great Principle is non = retractation to retract so necessary so fundamentall a Doctrine to desert all their Schooles and contradict all their Controvertists But indeed not without very good cause For he professes withall that no such word as Infallibility is to be found in any Councel Neither did ever the Church enlarge her Authority to so vaste a widenesse But doth rather deliver the victory into our hands when we urge her Decisions In all which Confessions although he may seeme onely to speak of the Word yet that cannot be it which he is so wearie of because we except not against the word at all but confesse it rightly to signifie that which we impugne neither do we ever bring any nominall Argument against it But as when Cardinall Bellarmine sets downe the Doctrine of the Church in their positive tearmes Summus Pontifex cum totam Ecclesiam docet in his quae ad Fidem pertinent nullo casu errare potest We conceive he hath sufficiently expressed the sence of the word Infallibility so that Infallibilis est nullo casu errare potest are to us the same thing It cannot therefore be the Word alone but the whole importance and sence of that word Infallibility which Mr. Cressy so earnestly desires all his Catholicks ever hereafter to forsake because the former Church did never acknowledge it and the present Church will never be able to maintaine it This is the great successe which the Reason Parts and Learning of the late Defendors of our Church have had in this maine Architectonicall Controversie And yet though the Church never maintained it though the Protestants have had such advantage against it though Mr. Cressy confessing both hath wished all Catholicks to forsake it yet will he not wholly forsake it himself but undertakes most irrationally to answer for it If the Church never asserted it if the Catholicks be not at all concerned in it to what end will Mr. Cressy the great mitigator of the rigor and defendor of the latitude of the Churches Decisions maintaine it If Mr. Chillingworth have had such good successe against it why will his old Friend Mr. Cressy endeavour to answer his arguments especially considering when he hath answered them all he can onely from thence conclude that Mr. Chillingworth was a very bad Disputant who could bring no argument able to confute that which in it selfe is not to be maintained So unreasonable it is and inconsistent with his Concessions that he should give an answer at all but the manner of his answer which he gives is farr more irrationall For deserting the Infallibility he answers onely the authority of the Church and so makes this authority answer for that Infallibility from whence these three manifest absurdities must necessarily follow First When he hath answered all M. Chillingworth's arguments in the same manner as he pretends to answer them he must still acknowledge them unanswerable as they were intended by him that made them And no argument need to be thought good for any thing else if he which made it knew what he said as Mr. Chillingworth certainely did Secondly He onely pretends to answer those arguments as against the authority of the Church simply considered without relation to such an Infallibility which were never made against an authority so quallified And therefore whether the argument of his deare friend were to any purpose or no his answer manifestly must be to none Thirdly If hee intend to refute all opposition made to their Infallibility by an assertion of their bare authority then must he assert that authority to be as great and convincing which is fallible as that which is infallible that Guide to be as good which may lead me out of my way as that which cannot That Iudge to be as fit to determine any doubt who is capable of a mistake as he which is not And then I make no question but some of his own Church amongst the rest of their dislikes will put him in mind of that handsome sentence of Cardinall Belarmine Iniquissimum esset cogere Christianos ut non appellent ab eo Judicio quod erroneum esse potuit I once thought to have replied to those answers which he hath given to Mr. Chillingworth's arguments but his antecedent Concession hath made them so inconsiderable to me that upon a second thought I feare I should be as guilty in replying after my Objections as he hath been in answering after his Confessions Wherefore I shall conclude with an asseveration of mine own which shall be therefore short because mine That the Reply of this most excellent Person Sola operarum summa praesertim in Graecis incuria excepta is the most accurate Refutation of all which can be said in this Controversie that ever yet appeared and if what hath already been delivered have had such successe upon so eminent an adversary then may we very rationally expect at least the same effect upon all who shall be so happy as to read these Discourses Which is the earnest desire of I. P. To the Right Honourable Henry Lord Viscount of Falkland my Honourable Lord. My Lord NOt long before the death of that incomparable person your Lordships Mother that great example of piety and humility the Lady Viscountesse of Falkland she was pleased to commit to my hand that which she beleeved next her Children the dearest pledge of her dead Lord some excellent Monuments of his Reason Wit and Industry in the search of that which he would have as gladly found as he hath rationally rejected an Infallible Iudge here on Earth in all our Controversies in point of Religion of which the labouring world seemeth at present to stand in so much need I have considered often of that singular trust and friendship in making me the depositarie of so rich a Jewell And since she from whose hands I received it is gone thither where she stands in no need of these discourses I know no person living that hath more right to it then your Lordship or indeed to whom I would more willingly offer it For though your Lordship be now out of my immediate charge and Tuition yet as long as it shall please God to make me able to do or point at any thing that may though never so little helpe forward to perfect a good work in you I shall never account my selfe disobliged I must professe to all the World that there is no Family now in being to which I owe more true service then to your Lordships And shall to the utmost of my power upon all occasions make it good I have nothing left me but a poor thankfull heart which hath been my onely sure Companion when all things else have forsaken me That still remaines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being neither in the power of time nor persons to spoile me of that which like a good Conscience to my self must to my friends be the best feast I can make them My Lord
the Character will be farr too short It is in you and onely you my Lord to set him out truely and to resemble him to the life and that will be by taking that Evangelicall Counsell Tu autem fac similiter Do like him live like him and pardon me if I add one thing more like him Love My Lord Your Lordships most humble and affectionately devoted Servant TRIPLET OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME A discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND TO him that doubteth whether the Church of Rome hath any errors they answer that she hath none for she never can have any this being so much harder to beleeve then the first had need be proved by some certainer Arguments if they expect that the beleefe of this one should draw on whatsoever they please to propose yet this if offered to be proved by no better wayes then we offer to prove by that she hath erred which are arguments from Scripture and ancient Writers all which they say are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church Which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proofe may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to beleeve them If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine Faith why are they offended with the Protestants for beleeving every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once And if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the Truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isid. Pelus saith are the cause of all Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudication why should God be more offended with the one then with the other though they chance to erre They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it never had been set If they say we may know for that generall Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her I seek whether she have erred and conceiving she hath contradicted her self conclude necessarily she hath erred I suppose it not damnable though false because I try the Church by one of the touch-stones which herself appoints me Conformity with the Ancients For to say I am to beleeve the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to do so is to send me to a witnesse and bid me not beleeve it now to say the Church is provided for a guide of Faith but must be known by such markes as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not find it by can no way satisfie me If they say God will reveale the Truth to whomsoever seeks it these waies sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did When they have proved the Church to be Infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it For it signifies onely that God will have a Church alwaies which shall not erre but not that such or such a succession shall be in the right so that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its own confession it is not Infallible I answer That it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from Truth others may arise to maintaine it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greek Church because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquitie they run into a Circle proving their Tenets to be true First because the Church holds them And then theirs to be the Church because the Church holds the Truth Which last though it appears to me the onely way yet it takes away its being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Nay suppose that they had evinced that some succession were Infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Chruch must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beleefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall Argument because if any other Company had likewise claimed to be Infallible it had overthrown all The chiefest reason why they disallow of Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them And that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his Will if he had assigned no infallible way to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise yet this will be no Argument against him that beleeves that to them who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures God will either give his Grace for assistance to find the Truth or his pardon if they misse it And then this supposed necessitie of an infallible Guide with the supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground If they command us to beleeve infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set down Now such a way Scripture and Reason and infused Faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of these to those that build their Religion upon them nor the authority of the Church for this is part of the Question and must it self be first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons The Popes Infallibility can be no infallible ground of Faith being it self no
acquit him One much prevailing argument which they make is this That whosoever leaves them sall into dissention between themselves whereas they in the mean while are allwaies at Unity I answer First In this whereof the Question is now they all assent Secondly When there is fire for them that disagree they need not bragg of their Uniformity who consent Thirdly they have many differences among them as whether the Pope be Infallible whether God predeterminate every action whether Election and Reprobation depend upon fore-sight Which seemes to me as great as any between their Adversaries and in the latter the Jesuites have ancienter and generaller Tradition on their side then the Church of Rome hath in any other Question and as much ground from Reason for the defence of Gods goodnesse as they can think they have for the necessity of an infallible guide Yet these arguments must not make the Dominicans Hereticks and must us If they say the Church hath not resolved it which signifies onely that they are not agreed about it which is that we object I answer It ought to have done so if uniformity to the Ancient Church be required in which all that ever I could heare of before Saint Austine who is ever various I confesse in it delivered the contrary to the Dominicans as not doubtfull and to say it is lawfull for them to disagree wheresoever they do not agree is ridiculous for they cannot do both at once about the same point and if they say they mean by the Churches not having concluded it that a Councell hath not I Answer First That they condemne some without any Councell and why not these Next I say the opinion of the diffused Church is of more force then the conclusion of the representative which hath its authority from the other and therefore if all extant for the first four hundered yeares taught any Cannon it is more Heresie to deny that then any Cannon of a Councell But may not howsoever any other Company of People that would maintaine themselves to be infallible say as much that all other Sects differ from one another and therefore should all agree with them would not those think they ascribe all other mens dissentions and learned mens falling into diverse heresies to their not allowing their Infallibility to their not assenting to their Decrees and not suffering them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sit as teachers of those things that come in Question and to have all others in the place of Disciples obedient to them which is that which Nilus a Greek Bishop professed that because the Greeks would not allow the Romans was the chief cause of separation between them Next They use much to object how could errors come into the Church without opposition and mention both of them and the opposition to them in History I answer They might come not at once but by degrees as in the growth of a Child or motion of a Clock we see neither in the present but know there was a present when we find it past Next I say there are two sorts of errors To hold a thing necessary that is unlawfull and false or that is but profitable and probable Of the second sort that errors should come in it appears not hard to me especially in those ages where want of Printing made Books and consequently Learning not so common as now it is where the few that did study busied themselves in Schoole speculations onely when the authority of a man of chief note had a more generall influence then now it hath and so as Thucidides saith the Plague did in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disease that first settled in the head EASILY passed through all the body considering how apt men are to desire that all men should think as they do and consequently to lay a necessity upon the receiving that opinion if they conceive that a way to have it received And then if it were beleeved generally profitable as confession who would be apt to oppose their calling it necessary for the same cause for which they called it so Besides If this error were delivered by some Father in the hot opposition of some Heretick it may be none would oppose it least the adversaries might take advantage by their dissention and he that disputed for the Orthodox side might lose by it much of his authority The word necessary it self is also often used for very convenient and then from necessary in that sence to absolutely necessary is no difficult change though it be a great one Then the Fathers use the word Hereticks sometimes in a larger sence and sometimes in a stricter and so differ in the reckoning them up some leaving out those that others put in though they had seen the precedent Catalogue and so the doubtfullnesse of the sence of these words might bring in error Names also as Altar Sacrifice Masse may have been used First in one sence and the name retained though the thing signified received change as it was once of an Emperour of Rome cui proprium fuit nuper reperta I leave out scelera priscis verbis obtegere whose property it was to cover things newly found with ancient tearmes And the same Author tells us that the same state was as it were cheated out of her liberty because there did remaine eadem Magistratuum vocabula the same titles of Magistrates And I beleeve that if the Protestants beyond the Seas would have thought Bishops as good a word as Super-intendents and so in other such things many who understand nothing but names would have missed the scandale they have now taken These waies I think these things may have come without much opposition from being thought profitable to be done and probable to be beleeved to be thought necessary to be both and how things may have been by little and little received under old names which would not have been so at once under new ones it is not hard to conceive The first of these being no such small fault but that part of the Montanists Heresies was thinking uncommanded fasting daies necessary to be observed which without doubt might lawfully have been kept so that no necessitie had been imposed But my maine answer is that if to be in the Church without known precedent opposition be a certaine note of being derived from the begining let them answer how came in the opinion of the Chiliasts not contradicted till two hundred yeares after it came in To conclude If they can prove that the Scripture may be a certainer teacher of truth to them then to us so that they may conclude the Infallibility of the Church out of it and we nothing If they can prove the Churches Infallibility to be a sufficient Guide for him that doubts which is the Church and cannot examine that for want of learning by her chiefe marke which is conformity with the Ancients If they can prove that the consent of Fathers long together is a stronger
amongst those who parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond or tie why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not denie it For he confesseth that we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judegment the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they rely hath no such vertue to take up Controversies clearely Supposing that we agreed much lesse then you yet a little all in earnest that is unforced is more considerable then much constrained and so peradventure much of that much but in appearance Besides that you all agree in those points wherein if any disagree he becomes none of you is no more then is so common to all Religions that even the very Anabaptists may say as much for themselves For either all the Parts of them remaine of assent insomuch that they are all still of the same Religion and so agree as well as your Dominicans and Jesuites or else their differences are such as to make them of severall Religions and then why is want of Unity objected to them any more then it is to Christians in generall among whom are so many divisions and yet not the whole but the faulty party taxed And truely in my opinion some Questions among your selves are as great not onely as any among your adversaries but as any between you and them I but you answer we have a way of being agreed we reply is it a way sure to lead to Truth as well as to Unity or else so might we have by going to most at three throwes and resolving to stand to that Besides if you have and make no more use of it it seemes there is no such need that Questions be ended as for that purpose to introduce a necessitie of an Ender But say you neither are all suits in the Common-wealth ended We reply that yet truely those Judges who should make no more haste to end them then your Judge doth these would deserve to loose his place but this they do as fast as the nature of the thing will permit which being or depending upon matter of Fact cannot be known erough to be judged before examination of witnesses and the like be ended and if they willingly deferre the ending they are confess'd to be in fault by all men but those who hold Perjury to be none But you seem to conceive our grounds faulty as not leading even to a possible Unity whereas to a possible one I am sure they do since what is concluded out of them by many may be by all nay indeed am confident that all who receive the Scripture for the onely rule and believe what is there plain to be onely necessarie would if they truely beleeved what they professe and were not lead aside either by prejudice or private ends or some Popish relicks of holding what they have long been taught or following the authority of some by them much esteemed persons either alive or dead soon agree in as much as is necessarie and in concluding no necessity of agreeing in more there being no doubt but it would soone appear plainly what is plaine Besides if no grounds be sufficient for Unitie which produce not the effect then it seemes the grounds of your grounds those Arguments by which you prove that there is a Judge and a generall Councell is it are insufficient since they are not able to make all Christians about this question Again although a Judge and this Judge be received yet this is still an insufficient ground for Unitie since the Greek Church agree thus farre with you which is as farre as you agree with one another and yet are not so bound by it to any universall Unitie with them but that they esteem you Hereticks and are esteemed so by you and if you say that it is not because the grounds upon which the Infallibilitie of the Church are built lead not sufficientlie to Unitie that we joyne not with you in beleeving them to be infallible not because the determination of generall Councels is not a sufficient meanes of Unitie that the Greek Church admitting their authoritie admits not of your opinions but it is the fault of us and of them hardening our hearts against the truth then we may as well say that some of those who agree in our grounds yet disagree from our doctrine not that the grounds lead not to Unitie but that our Adversaries will not be lead or if as you doe and some others of you sometimes you confesse that they through an innocent error dissent from you and doe this without any imputation in this respect to your grounds I hope it will be lawfull for us to allow the same possibilitie without any disadvantage or prejudice to ours Besides say you though we agree to day yet we may not to morrow which to prove were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paines whollie lost we confesse For though Tully make it an expression of his contempt to Piso in an Epistle to Atticus Ita nihil est ut plane quid erit nesciat yet I take it to be a true saying of man in generall who knowes little of present things and nothing of future but this is common to us both for if we change not our opinions we shall agree as we doe and if you change yours you shall not which is possible for not onelie that opinion of the Infallibilitie of your judges decrees may it self be altered which holdeth together all the rest but some of you may holding that ground like the Greek either change their opinions concerning the authority of such or such a Councell as beleeving it unduelie called factiouslie carried or not generall as is pretended or not so consenting as is requisite or differ from the rest concerning the sence of the decrees for whereas you say you agree that the Church is an infallible Mistresse and when she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended I answer that first some of you with whom I have spoken my selfe hold that the Churches authoritie in defining extends no further then to such points whereof Tradition is of one part as in many controverted there is I beleeve no such and that this rule she may transgresse and so erre Secondlie Neither the Dominicans nor their Adversaries are very readie to remain in suspence to await her decision but define all readie concerning her definitions Cum utraque pars tenax contendat suam non aliam posse definiri sententiam either part tenaciouslie urging that the contrarie opinion cannot be defined which if they did to fright the Pope from defining least the condemned partie being even before should after make a Schisme they obtained their end Thirdlie What are you the nearer to Unitie for your Infallible Mistresse the Church when
