away from the words of this Prophesie God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life Luther took all the book away you hold it all Scripture and yet him a Saint You goe on and adde that the Apocalyps and other Books also have been doubted of But do you not mark the more doubt there hath been of them the more evident it is that they most ungroundedly be affirmed by you to carry their own light by which they may be seen as we see the Sun by his own light Again being you neither agree with us in the Canon of the Scripture nor with your own Brethren what reason have you to obtrude a Canon of your own coyning to us for Judge of all Controversies you not agreeing nor knowing how many books make up the true Canon and all agreeing that divers books of the true Canon be quite lost Where shall we find this our Judge Among us after the Church Delaration was notified concerning the receiving of any book for Canonical you will never find it doubted of by any true Catholiques You are mistaken if you think Saint Jerom held the Macchabees not to be Canonical after the definition of the Council of Carthage It was before that Council that he writ what he writ Concerning the rest you adde out of Saint Austin I would say more if you esteemed the Fathers more what you add after that hath already been answered 〈◊〉 14th 〈◊〉 50. In my 14. Num. for a further proof that the Scripture alone cannot decide all controversies I did and do still insist upon this argument that almost all Controversies do arise about the true sense of such or such a Text in Scripture The sense is the kernel the life the Soul of the text misse in this misse in all And yet about this sense greatest wits vastly differ in many points necessary to Salvation and consequently many misse the true sense to their eternall damnation This book of the Scripture by it self alone could never yet end these differences Therefore if God had left us no other means to end our differences but this Book about the true understanding of which all our differences arise he should have no better provided for our unity even in points necessary to Salvation then that Law-maker who should leave his Common-wealth a Book of Laws to end all their Controversies in Law about the meaning of which Book he knew all the cheifest Controversies would still arise This is indeed a repetition of what I said but it is a repetition of what you have not yet answered For against your first answer it is apparent that there is not only a necessity of a judge different from Scripture to declare unto us which books be the true and uncorrupted word of God but there is also a main necessity of such a judge to know the undoubted meaning of Gods undoubted Word about which there be far more controversies in points necessary to Salvation And though in your second answer you tell us that all points necessary to Salvation are plainly set down in Scripture yet I have plainly proved the contrary Chap. 3 Num. 200. And my discourse Contrary to your 3. Answer is affectual for in points necessary to Salvation to be believed with divine faith we must have an infallible authority to rely on for that faith which relieth upon a fallible authority cannot be an infallible assent And again if we have not full security of this infallible authority we cannot assent unto it with an assent infallible to which we being obliged by God God also must have furnished us of full security to know this authority to be infallible as I have shewed him to do And yet again that this infallible authority so well secured is invested in the Church appeareth sufficiently by this that the Scriptures not assisting us in the infallible knowledge of their own true sense in points necessary to be believed with infallible faith we must be assisted to this infallible knowledge by som other infallible means for fallible will not do the deed No other infallible means can with any shadow of probability be said given unto us but the infallible authority of the Church Therefore her authority must be infallible as shall at large be proved in the next Chapter and then in the next after that I will shew that this infallible Church is the Roman and none but the Roman 51. Again I said that if Christ had intended the Book of Scriptures for the judge of all Controversies the knowledge of this point being so primely necessary must needs be according to your principles evidently set down in Scripture in w◠all points necessary to salvation are as you say evidently set down You pretend here this point to be clear in Scripture but I have largely shewed the contrary and answered your objection And I retort it thus that if God would have us in all controversies guided by the Scripture only he would clearly have said so in these Scripture yea he would have told us the true undoubted Canon of Scripture This is now unknown to you And we are sure diverse parts of this Canon are lost what Scripture tels us we must be judged by only part of Scripture I pray answer this Of my 14th Number 52. Moreover I added that if God would have given us a Book for our Judge he would never have given us for our Judge such a Book as the Scripture is which very often speaketh obscurely sometime so prophetically that most would think it spoke of the present time when it speaketh of the time to come that it speaks of one person for example of David when it speaketh of another for example of Christ and much more I added to this effect that I might be rightly understood when I said that God would never have given us such a book for our Judge My adversarie to avoid this Argument so mangleth the sense that he may make my words sound of a blasphemous disrespect by reporting them as if I should have said If God had intended Scripture for our Judge he would not have given us such a Book as Scriture Which words taken without those particles for our Iudge seem to sound such an imperfect book as Scripture but taken with those particles which purposely were added to make the sense of the writer appear the sense can offend no man capable of sense For what man of understanding would affectionately crie out of disrespect if not of blasphemy against Scripture if he should hear one say if God had intended still the Scripture for sole Judge in all Law Controversies he would never have given us such a Book as the Scripture is for our Iudge Would any sober man let fall such a censure upon such an occasion Is it not manifest that the Scripture may be a Book as perfect as can be for the intent for which God made it and yet not be fit to decide all Controversies by
