may err in some things yet she does not err in what she proves though it be not Fundamental Again you say we cannot do it in Fundamentals because we must know what points be Fundamental before we go to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I cannot know any thing Fundamental or not Fundamental For how can I come to know that there was such a Man as Christ that he taught such Doctrin that he and his Apostles did such miracles in confirmation of it that the Scripture is Gods Word unless I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary introduction to it 39. But the Churches infallible direction extending only to Fundamentals unless I know them before I go to learn of her I may be rather deluded than instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you do well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you that the Church is an infallible directer in Fundamentals For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is fundamental and take all for fundamental which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs do us this favor to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in fundamentals and being an infallible guide in fundamentals That there shall be always a Church infallible in fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be always a Church But that there shall be always such a Church which is an infallible Guide in fundamentals this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known infallibility in some one known society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentals A man that were destitute of all means of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himself and to himself be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repair to it for direction could not be an infallible guide and yet he might be in himself infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40. But they that know what points are Fundamental otherwise than by the Churches authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God and from the Scripture that such points are fundamental others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not fundamental nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither do I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confute the Errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Masters erroneous conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an infallible teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I Answer For commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Parents be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be Infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austine's first place is a fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you infer If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in Saint Austines time and esteemed an Apostolick Tradition even by Saint Austine himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 44. Obj. But the Doctrines that Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Hereticks are not to be rebaptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrins and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the
scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholick Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholick Church placed between Chaffe and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the Holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these survile burdens Our Saviour tells the Scribes and Pharisees that in vain they Worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of Pots and Cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours Words The commandments of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the Earth with his naked Feet than he which drowned and buried his Soul in Drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to Worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Pharisees And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers place This is plain from these Words of S. Austin of them diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter variantur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholick Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we Judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophesie of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace Day nor Night besides how these superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthned by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep Root and spread their Branches so far as to pass for Universal Customs of the Church he that does not see sees nothing Especially considering the catching and contagious nature of this sin and how fast ill Weeds spread and how true and experimented that rule is of the Historian Exempla non confistunt ubi incipiunt sed quamlibet in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem Examples do not stay where they begin but tho at first pent up in a narrow Tract they make themselves room for extravagant wandrings Nay that some such superstition had not already even in S. Austins time prevailed so far as to be Consuetudine universae Ecclesiae roboratum confirmed by the Custom of the Universal Church who can doubt that considers that the practice of Commiunicating Infants had even then got the credit and authority not only of an Universal Custom but also of an Apostolick Tradition 49. But now after all this ado what if S. Austin says not this which is pretended of the Church viz. That she neither approves nor dissembles nor practises any thing against Faith or good Life but only of good men in the Church Certainly though some Copies read as you would have it yet you should not have dissembled that others read the place otherwise vix Ecclesia multa tolerat tamen quae sunt contra Fidem bonam vitam nec bonus approbat c. The Church tolerates many things and yet what is against Faith or good Life a good man will neither approve nor dissemble nor practise 50. Ad § 17. That Abraham begat Isaacc is a point very far from being Fundamental and yet I hope you will grant that Protestants believing Scripture to be the Word of God may be certain enough of the truth and certainty of it For what if they say that the Catholick Church and much more themselves may possibly Err in some unfundamental points it is therefore consequent they can be certain of none such What if a wiser man than I may mistake the sense of some obscure place of Aristotle may I not therefore without any arrogance or inconsequence conceive my self certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them And then for points Fundamental to what purpose do you say That we must first know what they be before we can be assured that we cannot Err in understanding the Scripture when we pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot Err but only to a sufficient certainty that we do not Err but rightly understand those things that are plain whether Fundamental or not Fundamental That God is and is a rewarder of them that seek him That there is no Salvation but by Faith in Christ That by repentance and Faith in Christ Remission of sins may be obtained That there shall be a Resurrection of the Body These we conceive both true because the Scripture says so and Truths Fundamental because they are necessary parts of the Gospel whereof our Saviour saies Qui non crediderit damnabitur All which we either learn from Scripture immediately or learn of those that learn it of Scripture so that neither Learned nor Unlearned pretend to know these things independently of Scripture And therefore in imputing this to us you cannot excuse your self from having done us a palpable injury 52. Ad § 19. To that which is here urged of the differences amongst Protestants concerning many points I answer that those differences between Protestants concerning Errors damnable and not damnable Truths Fundamental and not Fundamental may be easily reconciled For either the Error they speak of may be purely and simply involuntary or it may be in respect of the cause of it voluntary If the cause of it be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Error is it self sinful and consequently in its own nature damnable As if by negligence in seeking the Truth by unwillingness to find it by Pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion should
the Evidence of the Revelation was all in all But here we must err with you in small things for fear of loosing your direction in greater and for fear of departing too far from you not go from you at all even where we see plainly that you have departed from the Truth 57. Beyond all this I say that this which you say in wisdom we are to do is not only unlawful but if we will proceed according to reason impossible I mean to adhere to you in all things having no other ground for it but because you are as we will now suppose Infallible in some things that is in Fundamentals For whether by skill in Architecture a large structure may be supported by a narrow foundation I know not but sure I am in reason no conclusion can be larger than the Principles on which it is founded And therefore if I consider what I do and be perswaded that your infallibility is but limited and particular and partial my adherence upon this ground cannot possibly be Absolute and Universal and Total I am confident that should I meet with such a man amongst you as I am well assur'd there be many that would grant your Church Infallible only in Fundamentals which what they are he knows not and therefore upon this only reason adheres to you in all things I say that I am confident that it may be demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiducial and certain assent in nothing To make this clear because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with me First supposing you hold your Church Infallible in Fundamentals obnoxious to Error in other things and that you know not what points are Fundamental I demand C. Why do you believe the Doctrin of Transubstantiation K. because the Church hath taught it which is Infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentals K. in Fundamentals only C. Then in other points she may err K. she may C. and do you know what Points are Fundamental what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things least I should disbelieve her in fundamentals C. How know you then whether this be a fundamental point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamental point K. yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may err K. yes I did so C. Then possibly it may err in this K. It may do so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not err in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a Fundamental C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a Fundamental truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary Verily Sir if you have no better Faith than this you are no Catholick K. good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practice but in belief you are not no more than a Protestant is a Catholick For every Protestant yields such a kind of assent to all the proposals of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be Fundamental Truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposals be they foundations or be they superstructions or else you must believe all Fundamental which she proposes or else you are no Catholick K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church Infallible in points necessary in wisdom I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must go farther and believe her Infallible in all things or else you were as good go back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our part and even with your own the imputation of rashness and levity You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church Infallible in Fundamentals yet he has no reason to do you the courtesie of believing all her proposals nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentals are he has no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to err with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should err with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 60. Whereas you add That that visible Church which cannot err in Fundamental propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Ans Again you beg the question supposing untruly that there is any that Visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot err in points Fundamental Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrine they condemn is evidently damnable A plain proof hereof is this that particular Councils nay particular men have been very liberal of their Anathema's which yet were never conceived infallible either by others or themselves If any man should now deny Christ to be the Saviour of the world or deny the Resurrection I should make no great scruple of Anathematizing his Doctrine and yet am very far from dreaming of Infallibility 62. The effect of the next Argument is this I cannot without grievous sin disobey the Church unless I know she commands those things which are not in her power to command and how far this power extends none can better inform me than the Church Therefore I am to obey so far as the Church requires my obedience I Answer First That neither hath the Catholick Church but only a corrupt part of it declared her self nor required our obedience in the points contested among us This therefore is falsely and vainly supposed here by you being one of the greatest questions amongst us Then Secondly That God can better inform us what are the limits of the Churches power than the Church her self that is than the Roman Clergy who being men subject to the same passions with other men why they should be thought the best Judges in their own cause I do not well understand But yet we oppose against them no human decisive Judges not any Sect or Person but only God and his Word And therefore it is in vain to say That in following her you shall be sooner excused than in following any Sect or Man applying Scriptures against her Doctrine In as much