you neither agree of any certaine and proper markes to know her by nor when it is that she interposeth her judgement some take it to be the particular Church of Rome others of which number you are all which communicate with her supposing the first to be true yet not being de fide it will serve but ill by your rules to build our faith upon and even when she delivers her opinion is not certainlie agreed whether the people of Rome be to have Votes or onelie the Clergie or of them onelie the Pope with the Cardinals or the Pope onelie without them if the Pope whether onelie in his Chaire and what circumstances are required to his decreeing in Cathedra would beget more questions If all that communicate with her as you say it is as things now stand First I would know whether they be sure to be at all times the Church to that you refuse to determine and so inclusivelie denie Secondlie It is not possible that such a multitude should ever give any sentence explicitelie nor can we ever know that it hath even tacitelic done so if they be to decree onelie by representation then how large a companie represents them with all their power of whom that companie is to consist how many of them are to agree to make it a binding sentence c. are things yet undefined and like to be and if any goe about to determine them their power being it selfe still a question could not end these Therefore whereas you say that we have no definitive sentence besides that truly to have one and not to know when we have one is much alike I answer that whensoever the Scripture shall seeme to us to have defined we are according to our doctrine readie to yeeld and so the controversie is ended and sure the Scripture may be said to be a definitive sentence as well as the written Councell of Trent and till then though we differ about interpretations of not plaine places we have as much Unitie as you who are not resolved upon the sence of manie decrees of that and other Councels and if a desire and diligence to finde the true meaning of them and an aptnesse to assent when it is found be thought to secure among you those who mistake the true sence of these Councels why should not the same disposition in us towards the Scripture be thought every whit as sufficient not onely to keepe us in unitie but to secure us from danger To conclude though unitie be a thing much spoken of by you yet I finde it chieflie onely in your discourse your differences are many and great onelie you say you agree in what is necessarie and make the measure of things necessarie what you agree in so the summe is you agree in what you doe agree which it is impossible you should not though you had carried away the bayes from Bibrias his Tombe eager against us and yet divided among your selves like the state of an Armie in Tacitus Manente Legionum auxiliorumque ubi adversus Paganos certandum foret consensu and if your Church brag of such an Unity I perceive a small matter will make her brag Againe I do confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some Book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures shewes slight waies how our well meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an Error what is there to retaine those men from disagreeing with the rest of their Bretheren and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is past light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall tearm them of the Trinitie Incarnation Say our Saviour did strange things in vertue of some Constellation and delivering these things so Oratorically that for a new heat some of these things shall seem more conformable then his Arrianisine what then shall hinder this man to become a Jew and at last to prove himself so great a Clerk as to write de tribus Impostoribus Take away the power of the Church which every man doth who taketh away the Infallibility what can retaine any man why he should not yeeld to that discourse which seemeth fairest seeing nothing is certaine And if you should meet with a book which should give probable solutions to the places of Scripture and reasons which you now think prove the authority of the Church and bring other though suppose but slight yet such as may seem strong Arguments to prove it not infallible and shew waies of the same kind how your ancestors may have slipt in that and by that into other errors what is there to retaine you with the rest of your Bretheren and betaking your selfe to us If you say this is impossible to be done so think the Protestants that the Arrians can give them no probable answer to their places of Scripture and such as will seem so to some is no imputation to their grounds since so may and do our Answers and Objections to some of you who thereupon leave you and yet you count not your grounds disparaged For my part I professe my self not onely to be an Anti-Trinitarian but a Turk whensoever more reason appeares to me for that then for the Contrary and so sure would you be too for the pretended infallibility of your Church could no longer hold you if you thought you saw reason to beleeve it fallible as you must do if all weighed more reason appeared of her adversaries side either your proofes of her authority not to be probable or else your Doctrinestaught by her more contrary to reason then her authority though probably founded yet not upon demonstrations is sufficient to caution and answer for It is true so long as you stick to this hold upon the Roman Church you are sure to receive no error but which she offers you and indeed you need not for those are enough but that destroied which is apter to be destroied then most of the Protestants as weaklier supported by reason then no error that a Protestant may fall into but so may you too and the other is but such a Priviledge as I may have by sticking to the English Church as well as you to the Roman And though this following your guide may be able as long as she keep her self to keep you from some Ditches into which you might otherwise fall yet it may lead you unto others and indeed there is no error but by this way you are liable too yea even of those which she now condemnes since though she changed her opinion which is neither impossible nor unlawfull yet you are by your blind obedience to believe that she had not and to submit your understanding in this Question to some distinction though without a difference These things then I dislike in what
a Directresse at least as a Company of men which yours sure was not to those Nations which were lately discovered by Columbus But if you except and say she need onely be visible to all Christians though this exception need a proofe yet even this Condition your Church hath not allwaies had for I believe to those Christians whom Xaverius found in the East-Indies your Church had been as little visible as to those Pagans whom Columbus discovered in the West Besides beyond the Abissins how farre Christian Religion may be propagated and yet your Church unknown who can tell Besides even to most of them for any credible Testimony that appeares she may not be very visible But above all that reason being answered upon which you conclude that there is some Director and that ground being taken away upon which you build that yours is that me thinks it will be unnecessary to dispute long upon the Conditions required to that which hath no entity at all For Authority her very claime of Antiquity and Succession to have been that Church which received her beginning from Christ and his Apostles and never being all united under the universall government of ver fore-went it giveth à great reverence to her among those who believe her and amongst those who with indifferency seek to inform themselves a great Prejudice above others And if it be true it carrieth an infinite Authority with it of Bishops Doctors Martyrs Saints Miracles Learning Wisedome Venerable Antiquity and such like There is no Question but any Church true or false which claimes to have ever kept the Apostles Doctrines uncorrupted and is infallibly believed to have done so must among those Christians who thus beleeve have even equall Authority with the Apostles But me thinks that this claime before proofe should to others be any prejudice for her especially to those who have great Arguments against her is unreasonable and if after consideration it appears otherwise she hath then onely helpt to weaken her Testimony and hath destroyed her Infallible Authority in any thing else There remaineth Power which no man can doubt but he hath given it most ample who considereth his words so often repeated to his Apostles But abstracting from that who doth not see that the Church hath the nature and proportion of ones Country to everyone As in a mans Country he hath Father and Mother Brothers Sisters Kinsfolkes and Allies Neighbours and Country-men anciently called Cives and Concives and of these are made his Country So in the Church finds he in way to spirituall Instruction and Education all these digrees nearer and further off till he come unto that furthermost of Christ his Vicar and as he in his Country finds Bearing Breeding Settling in Estates and Fortunes and lastly Protection and Security So likewise in the way of Christianity doth he find this much more fully in the Church So that if it be true that a man oweth more to his Master then to his Father Bene esse is better then esse certainly a man also as farr as Church and Country can be separated must owe more to the Church then to his very Country Wherefore the Power which the Church hath to Command and instruct is greater then the Power of the Temporall Community of which he is part I wish you would have set down these words of Christ so often repeated to his Apostles in which Power to the Church I mean such a one as yours pretends is undoubtedly given For my Part Truely I remember none For I suppose not that the Power given to the Apostles can reasonably be claimed by any Society of men now no not though you should extend the Definition as largely as Erasmus who saies Ecclesiam voco totius Populi Christiani concensum I call the Church the Consent of the whole Christian People unlesse that be meant too in all Ages and so the Aposiles would come in They were so signed and sealed to as I may say from Heaven by having most conversed with Christ and been most beloved by him and chosen especially to teach the World his Will that it is impossible any men could be indeed Christians and not receive their Doctrine as that of Christ without any other Proofe but there is no other Church that hath such a Priviledge The Power of proposing she hath and so have you and without Question if you can convince any Christian that what you said Christ said first he is bound both to believe and obey it and againe let all Churches joyne in proposall yet till he be so convinced unlesse his own fault hinder it it binds him not neither is it sufficiently proposed allowing it true which it is not alwaies necessary that it should be although so attested For as a Naturall Foole is not bound to obey any Doctrine or Precept taught or imposed by God himself because his understanding cannot discover it to be so so in my opinion whose understanding soever is not convinc'd of the same how plain soever to others the thing be he is for as much as concernes this point in the state of a Naturall Foole and no more to be condemned Neither see I what you prove out of the Proportion between the Church and every mans Country for if any Church be intended by God to be so our Director that her propositions are to be received because they are hers then indeed we owe her much more obedience then to our Country which if it should require of us to believe an opinion true because that hath defined it I believe no man would obey and he who should press us to it would be accounted so mad that we should send him not to a Doctor of Divinity but to a Doctor of Physick to be confuted And that any Church is so intended appeares not at all by this proposition since the same is even amongst the Church of the Turkes which is Ecclesia malignantium for there they find their Metaphoricall Fathers Mothers Brothers Sisters Kinsfolks Allies Neighbours which all Hereticks do too among themselves all these degrees neerer and further of till at last they come to that furthermost of being united under the Universall Government of Mahomets Vicar the Mufty But to them you would say that this proves not Truth but at most Concord and that is Factio inter Malos which is Amicitia inter Bonos therefore the same we answer you since Pyrats and Theeves have as strict bonds among themselves as the honestest persons and often gerater conspiracies and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to destroy these then they make to defend themselves And whereas you say that we owe more gratitude and obedience to the Church then to our Country I have told you that this may be true without owing obedience to all she teaches But yet even this in some sence is True To the generall Tradition of Christians of the first Ages who lived with the Apostles and could not in any
contrarie That the Scripture cannot prove every thing in foro contentioso I beleeve but all necessarie Truths I beleeve it can for onely those which it can are such I denie not but that a contentious person may denie a thing to be proved when his own Conscience contradicts his words but so he may Arguments drawn from any other ground as well as Scripture so that if for that cause you refuse to admit of proofes from thence you might as well for the same refuse to admit of any by any other kinde of Arguments And certainlie if the Scriptures I meane the plaine places of it cannot be a sufficient ground for such and such a point surelie it cannot be a sufficient ground to build a ground upon as the Churches Infallibilitie and therefore though it it seemes you desire so much that this be beleeved that so it be you care not upon what proofe yet a considering Protestant who is not as hot to receive your Religion as you are that he should may presentlie say when he is press'd by you with Scripture to this since this is a way of proofe which your selves admit not of an Argument from hence may bring me from my own Religion but never to yours because it is a beame which that relies much upon that by any other way then the authoritie of the Church no man can be sufficientlie sure of the meaning of Scripture That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I thinke it very rationall for Nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable Principle in all Natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our Understanding hath Principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some Principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its Principall part in the very head Andif there be such a Principle the whole Church is Infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Christ is our unquestionable and infallible Governour and his Will the Principle by which we are guided and the Scripture the place where this Will is contained which if we endeavour to find there we shall be excused though we chance to misse and therefore want not your guide who either is not or as hard to find as the way and againe when he hath defined the certaine meaning of that definition as hard to find as herfelf Neither is a company of men thus beleeving maimed in the head though having no other more uncontroulable Principle If your guide were evident of her self as those Principles are by which we judge all things else then your Similitude would hold a little whereas being neither knowable in her self nor proveable by ought else what you have said onely shewes what an ill match is made when Witt is set against Truth It is sufficient for a Child to believe his Parents for a Clown to believe his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes of believing and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what tearmes he be with the first To what you say I answer that I confesse that it is not possible that without particular Revelations or Inspirations the ignorant even of the Orthodox party should receive their Religion upon very strong grounds which makes me wonder that even from them you should exact an assent of a higher nature and a much greater certaintie then can be ministred to them by any arguments which they are capable of yet if they believe what they receive with an intention of obedience to God and supposall that their opinions are his Revelations and use those meanes which they in their Conscience think best to examine whether they be or no though it be when they find themselves unable to search by trusting others whom they count fittest to be trusted I beleeve they are in a very saveable estate though they be farr from having of the truth of their Tenets any Infallible certaintie and the same I think of those which are in error for since you cannot deny but that a Child or a Clown with the same aptnesse to follow Gods will may be taught by his Parents or his Preacher that what God forbids he commands that Christ's Vicar is Antichrist or the Church Babylon and scarce teacheth any truth though it could not teach the least error why should such a one be damned for the misfortune of having had Hereticall Parents or a deceiving Preacher For no more it seemes is required of such then to give his beliefe to those And indeed the same reason extended will excuse him who though learned impartially aimeth at Gods will and misseth it for though you seeme to insinuate by the cause you give of what you say that so men believe and do what they heare God command he careth not upon what grounds yet I who know that God hath no other gaine by our so doing then that in it we sacrifice to him our soules and affections cannot believe but that they shall be accepted who give him that which he most cares for and obey him formally though they disobey him materially God more considering and valuing the Heart then the Head the end then the actions and the fountaine then the streames And truely else he who through stupidity or impotence abstained from any vice or through negligence or prejudice miss'd some error would be as well accepted of by God as he that by a care of his waies and of obedience to him who should rule them did avoide the first and by a studious search the second I cannot part from this Theame without one consideration more and that is that if so Fallible a Director as you speak of may be cause enough of assent to one Truth why may they not be so to another and why shall not the beleefe of our ignorants upon their testimonie that the Scripture is the Word of God be as well founded as that of yours to the Infallibility of the Church upon the same And yet it is daily objected to us that this beleefe of ours is not surely enough founded since not received from their Church although the unlearned among us receive it from their Parents and Preachers and the learned from Tradition as from the first of those your unlearned do and from the second of which your learned pretend they do receive the authority and infallibility of the Church it self Although we be so much more reasonable then you that we require them not to be so sure upon it as they are of what they know by sence but onely to give them so much credit that they may give up their hearts to obedience Neither do I remit him to a generall and constant Tradition as if himself should climbe up every age by learned