no Time either to read or write Books but what I rob Nature of even by stealing it from my Sleep Which being as needful as the Oyl whereby the Lamp is kept burning my Light of Life cannot chuse but be very Dim and by many such Night-works would be extinguish't I know there are who would teach me how to live without sleeping as Hierocles his Scholar taught his Horse a Thing like it But they must pardon mye Refusal to put such a Trick into frequent practice the very learning of which is enough to kill me Yet Sir you see I was resolv'd to watch a Night in His Service in whom The vigilant D◠Sherman is faln asleep And now it would be high Time to bid you heartily Good Night but that I see it begin's to be Bright Morning And the same Gallicinium which calls up others to their Labour does more significantly bid me make haste to rest Your Real Servant and Fellow-servant in our one great Master JESUS CHRIST Tho. Pierce M. C. Sept. 7. 1663. To the Reader READER WHo can do that for us as to tell us what every Scholar should do It is easie to know what they should do Morally they should mind the good of the Church not dicendo pluraliter but the question or quest is what they should doe in way of Scholastical imployment as such It is true in Nature Vnumquodque est propter suam operationem Every thing is for its proper Operation but what then shall they doe who are good for nothing Shall they do nothing No. It is yet it may be good for them to doe Optimum quod sic Onely ingage in Controversies they should not Neither did I ever intend to dip a pen in that inke which is for those who can dip their pen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in understanding as he said such as have for it a body books an head an heart too I think I can do the less because I think so possunt quia posse videntur The Case therefore is thus A paper was brought by a Roman Catholike to a Lady then in Norwich for an Answer She sent for me then there wished me to Peruse it and Answer it I shrunk my shoulders she urged I took it or undertook it returned soon a short Answer He replyed I rejoyned He then sent me a Treatise I sent an Answer to it He sent another Treatise I began an answer to that but before I had done He had done in the Poets phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This the Narrative And now have I more work to satisfie some Demands And the first is Why I was somewhat long in answering the second Treatise To this I can say First that it might have been longer ere I had Answered the first because a Treatise Then length is answerable to length And also I do freely Confesse that as I have too much of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which unfits me for Speech so have I too little of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which should fit me for Expedition Neither could I ever closely apply my self to this vast and voluminous Learning which others pretend to but have been a rambler if not at my Book yet from my Book upon the saddle the seat of Health as he called it And besides I have had other work in the Church Moreover though others upon the 5. of November did preach yet I was a good while in durance for preaching upon the 5. of November A second demand is this why I should publish the papers To this may I say with St. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it seemed an Answer was looked for the party from whom it came dead the cause publike the first paper an Interpretative Challenge some of his party have vaunted of a Conquest some have wished the Papers abroad I had power over my own papers which could not goe out without his It is somewhat ingenuous to give some account of our time out of the Colledge though those who took our places should also in reason have taken these pains And lastly advised I was hereunto by two Bishops of Famous memory who saw part of the papers One of them the late Bishop of Norwich whose Life indeed was not so short as his Style But since his Style was so smooth and sweet that he might be said to have written his own Life in it What use might he have been of now if God had pleased The other the late Bishop of Exeter who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who wanted nothing to make us happy now but life who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the former of these gave me his Letter for my Encouragement A third Question then why so long ere they came out To this may be Answered that though they might have come out sooner they were it seems reserved for better times Sunt haec Trajani tempora in Tacitus's sense A Discourse of Faith keeps now some time with the Defender of the Faith And very good time it is for others who have been true to their King to shew that they have not been false to Religion and that they have not leered as some have suspected them towards the Vatican And yet also this is not very probable Ex natura rei for if Kings would think upon it there might be no Popes since if Popes could well help it there should be no Kings But this also can I affirm that the Tract of years since it was done hath not altered or swelled the