is increase contentions rather than end them Just so it would have been if God had appointed a Church to be Judge of Controversies and had not told us which was that Church Seeing therefore God does nothing in vain and seeing it had been in vain to appoint a Judge of Controversies and not to tell us plainly who it is and seeing lastly he hath not told us plainly no not at all who it is is it not evident he hath appointed none Obj. But you will say perhaps if it be granted once that some Church of one denomination is the Infallible guide of Faith it will be no difficult thing to prove that yours is the Church seeing no other Church pretends to be so Ans Yes the Primitive and the Apostolick Church pretends to be so That assures us that the spirit was promised and given to them to lead them into all saving truth that they might lead others Obj. But that Church is not now in the world and how then can it pretend to be the guide of Faith Ans It is now in the world sufficiently to be our guide not by the persons of those men that were members of it but by their Writings which do plainly teach us what truth they were led into and so lead us into the same truth Obj. But these Writings were the Writings of some particular men and not of the Church of those times how then doth that Church guide us by these Writings Now these places shew that a Church is to be our guide therefore they cannot be so avoided Ans If you regard the conception and production of these Writings they were the Writings of particular men But if you regard the reception and approbation of them they may be well called the Writings of the Church as having the attestation of the Church to have been written by those that were inspired and directed by God As a Statute though penned by some one man yet being ratified by the Parliament is called the Act not of that man but of the Parliament Obj. But the words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church the present Church of every Age is Universally infallible Ans For my part I know I am as willing and desirous that the Bishop or Church of Rome should be Infallible provided I might know it as they are to be so esteemed But he that would not be deceived must take heed that he take not his desire that a thing should be so for a reason that it is so For if you look upon Scripture through such Spectacles as these they will appear to you of what colour pleases your fancies best and will seem to say not what they do say but what you would have them As some say the Manna wherewith the Israelites were fed in the Wilderness had in every mans mouth that very tast which was most agreeable to his palate For my part I profess I have considered them a thousand times and have looked upon them as they say on both sides and yet to me they seem to say no such matter 70. Not the First Mat. 16.18 For the Church may err and yet the gates of Hell not prevail against her It may err and yet continue still a true Church and bring forth Children unto God and send Souls to Heaven And therefore this can do you no service without the plain begging of the point in Question Viz. That every Error is one of the gates of Hell Which we absolutely deny and therefore you are not to suppose but to prove it Neither is our denial without reason For seeing you do and must grant that a particular Church may hold some error and yet be still a true member of the Church why may not the Universal Church hold the same error and yet remain the true Universal 71. Not the Second or Third John 14.16 17. John 16.13 For the spirit of Truth may be with a Man or a Church for ever and teach him all Truth And yet he may fall into some error if this all be not simply all but all of some kind Secondly he may fall into some Error even contrary to the truth which is taught him if it be taught him only sufficiently and not irresistibly so that he may learn it if he will not so that he must and shall whether he will or no. Now who can assertain me that the Spirits teaching is not of this nature Or how can you possibly reconcile it with your Doctrine of free-will in believing if it be not of this nature Besides the word in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to be a guide and director only not to compel or necessitate Who knows not that a guide may set you in the right way and you may either negligently mistake or willingly leave it And to what purpose doth God conplain so often and so earnestly of some that had eyes to see and would not see that stopped their Ears and closed their Eyes lest they should hear and see Of others that would not understand lest they should do good that the Light shined and the Darkness comprehended it not That he came unto his own and his own received him not That light came into the World and Men loved Darkness more than Light To what purpose should he wonder so few believed his report and that to so few his Arm was revealed And that when he comes he should find no Faith upon Earth If his outward teaching were not of this nature that it might be followed and might be resisted And if it be then God may teach and the Church not learn God may lead and the Church be refractory and not follow And indeed who can doubt that hath not his Eyes vailed with prejudice that God hath taught the Church of Rome plain enough in the Epistle to the Corinthians that all things in the Church are to be done for edification and that in any publick Prayers or Thanks-givings or Hymns or Lessons of instruction to use a Language which the assistants generally understand not is not for edification Though the Church of Rome will not learn this for fear of confessing an Error and so overthrowing her Authority yet the time will come when it shall appear that not only by scripture they were taught this sufficiently and commanded to believe but by reason and common sense And so for the Communion in both kinds who can deny but they are taught it by our Saviour John 6. in these Words according to most of your own expositions Unless you Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink his Blood you have no Life in you If our Saviour speak there of the Sacrament as to them he does because they conceive he does so Though they may pretend that receiving in one kind they receive the Blood together with the Body yet they can with no Face pretend that they drink it And so obey not our Saviours injunction according to the letter which yet
Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
Commandments and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead The cessation of the Old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34. Secondly the Question touching Fundamentals is profitable but not Fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any Error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35. Thirdly These Doctrines that Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the word of God that S. Peter had no such primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect rule of Faith aad consequently that no necessary Doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or succession of Christians absolutely Infallible These to my understanding are truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so But not so necessary that every Man and Woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them to be Divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other points are to be referred to the third sort of Doctrines above mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only point of all that Army you Mustred together reducible to none of these Heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denial of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the Doctrine of merit methinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold merit because we hold this point Then that we deny this point because we deny merit Beside when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no courtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more than doing is not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their Doctrine of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equal unto and well worthy of Eternal Glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a giver only and not a rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of Eternal Glory make God a rewarder only and not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is Eternal Life And that it is most false on the other side that the Doctrine of Protestants makes God a giver only and not a rewarder In as much as their Doctrine is That God gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God beforehand and worth nothing to God and worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so Mans work is no Merit and Gods reward is still a Gift 36. Put the case the Pope for a reward of your Service done him in writing this Book had given you the Honour and means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your Service as God hath in respect of precedent obligations Besides the work you have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the forementioned reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal Happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals Cap than a Crown of immortal Glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that always hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rouling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and to day and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleases and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters patents from Heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledg in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ than what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most Learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach which shall be set down at the end of N.
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
creature that hath skill in Astronomy For as all Astronomers are men but all men are not Astronomers and therefore Astronomy ought not to be put into the definition of men where nothing should have place but what agrees to all men So though all that are truly wise that is wise for Eternity will believe aright yet many may believe aright which are not wise I could wish with all my Heart as Moses did that all the Lords People could Prophesie That all that believe the true Religion were able according to S. Peters injunction to give a reason of the hope that is in them a reason why they hope for Eternal Happiness by this way rather than any other neither do I think it any great difficulty that men of ordinary capacities if they would give their mind to it might quickly be enabled to do so But should I affirm that all true believers can do so I suppose it would be as much against experience and modesty as it is against Truth and Charity to say as you do that they which cannot do so either are not at all or to no purpose true believers And thus we see that the foundations you build upon are ruinous and deceitful and so unfit to support your Fabrick that they destroy one another I come now to shew that your Arguments to prove Protestants Hereticks are all of the same quality with your former grounds which I will do by opposing clear and satisfying Answers in order to them 11. Ad § 13. To the first then delivered by you § 13. That Protestants must be Hereticks because they opposed divers Truths propounded for Divine by the Visible Church I Answer It is not Heresie to oppose any Truth propounded by the Church but only such a Truth as is an essential part of the Gospel of Christ 2. The Doctrines which Protestants opposed were not Truths but plain and impious falshoods Neither thirdly were they propounded as Truths by the Visible Church but only by a Part of it and that a corrupted Part. 12. Ad § 14. The next Argument in the next Particle tells us That every error against any doctrin revealed by God is damnable Heresie Now either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against the word of God But the Roman Church we grant perforce doth not err damnably neither can she because she is the Catholick Church which we you say confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must err against Gods word and consequently are guilty of formal Heresie Whereunto I answer plainly that there be in this argument almost as many falshoods as assertions For neither is every error against any Doctrin revealed by God a damnable Heresie unless it be revealed publickly and plainly with a command that all should believe it 2. D. Potter no where grants that the Errors of the Roman Church are not in themselves damnable though he hopes by accident they may not actually damn some men amongst you and this you your self confess in divers places of your book where you tell us that he allows no hope of Salvation to those amongst you whom ignorance cannot excuse 3. You beg the Question twice in taking for granted First that the Roman Church is the truly Catholick Church which without much favour can hardly pass for a part of it And again that the Catholick Church cannot fall into any error of it self damnable for it may do so and still be the Catholick Church if it retain those Truths which may be an antidote against the malignity of this error to those that held it out of a simple un-affected ignorance Lastly though the thing be true yet I might well require some proof of it from you that either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against Gods word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Hereticks because you contradict one another as much as Protestants and Papists 13. Ad § 15. The third Argument pretends that you have shewed already that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore Infallible from whence you suppose that it follows that to oppose her is to oppose God To which I answer that you have said onely and not shewed that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies And indeed how can she be judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question whether she be judge of them That which is questioned it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed Infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14. Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretick then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretick you endeavor to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie but Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventer and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretick and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Hereticks Your own men out of S. Augustin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Hereticks yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether these Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Cousin-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luthers Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal
out from some Body affords an Argument for this purpose For the first place there is no certainty that it speaks of Hereticks but no Christians of Antichrists of such as denied Jesus to be the Christ See the place and you shall confess as much The second place it is certain you must not say it speaks of Hereticks for it speaks only of some who believed and taught an Error while it was yet a question and not evident and therefore according to your Doctrine no formal Heresie The third says indeed that of the Professors of Christianity some shall arise that shall teach Heresie But not one of them all that says or intimates that whosoever separates from the Visible Church in what state soever is certainly an Heretick Hereticks I confess do always do so But they that do so are not always Hereticks for perhaps the State of the Church may make it necessary for them to do so as Rebels always disobey the command of their King yet they which disobey a Kings Command which perhaps may be unjust are not presently Rebels 22. In the 19. § We have the Authority of eight Fathers urged to prove that the separation from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of S. Peter I conceive you mean as it is the Particular Church is the mark of Heresie Which kind of Argument I might well refuse to answer unless you would first promise me that whensoever I should produce as plain sentences of as great a number of Fathers as Ancient for any Doctrine whatsoever that you will subscribe to it though it fall out to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Roman Church For I conceive nothing in the World more unequal or unreasonable than that you should press us with such Authorities as these and think your selves at liberty from them and that you should account them Fathers when they are for you and Children when they are against you Yet I would not you should interpret this as if I had not great assurance that it is not possible for you ever to gain this cause at the Tribunal of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alledged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that far the greater part of them nay all of them that are nay way considerable fall short of your purpose 23. Obj. S. Hierome you say Ep. 57. ad Damasum professes I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter c. But then I pray consider he saith it to Pope Damasus and this will much weaken the Authority with them who know how great over-truths men usually write to one another in letters Consider again that he says only that he was then in Communion with the Chair of Peter Not that he always would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elsewhere which shall be produced hereafter He says that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but not that only Nor that alwaies Nay his judgment as shall appear is express to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we mean to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must be conceived as intended by him of that Bishop and Sea of Rome at that present time and in the present State and in respect of that Doctrine which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceived it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgements in matters of Faith to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome how came it to pass that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrews Canonical upon the Authority of the Eastern Church than to reject it from the Canon upon the Anthority of the Roman How comes it to pass that he dissented from the Authority of that Church touching the Canon of the Old Testament For if you say that the Church then consented with S. Hierome I fear you will lose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoiding this run into a greater danger of being forced to confess the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible Hierom. de scrip Eccle. tit Fortunatianus that he should ever believe that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could have been wrought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia and brought after two Years Banishment to subscribe Heresie Which Act of Liberius though some fondly question being so vain as to expect we should rather believe them that lived but yesterday thirteen hundred Years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather than the dis-interessed time-fellows or immediate Successors of Liberius himself yet I hope they will not proceed to such a degree of immodesty as once to question whether S. Hierome though so And if this cannot be denied I demand then if he had lived in Liberius his time could he or would he have written so to Liberius as he does to Damasus would he have said to him I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon this Rock Whosoever gathereth not with thee scattereth Would he then have said the Roman Faith and the Catholick were the same or that the Roman Faith received no delusions no not from an Angel I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own belief and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he strained too high only of Damasus and never conceived that his words would have been extended to all his Predecessors and all his Successors 24. Obj. S. Ambrose de obitu Satyri fratris saith of his Brother Satyrus that inquiring for a Church wherein to give thanks for his delivery from Shipwreck he called to him the Bishop and he asked him whether he agreed with the Catholick Bishops that is with the Roman Church And when he understood that he was a Schismatick that is Separated from the Roman Church he abstained from Communicating with him Answ No more can be certainly concluded from it but that the Catholick Bishops and the Roman Church were then at Unity so that whosoever agreed with the latter could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetual and that no man could ever agree with the Catholick Bishops but he must agree with the Roman Church this he says not nor gives you any ground to conclude from him Athanasius when he was excommunicated by Liberius agreed very ill with the Roman Church and yet you will not gainsay but he agreed well enough with the Catholick Bishops 24. Obj. S. Cyprian saith Epist 55. ad Cornel. They are bold to Sail to the Chair of S. Peter and to the principal Church from whence Priestly Unity hath sprung Neither do they consider that they are Romans whose
Faith was commended by the Preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Answ For S. Cyprian all the World knows that he b It is confessed by Baronius Anno. 238. N. 41. By Bellarm l. 4. de R. Pont. c. 7. §. Tertia ratio resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Re-baptizing which that Church at that time delivered as a necessary tradition So necessary that by the Bishop of Rome Firmilianus and other Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia and Galatia and generally all who persisted in the contrary opinion c Confessed by Baronius An 258. N. 14. 15. By Card. Perron Repl. l. 1. c. 25. Ibid. were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which excommunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinal Perren magisterially and without all colour of proof affirm the contrary and Cyprian in particular so far cast off as for it to be pronounced by Stephen a false Christ Again so necessary that the Bishops which were sent by Cyprian from Africk to Rome were not admitted to the Communion of ordinary conference But all men who were subject to the Bishop of Romes Authority were commanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace and Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. John forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holds still his former opinion and though out of respect to the Churches peace d Vide Con. Carth. apud sur To. 1. he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise than he held yet he conceived Stephen and his adherents d Bell. l. 2. de Conc. c. 5. Aug. ep 48. lib. 1. de Bapt. c. 18. to hold a pernitious Error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversation in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so far was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so in submitting to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that no other Bishop but our Lord Jesus only had power to Judge with Authority of his Judgment and as plainly intimates that Stephen for usurping such a power and making himself a Judge over Bishops was little better than a Tyrant and as heavily almost he censures him and peremptorily opposes him as obstinate in Error in that very place where he delivers that famous saying How can he have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother little doubting it seems but a man might have the Church for his Mother who stood in opposition to the Church of Rome and far from thinking what you fondly obtrude upon him that to be United to the Roman Church and to the Church was all one and that separation from S. Peters Chair was a mark I mean a certain mark either of Schism or Heresie 26. But you have given a false or at least a strained Translation of S. Cyprians forecited Words for Cyprian saith not to whom falshood cannot have access as if he had exempted the Roman Church from a possibility of Error but to whom perfidiousness cannot have access meaning those perfidious Schismaticks whom he there complains of and of these by a Rhetorical insinuation he says that with such good Christians as the Romans were it was not possible they should find favourable entertainment As for his joyning the Principal Church and the Chair of Peter how that will serve to prove separation from the Roman Church to be a mark of Heresie it is hard to understand Though we do not altogether deny but that the Church of Rome might be called the Chair of S. Peter in regard he is said to have Preached the Gospel there and the principal Church because the City was the principal and imperial City which prerogative of the City if we believe the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon was the ground and occasion why the Fathers of former times I pray observe conferred upon this Church this prerogative above other Churches 27. Obj. But in another place Epist 52. S. Cyprian makes Communicating with Cornelius the Bishop of Rome and with the Catholick Church to be the same Answ This does not prove that to Communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to Communicate with the Catholick Church is always for that you assume one and the same thing S. Cyprian speaks not of the Church of Rome at all but of the Bishop only who when he doth Communicate with the Catholick Church as Cornelius at that time did then whosoever Communicates with him cannot but Communicate with the Catholick Church and then by accident one may truely say such a one Communicates with you that is with the Catholick Church and that to Communicate with him is to Communicate with the Catholick Church As if Titius and Sempronius be together he that is in company with Titius cannot but be at that time in company with Sempronius As if a General be marching to some place with an Army he that then is with the General must at that time be with the Army And a man may say without absurdity such a time I was with the General that is with the Army and that to be with the General is to be with the Army Or as if a mans hand be joyned to his Body the finger which is joyned to the hand is joyned to the Body and a man may say truly of it this finger is joyned to the hand that is to the Body and to be joyned to the hand is to be joyned to the Body because all these things are by accident true And yet I hope you would not deny but the finger might possibly be joyned to the hand and yet not to the Body the hand being cut off from the Body and a man might another time be with his General and not with his Army he being absent from the Army And therefore by like Reason your collection is Sophistical being in effect but this to communicate with such a Bishop of Rome who did Communicate with the Catholick Church was to Communicate with the Catholick Church therefore absolutely and always it must be true that to Communicate with him is by consequent to Communicate with the Catholick Church and to be divided from the Communion is to be an Heretick 28. Obj. S. Irenaeus saith lib. 3. cont haer c. 3. Because it were long to number the successions of all Churches we declaring the Tradition of the most great most Ancient and known Church founded by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by vain Glory Blindness
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than it self which gives testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolick Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches Erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the Fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Iraeneus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks of his time viz. that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Iraeneus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for Excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom she is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
it not as well as yours and whether some mens persuasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans persuasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by a just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Hereticks that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferred on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Popes right or an Usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an Usurped Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give Authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her Errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his Sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he Governed well he should use it for him if ill against Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to Preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her Errors in Doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not Authority to Preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her Doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or Woman that has ability to persuade others by Word or by Writing from Error and unto truth And why this Liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other Commission or Vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of Charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to persuade men out of a false unto a true way of Eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assured us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not Consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinals do the Pope whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the Government in their Hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperors were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found Doctrine Whether it be not true that Bishops being made Bishops have their Authority immediately from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings Authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has Authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the Authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more Authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give Authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give Authority to a Physician to practice Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperor would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to Preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have questioned his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispenced with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a Character and ours doth not Whether the power of Consecrating and Ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have Authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of Architecture and had it immediately by infusion from God himself yet if they were the Kings Subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his Subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an House to be Built a Message to be delivered or a Murtherer to be Executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect Messenger or Executioner As well as that they are ipso facto Ordained and Consecrated who by the Kings Authority are commended to the Bishops to be Ordained and Consecrated Especially seeing the King