when a Childe as the substance of his hopes for all eternitie and so cannot in reason have his books either forbidden or pasted up for delivering any thing contrary to it Secondly Who are these Censors who forbid and paste up books certainly not the Universall Church nor yet the Representative the latter is not alwaies in being nor when it is at leasure to consider and judge all authors and of the first these Authors are a part if then they be fallible as they must be if they be not the Church why may not they erre and the Martyr-books speake truth which yet will easily by this meanes be kept from Posteritie if those in the Dictatory Office dissent from it as they will be sure to do if the opinion contradict never so little the power or greatnesse of the Pope upon whose favour these Oecumenicall Correctors must depend or they not longremaine in their places and yet you expect that your adversary should produce succession of their opinions in all ages though nothing be let passe but what a few please and though when in time all of you are agreed as you will soon be or appear to be if one side appear to be gag'd then this consent though thus brought about becomes the consent of the Church and a very notable Motive And since you say that what all are bound to is onely a prompt subjection to the Church why leave you it so in doubt what is the Church as if men were tyed to be subject but must not know to what you say indeed that the adherers to the Church of Rome are now the Church but what they may be you will not plainely declare So that if a Schisme among them should happen we are all as farr to seek as if you had been wholly silent for since the infallibility lies not in the particular Church of Rome and consequently the adhering to her is not ever a sufficient note of the Church as you will not say nor is it among your selves de fide since the Universall Church whatsoever she be can never define any thing and of the authority of the definitions of the Representative and of what constitutes both her and her decrees you refuse to speak what remaines there to which this prompt subjection is to be the onely everlasting Note of the true Church but onely the Truth whensoever she appeares Thus as the Priests of Apollo therefore peradventure called Loxias used to spread lies and secure his reputation the first by the antiquity and the second by the darknesse of his Oracles so doth your Religion gaine upon many men and secure her seflf rom many objections by the manyfold acceptions and consequently difficulty of this tearme Church For whatsoever is said in Scripture concerning her being free from all spot or prevailing against the gates of Hell or their danger who resist her the first meant as I believe and the place denies not by any circumstance of the Church Triumphant the second of the Church of the Elect and the third of the Professors of Christianity in generall or at most of those who are in all necessary points Orthodox among them That they without sufficient proofe resolve to be spoken of the Church in their sence they have fancied That is some ever known body of Christians which must be still guide to the rest and then claime to be that because no other all else being more ingenious claimes it besides themselves whereas if considering that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Oraculous truth of my great Lord Bacon's observation that unlesse men in the beginning of their disputes agree about the meaning of their tearmes they must end about words where they ought to have begun they had marked what other sence these words were capable of for if it will here beare another then this cannot hence be concluded but by leave they would then soon have seen the weaknesse of their building by the slightnesse of their foundation Againe they prevaile much by working upon mens assents by the meanes of their modesties and presse it to be an intollerable pride to oppose their opinions to the consent of the Catholick Church whereas if it be weighed how small a part of it they mean by that word and yet of them how many follow blindly the decrees of one and how soon those prevaile against that few not backed by any power who do not it will then appeare that not onely other Churches but even a John or a Thomas have as much reason to be lead by their own understandings as by the opinions and decrees of and Vrban or a Gregory upon which that consent is so often founded And as they make their advantage of this word in their offensive warres so do they in their defensive for when they are press'd unto the absurdity of their Tenets then though indeed they be generall yet they pretend that they are the opinions but of private though many men and not of the Church and againe when any Fathers who yet sometimes they say are wholly theirs are shewed to contradict some of their Doctrines so plainely that none of those subterfuges which in one of their expurgatory Indexes they consesse they often use will serve to palliate it then they strive to scape by answering that the Church had not then defined it whereas if it be examined how farre they consent about what is the Church and what are her Definitions whereof they are not yet agreed for some say she hath defined what others say she hath not this onely will be certainlie found that it never can be certainlie found what are her opinions of any point or when she hath declared her selfe As besides manie other Arguments some press'd by my selfe and others by other Pens more fit to treat of so weightie a matter appeares by your refusing to leave your Latibula and declare plainlie your opinion concerning it which if you saw defensible and you were all agreed about it you would quicklie have done and not incurred the reprehension of that Axiome which teacheth that Dolosus versatur in generalibus which makes me thinke that if this were generallie enough mark'd you would no longer be able to dazle any mans eyes with the splendid title of Somes to the Catholique Church as Alexander hoped to doe those of the Barbarians with stiling himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sonne of Jupiter although indeed he was so much the more moderate then the second as never to denie that any other could be Sonne to the same Father whereas you will not allow that any may have interest in your Mother besides your selves To conclude this Paragraph give me leave to aske one question and that is how your saying that Truth is more easie to finde now then in the Fathers times will agree either with the way which you say is the onely Catholique one to finde Truth by for sure such a Tradition was alwaies equallie easie to finde and if the first
it was a wise fear of the Foxe's lest he might call a knubb a horn And sure Sir they will in this case be Judges not onely of that which is Spiritual but of what it is that is so and the people receiving instruction from no other will take the most Temporal matter to be Spiritual if they tell them it is so The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated by Mr. William Chillingworth SECT 1. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider onely what is essential and necessary to it we shall find in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocesse and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastours and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT 2. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable motion if we humbly desire those that are in authority especially the High Court of Parliament that in may not be sacrificed to clamour or over-borne by violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and courage as not to give it up untill they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT 3. I shall speak at this time onely of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confesse it SECT 4. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have per-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truely this form of Government all Chuches every where received SECT 5. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatus genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not onely a priority of order but a superiority of power and authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearely professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr callsthem in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT 6. Certainly from these two great defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation layd by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT 7. For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received in any one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuer at error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT 8. For what universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie you will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question To wit that the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or fore-seeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councells to make a Law for a generall change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had
wit the first and main principle of it can be no other then to know what was delivered them by their Teachers a thing not surpassing the understanding of any sensible wise man so that put but twenty wise understanding men to agree that the Preacher to their certaine knowledge said such a thing there remaineth no probable nor possible doubt but that it was so Now then suppose that one of those who having been taught by Christs own mouth had received by the confirmation of the Holy Ghost that he could neither forget nor forgoe this received doctrine should have preached over and over again the same doctrine not long nor hard to be carryed away in all the Cities Towns and Boroughs of some great Country so that whilst he stayd there they were throughly understanding and endoctrinated in that way Now let him be gone and after him all dead who had heard him speake and then some question arise concerning this doctrine as we may say in the second age let us see whether error can creep in or no if the Christians keepe unto their hold Their hold is what they were taught by Christs Apostles Let therefore the wisest and best men of those Cities and Towns meet together about the controversie and discusse it out of this principle what was delivered unto them as taught by the Apostles will not there be a quick end of their dispute For every man can say My father heard the Apostle speak he understood him to have said this so he himselfe beleeved so he taught me that this was that which the Apostle taught us And when out of divers Cities and Towns shall come a multitude of witnesses all agreeing in one point how can it be doubted but that this is Christs doctrine and that which his Apostle taught And to disagree how is it possible Since all their fathers heard the same things and things not above their capacity and often told them and well apprehended by them when they were taught and by consequence could not tell their children otherwise then what they had heard and understood in a matter of such moment and of which they apprehended no lesse then that it concerned their own and their childrens salvation happinesse or misery for all eternity And what here is most evidently certaine in the children of those who heard the Apostles may be derived with as much evidence again in the grand-children and so in every age even to our present for if in any age any question beginne and it be reduced unto this principle what did our forefathers teach us neither can there be any pretended ignorance for who can be ignorant of what was taught him when he was a childe and in what he was bred as in the grounds and substance of his hopes for all eternity True it is that if men leave this principle and seek to judge the controversie by learned discourse then may the Church be divided one part following the authority of their Ancestors the other the subtle Arguments and the great opinion they conceive of the learning of their present Teachers so that one side will claimesuccession and to have received it from hand to hand the other the glory of great learning and to have come by great industry to discover the errors of their forefathers But it is evident that if what the Apostles preached be the touchstone of what is true and what they preached to be seen in what those beleeve who have heard them and they who received it from them that heard them It is most evident I say that the one part who seek for Christian truth in learned discourse must needs forgoe the most certain and easie way of attaining unto what they aime at And likewise evident that who keep themselves duly and carefully unto this principle cannot possibly in any continuance of time swerve from the truth which Christ hath left unto his Church So that the whole difficulty is reduced unto this whether the Church for so many ages be perpetually preserved in this principle that what she received from her forefathers is that she must beleive and deliver unto her posterity A thing so grafted in nature which maketh us receive our being our breeding our learning our goods our estates our arts and all things we have from our fathers that it is a wonder of our mutability that without forcible Engines we can be drawn from it CHAP. II. NOw let us turn our discourse and as we have seen that if our Saviour ordred his Apostles in the manner explicated there was no way for his Church to swerve from his truth but by swerving from the most plain the most naturall and most evident and concluding rule of his doctrine and that but one and most easie so let us see whether from the present Church we can draw the like forcible train which may lead us up to Christ and his Apostles Be therefore supposed or imagined what no judicious man can deny to see with his eyes if he hath never so little cast them upon this present religion of Christendome to wit that there is one Congregation or Church which layeth claime to Christ his doctrine as upon this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without in erruption delivered ever from Father to Sonne from Master to Scholler from time to time from hand to hand even unto this day and that she does not admit any other doctrine for good and legitimate which she does not receive in this manner Againe that whosoever pretendeth Christ his truth against her saith that true it is that once she had the true way but that by length of time she is fallen into grosse errours which they will reforme not by any truth they have received from hand to hand from those who by both parts are acknowledged to have received their lesson from Christ and his Apostles but by study and learned Arguments either out of ancient Writers or out of the secrets of nature and reason This being supposed either this principle hath remained unto her since the beginning or she took it up in some one age of the 16 she hath endured if she took it up in some latter age she then thought she had nothing in her what she had not received from her fore fathers in this sort And if she thought so she knew it For as it is impossible now any country should think it was generally taught such a thing if it were not so so also was there the like necessity and impossibility to be otherwise if all men were not runne mad Therefore clear it is she took it not up first then but was in former possession and so clear it is that she could not have it now if she had it not from the very beginning Now if she had it and hath conserved it from the beginning no new opinion could take root in her unlesse it came unto her under this Maxime as received from hand to hand and to say
from the quality of so good a workman as was the Holy Ghost CHAP. V. I Doubt not but whosoever shall have received satisfaction in the discourse passed will also have received in that point we seeke after that is in being assured both that Christ hath left a Director in the world and where to find him there being left no doubt but it is his holy Church upon earth Nor can there be any question which is this Church sithence there is but one that doth and can lay claime to have received from hand to hand his holy doctrine in writings and hearts Others may cry loud they have found it but they must first confesse it was lost and so if they have it was not received by hands I meane as far as it disagreeth with Catholique doctrine so that where there is not so much as claime there can be no dispute And that this Church is a lawfull directresse that is hath the conditions requisite I think can no wayes be doubted Let us consider in her presence or visibility authority power As for the first her multitude and succession makes the Church if she is ever accessible ever knowen The Arrians seemed to chase her out of the world in their flourish but the persecution moved against her made her even then well known and admired In our owne Countrey we have seen no Bishop no forme of Church for many yeares yet never so but that the course of justice did proclaime her through England and who was curious could never want meanes to come to know her confession of faith what it is and upon what it is grounded Wheresoever she is if in peace her Majesty and Ceremonies in all her actions make her spectable and admired If in war she never wanteth Champions to maintain her and the very heat of her adversaries makes her known to such as are desirous to understand the truth of a matter so important as is the eternall welfare of our soule For Authority her very claime of antiquity and succession to have been that Church which received her beginning from Christ and his Apostles and never forewent it but hath ever maintained it giveth a great reverence unto her amongst those who beleeve her and amongst those who with indifferency and love of truth seek to inform themselves a great prejudice above others For it draweth a greater likelyhood of truth then others have And if it be true it carrieth an infinite authority with it of Bishops Doctors Martyrs Saints miracles learning wisedome venerable antiquity and the like that if a prudent man should sit with himselfe and consider that if he were to chuse what kind of one he would have it to carry away the hearts of men towards the admiration and love of God Almighty he could find nothing wanting in this that could be maintained with the fluxibility of nature For to say he would have no wicked men in it were to say he would have it made of Angels and not of Men. There remaineth Power the which no man can doubt but Christ hath given it most ample who considereth his words so often repeated to his Apostles But abstracting from that who doth not see that the Church hath the nature and proportion of ones Country unto every one As in a mans Country he hath Father and Mother Brothers Sisters Kinsfolkes Allyes Neighbours and Country-men which anciently were called Cives or Concives and of these are made his Country so in the Church findeth he in way of spirituall instruction and education all these degrees neerer and farther off untill he come unto that furthermost of being of all united under the universall Government of Christ his Vicar And as he in his Countrey findeth bearing breeding settling in estates and fortunes and lastly protection and security so likewise in the way of Christianity doth he find this more fully in the Church so that if it be true that a man oweth more unto his Master then unto his Father because bene esse is better then esse certainly a man also as far as Church and Country can be separated must owe more to the Church then to his very Country wherefore likewise the power which the Church hath to command and instruct is greater then the power of the temporall Country and community whereof he is part Againe this Church can satisfie learned and unlearned For in matters above the reach of reason whose source and spring is from what Christ and his Apostles taught what learned man that understands the nature of science and method can refuse in his inmost soule to bow to that which is testified by so great a multitude to have come from Christ And what unlearned man can require more for his faith then to be taught by a Mistresse of so many prerogatives and advantages above all others Or how can he think to be quieted in conscience if he be not content to fare as she doth who hath this prerogative evident that none is so likely by thousands of degrees CHAP. VI. THe stemme and body of our position thus raised will of it selfe shoot out the branches of divers Questions or rather the solution thereof And first How it hapned that diverse Heretiques have pretended tradition the Millenarians Carpocratians Gnostiaks and divers others yet they with their traditions have been rejected and the holy Church left onely in claime of tradition For if we look into what Catholique tradition is and what the said Heretiques pretended under the name of Tradition the question will remain voided For the Catholique Church calleth Tradition that doctrine which was publikely preached in the Churches ordred and planted in the manners and customes of the Church The Heretiques called Tradition a kind of secret doctrine either gathered out of private conversation with the Apostles or rather they pretended that the Apostles besides what they publikely taught the world had another private or mysticall way proper to Schollers more endeared then the rest which came not to publike view but was in huggermugger delivered from those secret Disciples unto others and so unto them where it is easily seen what difference there is betwixt this Catholique Tradition and this pretended For the force and energie of tradition residing in the multitudes of hearers and being planted in the perpetuall action and life of Christians so that it must have such a publicity that it cannot be unknown amongst them Those the Heretiques pretend both manifestly want the life and being of tradi tions and by the very great report of them lose all authority and name For suppose some private doctrine of an Apostle to some Disciple should be published and recorded by that Disciple and some others this might well be a truth but would never obtain the force of a Catholique position that is such as it should be damnation to reject because the descent from the Apostle is not notorious and fitting to sway the body of the whole Church The Second Question may be How it commeth