Book by one word in the body of it though somewhat might have been mended and somewhat might have been added And if yet great exception be taken at the Book because it is so great I must say that I know who could have prevented this For if my Adversary would have spared the Debate about the Faith of the Canon he needed not to have blotted so much paper about the Question in Effect such as this whether the Objectum quod might be the Objectum quo or the Medium of its own Knowledge And yet it may be he hath gotten nothing by it since the Church without Scripture signifies little Me thinks if the understanding in its assent were a natural Subject to the will it would not be improper for me to say that I would believe much for Peace in reverence to that of Saint Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but since the understanding looks for Divine Conviction in this Act we must have it as to Faith Divine from God either in the Proposition or in the Conclusion And therefore I desire to study Truth impartially neither rejecting all that is said lest I reject that which is true nor receiving all that is said lest I receive that which is false and I should be Disposed rather to like the matter for truth than truth for the matter of it Because otherwise we love truth but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not upon its own account as such So that if this their
is strangled See here among Necessary things one is to abstain from blood which Christians do not nor think not to be done for they freely eat black Puddings and also to abstain from things strangled as when we strangle Chickens and eat them freely If you tell me that Scripture onely is Iudge of Controversies I will tell you that by the Iudgement of this Iudge following no other as infallible woe be to the Opinion of all Catholiques and Protestants who hold it lawful to work upon Saturdayes unlawful on Sundayes lawful to eat Blood and Strangled things unlawful to abstain from them as still forbidden woe I say to our Opinion for it not onely will not be judged as undoubtedly true by Scripture but also it will and that undoubtedly be judged false by the Places now cited I pray tell me here how Men of mean capacity yea how Men of the greatest capacity in the World shall be able to finde by the judgement of Scripture onely what is Infallibly to be believed in these points in which so many hundred Thousands of Jewes damnably differ from us Did not all this Kingdome of England grounded upon Scriptures clear enough as they said both hold and swear that they held the King the Head of the Church can any point in the Church be of higher concernment to the Church then to know for certain their own Head And yet this point is now no longer ascertained us by the Infallible judgement of Scripture For another example what Controversie can more import then to be undoubtedly and by Infallible Authority secured which books of Scripture be Canonical and the certain Word of God and which be not You say there is no Infallibility of any verity to be had but by the Scripture But I say that in all the Scripture no Infallibility can be had concerning the Canon of the Scripture wherefore either we cannot know this most important point of all points infallibly or else we must acknowledge the Church to be Infallible for the Scripture in this point is wholly silent We dispute and differ highly about the books of Macchabees whether they be the certain Word of God or no. I pray tell me how shall this grand Controversie be decided and decided Infallibly by the â—udgement of Scripture Luther denyeth the Apocalypse to be true Scripture we all in England stand out against him I pray tell me what Scripture we have against him that is Infallible without begging the question which is called into Controversie We all believe the Gospel of St. Matthew not onely to be the true Gospel of Christ and his Word but also to be the Gospel of St. Matthew as also the Gospel of St. Mark to be written by St. Mark If any Man should deny this what place of Scripture could we cite against him or what Infallible ground have we of this our belief The Marcionists the Cerdonists the Manichaeans do absolutely deny St. Matthews Gospel to be Gods Word This Controversie you say and all other Controversies of Faith is to be ended by the Scripture I ask what place of Scripture will end this Controversie and all other Controversies about all other books of Scripture which have almost all been denyed to be Gods Word by some Hereticks or other And as for St. Matthew you must know that all Ancient Writers no one excepted do say that he did write in Hebrew and yet neither his Hebrew Gospel nor any one certain Copy of it is extant in the World Tell me then upon what undoubted Ground you beleeve any thing that is in St. Matthews Gospel onely The Greek Translation which we have was made by God knows whom for we know not He might be a faithful or unfaithful Translator he might use a false uncorrect Copy he might mistake in many places by Ignorance in many by Negligence or Malice Upon what Infallible ground shall a converted Manichaean as St. Austin for example believe this Greek Gospel which we have By what Scripture will you presse him to it yea upon what Scripture do you your selves beleeve this Gospel this Greek Translation of S. Matthew If you tell me Saint Matthew did write in Greek I must tell you that all Antiquity no one antient Author excepted say the contrary How will you then ground Infallible belief upon your so new and so uncertain Opinion When this question was moved whether any Book was to be received as the Infallible Word of God or no The Holy Fathers could never finde any more undoubted ground then that the Church did allow or not allow of such Books to be held for Gods undoubted Word Upon this ground St. Athanasius in fine Synopsis