What wisdom was it to forsake a Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdom to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledged to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding always the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a little before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependence of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the Truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Jews either not being arrived to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependence that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant Souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your Scale nothing but Smoak and Wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Seal but those negative commendations which you are pleased to afford them nothing but no Unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers Body no Universality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of Persons or Doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they received from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turn But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsly made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this Tryal and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alledged for Protestants which is here dissembled then I hope our Cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordinations Scriptures personal and yet not Doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of Error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your House upon the Sand. And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Hereticks I tell you that though all Hereticks are choosers yet all choosers are not Hereticks otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Hereticks As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion our following private men rather than the Catholick Church the first and last are meer untruths for we want not Unity nor means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the Word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his Heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemn us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some Body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alledged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the Balance Know then Sir that when I say the Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the Doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrine of the
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
yet our own Brethren the Century writers acknowledge that in the times of Cyprian and Tertullian private Confession even of thoughts was used and that it was then commanded and thought necessary and then our Ordination you say is very doubtful and all that depends upon it Answer I also omit to answer 1. That your Brother Rhenanus acknowledges the contrary and assures us that the Confession then required and in use was publick and before the Church and that your auricular Confession was not then in the World for which his Mouth is stopped by your Index Expurgatorius 2. That your Brother Arcudius acknowledges that the Eucharist was in Cyprians time given to Infants and esteemed necessary or at least profitable for them and the giving it shews no less and now I would know whether you will acknowledg your Church bound to give it and to esteem so of it 3. That it might be then commanded and being commanded be thought necessary and yet be but a Church Constitution Neither will I deny if the present Church could and would so order it that the abuses of it might be prevented and conceiving it profitable should enjoyn the use of it but that being commanded it would be necessary 4. Concerning our Ordinations besides that I have proved it impossible that they should be so doubtful as yours according to your own principles I answer that experience shews them certainly sufficient to bring men to Faith and Repentance and consequently to Salvation and that if there were any secret defect of any thing necessary which we cannot help God will certainly supply it 19. It is remarkable against what you say § 7. That any small Error in Faith destroys all Faith that S. Austin whose authority is here stood upon thought otherwise He conceived the Donatists to hold some Error in Faith and yet not to have no Faith His words of them to this purpose are most pregnant and evident you are with us saith he to the Donatist Ep. 48. in Baptism in the Creed in the other Sacraments And again Super gestis cum emerit Thou hast proved to me that thou hast Faith prove to me likewise that thou hast Charity Lib. 5. prope initium Parallel to which words are these of Optatus Amongst us and you is one Ecclesiastical conversation common lessons the same Faith the same Sacraments Where by the way we may observe that in the judgments of these Fathers even the Donatists though Hereticks and Schismaticks gave true Ordination the true Sacrament of Matrimony true Sacramental Absolution Confirmation the true Sacrament of the Eucharist true extream Unction or else choose you whether some of these were not then esteemed Sacraments But for Ordination whether he held it a Sacrament or no certainly he held that it remained with them entire for so he says in express terms in his Book against Parmenianus his Epistle Which Doctrine if you can reconcile with the present Doctrine of the Roman Church Eris mihi magnus Apollo 20. Ad § 8. Obj. You say there is un inevitable necessity for us either to grant Salvation to your Church or to entail certain damnation upon our own because ours can have no being till Luther unless yours be supposed to have been the true Church I answer this cause is no cause For first as Luther had no being before Luther and yet he was when he was though he was not before so there is no repugnance in the terms but that there might be a true Church after Luther though there were none for some Ages before as since Columbus his time there have been Christians in America though before there were none for many Ages For neither do you shew neither does it appear that the generation of Churches is Univocal that nothing but a Church can possibly beget a Church nor that the present being of a true Church depends necessarily upon the perpetuity of a Church in all Ages any more than the present being of Peripateticks or Stoicks depends upon a perpetual pedigree of them For though I at no hand deny the Churches perpetuity yet I see nothing in your Book to make me understand that the truth of the present depends upon it nor any thing that can hinder but that a false Church Gods providence over-watching and over-ruling it may preserve the means of confuting their own Heresies and reducing men to truth and so raising a true Church I mean the integrity and the Authority of the word of God with men Thus the Jews preserve means to make men Christians and Papists preserve means to make men Protestants and Protestants which you say are a false Church do as you pretend preserve means to make men Papists that is their own Bibles out of which you pretend to be able to prove that they are to be Papists Secondly you shew not nor does it appear that the perpetuity of the Church depends on the truth of yours For though you talk vainly as if you were the only men in the World before Luther yet the World knows that this is but talk and that there were other Christians besides you which might have perpetuated the Church though you had not been Lastly you shew not neither doth it appear that your being acknowledged in some sense a true Church doth necessarily import that we must grant Salvation to it unless by it you understand the ignorant members of it which is a very unusual Synechdoche 21. Whereas you say that Catholicks never granted that the Donatists had a true Church or might be saved I answ S. Austin himself granted that those among them who sought the Truth being ready when they found it to correct their Error were not Hereticks and therefore notwithstanding their Error might be saved And this is all the Charity that Protestants allow to Papists Therefore the Argument of the Donatists is as good as that of the Papists against Protestants For the Donatists argued thus speaking to the Catholicks Your selves confess our Baptism Sacraments and Faith good and available We deny yours to be so and say there is no Church no Salvation amongst you Therefore it is safest for all to joyn with us 22. S. Austins words are cont lit petil l. 2. c. 108. Petilianus dixit venite ad Ecclesiam populi aufugite Traditores Cont. lit Petil l. 2. c. 108. si perire non vultis Petilian saith come to the Church ye People and fly from the Traditours if ye will not be damned for that ye may know that they being guilty esteem well of our Faith behold I Baptize these whom they have infected but they receive those whom we have Baptized Where it is plain that Petilian by his words makes the Donatists the Church and excludes the Catholicks from salvation absolutely And whereas you say the Catholicks never yielded that among the Donatists there was a true Church and hope of Salvation I say it appears by what I have alledged out of S. Austin that they
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
Philosophers and Heresies of Christians are none of his his is but one to wit the Catholick Church c. S. Epiphan in fine Panar 11. A man may not call the Conventicles of Hereticks I mean Marcionites Manichees and the rest Churches therefore the Tradition appoints you to say I believe one Holy Catholick Church c. S. Cyrill Catech. 18. And these Testimonies I think are sufficient to shew the judgment of the Ancient Church that this Title of the Church one is directly and properly exclusive to all companies besides one to wit that where there are diverse professions of Faith or diverse Communions there is but one of these which can be the Catholick Church Upon this ground I desire some company of Christians to be named professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Roman which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and if no other in this sense can be named than was she the Catholick Church at that time and therefore her judgment to be rested in and her Communion to be embraced upon peril of Schism and Heresie Mr. Chillingworths Answer Upon the same ground if you pleased you might desire a Protestant to name some Company of Christians professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and seeing he could name no other in this sense concludes that the Greek Church was the Catholick Church at that time Upon the very same ground you might have concluded for the Church of the Abyssines or Armenians or any other society of Christians extant before Luthers time And seeing this is so thus I argue against your ground 1. That ground which concludes indifferently for both parts of a contradiction must needs be false and deceitful and conclude for neither part But this ground concludes indifferently both parts of a contradiction viz. That the Greek Church is the Catholick Church and not the Roman as well as That the Roman is the Catholick Church and not the Greek Therefore the ground is false and deceitful seem it never so plausible 2. I answer Secondly that you should have taken notice of my Answer which I then gave you which was that your major as you then framed your Argument but as now your minor is not always true if by one you understand one in external Communion seeing nothing hindred in my Judgment but that one Church excommunicated by another upon an insufficient cause might yet remain a true member of the Catholick Church and that Church which upon the overvaluing this cause doth excommunicate the other though in fault may yet remain a member of the Catholick Church which is evident from the difference about Easter-day between the Church of Rome and the Churches of Asia for which vain matter Victor Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Churches of Asia And yet I believe you will not say that either the Church excommunicating or the Church excommunicated ceased to be a true member of the Church Catholick The case is the same between the Greek and the Roman Church for though the difference between them be greater yet it is not so great as to be a sufficient ground of excommunication and therefore the excommunication was causeless and consequently Brutum fulmen and not ratified or confirmed by God in Heaven and therefore the Church of Greece at Luthers rising might be and was a true member of the Catholick Church As concerning the places of Fathers which you alledge I demand 1. If I can produce you an equal or greater number of Fathers or more ancient than these not contradicted by any that lived with them or before them for some doctrin condemned by the Roman Church whether you will subscribe it If not with what face or conscience can you make use of and build your whole Faith upon the Authority of Fathers in some things and reject the same authority in others 2. Secondly because you urge S. Cyprians Authority I desire you to tell me whether this Argument in his time would have concluded a necessity of resting in the Judgement of the Roman Church or no If not how should it come to pass that it should serve now and not then fit this time and not that as if it were like an Almanack that would not serve for all Meridians If it would why was it not urged by others upon S. Cyprian or represented by S. Cyprian to himself for his direction when he differed from the Roman Church and all other that herein conformed unto her touching the point of Re-baptizing Hereticks which the Roman Church held unlawful and damnable S. Cyprian not only lawful but necessary so well did he rest in the Judgment of that Church Quid verba audiam cùm facta videam says he in the Comedy And Cardinal Perron tells you in his Epistle to Casaubon that nothing is more unreasonable than to draw consequences from the words of Fathers against their lively and actual practice The same may be said in refutation of the places out of S. Austin who was so far from concluding from them or any other a necessity of resting in the Judgment of the Roman Church that he himself as your Authors testifie lived and died in opposition of it even in that main fundamental point upon which Mr. Lewgar hath built the necessity of his departure from the Church of England and embracing the Communion of the Roman Church that is The Supream Authority of that Church over other Churches and the power of receiving Appeals from them Mr. Lewgar I know cannot be ignorant of these things and therefore I wonder with what conscience he can produce their words against us whose Actions are for us If it be said that S. Cyprian and S. Austin were Schismaticks for doing so it seems then Schismaticks may not only be members of the Church against Mr. Lewgars main conclusion but Canoniz'd Saints of it or else S. Austin and S. Cyprian should be rased out of the Roman Kalendar If it be said that the point of Re-baptization was not defined in S. Cyprians time I say that in the Judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome and their adherents it was For they urged it as an Original and Apostolick Tradition and consequently at least of as great force as any Church definition They excommunicated Firmilianus and condemned S. Cyprian as a false Christ and a false Apostle for holding the contrary and urged him Tyrannico terrore to conform his judgment to theirs as he himself clearly intimates If it be said they differed only from the particular Church of Rome and not from the Roman Church taking it for the universal society of Christians in Communion with that Church I Answer 1. They know no such sense of the word I am sure never used it in any such which whether it had been possible if the Church of Rome had been in their judgment to other Churches in