opposed when they first parted first began the Schism how the points of difference be such as on the Catholike side help devotion and on the contrary diminish the same and such like sensible differences which will clearly shew a main advantage on the Catholike side which is the proportionall motive to his understanding To the Grammarian I will give two Memorandums First that seeing Catholiques were first in possession both of the Scriptures and the interpretations the adverse part is bound to bring such places as can receive no probable Exposition by the Catholikes It is not sufficient that their Expositions seem good or better that is more conformable unto the Text but they must be evincent to which no so sound answer even with some impropriety can be given For who knoweth not that is conversant in Criticks how many obscure and difficult places occurre in most plain Authors and the Scripture of all Books the greater part of the men who wrote them specially the new Testament being not eloquent and writing not in their native tongue for the most part are subject to many Improprieties The other Memorandum is That to prove a Catholike point by Scripture it is sufficient that the place brought do bear the Explication the Catholike beareth and if it be more probable by the very letter it is an evincent place The reason is Because the Question being about a Christian Law the Axioms of the Jurists taketh place that Consuetudo optima interpres Legis So that if it be manifest that Christian practise which was before the controversie be for the one sense and the words be tolerable no force of Grammar can prevail to equalize this advantage The Grammarian therefore who will observe these rules I turn him loose to the Scriptures and Fathers to seek in them what is the faith of Christ and properties of his Church to know her by Of the the Philosopher I exact to go like a Philosopher and to search out the specificall differences of every Sect and when he hath found them if any one but the Catholike hath any rule of Faith and good life which I remit to him to enquire But at least when he hath found the Catholiques to be this claim of Tradition before declared then if this doe not bring him as demonstratively as he knoweth any conclusion in Philosophie and Mathematicks to the notice that this is the only true Church of Christ for my part I shall quit him before God and man The Divine if he hath truly understood the principles of his Faith in the nature of a Divine I mean Trinity Incarnation Redemption Eucharist Beatitude the Creation and Dissolution of the World and hath seen the exact conformitie with the deepest principles of nature with an unspeakable wisedome of the contriver If he does not plainly confesse it was above the nature of man to frame the Catholike Religion and seeth not that onely that is conformable to nature and it selfe I say he hath no ground sufficient to be of it At last the Statesman who is truly informed of the Church how far it is really of Christs Institution and what either pious men have added or peradventure ambitious men encroached If he does not find a government of so high and Exotick strain that neither mans wit would dare to have attempted it neither mans power could possibly have effected it If he findeth not eminent helpes and no disadvantage to the temporall government I shall think there wanteth one Star in the Heaven of the Church to direct these Sages to Bethlehem But if God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way which goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the fit way for himselfe and what in other matters of that way he accomptech evidence And if there be no interest in his soule to make him loath to beleeve what in another matter of the like nature he would not stick at or heavy to practise what he seeth clearly enough I feare not his choice but if God send him time and meanes to prosecute his search any indifferent while it is long ago known of what religion he is to be of After this followeth no order of Chapters because it is applied to the discourse which was occasion of it Although if what is already be not satisfaction unto the writing and the Author thereof for whose sake and contentment all that hath been discoursed hitherto hath been set down I confesse that I have not ability to give him satisfaction yet least it should be interpreted neglect If I did not make an application of it unto the writing I shall as breifly as I can for avoiding tediousnesse runne over the discourse And true it is speaking of the Church of Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shye of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding questions impertinent to our discourse The first for those which are concerning the connection of the Sea of Rome to the universall Church The latter to avoid such questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Phylosophicall or other such like matter which questi on s are not so pertinent to our matter Neither doe I remit the Questioner unto Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I think it very rationall For nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable principle in all natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our understanding hath some principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some such principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its principall part in the very head And if there be such a principle the whole Church is infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Neither can I deny but that the Author well excepteth or assumeth that there is no lesse necessity the Church should be known to be infallible or which is this Church then that there is one For if I should admit absolutely that it is necessary for every man to know the Church is Infallible precedently to the knowledge of which is the true Church
of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speaketh in common but abstracting from such particular cases as may change wholly the nature of the question For example sake hath not the Church reason to say he that denyeth the blessed Trinity is an Heretique It hapneth one who hath conversed among the Tritheites hearing them use the word Trinity for three Gods meaning to speak against them denyeth there is any Trinity shall this man be comprehended in the foresaid condemnation Or was the sentence ill pronounced Neither as I think For bo h was it well done by the Church to condemne denyers of the Trinity because per se loquendo as the Phylosophers speak that is according to the ordinary course and nature of things who denyeth a thing in words denyeth it in heart yet the man forespoken did not so and was not condemned in that sentence In like manner when the Church condemneth all such as are not in actuall union and communion with her she doth well because according to the ordinary course this doth not fall out without either presumption and damnable pride or else culpable eitherignorance or feare and love of private interest before God and his Church But it followeth not thence that by accident no man may sometime be excused The words of our Saviour concerning Baptisme and Eucharist their necessity are very precise yet the Church doubteth not to excuse those who have it in voto But to proceed unto the point The corrent of Catholique Doctors holdeth that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who wilfully doth mis-beleeve and that to doe so it is required that faith be sufficiently proposed unto him And what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines that teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Herisie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not beleeving Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church of God according unto the ordinary opinions of Catholiques it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine case who be damned and who not So that the Catholique position is not so crude as peradventure the Author understood it to be though the words be rough and ought to be so as being of what is according to the course of nature not what chance and accideuts may invent The other point was of puting Heretiques to death which I think he understandeth to be done Vindicatively not Medicinally I meane imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischeife or oppresse it in the head If the Circumcellians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I meane by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better wits Saint Augustine justifieth such proceeding against Here tiques Saint Gregory advised the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather increased then decreased in the practise of it Mores's speech I beleeve is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholiques which shewed Lucius to be none But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith be the way of Salvation and hereby the bane of Faith if Salvation be the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplying of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion Why then doth not reason force us to use the meanes to prevent it which the same reason and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the zeale of the Author to his own and Countries Salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point For supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preached by another leadeth to damnation I know not why Caipha's words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth not expedire that unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat He urgeth afterwards against the unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag off And I confesse we brag of it and thinke we have reason too And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some Land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I thinke he will find that our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a civill Government and a barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a civill Estate there be no quarrels or amongst Barbarians there is no quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in nature What is then the goodnesse of Government but that in a well govern'd Country there is a meanes to end quarrels and in an Anarchy there can be no assured peace This therefore is that we brag of that amongst us if any controversie rise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who part from us And secondly that there is no assured agreement amongst those who are parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond nor tye why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not deny it For he confesseth we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they relie hath not this vertue to take up controversies clearly Againe I doe confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures sheweth slight wayes how our well-meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an error what is there to retaine these men from disagreeing with the rest of their brethern and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is passed light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall terme
from the Apostles then they must alwaies have been esteemed so by Christians whereas their doctrine is so farre from having any Tradition against it that if anie opinion whether controverted or uncontroverted except that Scripture which never was doubted may without blushing pretend to have that for it it must be this of theirs My Reasons are these The Fathers of the purest Ages who were the Apostles Disciples but once remov'd did teach this as receiv'd from them who professed to have receiv'd it from the Apostles and who seem'd to them witnesses beyond exception that they had done so they being better Judges what credit they deserv'd then after commers could possibly be All other opinions witnessed by any other Ancients to have Tradition may have been by them mistaken to have been so out of Saint Austin's and Tertullian's rules whereas for this and for this alone are delivered the very words which Christ us'd when he taught it Of the most glorious and least infirme building which ever in my opinion was erected to the honour of the Church of Rome Cardinall Perron was the Architect I mean his book against King James and that relies upon these two pillars that whatsoever all the Fathers he meanes sure that are extant witnesse to be Tradition and the doctrine of the Church that must be receiv'd for the doctrine of those ages and so rested upon If these rules be not concluding then the whole book being built upon them necessarily becomes as unconsiderable for what he intended it as Bevis or Tom Thumb If they be then this doctrine which is now hereticall in your Churches beleife was the opinion of the Ancient Church For if being taught by the Fathers of anie Age none contradicting it be sufficient this all for above two Ages and those the first teach not anie Father opposing it before Dionysius Alexandrinus 250. yeares after Christ at least that we know or Saint Hierome or Saint Austine knew and quoted wherein I note besides that both these Fathers either thought that no signe of the opinion of the Church or cared not though it were And if Fathers speaking as witnesses will serve let Pappias and Irenaeus be heard and believ'd who tels us it came to them from Christ by Verball Tradition and Justine Martir who witnesseth that in his time all Orthodoxe Christians held it and joynes the opposers with them who denied the Resurrection and esteemes them among the Christians like the Sadduces among the Jewes which proves that you have the same reason expallescere audito Ecclesiae nomine to grow pale at the mention of the Ancient Church the nearest to the Apostles as we have to start at that of two hundred years agoe and to be asham'd of your Dionysius Alexandrinus as wee of Luther Thus that great Atlas of your Church hath helpt us to pull it down the samewaies by which he intended to support it and though he have best of any undergone the burden of proving that to be infallible which is false yet he must have confest that either these are not proofes or they prove against himself And this advantage we have that unlesse you prove your own infallibility which you will never be able to do in what point soever you confute us that falls like a Pinacle without carrying all after it whereas if we disprove any one of your Religion we disprove consequently that infallibility which is the foundation of it all so that like them who vse poison'd weapons wheresoever we wound we kill but we are like those creatures which must be killed all over or else their other parts will remaine alive Neither must you think that you have answer'd the Chillasts by tying them to the Carpocratians and the Gnosticks which is but like Mezentius his joyning Mortua corpora vivis dead bodies to the living since the opinions of the two latter assoon as they were taught made the teachers accounted Hereticks and were oppos'd by allmost all whereas that of the first found in above two ages no resistance by any one known and esteemed Person and the teachers of it were not onely parts but principall ones of the Catholique Church and such as ever have been and are reputed Saints though by I know not what subtlety you dispence with your selves for departing from what doctrine was received from them as come down from the Apostles and yet threaten us with damnation if we will not believe more improbable Tenets to be Tradition upon lesse Certificate For as Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wine measures to buy with are great and to sell by are small so when you are to put a doctrine to us how small a measure of Tradition would you have us take one place of one Father speaking but as a Doctor seemes enough but when you are to receive any from us how large and mighty a measure will yet give you no satisfaction Neither can I find out what it is by which you conclude that their Tradition was gathered the Hereticall way from private discourse with the Apostles Irenaeus indeed tells us that Presbyteri meminerunt one of which Pappias was but not a word that it was deliver'd in secret or the auditors but few nor that others had not heard other disciples teaching the same doctrine and me thinkes that if you had evinced what you desire as you seem to me not to do unlesse to affirm be to prove it would make more against you sure if from so small a ground as the word of one onely disciple that he in private discourse was taught this by the Apostles a false doctrine could so generally be received by all the first Doctors of the Christian Church and that so long after Dionysius Alexandrinus had used his great Authority to destroy it Saint Hierome was yet halfe afraid to write against it as seeing how many Catholiques he should enrage against himselfe by it as he testifies in his Proem to the eighteenth Book of his Comment upon Ifaiah what suspitions must this raife in the mindes of those of your own party least what they esteemed Tradition had at first no greater a beginning and no firmer foundation but onely better fortune for why might not the same disciple have cozn'd them from whom their beliefe is descended in twenty other things as well as in this and why not twenty as well as he especially since you confesse some of your doctrine not to have had Vniversall Tradition but onely Tradition enough which if those Fathers did not think they had had for this they would never have receiv'd it but have excepted against the Hereticall way of their delivery if they had known that to be a private one and a private one to be such and if they were so deceived in this way might not they and more have been so too in other points and in time all If you say as it hath been said to me by one whose judgment I value as much as any
they went by such a Tradition since of that eighty so many persons from so many several Parts are witnesses beyond exception according to your own grounds and that their Infallibility is not thought to depend upon an Impossibility that in the matter of Fact what hath been taught under that Notion they should either deceive or be deceiv'd but upon an infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which may be wanting to any company whereof the Pope is no part or of whose decrees he is no confirmer Now to return to my proofes that against the Arrians there was no such Tradition as you speak of at least that was the ground upon which they were condemned consider if you please that in that Epistle which Eusebius of Caesarea writ to some Arrians after the Councell of Nice he saith First that they assented to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantiall because also they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some eloquent and illustrious Bishops and Writers had us'd the Terme In which I note thatneither claim'dhe any such Verbal Tradition for this as you speak of and of that sort which he claim'd he names onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some as knowing too many had writ otherwise to give such a Tradition leave to be generall Secondly He saith they consented to Anathematize the Contradictors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder men from using unwritten words by which he saith and that truely that all confusion hath come upon the Church And if it be askt why the same reason made them not keep out the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer That I believe or else he is not constant to his own reason that he meant onely those words to be unwritten which were in Scripture neither themselves nor equivalently whereas he took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be in the Scripture in the latter sence And that by written he meant in the Scripture onely appeares by what followes that no divinely-inspired writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using the Arrians Phrase it was neither fitting to say nor teach them Neither can you say that Eusebius being himself a secret Arrian prevaricated herein for Theodoret makes this Epistle an Argument against them which he would not have done if either it had seem'd to him to say any thing contrary to the Catholique doctrine or not to have oppos'd the contrary by a Catholique way at least without giving his leader some Caution concerning it All which reasons move me to think that the generality of Christians had not been alwaies taught the contrary to Arrius's doctrine but some one way others the other most neither as having been onely spoken of upon occasions and therefore me thinks you had better either say with the Protestants that the Truth was concluded as Constantine said it should be by Arguments from Scripture or as some of your own say of other points that before the Councell it lay in Archivis Ecclesiae in the Deskes of the Church then claime such a Tradition for it as appeares it can never be defended that it had Let us consider but two opinions more That Infants are not to receive the Eucharist is now both the doctrine and practise of the Roman Church but six hundred yeeres the Church us'd it Saint Austine accounted it necessary at least in some sence of the word if not absolutely which last is most likely because from the necessity of that which could not be receiv'd but by them who had received Baptisme he and Innocentius a Pope prove the necessity of Baptisme and an Apostolicall Tradition If therefore both these Ages had gone by your Rule how comes this difference between their opinions the Sacrament being the same it was and the Children the same they were This I may consider and see if the same way that this Doctrine hath been altered whether any other might not have received change Next that Saints are invocable you must say is Tradition taught from Father to Sonne as deriv'd from the Apostles if you will be constant to your own principle now though I might disprove this first by the many Fathers that beleeved the Just not to be admitted to the Beatificall vision before the day of judgement for upon this your side now grounds that but to be kept in secretreceptacles and by the long time which pass'd before this doctrine was condemn'd Secondly by the beginning of it which was particular Doctors Hipotheticall prayers with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such conditionall clauses And thirdly by Nicephorus Calistus his Relation who in this is a believable witnesse because he allowes of your opinion that prayers to the Virgin Mary were first brought into the publick Liturgie by one Petrus Gnapheus a Heretick about five hundred yeares after Christ yet I will rather chuse to confute this by the confession of Sancta Clara out of Horantius who to this objection that sub Evangelio which must mean when the Gospel was preacht no such precept is extant not onely denies it not but gives this reason for it least the Pagans should-think themselves brought againe to the worshipping of Men instead of Gods If upon this or any other reason this were not then taught then have not all your Doctrines such a Pedigree as you suppose but allow it were yet howsoever it followes that some at least of the learned of your Church have not been taught that they have or consequently that it is necessary they should have Though it seemes to me little less then Montanisme to believe that any since as it were a Paraclet should perfect the doctrine which then was delivered by the Apostles Neither can you answer that they speake onely of such a Precept and of being extant whereas they might teach it lawfull without giving any Precept and they might have given such a Precept although not extant for I should readily reply that the reason they give why there is none such extant shewes that they mean there was none at all neither Precept nor allowance since the Pagans would have been scandaliz'd at its being accounted lawfull to worship men instead of Gods although it were not commanded and not a whit the lesse whether that in after times were extant or not which they could not foresee The onelie answer which I am able to invent in your behalfe is this that though some of your particular doctrines have not such a Tradition yet there being a Tradition that the Churches definitions are infallible whatsoever she at any time defines is then to be believed upon the strength of such a Tradition and before did latere in causis as Flowers do in Winter Yet to this I may reply by desiring you to enter with me into some few considerations First If this were so and that so much of Christian Religion depends upon the definitions of the Church and our Reception of them upon knowing alwaies which is she and that such is her authority can you perswade your selfe that Christ