receiveth the Gospel of St. Matthew and the other Three Gospels and rejected the Gospel of St. Thomas Upon this Ground Tertullian St. Hierome St. Austin and St. Leo professe themselves to admit such and to deny other Books to be Canonical Upon this ground it is that Eusebius Hist Eccles l. 3.19 saith such Scriptures are held for true genuine and manifestly allowed by the opinion of all because they are so According to the Tradition of the Church and that by this Evident Note or Mark they are distinguished from others Behold the most perspicuous mark by which Scriptures could be Infallibly known to be or not be Gods undoubted Word is the Tradition of the Church Whence St. Austin giving a reason to the Manichaeans who believed some part of the Gospel why he cited the Acts of the Apostles which they believed not saith thus Which Book of the Acts it is necessary for me to believe if I believe the Gospel being the Catholick Authority in like manner commendeth both these Scriptures to me So he contra Ep. Fund c. 4. By this the Author of the Reply may see how Insufficient his Answer pag. 25. is when he saith Indeed we take the Canonical Books by Tradition from the Church but we do not take them to be Canonical upon her Tradition but assent is setled in them as Canonical in the way of Faith because they are such In thy light we shall see light so by Scripture we shall see Scripture So he but not so any one of the Fathers who were most often pressed to give a reason why they believed such Books to be Canonical why not None of these professed themselves to be so sharp sighted that by seeing onely Canonical Scriptures they could see them to be Canonical Scriptures and that so manifestly as to ground their Faith upon it You by the Apocalyps see it to be Canonical your most illuminated Luther could not see it to be so by that light By all the light he had he Judged St. James his Epistle to be made of Straw yet you see in it a light shewing undoubtedly it to be Gods Word You cannot see the two first Books of Macchabees to be Canonical yet St. Austin believed them to be so for that the Councel of Carthage Can. 47. received them for
you charge me in differing from my selfe because before I taught the ground of Believing to be the Authority of the Church and now I say it is the Authority of God Revealing My Reply is exceeding easie The Ground of our Faith is God Revealing and God Revealing by his Church as he first causeth our first Belief when he tells us by his Church such and such Books are Infallibly his Word God Revealing is alwaies the formal object of Faith but sometimes God Revealeth his minde by Scriptures and sometimes by the Church as he did for two Thousand yeares and more before the Scriptures were written The Prophets before they did write did say This saith the Lord to wit this he said by their Mouths So say I This and this saith our Lord by the Mouth of his Church as I have shewed Numb 22. Saint Athanasius to speak and I have shewed Numb 28. The General Councel of Chalcedon to have said Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo Pope of Rome And thus Gods Revelation cometh to us by the Church She and onely She teacheth us these and these Scriptures to be Gods Word We must first believe her before we can come to have Infallible Ground to believe Scriptures as I have fully shewed After we have believed Scripture we cannot by Scripture onely know the undoubted sense of many necessary places in Scripture as hath been shewed Again all things necessary to be believed be not set down in Scripture as hath also been shewed fully The Revelation of God coming to us in all these cases by the Church you by your own words in this place must grant her Authority to be our ordinary cause of Faith At the end of these your Answers you would fain seem to have spoken properly in accusing us of Excesse of Faith But your distinction doth no way salve the Impropriety of the Speech for there is still a difference in more believing Objects and believing more Objects but granting that it may be improperly spoken yet even in that Sense it is not truly said because there can be no Excesse of Faith in believing what God saith for believing upon an Infallible Authority all that we believe we cannot believe more then we should if we believe no more things then be grounded upon that Infallible Authority as we do not And consequently we do no more then believe such things as have for their Warrant This faith the Lord. Having now answered your Paper from the beginning to the end I am most willing to take your own close out of Saint Austin Against Reason no sober Man will go against Scriptures no Christian against the Church no Peace-maker adding his other words Tr. 32. in Joan. Let us believe my Brethren so much as a Man loveth the Church just so much he hath of the Holy Ghost SIR I Cannot answer it to God nor to his Church with us if I let you seem to your self or to others of your perswasion that you have the Victory untill you have overcome your Error therefore you will excuse me if I still follow you To your Preface then If the Roman Catholiques have often foretold that by permitting freely to all sorts of people the reading of the Scriptures in their Mother-tongue multitudes of new Sects and Heresies would not fail to grow up in numberlesse number and as for the peoples Manners they would grow worse and worse as you say in the beginning then are your Roman Catholiques in this false Prophets because they seem by you to make that the cause of Heresies and bad Manners This is plainly fallacia non causa or the fallacy of accident And secondly it is contrary to that of our Saviour Christ Saint Mark the 12.24 Do you not therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God By our Saviour the knowledge of the Scriptures is not the cause of erring but the not knowing of the