trouble you took the next Boat and went to the Church of Rome because that bespake you first You impute to me as I hear that the way I take is destructive only and that I build nothing which first is not a fault for Christian Religion is not now to be built but only I desire to have the rubbish and impertinent Lumber taken off which you have laid upon it which hides the glorious simplicity of it from them which otherwise would embrace it Remember I pray Averroes his saying Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis and consider the swarms of Atheists in Italy and then tell me whether your unreasonable and contradictious Doctrines your forged Miracles and counterfeit Legends have not in all probability produced this effect Secondly if it be a fault it is certainly your own for your discourse intended for the proof of a positive conclusion That we must be Papists proves in deed and in truth nothing but even in shew and appearance no more but this Negative that we must not be Protestants but what we must be if we must not be Protestants God knows you in this Discourse I am sure do not shew it Mr. Lewgars Reply § 1. The minor of Mr. Chillingworths Argument against my ground is very weak being framed upon a false supposition that a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith c. from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church for if he could not indeed name any other the title would remain to the Greek Church But he hath the Roman to name and so my ground cannot conclude either for the Greek or Abyssine or any other besides the Roman but for that it does except he can name some other § 2. His second answer is weak likewise for my Minor is always true at least they thought it to be so whose Authorities I produce in confirmation of it as will appear to any one that considers them well how their force lies in Thesi not in Hypothesi not that the Church was not then divided into more Societies than one but that she could never be § 3. As for his Instance to the contrary wherein he believes I will not say the Churches excommunicated by Victor ceased to be a true member of the Catholick If I say so I say no more than the Ancient Fathers said before me Iraeneus when he desired Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to cut off so many and great Churches and Ruffinus reprehendit eam quod non benè fecisset abscindere ab unitate corporis c. § 4. But howsoever the case of Excommunication may be the division of external Communion which I intended and the Fathers spake of in the alledged Authorities was that which was made by voluntary separation § 5. Whereby the Church before one Society is divided into several distinct Societies both claiming to be the Church of which Societies so divided but one can be the Catholick and this is proved by the Authorities alledged which Authorities must not be answered by disproving them as he does for that is to change his Adversary and confute the Fathers sayings instead of mine but by shewing their true sense or judgment to be otherwise than I alledged it § 6. To his demand upon the places alledged I Answer that I do not build my whole faith of this conclusion upon the Authority of those Fathers for I produce them not for the Authority of the thing but of the Exposition The thing it self is an Article of the Creed Unam Catholicam grounded in express Scripture Columba mea unica but because there is difference in understanding this Prophesie I produce these Authorities to shew the Judgment of the Ancient Church how they understood it and the proper answer to this is either to shew that these words were not there or at least not this meaning and so to shew their meaning out of other places more pregnant § 7. And I promise that whensoever an equal consent of Fathers can be shewed for any thing as I can shew for this I will believe it as firmly as I do this § 8. But this is not the Answerers part to propound doubts and difficulties but to satisfie the proof objected § 9. And if this course be any more taken I will save my self all farther labour in a business so likely to be endless § 10. His second Answer to the places is wholly impertinent for therein would he disprove them from watching a necessity of resting in the judgment of the Roman Church whereas I produced them only to shew that among several Societies of Christians only one can be the Catholick and against this his second Answer saith nothing § 11. In his third Answer he makes some shew of reply to the Authorities themselves but he commits a double Error One that he imposes upon me a wrong conclusion to be proved as will appear by comparing my conclusion in my Paper with the conclusion he would appoint me § 12. Another that he imposes upon the Authorities a wrong Interpretation no way grounded in the words themselves nor in the places whence they were taken nor in any other places of the same Fathers but meerly forged out of his own Brain For first the places do not only say that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no part of the Church but that the Church cannot be divided into more Societies than one and they account Societies divided which are either of a diverse Faith or a diverse Communion Neither do they define Hereticks or Schismaticks in that manner as he does § 13. For an Heretick in their Language is he that opposes partinaciously the Common Faith of the Church and a Schismatick he that separates from the Catholick Communion never making any mention at all of the cause § 14. And if his definition of a Schismatick may stand then certainly there was no Schismatick ever in the World nor none are at this day for none did none does separate without some pretence of Error or unlawfulness in the Conditions of the Churches Communion § 15. And so I expect both a fuller and directer answer to my Argument without excursions or diversions into any other matter till the judgment of Antiquity be cleared in this point Mr. Chillingworths Answer Ad § 1. The Minor of my Argument you say is very weak being grounded upon a false Supposition That a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith from the Greek which was the Catholick Church And your reason is because he might name the Roman But in earnest Mr. Lewgar do you think that a Protestant remaining a Protestant can esteem the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or do you think to put tricks upon us with taking your proposition one while in sensu composito another while in sensu diviso For if your meaning was that a Protestant not remaining but ceasing to be a
Protestant might name the Roman for the Catholick so I say also to your discourse that a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant might name a Greek to be the Catholick Church and if there were any necessity to find out one Church of one denomination as the Greek the Roman the Abyssine which one must be the Catholick I see no reason but he might pitch upon the Greek Church as well as the Roman I am sure your discourse proves nothing to the contrary In short thus I say if a Grecian should go about to prove to a Protestant that his Church is the Catholick by saying as you do for the Roman some one was so before Luther and you can name no other therefore ours is so Whatsoever may be answered to him may be answered to you For as you say a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant may name to him the Roman so I say a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant may name to you the Grecian If you say a Protestant remaining a Protestant can name no other but the Roman for the Catholick I may very ridiculously I confess but yet as truly say he can name no other but the Grecian If you say he cannot name the Greek Church neither remaining a Protestant I say likewise neither remaining a Protestant can he name the Roman for the Catholick So the Argument is equal in all respects on both sides and therefore either concludes for both parts which is impossible for then contradictions should be both true or else which is certain it concludes for neither And therefore I say your ground you build on That before Luther some Church of one denomination was the Catholick if it were true as it is most false would not prove your intent It would destroy perhaps our Church but it would not build yours It would prove peradventure that we must not be Protestants but it will be far from proving that we must be Papists For after we have left being Protestants I tell you again that you may not mistake there is yet no necessity of being Papists no more than if I go out of England there is a necessity of going to Rome And thus much to shew the poorness of your ground if it were true Now in the second place I say it is false neither have you proved any thing to the contrary Ad § 2. You say the Authorities you have produced shew to any that consider them well That the Church could never be divided into more Societies than one and you mean I hope one in external Communion or else you dally in ambiguities and then I say I have well considered the alledged authorities and they appear to me to say no such thing but only that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no true members of the Church Whereas I put the case of two such Societies which were divided in external Communion by reason of some overvalued difference between them and yet were neither of them Heretical or Schismatical To this I know you could not answer but only by saying That this supposition was impossible viz. That of two Societies divided in external Communion neither should be Heretical nor Schismatical and therefore I desired you to prove by one convincing Argument that this is impossible This you have not done nor I believe can do and therefore all your places fall short of your intended conclusion and if you would put them into Syllogistical form you should presently see you conclude from them Sophistically in that fallacy which is called A dicto secundum quid ad dictum Simpliciter Thus No two divided Societies whereof one is Heretical or Schismatical can be both members of the Catholick Church therefore simply no two divided Societies can be so the Antecedent I grant which is all that your places say as you shall see anon but the consequence is Sophistical and therefore that I deny It is no better nor worse than if you should argue thus No true divided Societies whereof one is Out-lawed and in Rebellion are both members of the same Commonwealth therefore simply no two divided Societies But against this you pretend That the alledged places say not only that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no parts of the Church but that the Church cannot be divided into more Societies than one And they account Societies divided which are either of a diverse Faith or of a diverse Communion This is that which I would have proved but as yet I cannot see it done There be Eleven Quotations in all seven of them speak expresly and formally of division made by Hereticks and Schismaticks viz. 1.3 4. 7.9 10 11. Three other of them viz. 5 6.8 though they use not the word yet Mr. Lewgar knows they speak of the Donatists which were Schismaticks and that by the relative particles you and them are meant the Donatists And lastly the second Mr. Lewgar knows says nothing but this That an Hereticks cannot be accounted of that one Flock which is the Church But to make the most of them that can be The first saith the Unity of the Church cannot be separated at all nor divided This I grant but then I say every difference does not in the sight of God divide this Unity for then diversity of Opinions should do it and so the Jesuits and Dominicans should be no longer members of the same Church Or if every difference will not do it why must it of necessity be always done by difference in Communion upon an insufficient ground yet mistaken for sufficient for such only I speak of Sure I am this place says no such matter The next place saies the Flock is but one and all the rest that the Church is but one and that Hereticks and Schismaticks are not of it which certainly was not the thing to be proved but that of this one Flock of this one Church two Societies divided without just cause in Communion might not be true and lively members both in one Body Mystical in the sight of God though divided in Unity in the sight of men It is true indeed whosoever is shut out from the Church on Earth is likewise cut off from it before God in Heaven but you know it must be Clave non errante when the cause of abscission is true and sufficient Ad § 3. If you say so you say no more than the Fathers but what evasions and tergiversations are these Why do you put us off with ifs and ands I beseech you tell me or at least him that desires to reap some benefit by our Conference directly and Categorically Do you say so or do you say it is not so Were the Excommunicated Churches of Asia still members of the Catholick Church I mean in Gods account or were they not but all damned for that horrible Heresie of celebrating the Feast of Easter upon a diverse day from the Western Churches If you mean honestly and fairly answer directly to this Question and then you
shall see what will come of it Assure your self you have a Wolf by the Ears If you say they were you overthrow your own conclusions and say that Churches divided in Communion may both be members of the Catholick If they were not then shall we have Saints and Martyrs in Heaven which were no members of the Catholick Roman Church As for Irenaeus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Ruffinus his Abscindere ab unitate corporis they imply no more but this at the most That Victor quantum in se fuit did cut them off from the External Communion of the Catholick Church supposing that for their Obstinacy in their Tradition they had cut themselves off from the internal Communion of it but that this sentence of Victors was ratified in Heaven and that they were indeed cut off from the mystical Body of Christ so far was Irenaeus from thinking that he and in a manner all the other Bishops reprehended Victor for pronouncing this Sentence on them upon a cause so insufficient which how they could say or possibly think of a Sentence ratified by God in Heaven and not reprehend God himself I desire you to inform me and if they did not intend to reprehend the Sentence of God himself together with Victors then I believe it will follow unavoidably that they did not conceive nor believe Victors Sentence to be ratified by God and consequently did not believe that these excommunicated Churches were not in Gods account true members of the Body of Christ Ad § 4. And here again we have another subterfuge by a Verbal distinction between Excommunication and voluntary separation As if the separation which the Church of Rome made in Victors time from the Asian Churches were not a voluntary separation or as if the Churches of Asia did not voluntarily do that which was the cause of their separation or as if though they sepated not themselves indeed conceiving the cause to be insufficient they did not yet remain voluntarily separated rather than conform themselves to the Church of Rome Or lastly as if the Grecians of Old or the Protestants of Late might not pretend as justly as the Asian Churches that their Separation too was not voluntarily but of necessity for that the Church of Rome required of them under pain of Excommunication such conditions of her Communion as were neither necessary nor lawful to be performed Ad § 5. And here again the matter is streightned by another limitation Both sides say you must claim to be the Church but what then if one of them only claim though vainly to be the Church and the other content it self with being a part of it These then it seems for any thing you have said to the contrary may be both members of the Catholick Church And certainly this is the case now between the Church of England and the Church of Rome and for ought I know was between the Church of Rome and the Church of Greece For I