sending his Apostles and Disciples to Preach the Gospel and after four of them writing his Gospel which shewes if the Books be true to the title that they writ all they preacht at least that was necessarie for else they were not Gospels but Parts of it that they should not rather leave out any thing else how important soever then not have imploied themselves about teaching us that the Churches Definitions are a Rule of our Faith and instructing us in Markes so proper to her that we might never need to doubt whether it be she that defines or no and whether their not having done this evince not in Reason that this your Doctrine is false Secondly I pray consider whether if there were any such continu'd Tradition about the Definitions of the Church whether that must not also have taught or else have been to small purpose when it is that the Church hath defin'd but yet that is a case not fully judged among you For some hold that the Church hath defin'd when a Councel hath although unapproved by the Pope which is denied by others Thirdly Consider whether supposing as was before suppos'd it must not also have taught certaine Notes to know the Church by but yet about those you are not agreed Salmeron putting Miracles among the false Signes of the Church and Bellarmine and many more among the True ones Fourthly Consider whether the Church have an eternall spring of Doctrines within her or but a finite number and onely those which the Apostles preacht and I believe you will pitch upon the latter Not then to ask how they come to know them nor if you answer by Tradition to ask you againe how come men then not to know before a Definition what it is they Preacht for if the Bishops of which a Councell is compounded know it not now how will they know it when they meet I will desire to know why the Church will not at once teach us all she knowes and not keep us in doubts which she may resolve and did the Apostles teach their Doctrines to be lockt up or taught to us And then having considered this you will find I believe that the Church do with Doctrines as Fathers with Estates never give their Children all that they may still have something to keep them in awe with because if she should she could never have after pretended a Power to end any new emergent controversie keeping in secret what she knowes any that ariseth she may still pretend is endable by her Fiftly Consider that it will appear but a shift if you say that there is a Tradition that all the Churches Definitions be true and so excuse the particular Doctrines for otherwise having none and yet avoid giving us any Rules to know the Church by at all times and answering those Questions which must be ended before we can know at any time when she hath defin'd Now I confesse if you had said Tradition teacheth that the particular Church of Rome is so the Admiral ship that we may know any other if it be of God's Fleet because then it must follow her that is be subject to her decrees theirs which joyn with her this would have bin plainly to let me know your mind and we might quickly have examin'd whether there were any Tradition for the Church in this sence to be alwaies obeyed when she Teaches and without you say this you say nothing and will never be able to give any such Note of the Church as the ignorant may without blushing pretend to know it by Because therefore I guesse that when not I but your Adversaries reasons for I am but one of the worst transcribers of them have driven you from your own Fort you must retire to that of your friends or like them which are drowning you will rather catch at a Twigg then sink I will consider this Assertion which I suppose you must lay hold of so far forth as to shew it to be indeed but an Assertion That there hath no such Verbal Tradition nor indeed any come downe seems to me for these reasons Saint Cyprian by opposing the Church of Rome and that with many Bishops about the Rebaptization shewes sufficiently that he and they knew of no such Tradition and then in what Cave must it have lain hid if the chiefe Doctor of that age was ignorant of it and even his Adversaries claim'd it not And that he knew no such appears not onely by his Actions but also by his words for to them who claim'd Tradition for the particular point propos'd though none for the Authority of the Church proposing he answers if it be contain'd in the Gospels Epistles or Acts let it be observed at one blow cutting off not onely that for sure this authority of the Church of Rome is no way taught in the Scriptures but all other unwritten Traditions which Cardinal Perron thought most skilfull in that kind of Fence was not able to ward but Du Plesis objecting it receiv'd no other answer then that the opinion of Cyprian was condemn'd and that Tradition although unwritten maintain'd Which answer though it be as far from befitting the Cardinall as from answering the objection since it is plaine that this opinion was once held by such as were of chiefe estimation among the Orthodox and consequently the contrary was not then the generall and necessary doctrine of Christians and the prevailing of the one since proves not the other false but rather unfortunate or the spreaders faulty yet I confesse I excuse him for as I have learnt from Aristotle that it is ridiculous to expect a Demonstration where the matter will beare but a probability so would it be in me to expect even a probable solution of an Argument the evidence of which will suffer none at all Neither was he I mean Cyprian the first that without blot of Heresie oppos'd the Tradition of the Church of Rome but that courage which he left to others after him when they saw the Christian World joyne in counting him a Saint and a Martyr whom the Bishop of Rome had stiled a false Christ and a false Apostle the same had he received by seeing that the Asian Bishop had also rejected and oppos'd her Tradition and yet Policrates ever had in great honour and the rest never branded with the crime of Heresie nay even the more neighbouring Bishops and who joyn'd with the Pope in the time of celebrating Easter as Iraeneus yet thought the difference not worth excommunication and for want of skill in the Canon Law transgrest so farre as to reprehend for it whereas if to that Church all else had been to conform themselves then Iraeneus ought therefore to have thought the matter of weight enough because she thought it so who were to small purpose made a Judge if she were not as well enabled to distinguish between slight and materiall as between False and Truth though that it seemes she was not for the
Church of Rome never refus'd their Communion before though she knew them to hold the same opinion and so as plainly appeares counted that materiall in one Age which she had not so esteemed in others and therefore in the degree at least of holding what she held contradicted herself and followed Traditions And as Cyprian imitated them so did the Affrican Bishop him for a Question hapning between them and the Bishops of Rome about Appeales though they absolutely oppos'd him and in vaine I confesse desired him that he would not bring into the Church Typhum hujus Saeculi the swelling pride of this World and though he laboured infinitely in the businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might bring it to passe yet he and two of his successors were either so unready or so unskil'd in the present Roman Doctrine that Feed my sheeep and thou art Peter were either out of their knowledge or out of their memory and they alleadged not any power jure divino but onely pretended to a Cannon of the Councel of Nice which when the Affricans found not in their coppies for they would not believe the Church of Rome so farre as to trust to hers though now you generally think the Scripture it selfe to have its authority quoad nos onely for her definitions they sent to the East to enquire there and finding their coppies agreeing with theirs they then more resolutely withstood the Pretence which brought at that time nothing to the Popes but repulse and shame And indeed not to object that it is not numbered among any of the ancient Herisies that they differ'd from the particular Roman Church nor is this Rule of being sure at all times to joyne with her ever given by those Fathers who set us waies and Antidotes how to secure our selves against Heresie which could not have been left undone if they had known any such Tradition nor to speak of the Cannon of the Councell of Chalcedon which attributes the power of the Popes to the gift of their Fathers and that againe to Romes being the head City setting all this aside I will aske your selfe if it be not plain that those Fathers who upon the impudent pretence of some Hereticks send men to severall places to enquire after Tradition either send them to all the Apostolicall churches or to save their labour to that to which they were nearest as esteeming them all of equall authority though not jurisdiction for I may say of Rome and them as Tacitus doth of Caelius and the other Commanders Mutato nomine the name onely chang'd Pares jure Roma audendo potentior for what by watching all occasions to greaten herself whereof Cardinal D' Ossat is my witnesse what by abusing the respect all men had ever given her in respect of the chiefe Apostles which founded her of the Empire which was long seated in her and of her ancient Bishops whereof about thirtie together were martyr'd there what by interpreting what was given to her Authority as given to her Power and taking civilities aud complements of which no Court is now so full as the ancient Bishops were made to Popes for alleagiance sworn to them what by forging false decretall Epistles which the Tearmed Authors of them would not forgive them for if they knew it if it were onely for the barbarous language what by these and such other waies she is come at length to that passe that what Auitus a Roman Generall said to the Ansibarians who gave him reasons why he ought not in justice to disturbe their possessions Id Diis placitum ut Arbitrium penes Romanos maneret quid darent quidve adimerent neque alios Judices quam seipsos paterentur It is the will of Heaven that it be left to the Romans what they will please to give or take away and suffer not any Judges but themselves appeares now not so much a History of the Pride of the Roman Empire as a Prophecy of the generall doctrine of the Roman Church Having ever marked Error and Confidence to keep so much company that I seldome find the first but I mistrust the second makes me loath to affirme any thing over-dogmatically out of these objections or say that they cannot be answered Onely because I must not offend against Truth for feare of offending against Modesty I will take leave to say that if I could have answered them my selfe I would not have put you to the trouble of doing it which you might also have sav'd if by letting me know your name you would have enabled me to have found you out and so in a short discourse have tried whether I could have obtain'd that satisfaction from your words which I must now expect from your Pen. But supposing I had none of these objections yet two things besides would have kept me from assenting to what you say The first is that your men when they aske us how we know Scripture to be Scripture and this to be the sence of it tell us withall that unlesse we know it by some more infallible way then our owne Reason they mean their Church it will not serve for a beliefe of those things which are to be believ'd by a divine Faith Now this Argument of yours upon which you build all allowing that it appear'd good reason yet at most it is but reason and liable to the same exceptions unlesse the same thing be a wall when you leane upon it and a bulrush when we doe The second is that all you say for as yet you speak not of the Authority of the Particnlar Church of Rome though you must at length come to it though by that too little is to be gotten if it were granted would but prove those who adhere now to the Church of Rome to be now in the right but I asked for a guide which might without new search serve me the next yeer as well as this For for all that you have prov'd she may leave the way you say she now pretends to walk in and attempt to reform too which I wish were as probable as it is possible or there may arise a schisme between two parts of those Churches which now adhere to the Roman and both may claime Tradition for what hath been may be againe and how shall I know then which side to take since both will seem equally good by that Touchstone which you appoint me to try with And if I be then sent to try by Ancient Writers it is certaine that besides the fallibility of that way for the learned this cannot be done at all by the ignorant and it is probable that both Parties will fall into that absurdity into which the Church of Rome daily runs which is that although the evidence which she claimes by cannot well be exactlie read over in thirty yeares time yet she requires us under paine of Damnation to give our Verdicts for her by twenty yeeres old The Second Part. THe high and Sage Master
this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered from Father to Son untill this day and admits not any Doctrine for good and legitimate which he doth not receive in this manner What the Judicious of whom I am no member can do I know not but I not onely can but do deny it you meaning by that Congregation the Church of Rome for by seeing that not upon this but other kind of claim certaine Doctrines have arrived to the very brink of being defined I have cause to think that if they received none in upon other grounds these would not be suffered to stand so neer the doore And indeed there being between your selfe such differences that Erasmus tels us that he who is a Heretick among the Dominicans is Orthodox to the Scotists sure one side hath admitted of a Doctrine for Legitimate which hath not been so received and then me thinks this being easily endable which it is by seeing which claimes such a delivery for if both do it then two Parts may which you deny if neither do then your whole Church goes by some other Rule that which doth upon that which you call the Catholique Grounds me thinks should have obtained a definition for her and the other which resists that Principle upon which they ought onely to build should have been suddenly and absolutely condemned This will appeare plainer if we consider the opinions of your Church by the Actions of her Head in a notable and late Example A great controversie being risen between the Dominicans and the Jesuites it was heard before Pope Clement let us see then what course he took to find which Part held the Truth since he was not likely especially in a time wherein by being more opposed then usually he had reasons to be consequently more cautious to chuse a new way by which truth was not wont to be found out by your side upon like occasions Did he send for the wisest and best men from all nay from adjoyning Parts to enquire of them what they had been taught by their Fathers to have been received by them uninterruptedly from the Apostles did he examine with which of them the first and purest ages sided did he consider which opinion would make us have the more excellent conceit of God and work most towards the expelling of Vice None of all these were his course but he appointed both sides to prove which of them followed Saint Austine and according to them he intended to give sentence if the advice of Cardinall Perron had not prevailed to the contrary But many days they spent in examining what he thought who thought so variously concerning it that he scarce knew himself which whereas before him all the Ancients that I could ever meet with were with the Iesuites with an Vnanimous consent and by them if they must be tried by men as fallible as themselves it would have better agreed with their own Principles to have had both Parts judged After the Pope let us hear Bishop and allmost Cardinall Fisher who being one of your own Authors and Martyrs cannot be thought to praevaricate against that Church for whose defence he imployed not onely his Inke but his Blood His words are these There are many things of which was no enquirie in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times And that you may see that he speakes of points of Faith He addes No Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there is no mention or exceeding rarely It is not believed by the Greeks to this day Neither did the Latines conceive this Truth at once but by little and little And for an Epiphonema he closeth it thus Considering that Purg atory was a good while unknown after partly by Revelations partly by Scripture came little by little to be believed by some and so at last the beliefe of it was generally received by the Catholique Churches Who can wonder concerning Indulgencies that in the Priinitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory See I pray how will you two agree You say the Church of Rome receives but what she claimes to be come down to her from the Apostles without interruption He saith some of her Doctrines were long unknown and came in by Revelations and Scripture you say new Doctrines cannot come into a Church that holds this Principle He saith Doctrines have come in by little and little So either she held not allwaies this Principle or for all that they might come in To be short all which he hath said seemes to me as if he had purposely intended to frame a Ram to batter down that fortification which you have built about the Roman Church Now though he be of so great an Authority that he needs no backing yet I will desire you to look into Alphonsus de Castro where he speakes of Indulgences and see if he mend the matter He confesseth that the use of them seemes to be late received into the Church yet would not have them contemned because many things are known to after-commers of which those ancient Writers were wholly ignorant Amongst whom there is rarely mention of Transubst antiation more rarely of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son of Purgatory almost none For though he speaks after as if he meant onely that the names of these were unmentioned and not the things yet it is plaine that if he brought them in to any purpose it was to prove that some Doctrines are after of necessity to be believed which once were not and Doctrines consist in the Things not in the Name I could next tell you of Erasmus his saying Res deducta est ad Sophisticas contentiones Articulorum Miriades proruperunt Religion is come down to Sophistry and a Miriad of Articles are broken out But knowing that his words will not find so much respect because he himself finds lesse favour as those of others more allowed among you let us mark these words of Sancta Clara The Church when it is said to define any thing she rests not upon any new Revelations but upon the ancient lying hid in writings and words of the Apostles which he sayes not as his private opinion but the constant beliefe of Doctors By which it appeares plainly that there are at least interpretations of what the Apostles taught drawn forth by Reason not received by Tradition which makes now a part of the present Roman Religion a sufficient Gappe for Errors to enter at when either mistakings or ends may become new opinions and stile them but interpretations of the old Salmeron a Voluminous Jesuite one neither by his order nor his inclination an enemy at all to the Roman Church being press'd by the opinions of the Ancients affirmes Doctores quò Juniores