Scriptures is the cause of erring You do therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto Salvation as Saint Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15 And thirdly You confesse in this Paper that when we are by the Church assured that the Scripture is the Word of God we may Ground our Faith in it for those things which are plainly delivered And fourthly How cometh it to passe then that some of those in whom Infallibility as you think is vested have been Hereticks and lewd the former of which indeed you do much deny but is exemplified in Liberius's subscribing against Athanasius as you may see fully proved by our Reinolds against your Hart. And surely was that also an action of bad Manners Therefore if your Church were the true Church yet doth it not you see teach the way of Salvation infallibly and therefore can we not by it infallibly discerne the true Religion from the false Indeed the Catholick Church hath taught the infallible way of Salvation but that was the Scripture as I proved by many Testimonies and this was a teaching the infallible way by consequence because it did teach the Scripture which is the infallible way yet hath it not in particular points taught the infallible way infallibly Neither are we by the Church infallibly resolved that the Scripture is the Word of God although the authority of the true Church be a motive herein yet is it not that wherein ultimately we ground our Faith of the Scriptures as I have shewed Whereas then you say that we cannot have as things stand any other assurance to ground our Faith upon securely namely then the Church you do still but fortiter supponere for we cannot ground our assurance securely upon the Church And secondly Whereas you say that as things stand we have no other assurance c. you do not well consider what you say or I do not understand what you mean for hereby you do intimate that the Church is not the ground of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that which is indeed the ground of our Faith must be so absolutely and universally as farre as is necessary the Church security is but the best of the kinde amongst those which are humane but we must have a Divine indefectible ground for our Divine Faith in which there cannot be falsity Neither thirdly Is the Church the first ground because by it we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God because if we did by it believe the Scripture then we are not first to believe it by the Scripture And if whatsoever credence we do give to it we do give by authority of the Scripture then are we first to believe the Scripture and then that is the first ground Fourthly In that you say you did never deny that when we are by the Infallible authority of the Church assured of the Scripture to be the Word of God we may believe such things as are clearly contained in Scripture c. you say that which concludes against the practice of
that no small glimpse of this light should be observable in the writings of all Antiquitie In which the most observing eyes cannot espy the least glimpse of it Reply I think if the Doctours of the Primitive Church had told the Heathens that they had no better assurance for all the points of their then new faith then the Word of God written and no greater assurance that such and such writings were his undoubted Word then the very reading of those books did give them by a light as evident as the Sun the Heathens would have scoffed at them for saying that which they protested to be so visible and yet none could see it but those who first believe it upon this evidence to them wholly invisible 25. Fifthly I argue thus Take a book which you hold not to be Gods undoubted word The book of Toby for example or Judith and read these books over And then take another book which you hold to be Gods undoubted Word for example the book of Numbers and read that over or rather to end the sooner read over only as many Chapters as be in the book of Toby that is 16. and then I challenge you to tell me if you can as surely you can if it be as cleare as Sun shine in what Chapter Verse or Word any divine rayes and such rayes as are sufficiently observable to produce an infallible assent that such a book is Gods undoubted word which rayes be not to the very full as observable in the same chapter and verse or equivolent word of the book of Toby What would you have us doe with our eyes to keep us from seing how clearly this is impossible for you to doe which notwithstanding should be most easie if your opinion were true or the truth 26. Sixthly if any one verse yea or any one small word especially this litle word Not be left out in any Chapter either through ignorance malice or carelesnes of those writers whose Copies our printed books have followed whom will you be able to make believe that you are so sharp-sighted as to see this omssion by a light sufficient for an infallible beliefe of it onely by the reading these Scriptures 27. Seventhly To prove that true general Councels be fallible you use often to alledge this argument that one true generall Councell directly gainsaith another which if you could prove you should indeed prove that the Councils are fallible But I can prove unto you that one who readeth the same book as well as you and hath the true Spirit of God as well as you if not in a larger measure shall flatly say that Book not to be Gods Word which you without all doubt affirm to be Gods infallible Word This ground then of knowing which is which is not Gods Word grounding contradictory opinions must needs be false as I prove thus Luther a â—an acknowledged by your common consent to have had Gods Spirit did read over the Epistle of Saint James and held it to be an Epistle of straw He did read over the Book of the Apocalips or Revelations and held it not to have been written by an Apostolical Spirit