believe it will hardly be proved that the Excommunication between them was mutual nor that the Church of Greece esteems it self the whole Church and the Church of Rome no Church but it self a sound member of the Church and that a corrupted one Again whereas you say the Fathers speak of a voluntary separation certainly they speak of any Separation by Hereticks and such were in Victors judgment the Churches of Asia for holding an opinion contrary to the Faith as he esteemed Or if he did not why did he cut them from the Communion of the Church But the true difference is The Fathers speak of those which by your Church are esteemed Hereticks and are so whereas the Asian Churches were by Victor esteemed Hereticks but were not so Ad § 6. But their Authorities produced shew no more than what I have shewed that the Church is â—ut one in exclusion of Hereticks and Schismaticks and not that two particular Churches divided by mistake upon some overvalued difference may not be both parts of the Catholick Ad § 7. But I desire you to tell me whether you will do this if the Doctrines produced and confirmed by such a consent of Fathers happen to be in the judgment of the Church of Rome either not Catholick or absolutely Heretical If you will undertake this you shall hear farther from me But if when their places are produced you will pretend as some of your side do that surely they are corrupted having neither reason nor shew of reason for it unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce that they are against your Doctrine or if you will say they are to be interpreted according to the pleasure of your Church whether their words will bear it or no then I shall but lose my Labour for this is not to try your Church by the Fathers but the Fathers by your Church The Doctrines which I undertake to justifie by a greater consent of Fathers than here you produce for instance shall be these 1. That Gods Election supposeth prescience of mans Faith and perseverance 2. That God doth not predetermine men to all their Actions 3. That the Pope hath no power in temporalties over Kings either directly or indirectly 4. That the Bishop of Rome may Err in his publick determinations of matters of Faith 5. That the B. Virgin was guilty of Original sin 6. That the B. Virgin was guilty of actual sin 7. That the Communion was to be administred to the Laity in both kinds 8. That the reading of the Scripture was to be denied to no man 9. That the Opinion of the Millenaries is true 10. That the Eucharist is to be administred to Infants 11. That the substance of Bread and Wine remains in the Euchâ—â—â—st of her Consecration 12. That the Souls of the Saints departed enjoy not the Vision of God before the Last day 13. That at the day of judgment all the Saints shall past through a purging fire All these propositions are held by your Church either Heretical or at least not Catholical and yet in this promise of yours you have undertaken to believe them as firmly as you now do this That two divided Societies cannot be both members of the Catholick Church Ad § 8. Is it not then the Answerers part to shew that the proofs pretended are indeed no proofs and doth not he prove no proofs at least in your mouth who undertakes to shew that an equal or greater number of the very same witnesses is rejected by your selves in many other things Either the consent of the Fathers in any Age or Ages is infallible and then you are to reject it in nothing or it is not so and then you are not to urge it in any thing As if the Fathers Testimonies against us were Swords and Spears and against you bulrushes Ad § 9. In effect as if you should say If you answer not as I please I will dispute no longer But you remember the proverb will think
necessary to the Church to be so then it was impossible the Church should acquire this Essence or this property afterwards and therefore impossible it should have it at the time of Luthers rising Necessarium est quod non aliquando inest aliquando non inest alicui inest alicui non inest sed quod semper omni Arist Post Analyt Again every Sophister knows that of Particulars nothing can be concluded and therefore he that will shew that the Church of Rome and the adherents of it was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising He must argue thus It was always so therefore then it was so Now this Antecedent is overthrown by any Instance to the contrary and so the first Antecedent being proved false the first consequent cannot but be false for what Reason can be imagined that the Church of Rome and the Adherents of it was not the whole Catholick Church at S. Cyprians time and was at Luthers rising If you grant as I think you cannot deny that a Church divided from the Communion of the Roman may be still in truth and in Gods account a part of the Catholick which is the thing we speak of then I hope Mr. Lewgars Argument from Unity of Communion is fallen to the ground and it will be no good Plea to say Some one Church not consisting of divers Communions was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising No one Church can be named to be the Catholick Church but the Roman Therefore the Roman Church was the Catholick at Luthers rising For Mr. Lewgar hath not nor cannot prove the Major of this syllogism certainly true but to the contrary I have proved that it cannot be certainly true by shewing divers instances wherein divers divided Communions have made up the Catholick Church and therefore not the dividing of the Communions but the cause and ground of it is to be regarded whether it be just and sufficient or unjust and insufficient Neither is the Bishop or Church of Rome with the Adherents of it an infallible Judge thereof for it is evident both he and it have erred herein divers times which I have evinced already by divers examples which I will not repeat but add to them one confessed by Mr. Lewgar himself in his discourse upon the Article of the Catholick Church pag. 84. S. Athanasius being excommunicated though by the a How by the whole Church when himself was part of it and communicated still with divers other parts of it whole Church yet might remain a member of Christs body not visible for that is impossible b What not to them who know and believe him to be unjustly Excommunicated that a person cut off from visible Communion though unjustly should be a visible member of the Church but by invisible Communion by reason of the invalidity of the sentence which being unjust is valid enough to visible excision but not farther II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it THE Condition of Communion with the Church of Rome without the performance whereof no man can be received into it is this That he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever that Church requires him to believe It is impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless that thing be either evident of it self as that twice two are four that every whole is greater than a part of it self or unless he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible guide for his belief thereof The Doctrins which the Church of Rome requireth to be believed are not evident of themselves for then every one would grant them at first hearing without any further proof He therefore that will believe them must have some certain and infallible ground whereupon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome Now this point of that Churches Infallibility is not evident of it self for then no man could chuse but in his heart believe it without farther proof Secondly it were in vain to bring any proof of it as vain as to light a Candle to shew men the Sun Thirdly it were impossible to bring any proof of it seeing nothing can be more evident than that which of it self is evident and nothing can be brought in proof of any thing which is not more evident than that matter to be proved But now experience teacheth that millions there are which have heard talk of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and yet do not believe that the defenders of it do not think it either vain or impossible to go about to prove it and from hence it follows plainly that this point is not evident of it self Neither is there any other certain ground for any mans belief of it or if there be I desire it may be produced as who am ready and most willing to submit my judgment to it fully perswaded that none can be produced that will endure a severe and impartial examination If it be said The Roman Church is to be believed infallible because the Scripture says it is so 1. I demand how shall I be assured of the Texts that be alledged that they are indeed Scripture that is the Word of God And the answer to this must be either because the Church tells me so or some other if any other be given then all is not finally resolved into and built upon that Churches Authority and this answer then I hope a Protestant may have leave to make use of when he is put to that perillous Question How know you the Scripture to be the Scripture If the answer be because the Church tells me so my reply is ready that to believe that Church is infallible because the Scriptures say so and that the Scripture is the word of God because the same Church says so is nothing else but to believe the Church is infallible because the Church says so which is infallible 2. I could never yet from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse find it written so much as once in express terms or equivalently that the Church in subordination to the Sea of Rome shall be always infallible 3. If it be said that this is drawn from good consequence from Scripture truly interpreted I demand what certain ground have I to warrant me that this consequence is good and this interpretation true and if answer be made that reason will tell me so I reply 1. That this is to build all upon my own reason and private interpretation 2. I have great reason to fear that reason assures no man that the infallibility of the Church of Rome may be deduced from Scripture by good and firm consequence 4. If it be said that a Consent of Fathers do so interpret the Scripture I answer 1. That
And after A certain man amongst us whose name was John one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ in that Revelation which was exhibited unto him hath foretold That they which believe our Christ shall live in Hierusalem a thousand years and that after the Universal and everlasting Resurrection and Judgment shall be I have presumed in the beginning of Justin Martyrs answer to substitute not instead of also because I am confident that either by chance or the fraud of some ill-willers to the Millinaries opinion the place has been corrupted and turned into not into also For if we retain the usual reading But that many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you then must we conclude that Justin Martyr himself did believe the opinion of them which denied the thousand years to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians and if so why did he not himself believe it nay how could he but believe it to be true professing it as he does if the place be right to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians for how a false Doctrine can be the pure and holy opinion of Christians what Christian can conceive or if it may be so how can the contrary avoid the being untrue unholy and not the opinion of Christians Again if we read the place thus That many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified certainly there wll be neither sense nor reason neither coherence nor consequence in the words following For I have told you of many called Christians but being indeed Atheists and Hereticks that they altogether teach blasphemous and impious and foolish things for how is this a confirmation or reason of or any way pertinent unto what went before if there he speak of none but such as were purae piaeque Christianorum sententiae of the pure and holy opinion of Christians And therefore to disguise this inconsequence the Translator has thought fit to make use of a false Translation and instead of for I have told you to make it besides I have told you of many c. Again if Justin Martyr had thought this the pure and holy opinion of Christians or them good and holy Christians that held it why does he rank them with them that denyed the Resurrection Why does he say afterward Although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this do not ye think them Christians Lastly what sense is there in saying as he does I and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things believe the Doctrine of the thousand years and that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament teach it and yet say That many of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not believe it Upon these reasons I suppose it is evident that the place has been corrupted and it is to be corrected according as I have corrected it by substituting in the place of not instead of also Neither need any man think strange that this misfortune of the change of a Syllable should befal this place who considers that in this place Justin Martyr tells us that he had said the same things before whereas nothing to this purpose appears now in him And that in Victorinus comment on the Revelation wherein by S. Hieroms acknowledgment this Doctrine was strongly maintained there now appears nothing at all for it but rather against it And now from the place thus restored these Observations offer themselves unto us 1. That Justin Martyr speaks not as a Doctor but as a witness of the Doctrine of the Church of his time I saith he and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things hold this And therefore from hence according to Cardinal Perrons Rule we are to conclude not probably but demonstratively that this was the Doctrine of the Church of that time 2. That they held it as a necessary matter so far as to hold them no Christians that held the Contrary though you chance to meet with some called Christians that do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob c. Yet do not ye think them Christians Now if Bellarmines Rule be true that Councils then determine any thing as matters of Faith when they pronounce them Hereticks that hold the Contrary then sure Justin Martyr held this Doctrine as a matter of Faith seeing he pronounceth them no Christians that contradict it 3. That the Doctrine is grounded upon the Scripture of the Old and New Testament and the Revelation of S. John and that by a Doctor and Martyr of the Church and such a one as was converted to Christianity within 30 years after the Death of S. John when in all probability there were many alive that had heard him expound his own words and teach this Doctrine and if probabilities will not be admitted this is certain out of the most authentical records of the Church that Papias the Disciple of the Apostles Disciples taught it the Church professing that he had received it from them that learned it from the Apostles and if after all this the Church of those Times might Err in a Doctrine so clearly derived and authentically delivered how without extream impudence can any Church in after times pretend to Infallibility The Millinaries Doctrine was over-born by imputing to them that which they held not by abrogating the Authority of S. John's Revelation as some did or by derogating from it as others ascribing it not to S. John the Apostle but to some other John they know not who which Dionysius the first known adversary of this doctrine and his followers against the Tradition of Irenaeus Justin Martyr and all the Fathers their Antecessors by calling it a Judaical opinion and yet allowing it as probable by corrupting the Authors for it as Justin Victorinus Severus VI. A Letter relating to the same Subject SIR I Pray remember that if a consent of Fathers either constitute or declare a Truth to be necessary or shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then that opinion of the Jesuits concerning Predestination upon prescience which had no opposer before S. Austin must be so and the contrary Heretical of the Dominicans and the present Church differs from the Ancient in not esteeming of it as they did Secondly I pray remember that if the Fathers be infallible when they speak as witnesses of Tradition to shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then the opinion of the Chiliasts which now is a Heresie in the Church of Rome was once Tradition in the Opinion of the Church Thirdly Since S. Austin had an opinion that of whatsoever no beginning was known that came from the Apostles many Fathers might say things to be Tradition upon that ground only but of this Opinion of the Chiliasts one of the ancientest Fathers Irenaeus