eò perspicaciores esse That the more modern Doctors are the more prespicatious that per incrementa Temporum nota facta sunt Divina mysteria quae tamen antea multos latuerunt In processe of time Divine Mysteries have been made known which before lay hid from many That it is infirm arguing from Authority and answers to the multitude of them who in times past had opposed him with these words of Exodus That the opinion of many is not to be followed leading us out of the way with some other very Anabaptisticall answers and very contrary to your Tenets for sure it were a strange Tradition which had so many Orthodox Opposers and nothing inferiour to that saying of Zuinglius so much exaggerated Quid mihi cum Patribus potius quam cum Matribus The same Author in same place saies that Saint Hierome durst not affirm the Assumption but Saint Austine durst and by that meanes the Church perswaded by his reason believes it Such a notable Tradition have all her opinions for even this affirmation which he confesseth brought in this beliefe is it self not now believed to be Saint Austines for I take it he must mean his tract of the Assumption counted not his by your own Divinity-Criticks the Lovaine Doctors which have set it forth at Cullen And because I am willing to spend no more time in the proofe of so apparent a Truth I will not urge Posa who to perswade the defining of an opinion which hath a great current of the Ancients against it so farr it is from having any Tradition for it reckons many other opinions condemned by your Church and defended by the Ancients unlesse you will believe his impudent Assertion that they are all corrupted and will passe to the Conclusion of this which shall have for a Corollary the Confession of a Spanish Arch-Bishop who is to be thought to speak with more authority then his own because being imployed to bring that to passe which was desired by so great a Part of your Church he can scarce be supposed not to have had the advice and consent of many of them in what he sayes He then tell us First every Age either brings forth or opens her Truth Things are done in their times and severall Doctrines are unlockt in severall Ages Secondly To shew that though his opinion had no such Tradition as you say your Church claimes for all her Doctrines yet it may and ought to be defined he desires to know who ever taught the Assumption of the Virgin before Saint Austines and Hieromes time and by whom was that opinion deduct from the Apostles Nay he absolutely affirmes that before Nazianzene no man ever taught any thing of her delivery without paine yet many thought the contrary Thirdly and lastly For your absolute confutation he confesseth that we believe and hold in this Age many things for Mysteries of Faith which in former Ages did waver under small or no Probability and many Things are now defined for Articles of Faith which have endured a hard repulse among the most and the weightiest of the Ancient Doctors and no light contradiction among the Ancient Fathers and having reckoned up five Particulars The Validity of Hereticks Baptisme The Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgment The Spirituallity of Angels The Soules being immediately created and not ex traduce And The Virgines being free from all actuall Sinne He shuts it thus Many of these kinds of Opinions there are which sometimes declined to one Part sometimes to the other and had contrary Favourers according to severall times untill a diligent and long disquisition being praemitted the Truth was manifested either by Pope or Provinciall or generall Councels nay and saies that the disquisition is made by conferring of Places of Scripture and Reason which is the way which you mislike These things considered whosoever shall after say that your Church claimes all her Doctrines to have come by a Verball and constant Tradition to her from the Apostles I will not say that he is very impudent but I cannot think that a small matter-will put him out of countenance for your part I esteeme you so much that I am confident you have not so little Nose as not to find the contrary nor so little Forehead as not to confesse it having received the Affidavit of such a cloud of Witnesses Whosoever pretend Christ his Truth against her saith that true it is she had once had the true way but by length of times she is fallen into grosse Errors which they will reform not by any Truth which they have received from hand to hand from those who by both Parts are acknowledged to have received their lesson from Christ and his Apostles but by Arguments either out of Ancient Writers or the secrets of Reason This is no farther true then as it concernes the Protestants for the Greek Church will not suffer your proposition to be generall but forbid the Banes They pretend not to have made any Reformation but to have kept ever since the Apostles what from them was received Barlaam saies they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep safe and whole the Tradition of the Catholique Church nay he proves his to be the sound Part because by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing was ever more esteemed then her Tradition And he objects it to your Church that she doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 difanull the Tradition of the Catholique Church and setting them at naught bring in strange and undenizon'd opinions And that Greeke who is joyned to Nilus and Barlaam in Salmatius his Edition disputing against a Cardinall chargeth you that you do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sow Tares among the Tradition of the Apostles and Fathers if when they make this claime they either say so and think not so or think so and erre then this proves that though the Roman Church did make that claime which you say she doth yet she too might either claime it against her Conscience or against Truth For this claime of the last cannot be denyed but by him who will imitate that Hamshire Clown of whom you give me warning and believe no more then he sees himself especially since your own Authors when they dispute for Traditions prove their authority from this profession of the Greekes but I cannot blame you to forget them if we would suffer you since they cannot be remembred but by your Religions disadvantage For I verily believe that if they had but one Addition which they want I mean Riches not onely most of them who leave the Protestants would sooner go to them then to you unlesse they would take their Religion as we take Boates for being the Next but money among you who though they dislike your pretended Infallibility that the Popes usurpations upon the rights of other Bishops his not ancient claime of power to deliver Soules out of Purgatory c And yet are frighted from joyning
with the Protestants by want of Succession Vocation and such like Bull-beggers would goe over to them as I have heard Spalato meant to doe if they were not kept by an unwillingnesse to change the spirituall tyrannie of the Pope for the temporall of the Turke But although there were no such Churches or they made no such claime yet having shew'd out of your own Authors that some opinions have not been constantly delivered by Tradition but have entered into the Church upon the grounds which might at least possiblie deceive them of Scripture Reason and Revelation and others knockt apace to be let in I hope we may be excused for making a reveiw of all and examining what doctrines have been brought in if not by Scripture which we think reasonable at least by comparing what this age teacheth and requires with what the first Ages did to which we are encourag'd by your selves who make agreement with Antiquitie the chief mark of the Church unlesse you meane your selves to be onelie Judges even of those things by which you bid us to judge you For our examinations by reason I cannot tell why you mislike it since those who trust their own reason least trust it yet to chuse for them one whom they may trust against which all Arguments drawn from her fallibilitie without question lie Your Religion is built upon your Church her authoritie upon reasons which we think slight and fallacious and your selves think but prudentiall and probable ought we not then nay must we not examine them by Reason or receive them upon your word And allowing them probable reason yet I have still cause to examine further whether your superstructions be not more unreasonable then your foundations are reasonable for then I cannot receive a more unprobable doctrine then that is probable which it is prov'd by Yet in respect of things appearing divers at divers times I doe not like my own way so well as to esteem it absolutelie infallible but though I keep it because I account it the best yet I will promise to leave it when you can shew me a better which will be hard to doe because you cannot prove it to be better but by reason against which proofe and consequentlie against whatsoever it proves your own Objections remaine For to be perswaded by reason that to such an authoritie I ought to submit it is still to follow reason and not to quit her And by what else is it that you examine what the Apostles taught when you examine that by ancient Tradition and ancient Tradition by a present Testimonie Yet when I speake thus of finding the Truth by Reason I intend not to exclude the Grace of God which I doubt not for as much as is necessarie to Salvation is readie to concurre to our Instruction as the Sunne is to our sight if we by a wilfull winking chuse not to make not it but our selves guilty of our blindnesse Indeed if we love darknesse better then light and instead of esteeming it shut it out it were but just in God if we so continue long hardened not to suffer it to see after when we would since so obstinatelie we would not when we might like to that which happened to those Englishmen of whom Froissard speakes who having long bound up an eye and made a foolish vow never to see with that till they could see their Mistresses when they returned and unbound them they saw nothing but that they could not see Yet when I speake of Gods grace I mean not that it infuseth a knowledge without reason but workes by it as by its Minister and dispels those Mists of Passions which doe wrap up Truth from our Understandings For if you speake of its instructing any other way though I confesse it is possible as God may give us a sixth sence yet it is not ordinarie and ought not to be brought to dispute because so we leave visible Arguments to flie to invisible and your Adversarie when he hath found your play will be soon at the same locke and I beleeve in this sence infus'd Faith is but the same thing otherwise apparell'd which you have so often laught at in the Puritans under the title of private Spirit This being supposed either this Principle hath remain'd unto her ever since her beginning or she took it up in some one Age of the sixteen if she took it up she then thought she bad nothing in her but what she had receiv'd from her fore-fathers and if she thought so she knew it This Principle is not yet taken up by her and suppose it were yet since some other opinions are confess'd to have been receiv'd by her not from a constant Tradition but Scripture and Revelations and not at once but by little and little this very Principle of receiving nothing but from Tradition might it selfe have been receiv'd not from Tradition nor need it have been in any one Age of the sixteen but some might have taught it in one Age more in another and all at last and this so farre from being an impossibilitie that it were no wonder Let us adde that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and Languages that it is impossible they should agree together upon a false Determination to affirme with one consent a Falsity for Truth no Interest being able to be common to them all to produce such an effect Although so many Countries could not so well agree upon it at once yet some might so perswade others that in time and by degrees the disease may be grown epidemicall And trulie considering in everie Countrie how few there are who thinke of Religion at all or of them againe who walke in it by the directions of their owne eyes even of them who take upon them to shew that way to others but for the most part which they did much more in more ignorant times when Scriptura sacra cum vetustis authoribus frigebat are lead by some few whom they reverence for their Piety and learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose words are accounted lawes and they againe by a Thomas or a Scot or at best by Austine or Hierome and thinke it Tradition enough to have it from them for else why thinke they to beare us downe with the Authoritie of one or two Fathers if they thinke that not ground enough to goe upon themselves it seemes little stranger to me that whole Countries should let in not ancient opinions then that a few should since a few in all places have ever govern'd all the rest of this I will bring two very known examples out of the Ecclesiasticall Historie The first is of Valens the Emperour who being himselfe an Arrian and making peace with a Nation which was not so and supposing that they would never have firme concord with him to whom in Faith he was so opposite was advised to perswade their Bishop to change his beleife for which end having
them And first how it happened that divers Heretickes pretended to Tradition as the Chiliasts Gnosticks Carpocratians and divers others yet they with their Traditions have been rejected and the Church onely leftin claime of Tradition For if we looke into what Catholicke Tradition is and what the Herelicks pretended the question will remaine voided For the Catholicke Church cals Tradition that Doctrine which was publiquely delivered and the Hereticks called Tradition a kinde of secret Doctrine either gathered out of private conversation with the Apostles or rather pretended that the Apostles besides what they publiquely taught the world had another mysticall way proper to Schollers more endeared which came not to publique view whereas the force and energie of a Tradition residing in the multitude of hearers and being planted in the perpetuall life and actions of Christians it must have such a publicity that it cannot be unknown amongst them Of the Carpocratians and Gnosticks I have spoke before but sure for the Chiliasts this is onely said and not proved Howsoever this undeniablie appeares that either Pappias and Irenaeus thought not this Tradition to have come such a way as you speake of or else they thought it no hereticall way but such a one as was at least reasonablie to be assented to and both what was the way by which Traditions ought to come and by which this came they were more likely to know then those of following ages which proves that this Objection as much as concernes them especiallie remaines still so strong that in spite of Fevardentius it will be better to answer it Scalpello quam Calamo with a Pen-knife then with a Pen and no Confuter will serve for it but an Expurgatory Index no non si tuus afforet Hector if Cardinally Perron were alive I must by the way take notice of what yon say here that Tradition must have such a Publicity as cannot be unknown among Christians and desire you to agree this with what you say in the next Paragraph that the Apostles may not have preached in some Countries some Doctrines which we now are bound to receive as Traditions for sure those Doctrines were then unknown among many Christians and if they had been necess ry sure the Apostles would no where have forgot wich so good a Prompter as the Holy Ghost to have taught them If they were not then necessary how have they grown to be so since Besides I appeal to your Conscience whether it appeart that the doctrine of the Exchequer of Superabundant merits of which the Pope is Lord Treasurer and by vertue of which he dispenseth his pardons to all the Soules in Purgatory appear to have been known evern to any of the best Christians and whether if it had been known to them as a Tradition being a Doctrine which necessitates at least Wisdome and Charity a continuall practice of sueing for them and of giving them it were possible that of what they knew such infinite Volumes of Authors should make no mention Suppose some private Doctrine of an Apostle to some Disciple should be published and recorded by that Disciple and some others this might well be a Truth but never obtain the force of a Catholique Position that is such as it would be a damnation to reject because the descent from the Apostle is not notorious and fit to sway the body of the whole Church I confesse that to have been no more generally delivered will prove that the Apostles thought not such a Doctrine necessary else their Charity would not have suffered them to have so much concealed it but yet to any such Doctrine it is impossible that any Christian who believes the testimony that it came from the Apostles should deny his assent because it were to deny the Authority upon which all the rest is grounded for the Church pretends to her Authority from them and not they from her and howsoever such a Doctrine although not necessary could not be damnable as you make this Besides here will first arise a Question not easie to be decided how great a multitude of Witnesses will serve to be notorious and fit to sway the body of the Church especially so many having not for a long while been thought fit even by Catholiques though attesting doctrines since received by you all and considering that multitude of your Church which believe the immaculate Conception in as high a degree as it is possible without excommunicating the deniers who either walk not by that which you count the onely Catholique Rule or else claime such a Tradition who yet are not thought fit to sway the rest Secondly I pray observe how easie it was for the two first Ages at least the chiefe of them and all that are extant to have given assent to Traditions so unsufficiently testified or to have mistaken Doctrines under that notion for so they did to this of the Chiliasts and then after for it to spread till it were generall land last as long as men last upon their authority and when once it is so spread how shall we then discover how small an Originall it had when peradventure the head and spring of it will be as hard to find as that of Nilus so that the greatest part of what you receive might possibly appear to be no certainer nor better built if we could digg to the foundation Wherefore since the delivery of a Tradition by subsequent Ages hath its validity onely from the authority of the first me thinks you should either think that they received none but upon better grounds or else think these grounds good Thirdly I know not why you resolve this opinion of the Chiliasts to have had onely such a private Tradition for though they name John the Disciple and mention certaine Priests who heard it from him yet they deny not a moregeneraldelivery of it but peradventure least men might think that the generall opinion that it came from the Apostles might arise from places of Scripture which fallacie their testimony when not so fully expressed was still in danger of concerning any point but that these books were written by these men they therefore thought it fit to name to us their witnesses that it came from Christs owne mouth and in what words And if they had done so much on your side for the differences between us I believe you would now have few Protestant adversaries left for you would have converted the greater part and by that have been enabled to burn the smaller The second Question may be How it cometh to passe that some things which at first bindes not the Churches beliefe afterwards commeth to bind it For if it were ever a Tradition it ever must needs be publique and ever bind the Church and if once it were not it appears not how ever it could come to be for if this age for example have it not how can it deliver it to the next that followeth But if we consider that the