each to other without having these parts in several places then the distinction is vain But it is impossible that any thing should have several parts one out of another without having these parts in several places Therefore the distinction is vain The Major of this Syllogism he took for granted The Minor he proved thus Whatsoever body is in the proper place of another body must of necessity be in that very body by possessing the demensions of it therefore whatsoever hath several parts one out of the other must of necessity have them one out of the place of the other and consequently in several places For illustration of this Argument he said If my head and belly and thighs and legs be all in the very same place of necessity my head must be in my belly and my belly in my thighs and my thighs in my legs and all of them in my feet and my feet in all of them and therefore if my head be out of my belly it must be out of the place where my belly is and if it be not out of the place where my belly is it is not out of my belly but in it Again to shew that according to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation our Saviours body in the Eucharist hath not the several parts of it out of one another he disputed thus Wheresoever there is a body having several parts one out of the other there must be some middle parts severing the extreme parts But here according to this Doctrin the extreme parts are not severed but altogether in the same point Therefore here our Saviours Body cannot have parts one out of other Mr. Dan. To all this for want of a better Answer gave only this Let all Scholars peruse these After upon better consideration he wrote by the side of the last Syllogism this Quoad entitatem verum est non quoad locum that is according to entity it is true but not according to place And to Let all Scholars peruse these he caused this to be added And weigh whether there is any new matter worth a new Answer Chillingworth Replyed That to say the extreme parts of a body are severed by the middle parts according to their entity but not according to place is ridiculous His reasons are first Because severing of things is nothing else but putting or keeping them in several places as every silly woman knows and therefore to say they are severed but not according to place is as if you should say They are heated but not according to heat they are cooled but not according to cold Indeed is it to say they are severed but not severed VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his own Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto I Reconciled my self to the Church of Rome because I thought my self to have sufficient reason to believe that there was and must be always in the World some Church that could not err and consequently seeing all other Churches disclaimed this priviledge of not being subject to error the Church of Rome must be that Church which cannot err I was put into doubt of this way which I had chosen by D. Stapleton and others who limit the Churches freedom from Error to things necessary only and such as without which the Church can be a Church no longer but grantted it subject to error in things that were not necessary Hereupon considering that most of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholicks were not touching things necessary but only profitable or lawful I concluded that I had not sufficient ground to believe the Roman Church either could not or did not err in any thing and therefore no ground to be a Roman Catholick Against this again I was perswaded that it was not sufficient to believe the Church to be an infallible believer of all doctrins necessary but it must also be granted an infallible teacher of what is necessary that is that we must believe not only that the Church teacheth all things necessary but that all is necessary to be believed which the Church teacheth to be so in effect that the Church is our Guide in the way to Heaven Now to believe that the Church was an infallible Guide and to be believed in all things which she requires us to believe I was induced First because there was nothing that could reasonably contest with the Church about this Office but the Scripture and that the Scripture was this Guide I was willing to believe but that I saw not how it could be made good without depending upon the Churches authority 1. That Scripture is the Word of God 2. That the Scripture is a perfect rule of our duty 3. That the Scripture is so plain in those things that concern our duty that whosoever desires and endeavors to find the will of God there shall either find it or at least not dangerously mistake it Secondly I was drawn to this belief because I conceived that it was evident out of the Epistle to the Ephesians that there must be unto the worlds end a Succession of Pastors by adhering to whom men might be kept from wavering in matters of faith and from being carried up and down with every wind of false doctrin That no Succession of Pastors could guard their adherents from danger of error if themselves were subject unto error either in teaching that to be necessary which is not so or denying that to be necessary which is so and therefore That there was and must be some Succession of Pastors which was an infallible guide in the way to Heaven and which should not possibly teach any thing to be necessary which was not so nor any thing not necessary which was so upon this ground I concluded that seeing there must be such a Succession of Pastors as was an infallible guide and there was no other but that of the Church of Rome even by the confession of all other Societies of Pastors in the world that therefore that Succession of Pastors is that infallible Guide of Faith which all men must follow Upon these grounds I thought it necessary for my salvation to believe the Roman Church in all that she thought to be and proposed as necessary Against these Arguments it hath been demonstrated unto me and First against the first That the reason why we are to believe the Scripture to be the word of God neither is nor can be the Authority of the present Church of Rome which cannot make good her Authority any other way but by pretence of Scripture and therefore stands not unto Scripture no not in respect of us in the relation of a Foundation to a building but of a building to a Foundation doth not support Scripture but is supported by it But the general consent of Christians of all Nations and Ages a far greater company than that of the Church of Rome and delivering universally the Scripture for the word of God is the ordinary
unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce No proposition which contradicts the common judgment of the Fathers can be probable * I should rather subsume but this does so Therefore not probable But it is de fide that our opinion is probable for the Council of Trent hath made it so by giving liberty to all to hold it Therefore without doubt we must hold that it is not whatsoever it seems against the common judgment of the Fathers This argument saith he doth most illustriously convince the followers of the contrary opinion that they ought not to dare affirm hereafter that their opinion flowes from the common judgment and writings of the ancient Doctors His second answer is That whereas Bandillus and Cajetan c. produce general sayings of Irenaeus Origen Athanasius Theophilus Alexandrinus Greg. Nyssen Basil Greg. Naz. Cyprian Hierom Fulgentius and in a manner of all the ancient Fathers exempting Christ alone from and consequently concluding the Virgin Mary under Original sin which Argument must needs conclude if the Virgin Mary be not Christ His answer I say is These Testimonies have little or no strength for did they conclude we must then let us in Gods name say that the Virgin Mary committed also many venial sins For the Scriptures Fathers and Councils set forth in propositions as Universal That there is no man but Christ who is not often defiled at least with smaller sins and who may not justly say that Petition of our Lords Prayer Demitte nobis debita nostra An answer I confess as fit as a Napkin to stop the mouths of his domestick adversaries though no way fit to satisfie their reason But this man little thought there were Protestants in the world as well as Dominicans who will not much be troubled by thieves falling out to recover more of their goods than they expected and to see a prevaricating Jesuit instead of stopping one breach in their ruinous cause to make two For whereas this man argues from the destruction of the Consequent to the destruction of the Antecedent thus If these testimonies were good and concluding then the Virgin Mary should have been guilty not only of Original but also of actual sin But the Consequent is false and blasphemous Therefore the Antecedent is not true They on the others side argue and sure with much more reason and much more conformity to the Ancient Tradition From the Assertion of the Antecedent to the Assertion of the Consequent thus If these testimonies be good and concluding then the Blessed Virgin was guilty both of Original sin and Actual but the Testimonies are good and concluding therefore she was guilty even of actual sins and therefore much more of Original His Third Answer is That their Church hath or may define many other things against which if their works be not depraved there lies a greater consent of Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and therefore why not this The Instances he gives are four 1. That the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin 2. That the Angels were not created before the visible world 3. That Angels are Incorporeal 4. That the Souls of Saints departed are made happy by the Vision of God before the day of Judgment Against the first Opinion he alledges direct places out of Origen which he says admit no exposition though Pamelius upon Tertullian and Sixtus Senensis labour in vain to put a good sense on them Out of Euthymias and Theophylact Out of S. Chrysostom divers pregnant testimonies and S. Thomas his confession touching one of them out of the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in S. Austin cap. 75. Out of S. Hilary upon Psa 118. which words yet says he Tolet has drawn to a good construction yet so much difficulty still remains in them Out of Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 7. which he tells us will not be salved by Pamelius his gloss Out of Athanafius out of Irenaeus III. 18. out of S. Austin lib. 2. de Symbolo ad Catech. cap. 5. Whose words yet because they admit says Poza some exposition I thought fit to suppress though some think they are very hard to be avoided Out of Greg. Nyss out of S. Cyprian in his Sermon on the Passion Whose words says he though they may by some means be eluded yet will always be very difficult if we examin the Antecedents and Consequents out of Anselm Rich. de S. Victor S. Ambrose S. Andrew of Hierusalem and S. Bede and then tells us there are many other Testimonies much resembling these and besides many Fathers and Texts of Scripture which exempt Christ only from actual sin and lastly many suspicious sayings against her Immunity in them who use to say that at the Angels Annunciation she was cleansed and purged and expiated from all faults committed by her freewill which saith he though Canisius and others explicate in a pious sense yet at least they shew that either those alledged against the Imaculate conception are as favourable to be expounded Or we must say that a verity may be defined by the See Apostolick against the judgment of some Fathers From these things says he is drawn an unanswerable reason That for the defining the purity of the conception nothing now is wanting For seeing notwithstanding more and more convincing testimonies of Fathers who either did or did seem to ascribe actual sin to the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding the Universal sayings of Scripture and Councils bringing all except Christ under sin Lastly notwithstanding the silence of the Scriptures and Councils touching her Immunity from actual sin seeing notwithstanding all this the Council of Trent hath either decreed Seff VI. c. 23. de Justifical or hath confirmed it being before decreed by the consent of the faithful that the Blessed Virgin never was guilty of any voluntary no not the least sin It follows certainly that the Apostolick See hath as good nay better ground to enrol amongst her Articles the Virgins Immaculate conception The reason is clear for neither are there so many nor so evident sentences of Fathers which impute any fault or blemish to the Conception of the Mother of God as there are in appearance to charge her with actual offences Neither are there fewer Universal propositions in Scripture by which it may be proved that only Jesus was free from actual sin and therefore that the Virgin Mary fell into it Neither can there at this time be desired a greater consent of the faithful nor a more ardent desire than there now is that this verity should be defined and that the contrary Opinion should be Anathematized for Erroneous and Heretical The words of the Council of Trent on which this reason is grounded are these If any man say That a man all his life long may avoid all even venial sins unless by special priviledge from God as the Church holds of the Blessed Virgin let him be Anathema But if the consent of the Church hath prevailed against more clear Testimonies of ancient Fathers even for that which is favoured with no express authority of Scriptures or Councils And if the Council of Trent upon this consent of the faithful hath either defined this Immunity of the Virgin from all actual sin or declared it to be defined Who then can deny but that the Church hath immediate power to define among the Articles of Faith the pious Opinion of the Immaculate Conception His second Example by which he declares the power of their Church to define Articles against a multitude of Fathers and consequently not only without but against Tradition is the opinion that Angels were not created before the Corporeal world was created which saith he is or may be defined though there were more Testimonies of Fathers against it than against the Immaculate Conception So he says in the Argument of his Fifth Chapter and in the end of the same Chapter The Council of Lateran hath defined this against the express judgment of twenty Fathers of which Nazianzen Basil Chrysostome Cyrill Hierom Ambrose and Hillary are part His third Example to the same purpose is the opinion that Angels are Incorporeal against which saith he in the Argument of his sixth Chapter there are more Testimonies of the Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and yet it is or at least may be defined by the Church and in the end of the Chapter I have for this Opinion cited twenty three Fathers which as most men think is now condemned in the * Firm de summâ Trinitate Lateran Council or at least as †De Angelis lib. 6. Suarez proves is to be rejected as manifestly temerarious His fourth and last Example to the same purpose is The Opinion that the Souls of Saints departed enjoy the Vision of God before the Resurrection Against which he tells us in the first place was the Judgment of Pope John XXI though not as a Pope but as a private Doctor Then he musters up against it a great multitude of Greek and Latin Fathers touching which he says All these Testimonies when * 1. 2. D. 29. cap. 1. Vasquez has related at length he †cap. 3. answers that they might be so explained as to say nothing against the true and Catholick Doctrin Yet if they could not be so explained their Authority ought not to hinder us from embracing that which the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same argument I make says Peâ—â— The Fathers and ancient Doctors which are objected against the pious opinion of the Conception of the Virgin may be commodiously explicated or at least so handled that they shall not hurt Notwithstanding though they cannot be explicated some of them that their Testimonies ought not to hinder but that the Sea Apostolick may define the Blessed Virgins preservation from Original sin In fine for the close of this Argument he adds Nolo per plura I will not run through more Examples These that I have reckoned are sufficient and admonishes learned men to bring together other like proofs whereby they may promote the desired Determination FINIS
Divel himself if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers ways the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those Pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the Ancient Doctors 17. For Scripture your Men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very carnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the World that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any Error in this matter in or near his time denyed the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the Fifth Chap. of his Fourth Observation And does he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Council of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tryed by them And are not your fellow Jesuits also even the Prime Men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Flued in his Book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. James speak dangerously to the same purpose in his Discourse of the Resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will clearly see that to common People they are unanswerable yea that common People are not capable of the Answers that Learned Men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice whose Speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minime consentiunt Are no way agreeable to the rule of Orthodox Faith Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. Gods Prescience of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he Decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not Decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to Reason whereunto you in particular subscribe unawares in saying From truth no Man can by good consequence infer falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any Man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the World as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if Men follow their Reason and Discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading Men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhor and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken Reeds and out of the Paper Fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered him by Abilech non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19. Thus Protestants in general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your Calumny I proceed now to do the same service for the Divines of England whom you question first in point of Learning and Sufficiency and then in point of Conscience and Honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial Talent of Preaching Languages and Elocution and not in any deep knowledg of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and Spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial Learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if Forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas Intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needles point Because they fill not their Brains with notions that fignifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sence and spend not an Age in weaving and un-weaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch Flies than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tells us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest Worth Learning and Authority love temper and moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the Infancy of their Church That their Churches begin to look with a New Face Their Walls to Speak a New Language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example the Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the Dead Limbus Patrum
every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he Erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he Erred in doing so 38. Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in these Sections if it be pertinent to the Question must be this Want of Succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same Doctrine and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Hereticks To which I answer That nothing but wnat of truth and holding Error can make or prove any man or Church Heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the Doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and Orthodox Christian by believing all the Doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believed it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his Doctrine with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defined Faith a free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to Divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece of shadow or reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be Divine Revelation And yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have always believed it without any mixture of Error nay I am fully persuaded there hath been no such Succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my Faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Devils at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from Heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I persuade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so Hypersceptical as to persuade me that I am not sure that I believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if a man may persuade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can Err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the aforesaid truths upon the aforesaid motives without any dependence upon any Succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this fancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretick but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretick whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Hereticks depends not on it Besides what is more certain than that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the World had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith regulate his Faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men either will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his Words believed he by his Providence must take order that either by Succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserved and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his Word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no Error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their Faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barr do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined oftimes make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formally alleged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men Orthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39. When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a Creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a Word whether our Bishops and Priests have
external reason why we believe it whereunto the Testimonies of the Jews enemies of Christ add no small moment for the Authority of some part of it That whatsoever stood upon the same ground of Universal Tradition with Scripture might justly challenge belief as well as Scripture but that no Doctrin not written in Scripture could justly pretend to as full Tradition as the Scripture and therefore we had no reason to believe it with that degree of faith wherewith we believe the Scripture That it is unreasonable to think that he that reads the Scripture and uses all means appointed for this purpose with an earnest desire and with no other end but to find the will of God and obey it if he mistake the meaning of some doubtful places and fall unwillingly into some errors unto which no vice or passion betrays him and is willing to hear reason from any man that will undertake to shew him his error I say that it is unreasonable to think that a God of goodness will impute such an error to such a man Against the second it was demonstrated unto me that the place I built on so confidently was no Argument at all for the Infallibility of the Succession of Pastors in the Roman Church but a very strong Argument against it First no Argument for it because it is not certain nor can ever be proved that S. Paul speaks there of any succession Ephes 4.11 12 13. For let that be granted which is desired that in the 13. ver by until we all meet is meant until all the Children of God meet in the Unity of Faith that is unto the Worlds end yet it is not said there that he gave Apostles and Prophets c. which should continue c. until we all meet by connecting the 13. ver to the 11. But he gave then upon his Ascension and miraculously endowed Apostles and Prophets c. for the work of the ministry for the Consummation of the Saints for the Edification of the Body of Christ until we all meet that is if you will unto the Worlds end Neither is there any incongruity but that the Apostles and Prophets c. which lived then may in good sense be said now at this time and ever hereafter to do those things which they are said to do For who can deny but S. Paul the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles and S. John the Evangelist and Prophet do at this very time by their writings though not by their persons do the work of the ministry consummate the Saints and Edifie the Body of Christ Secondly it cannot be shewn or proved from hence that there is or was to be any such succession because S. Paul here tells us only that he gave such in the time past not that he promised such in the time to come Thirdly it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise for who is so impudent as to pretend that there are now and have been in all Ages since Christ some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Especially such as he here speaks of that is endowed with such gifts as Christ gave upon his Ascension of which he speaks in the 8 ver saying He led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men And that those gifts were Men endowed with extraordinary Power and Supernatural gifts it is apparent because these Words and he gave some Apostles some Prophets c. are added by way of explication and illustration of that which was said before and he gave gifts unto Men And if any man except hereunto that though the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists were extraordinary and for the Plantation of the Gospel yet Pastors were ordinary and for continuance I answer it is true some Pastors are ordinary and for continuance but not such as are here spoken of not such as are endowed with the strange and heavenly gifts which Christ gave not only to the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists but to the inferior Pastors and Doctors of his Church at the first Plantation of it And therefore S. Paul in the 1st to the Corinth 12.28 to which place we are referred by the Margent of the Vulgar Translation for the explication of this places this gift of teaching amongst and prefers it before many other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost Pastors there are still in the Church but not such as Titus and Timothy and Apollos and Barnabas not such as can justly pretend to immediate inspiration and illumination of the Holy Ghost And therefore seeing there neither are nor have been for many Ages in the Church such Apostles and Prophets c. as here are spoken of it is certain he promised none or otherwise we must blasphemously charge him with breach of his promise Secondly I answer that if by dedit he gave be meant promisit he promised for ever then all were promised and all should have continued If by dedit be not meant promisit then he promised none such nor may we expect any such by vertue of or warrant from this Text that is here alledged And thus much for the first Assumpt which was that the place was no Argument for an infallible succession in the Church of Rome Now for the second That it is a strong Argument against it thus I make it good The Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors which our Saviour gave upon his Ascension were given by him that they might Consummate the Saints do the work of the Ministry Edifie the Body of Christ until we all come into the Unity of Faith that we be not like Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine The Apostles and Prophets c. that then were do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction do the work of the Ministry to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine therefore they do this some other way Now there is no other way by which they can do it but by their writings and therefore by their writings they do it therefore by their writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of Faith therefore the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists are our Guides Therefore not the Church of Rome FINIS AN ANSWER To Some PASSAGES IN Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING At the Third Dialogue Section 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS LONDON Printed for James Adamson at the Angel in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. AN ANSWER To some passages in Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING AT The Third Dialogue §. 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS Uncle DO you think there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople Nephew That I do I would I knew what I ask as well CHILLINGWORTH First I should have answered that in propriety of Speech I could not say that I