according unto the ordinary opinions of the Catholicks it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine Case who be damned and who be not As the King of Spaine after long calling the Hollanders Rebels at last for his own sake descended to treat with them as free States so those of your Religion when they hope to gaine a Proselite thunder out to him crudelity and without any of these Mollifications which you now use that extra Ecclesiam Romanam nulla est salus there is no salvation out of the Roman Church And Master Knot peremptorily avers that no Catholick of an entire fame ever taught that a Protestant so dying could be saved yet when they are press'd with the consequences they can as it seems vouchsafe to give us better words and find 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enough to soften this opinion though such as bring them more disadvantage in other considerations then help in this For first as before it seemed that you are not fully agreed either about the authority of the councels or what constitutes the Church by your avoiding to speak concerning it so now it seemes that neither are you resolved of what constitutes an Heretick and then what remaines there for you to know if what you account infallible and what damnable be yet both uncertaine to you Secondly Since you confesse none to be a Heretique but he to whom the truth is sufficiently proposed and when that is you are not resolved what a more then Sythian Barbarousnesse is it to make a coale of a Christian onely upon suspicion of Heresie especially since the Pagans themselves had Christian Charity enough to perswade them that it was much better that a guilty person should escape then an innocent be punished much more should you rather suffer the tares to grow then venture to pluck up the corne with it and beleeve the best when the truth lies hid in a place so hard to search into as is the heart of man into which as none entered the Sanctum Sanctorum but the High Priest God onelie can have admittance The other point was of putting Hereticks to death which I think he understandeth to be done vindicatively not medicinally I mean imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischiefe and oppresse it in the head I suppose it small satisfaction to a poor man carried to the stake for his Conscience to know by which member of a distinction he is put to death and that this as little excuseth you as it satisfies them I hope to shew before we have ended the consideration of this present Paragraph If the Circumcelians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for Banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I mean by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better witts I wish to you what Erasmus wisht to Augustinus Steuckius which is that you were but equall in probando diligens as you are in asseverando fortis For how unlikely is it that we should give you credit without proofe onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the antiquity of a thing which began so long after Christs Apostles were all dead is enough to prove it lawfull Howsoever it would at most but prove it lawfull to put such Hereticks to death as force men to do so in their owne defence for such were they Besides I object not onely against this custome the not being ancient for I conconfesse there might have been before a power to do so too though not used to the uttermost though in likelihood what perswaded you to use it would have perswaded them to the same if they had thought they had it but as being also condemned by Hillary and Athanasius and other Orthodox For though some punishment of a lesse degree were inflicted upon others too by their own side as you trulie instance when their power prevailed yet Constantine saies not onely in an Edict for libertie of opinions which he who was then Pope never appeared to stomack as his successor undoubtedly would now doe the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man trouble another but let every one do as his own soule will but also gives this concluding reason against you for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is one thing willingly to take upon them this combate for immortality and another to force them to it with punishment and so in whatsoever he did contrary to this in any case wherein this reason held his words condemne his action And whereas you say that when Constantine made so slight of the question between Arrius and Alexander it was because he knew not the consequence of the danger I shall desire to know of you whether you must not confesse that there is now no King of your Religion so ill instructed in it though none of them be never so learned or curious as Constantine was who if any man in his dominion should arise denying Transubstantiation would not presently know the danger of the consequence and resolve him for an Heretick and to the stake instantly and not speak against his opinion onelie as impertinent and de lana caprina and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if this had been as resolved a thing then among Christians to have come from Tradition as Transubstantiation is now amongst Papists he would necessarilie as soon have discovered it too Howsoever I believe his after-witts to have been his worser witts in punishing though not in condemning of Arrius and to me it yet seemes for to be sure not to speak Heretically I will not speak obstinately that to have laboured in stopping of disputes on both parts and tying them to Scripture Phrases and to speak of God onelie in the Word of God had been at least in respect of Unity not a worse way then to have given an example to what after followed I mean the frequent explication with Anathema to boote of inexplicable misteries Neither would then so many questions have so long troubled the Church which for their slightnesse were unworthy ever to exercise the Schooles But for that or any other meer error as it may be for ought any one knowes unlawfull in any to punish at all I by no meanes like not to put to death for the same seemes to me it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin above measure sinfull though even the act of it proceeded from an opinion of doing God some service and that opinion from a meer error too then I conceive but a materiall no formall sin for the same cause and so neither this materiall Murtherer nor that materiall Heretick be guilty before God who onely can distinguish and to whom it is
fit to be left Howsoever the long doubt of some and opposall of other Orthodox to this course and that arising not from their Policie or Compassion but their Conscience not as thinking it unprofitable or unfit but unlawfull shews that there was then no Tradition that the Apostles taught it to be lawfull so to use Hereticks upon which onelie all the Infallibilitie which you claime for any beliefe or custome of your Church is founded Saint Austine justifieth such proceedings against Hereticks Truely for putting them to death unlesse when they first assaulted which makes a wide difference for then it was not done as to Hereticks but as to Assassines from whom Nature teaches us to defend our selves and consequentlie to re-offend them whensoever Religion barres it not experience shewing us the danger of meerly defending to be neer to that too of not doing it at all I know not that ever he did nor do I beleeve it That some degree of punishment should be inflicted upon them I confesse he at last consented but chiefly to force them to come and see what the Church did whose actions the Hereticks impudently belied as if they set pictures upon the altar and did what you both doe and defend and they did not i. e. denied it Howsoever we have Saint Austine against Saint Austine and not onely his authority but his reasons more valid by much then that when he saith that such oppressions would make them think themselves vi victos non veritate convictos overcome by force not convicted by Truth and consequently dislikes it ne fictos Catholicos habeamus quos apertos Hereticos novimus least they become from open Hereticks but fained Catholicks Reasons which though these be not all we have in my opinion it was as impossible for him reasonably to answer when he was living as it would be now for him to do it when he was dead Besides as he useth these strong arguments against it so he is himself a strong example against it for the Church had lost this her so notable Champion if they then had been as severe to the Manichees as you are to us Saint Gregory vseth the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather encreased then decreased in the practice of it I believe your memory deceives you in this which you have cause to hope it doth for else the Church of Rome differs from that of Saint Gregories times it being now with her a judged case that Infidels may not be compelled to the Faith as I am told is shewed by Vaelentia Saint Thomas Hartado and others the Church having no power over those who are out of it and therefore they please to say that like them who among the Romans were onely Cives ad onera liable to the taxes of Citizens without Interest in their Priviledges Baptisme hath made us of the Church enough to be liable to her Punishments though not to be benefitted by her Communion Though indeed the same cause why you would have Hereticks put to death for feare of harming others with their opinions me thinks should extend to their punishment too unlesse you believe us to be as bad as Malefactors and not them or that their opinions are so irrationall as not likely to spread and ours so reasonable that against them the sword is the best shield and therefore as Brennus did his you put that into the scales for want of weight it being of giving Reasons as the Poet saith it is of giving Requitalls Irasci quam donari vilius constat Another reason which perswades me that you are mistaken in what you say of Gregory as this mistake facilitates my beliefe that you are so about Austines too is that Bede tells that some Romanists having converted the King of Kent that King did not yet force any to become Christians for saith he he had learned of these his Masters that the service of Christ WHICH REASON EXTENDS FARTHER THEN TO PAGANS must be voluntary and not forced Now if these received what they taught from Gregory as you often tell us then either he did not as you often say or thought that unlawfull which himself did And howsoever this Custome hath encreased since is very unconsiderable for unlesse it have its authority explicitely or implicitely from the Apostles it can give none since and unlesse it be proved to be well done at first no continuance can give this or any other action more justification then at first it had Moses speech I believe is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholickes which shewed Lucius to be none If Moses had meant as you would have him he should not have said onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not indefinitelie the banishing of Bishops but the banishing of Orthodox Bishops the leaving therefore of that out wherein according to you the whole sence of his Argument lay seemes to me plainlie enough to shew that he meant what they and you denie especiallie he adding as you may see in Zozomon their being punish'd by labour as well as punishment and then saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things are whollie abhorring from Christ and all right Beleevers concerning God and in Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Gods servant ought not to fight for so he counted to punish But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith he the way to Salvation and Heresie be the bane of Faith if Salvation the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over-runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplicity of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion why then doth not reason force us to use meanes to prevent it which the same reason-and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the Zeale of the Author to his own and Countries salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point for supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preach'd as then leadeth to damnation I know not why Caiphas his words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth expedire that Unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat I wish heartilie you were as good a Caterer as a Cooke I meane that you brought as good reasons as you dresse artificiallie what you bring For I finde there is in your words a verie notable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able to steale a man into your opinion before he hath askt himselfe why but if he stay to doe so then all your excellent
you say First Your saying as though there is nothing to retain a Protestant from being of any error when it shall appeare more probable to him then Truth therefore there were nothing to keep him from those errors whereas you should have considered that the greater probabilities may serve reasonably to hold him without a demonstration and the evidence of the thing without a guide and that if those be not ground enough for a man to fix upon in how ill estate are those of your Church in the Question concerning the Church in which they follow no guide nor have any demonstration but professe they yeeld to her authority but upon prudentiall motives which kind of arguments sure may as well and as fixedly preserve a Protestant in `n Orthodox opinion against a Heretick as the authoritie of the Church no surelier founded can you against us That every man should yeeld to that discourse which seemeeth fairest to him I confesse it is alwaies not onelie safe and fit but also necessarie even for them who receive the Infallibilitie of the Church since those who beleeve that beleeve it because that appeares fairest to them and as you object to us the possibilitie of being perswaded from the truth by some wittie Author why thinke you not the same Author may possiblie too appeare to you to destroy your prudentiall Motives and so consequentlie your whole Faith which is built upon the Church which is built upon them Secondlie I diflike your seeming to beleeve that any grounds which are not demonstrative are too slipperie to rest upon as not onelie being contrarie to reason but to your selfe who told me before that no more was required then a maine advantage on one side and that we had reason to be satisfied with Probabilities to guide our Actions in Religion or since by them we were content to regulate all the other Actions of our life Thirdlie I dislike in your own parties behalfe your saying that a Protestant is in good likelihood to turne Arrian for if you meane onelie that it is possible it concernes you as much as them since this seemes to inferre that the Scriptures doe make more probablie for them which if they did it is not Heresie and to contradict all those whom both parts call Fathers who thinke enough plaine in Scripture not onely to keepe but also to convert men from Arrianisme as it appeares by their employing so solelie those Armes against them that they needed the admonition of a Heretique to counsell them to the use of another Fourthlie I dislike your saying that after being made an Arrian he is not unlikelie to turne Jew especiallie that he is likelie to be perswaded by any exaggeration of the Absurdities in the Trinitie since both Grotius and other Authors seeme to say that the Jewes have their Trinitie too in the same Notion and howsoever the Arrian is so fullie perswaded alreadie that those are absurdities that perswasion being almost the forme of that opinion which constitutes him an Arrian yet the exaggeration of them can never worke upon him And for the Constellation you speak of it were so irrationall and so unprovable a Crotchet that no Oratorie could ever make it seeme to a reasonable man to have any inclination to sence and a foole may be made beleeve any thing how contrarie soever to his grounds unlesse he be of those who are given over to vaine imaginations because they love darknesse better then the light and the fault of no particular mens understanding or will is to lead any man to condemne his grounds for they are to be accused not of whatsoever he concludes who holds or rather in this case hath held them but onelie of what he concludes reasonablie according to them Besides for this cause it appeares strange to me that trusting to Scripture alone and without meaning the Church for my certaine guide should bring a man into danger of parting with his Christianitie since nothing can hold a man longer then he beleeves it and as long as our ground the Scripture is by him beleeved no man can possiblie turne either Atheist or Jew and he who leaves to beleeve your ground the Church cannot by that be any more with-held from either Besides that I thinke it is impossible I am sure it is irrationall that any of you should beleeve in Christ upon the authoritie of Christs Church since beleeving the latter which claimes no authoritie but from Christ praesupposeth the beleife of him and so Christianitie is not the apter to be overthrown through the absence of that upon which it is not built I feare rather least your doctrine known to be grounded it selfe upon Tradition by such a way according to which a Jew would have much advantage of a Christian may incline a man to Judaisme and your sides generall slighting all waies of knowing Gods will but onely by the Church and then neither proving her power stronglier nor teaching how to know her plainer may make men sinke into Atheisme by being perswaded by you in letting goe other strong holds upon Truth and receiving such weake ones from you Not to speake of your loading Christianitie with such impossibilities as the Pillars of it which are not absolute Demonstrations of which it may be scarce any thing is in nature capable but lines and numbers are able to beare and using all your Wits and Industries to perswade men that it is equallie unsafe to refuse any part of your Religion as to receive none and so instead of making these your beleefs admitted for the sake of Christianitie causing Christianitie to be rejected because of them But peradventure some may attribute Power to the Church without infallibilitie whom I would have consider but what himself saith For his Church by the Power it hath must either say I command you to believe or I command you to professe this whether you believe me or no. The second I think no enemy of equivocation will admit and the former it is as much as if it should say I know not whether I say true or no yet you must think I say true We having received a command that all things be done decently and in order and this being to be appointed by them whom either the Law of the Land if that consist of faithfull or the consent or custome of Christians hath appointed for Ecclesiasticall Rulers in this matter in every place the Church thus restrained to the Governours of the Church may have in some cases though not to your purpose power without the least Infallibilitie And for instruction which you aime at no Church can give it yours especially being too large a body ever to meet or joyn in doing it and if you restraine the Church to the Cleargie whereof yet many teach not and they too are too many for any man to be sure what they all agree in teaching and when they differ how shall I know which to follow otherwise then by your Rule
which I have answered their duty indeed but not theirs onely though Principally is to instruct us in the way to Heaven which they doing in the Persons of Embassadors between God and us and having no absolute Letters of Credence to bid us to beleeve that God saies whatsoever they say he saies as much as can be wrested out of Scriptures for any present Church being said of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet proved themselves not infallible our best way is in my mind to examine their Commission and if they can shew that they treat according to that to submit to them as in the same case we must to any of the Layetie or rather to God of whose commands they are but Organs and if not to beware of their Leaven Yet it may be that some man may hold that such an opinion is to be beleeved onelie because such a Church proposeth it and yet not believe her Infallible since he may think her authoritie by reason of her Learning Multitude Sanctitie Unitie and Libertie to be more probable then any contradicting argument and that men are to assent to what is most probable and truelie if he could prove to me his Major I am alreadie so much of the opinion of his Minor that I should joyne with him in his Conclusion So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity where no Entity no Church How you tie Power to Infallibilitie I guesse but cannot how you tie Unitie to Power For how many things are all men even at Unitie about though one have no Power over another in them onelie cemented together by their clear evidence And how many more do whole Bodies and Sects of men agree about without any such power though they differ in other points as so do you too Do not Protestants agree with you about manie and the chiefest credenda and about almost all the meerely facienda Though not perswaded to this agreement by the Power of any Judge which they do acknowledge Nay if men could be at Unitie about no thing which were not proposed by some Guide or defined by some Judge endued with such a power how came all you to agree that there is some such Guide and Judge required since sure you receive not that upon its own authoritie and if men may find the necessitie of a Guide and Judge without any Guide or Judge and remain in Unitie about that why may they not also about whatsoever is clearly taught by God which reason assures us to be all that is necessarie and if you say that all things necessarie are not clearlie taught because we do not though it proves not that we might not agree upon them then I replie that I may as well say that neither is it cleare that there is a Guide because we dissent from you in it although receiving the authoritie of the Scripture out of which Cardinall Perron confesseth that Saint Austine saith that both the necessitie of your guide the Church and she her self are to be known and reason which as they may be plain in this point for you and yet perswade us not so may they be in all necessarie points and yet we who make theirs our ground not perswade one another As little see I why there can be no Entitie nor Church where there is no Unitie For the first though there be small Unitie among Christians yet certainly Christians and their Religion have some Entitie indeed if what you say were true there were no Entitie in yours For the second I know not why two parties over-valuing their differences may not conceive each other to be none of the Church and so declare even by excommunications and yet remain both Parts of it for if a Husband misse-suspecting his Wife of Adulterie declare her to be no longer his Wife this cannot make her give over being so if the bond be indeed not broken as well as chrysostome and Epiphanius both excommunicated by each other and yet both Saints or as particular men may by your own confession be interiorly in the Church although seeming out of it even to the Church her self and so those be both of the Church between whom there is no Unity For not onely in your own Cariophilus his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also though the persons have power yet if the cause have not sufficiencie I take you to agree that an excommunication is but a brutum fulmen as Victors of the Asian Bishops The best therefore and strictest definition and which I think you will not refute which I can give for the Church is especially in that sence as out of it there can be no salvation those who are desirous to know Gods Will or Christs at the strictest for I am not certaine nor I beleeve is it defined among you whether an explicite knowledge of Christ be absolutely necessarie to Salvation though I know no guiltlesse ignorance of him can bring unavoidably upon any man eternall torments and ready when known to beleeve and follow it and sure many of these may eternally disagree even in points which are necessarie abstracting from particular cases and yet their differences not exclude them from the Church and consequentlie a Church may be without Unitie Quod erat demonstrandum Now for the Controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those opinions do which for the most part are reputed to make Hereticks You saw verie well that if no Unitie no Church were a true Proposition yours hath in it differencies enough to destroy its being a Church and therefore are faine to applie what salves you can but all in vaine For your meanes to terminate them doth not make them not to be before they are terminated and consequently by your Rule yours is no Church till then Besides their bringing to breach of the ancient life and action of Christians proves not but one of them may be a Heresie since you say not your selfe that all Heresies are such but onelie for the most part and indeed to prove that you must be able to set down what those opinions are which before a definition may make a Heretick which I beleeve you will not venture to doe in haste though we much desire it at your hands that we may know if none of them be such That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessarie amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be born to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their Period It is true that some time to be taken notice of must passe between an opinions rising and being condemned but that so long they should run on and many of your Councels having since been held is sure not necessarie and shewes
of our faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments down from Christs time this appeareth unto me a direct submission of themselves to produce these apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholiques demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed for Doctor White himselfe for want of proofe of this is faine to say in another place in his Way to the Church pag. 510. The Doctors of our faith hath had a continuall succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleife without apparance for he saith in the same book in another place pag. 84. All the eternall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 403. We doe not contest for an externall succession it sufficeth that they succeed in the doctrine of the Apostles and Faithfull which in all ages did imbrace the same Faith so as here he removeth absolutely all externall proofe of succession which before he consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sence is no way injured and I have chosen to alledge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox Professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question where I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparance of Pastors and Doctors the same interpretation left me much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholique Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacancy with some more substantiall then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one whose learning and sufficiency I had much affiance in in these termes whether there was no visible succession to be provedin the Protestant Church since the Apostles time down to Luther and what was to be answered to that Objection besides the Confession of invisibility for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many other of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to me unwarrantable and suspitious in the Ceremonies of the Romane Church since I had such aninducement as so little satisfaction in a point that seemed to me so essentiall andin all these scruples I found mine own mistake in the beleife of the Tenents of the Romane Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practise of their doctrines and to confirme me in the satisfaction of all them I found the practise and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant refutations of these doctrines the recasations of their authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the latter Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them I will not undertake to dispute the severall Tenents controverted nor doubt that your Lordship will suspect that I omitted any satisfaction in any of them since my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Romane Church is not liable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgement perchance may be censured of seducement my affection cannot be of corruption Upon these reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Romane Catholique Church in the beleife and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolicall by her externall markes and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and dye as the best way to Salvation When I was in England I did not study dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now Legacie for I doe not beleeve it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisedome is rightly informed that the Catholique Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the Subject it rather super-infuseth a Reverence and Obedience to Monarchie and strengthens the bands of our obedience to our Naturall Prince and his Grace and vertion of them from the naturall usuall exercise of themselves upon those that have the honour to have beene bred with approbation of fidelity in his service nor can I feare that your Lordship should apprehend any change in my duty even your displeasure which I may apprehend upon the mis-interpreted occasion shall never give me any of the least recession from my duty in which profession I humbly aske your blessing as Your Lordships obedient Sonne Paris 21. Novemb. 1635. The Lord of Faulklands Answer to a Letter of Mr. Mountague justifying his change of Religion being dispersed in many Copies I was desired to give my opinions of the Reasons and my Reason if I misliked them having read and considered it I was brought to be perswaded First because having been sometimes in some degrees movedwith the same Inducements I thought that what satisfied me might possibly have the same effect upon him Secondly because I being a Lay man a young man and an Ignorant man I thought a little Reason might in liklyhood work more from my Pen then more from theirs whose Profession Age and Studies might make him suspect that it is they are too hard for him and not their Cause for his Thirdly Because I was very desirous to do him service not onelie as a man and a Christian but as one whom all that know him inwardly esteeme of great parts and I am desirous somewhat to make up my great want of them by my respect to those that have them and as an impartiall secker of Truth which I trust he is and I professe my self to be and so much for the cause of this paper I come now to that which it opposeth FIrst then whereas he defends his search I suppose he is rather for that to receive praise then to make Apologies all men having cause to suspect that gold which were given with this condition that the Receiver should not trie it by any Touchstone Secondly He saith that there being two sorts of Questions the one of Right or Doctrine the other of Fact or Story As whether the Protestants Faith had a visible appearance before Luther he resolved to begin his enquiry with the matter of Fact as being sooner to be found because but one and easier to be comprehended To
I mean as many as are now extant and speak of it held something which both parts condemne as the opinions of the Chiliasts If I say he find not this or I shew him not that he might have found it I professe I will be ready to spend my life for that Church against which I now employ my Pen So that this will be the end neither of your Churches have been alwaies visible onely the difference is this that we are most troubled to shew our Church in the Latter and more corrupt Ages and they theirs in the first and purest that we can least find ours at night and they theirs at Noone And whereas he expects that Doctor White should stand to this to confesse his Religion false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated if he himself will please to grant as much as he exacts if he but continue in this resolution and in this search I doubt no more but that he will soone leave to be a Papist then I should doubt if I saw him now receiving the Communion in the Kings Chappell that he had done it already Sixtly His Reasons for the necessitie of the Visibility follow because the contrary were a derogation from Gods Power or Providence I answer To say he could not keep the Truth exactly in mens beleefe were to derogate from Gods Power to say he had not given sufficient meanes to find the Truth and yet damned men for error the first would be a derogation from his Providence the second from his Justice but to say he suffers men to erre who neglect the meanes of not erring and that he damnes none for a meer error in which the will hath no part and consequently the man no fault derogates from none of the three but saies he this is repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church upon Earth to be the conserver of the Doctrine of Christ and to conveigh it from Age to Age. I answer To conserve it is every mans duty but such as they may all faile in and indeed is rather the the form of the Church then the end of the Church an exact conservation making an exact Church and a lesse perfect conserving a lesse perfect Church As for conveighance of Doctrine the whole Church conveighs none whereof many if his be it have had but little conveighed to them Particular Christians especially Pastors teach others which it is every mans duty to do when he meets with them who want instruction which he can give and they are likely to receive yet is not the instruction of others every mans maine end But Mr. Mountague I know perswades him that some body of men are appointed to conveigh this Doctrine which men are to receive onely because they deliver it and this I absolutely deny for we receive no Doctrine from the Church upon the Churches authority because we know her not to be the Church till we have examined her Doctrine and so rather receive her for it then it for her Neither for the conveighance of the Truth is it necessarie that any company of men in all times hold it all because some may conveigh some Truthes and others another out of which by comparing their Doctrine with the Scripture men may draw forth a whole and perfect body of Truth and though they deliver few other Truthes yet in delivering Scripture wherein all necessarie Truth is conteined they deliver all and by that Rule whosoever regulates his life and Doctrine I am confident that though he may mistake Error for Truth in the way he shall never mistake Hell for Heaven in the end Seventhly His next reason is their common Achilles the fourth of the Ephesians which he chuseth onely to employ like his Triarios his main Battle leaving his Velites his light-armed Souldiers some places too allegoricall even in his own opinion to stand examination The words are these He hath given some Prophets some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and some Doctors For the instauration of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edification of the body of Christ till we all meet in the Unity of Faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the Age of the fullnesse of Christ. That we may be no more Children tost and carried about with every wind of Doctrine c. Now out of this place I see not how a Succession may be evinced rather I think it may if that Apostle meant none For first He saith not I will give but he hath given and who could suppose that the Apostles could say that Christ had given then the present Pope and the Doctors who now adhere to him Secondly Allow that by what he hath given were meant he hath promised which would be a glosse not much unlike to that which one of the most wittie and most eloquent of our Modern Divines Doctor Donne notes of Statuimus i abrogamus yet since these severall Nounes are governed by the same Verb and no distinction put it would prove as well a necessitie of a continuall Succession of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Doctors which is more then either they can shew or pretend they can so that it seemes to me to follow that these were then given to do this till then and not a Succession of them promised till then to do this and so we receiving and retaining the Scriptures wherein what they taught is contained as we would any thing else that had as generall and ancient a Tradition if there were any such need no more for if he say that men are tost for all the Scripture I answer so are they for all their Doctors nay if these keep any from being tost it is the Scripture which does it upon which their authoritie is by them founded upon their own Interpretation and Reason who yet will not give us leave to build any thing upon ours out of plainer places and though they tell us that we cannot know the Scriptures but from the Church they are yet faine as appeares to prove the authoritie of the Church out of Scripture which makes me ask them in the words of their own Campian and with much more cause Nihilne pudet Labyrinthi Eighthly There followes another reason to this sence that reason not being able to shew man a way to eternall happinesse and without such a one man would faile of the end to which he was ordained it must be proposed by an infallible authority in so plaine a manner as even the simple might be capable of it which being performed by our Saviour it must be conveighed to succeeding Ages by those who heard it from him and whensoever this thread failed mankind was left without a Guide to inevitable ruine I answer That though all this granted it proves not against us for we have the Scripture come down to us relating Christs Doctrine and written by those that heard it
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
learnt to give the reverence as not to doubt of what they said because they said it from all others he expected proofe from Scripture or Reason Thirdly The Church of Rome condemnes severall opinions of his and therefore she ought not to find fault with them who imitate her example Twelfthly He addes two reasons more The consent of the Fathers of all ages And the confession of Protestants To the Frst I answer That I know not of any such and am the more unapt to beleeve it because Mr. Mountague vouchsafes not to insist upon it nor to quote any which I guesse he would have done but that he misdoubted their strength Secondly Suppose that all the Fathers which speake of this did say so yet if they say it but as private Doctors and claime no Tradition I know not why they should weigh more then so many of the now learned who having more helpes from Arts and no fewer from Nature are not worse searchers into what is Truth though lesse capable of being Witnesses to what was Tradition Thirdly They themselves often professe they expect not to be read as Judges but as to be judged by their and our Rule the Canonicall Scriptures Fourthly Let him please to read about the Immaculate Conception Rosa Salmeron and Wadding and he will find me as submissive to Antiquity even whilst I reject it as those of their own Party for they to prefer new opinions before old are faine to prefer new Doctors before old and to confesse the latter more perspicatious and to differ from those of former times with as little scruple as he would from Calvin whom Maldonat on purpose to oppose confesseth he chuseth a new Interpretation before that of all the Ancients which no witnesse but my eyes could have made me beleeve nay and produce other points wherein their Church hath decreed against the Fathers to perswade her to do so againe althoug Campian with an eloquent brag would perswade us that they are all as much for him as Gregory the thirteenth who was then Pope To the Second I answer That Infallibility is not by us denied to the Church of Rome with an intention of allowing it to particular Protestants how wise and learned soever Thirteenthly He saies next that he after resolved to inform himself in other points which seemed to him unwarrantable and superstitious and found onely his own mistakes gave him occasion of Scandall To this I answer That I cannot well answer any thing unlesse he had specified the points but I can say that there are many as picturing God the Father which is generally thought lawfull and as generally practised their offerings to the Virgin Mary which onely differs from the Heresie of the Colltridians in that a Candle is not a Cake their praying to Saints and beleeving de fide that they heare us though no way made certaine that they do so and many more which without any mistake of his might have given him occasion to be still scandalized For whereas he saith that those points were grounded upon the authority of the ancient Fathers which was refused as insufficient by Protestants I answer That none of these I name have any ground in the Ancientest nay the first is by them disallowed and if any other superstition of theirs have from them any ground yet they who depart from so many of the Ancients in severall opinions cannot by any reason be excused for retaining any error because therein they consent nor have the Protestants cause to receive it from them as a sufficient Apologie neither hath he to follow the Fathers rather then Protestants in a cause in which not the Persons but the Reasons were to have been considered For when Saint Hierome was by this way both brought into and held in a strange error though he speakes something like Mr. Mountague Patiaris me errare cum talibus Suffer me to erre with such men yet he could not obtaine Saint Austines leave who would not suffer him but answered their Reasons and neglected their Authorities Fourteenthly He speakes of his Religion super-infusing Loyalty and if he had onely said it destroied or weakned it not I who wish that no doubt of his alleagiance may once enter his mind to whom we all owe it but professe my self his humble Servant and no waies his enemy though his adversarie would then made no answer but since he speakes as if Popery were the way to obedience I cannot but say that though no Tenet of their whole Church which I know make at all against it yet there are prevailing opinions on that side which are not fit to make good subjects when their King and they are of different perswasions For besides that Cardinall D' Ossat an Author which Mr. Mountague I know hath read because whosoeuer hath but considered State matters must be as well skilled in him as any Priest in his Breviary tell us that it is the Spaniards Maxime That Faith is not to be kept amongst Hereticks and more that the Pope intimated as much in a discourse intended to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England he saith moreover speaking in another place speaking about the Marquizat of Saluces that they hold at Rome that the Pope to avoid a probable danger of the encreasing of Heresie may take a Territory from the true Owner and dispose of it to another and many also defend that he hath power to depose an Hereticall Prince and of Heresie he makes himself the Judge So that though I had rather my tongue should cleave to the roofe of my mouth then that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject even to a King whom he accounts an Heretick since I veriy beleeve that I my self know very many very good yet Popely is like to an ill aire wherein though many keep their healthes yet many are infected so that at most they are good Subjects but during the Popes pleasure and the rest are in more danger then if they were out of it To conclude I beleeve that what I have said may at least serve if he will descend to consider it to move Mr. Mountague to a further search and for Memorandums in it which if it do he will be soone able to give as much better Reasons for my conclusion that such a Visible Church neither need nor can be shewed as his understanding is degrees above mine I hope also by comparing the body of their beleefe and the ground of their authority the little that can be drawn out of the fourth of the Ephesians with the Miriads of contradiction in Transubstantiation he will come to see that their Pillars are too weak to hold up any building be it never so light and their building is too heavie to be held up by any Pillars be they never so strong and trust he will return to us whom he will find that he hath causelessely left if he be which I doubt not so ingenuous as not to hold an opinion because he hath turned to it nor to stay onely because he went FINIS * See the Collection of Petitions for Episcopacy printed for Will. Shears * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. §. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exercitat 3. in epist. Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in epist. ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstated in D. Hammonds dissertations against Blondel which never were answerd never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apo stles Tacitus Object Answ. Synesius Ovid. Metamorph Xenophon Hist. 3. Euseb. Orat. de Laud. Const. * De Coroná Wadd Pag. 271. Wadding p. 124. Page 97. Page 90. Page 400. Page 57. Page 127. Page 275. Wadding p. 334. Vincent Lir. Wadd Pag. 282 Camp Ethicks Lib. Con. R. Jac. Pag. 633. Theodoret. Lib. 15. C. 28 Pag. 271. Tom. 13. Pag. 193. Pag. 208. and 687. Tacitus Object Resp. Object Resp. 〈◊〉 Socrat. lib. 5. Object Resp. Wadd Pag. 30. His Opusc. Dr. D. Object Resp. Praefat. in Hillar Pag. 496. Pag. 497. Epist. Pag. 1164. Pag. 296. 1 Edict Tom. 13. Pag. 467 In Elucidar Deiparae Pag. 1113. Wadd Pag. 125. Pag. 270 Pag. 202. Pag. 203. Pag. 204. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Theodoret lib 4. Object Resp. Cap. 6 Lib. 3 de Romano Pontifice Object Resp. Object Resp. Lib. Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 892. Object Resp. Tertul. De fide Symb. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Arist. Ethick Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 708. Object Resp. Arrian Eras. Ep. Rhetor. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Salust Object Resp. Tom. 13. Pag. 468. Object Resp Object Resp. Object Resp. Philos. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Tom. 9. An. 726. de fide Simbol 2 Lib. C. 2. Vers. 11. 12 13 6 Cap. St. Johan