You read over these books and protest so seriously that by the light of them you infalliblely know them to be Gods true Word Your two opinions are flat contradictory and yet they are both grounded upon this ground of reading these books with the Spirit of God Therefore this ground is fallible and consequently cannot ground an infallible faith of this point But you have no other infallible faith of this point but what is grounded on this fallible ground Ergo the faith you have of this point is not an infallible and divine faith but a meer humane perswasion such as we have to believe the works Virgils to have been written by Virgil. But if any desire to have this case put in two Men whom most of the world will more assuredly believe to have had the true Spirit of God and to have had also as cleere-sighted eyes as most men we know in all mankind I will put the case in the two prime Doctours of the Latine Church Saint Hierome and Saint Austin Saint Hierome read over the bookes of the Machabees and could not by the reading of them see them infallibly to be Gods Word St. Austin read these books and held them infallibly to be Gods Word How came these two most sharp-sighted men to see quite contrary to one another by the self same most clear Light as you must say But we deny that either of them did see this Light and that by it onely they did see which were true which false Scriptures But we say they both followed in this point the proposition of the Church which Church in Saint Hieromes time had not clearly proposed the book of Machabees to be Gods word But the third Council of Garthage at which Austin was present declared these Books to be Gods Word and so Saint Austin held thâ—â— Books infallibly to be Gods Word grounding this his belief upon the Declaration of the Council at Carthage which Council saith Canon 47. that it did set down these books for Scripture because we have received from our Fathers that those are to be read in the Church Saint Hierome had not seen this Council of Carthage and because he was used to ground his faith by which he believed such books to be or not be Gods Word upon the Declaration of the Church therefore until he did see that Declaration he could not hold this as infallible which Saint Austin afterwards held infallible because he had seen afterwards that Declaration of the Church This is an excellent proof of our Opinions and disproof of yours which cannot give any kind of reason for their disagreeing in a thing so clear as you say this point is 28. Hence you will see that this Evidence upon which you ground your infallible assent to believe Scripture to be Gods Word and then all the rest for Gods Word believed so ungroundedly is not improperly by you compared to that Evidence by which the first Principles shew themselves to be evidently true as this Principle doth It is impossible that any thing should be so and yet not be so in all the selfsame circumstances For who ever did differ about such a Principle as this is All men see the Evidence of these Principles But none but a few of your sect see the Evidence of what you say Yea they evidently see there is no such evidence to be seen And if you say that we must have a special spirit that is new eyes to see it Then you who have this spirit are all Prophets discovering by private Revelations made to your selves that which all mankind besides could not and cannot discover But now when I see all and every one of your belief laying claime to the Sprit assisting them even as farre as infallibility to the hardest of all points I hope no prudent man will thinke
N. 50. Here he tels us of an argument in the 14 num of the former treatise with infallible faith this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore he beggs the question And if they cannot prove the cause to be theirs with out our free graunt they are not like to have it And therefore this being denied him as before all that he would build thereupon must fall to wit therefore we must be assisted in this infallible knowledge by some other infallible means and no other infallible meanes can with any shadow of probability be said given to us but the infallible authority of the Church therefore her athority must be infallible as shall at large be shewed in the next chap. and then in the next after that that this infallible Church is the Roman and none but the Roman This is all wast and lost unles they could maintain it to be necessary charity in us to preserve their cause from starving by graunting that which it ought not to have And 2. Dato non concesto suppose there must be some other meanes of infallible deciding doubtful sense of Scripture I can make it a question whether they can plead the next right as if they came vacuam possessionem for the place may be ful by universal tradition which surely is not the same with the Roman Church for the whole surely is greater then the part and then also when you prove the Roman faith by universal tradition you would prove the Roman faith by the Roman and this is idem per idem And as for the 3. thing that this infallible Church is the Roman and none but the Roman which he saies he will prove in the last chapter surely if I may speak it without offence he does very well to refer it to the last for he may doe any thing before it But also since his supposition that we cannot be certain by the Scriptures infallibly of their own true sense in points necessary to salvation with infallible faith must fall without a better support we may be at our last already for if this be not good the other chapters make number And this number makes no weight He doth nothing in it but tell us that he hath done so and so which we interpret nothing Infallibility should not need many words In this N. 52. he would wipe off the suspicion of disrespect to Scipture in those termes he used and would lay a blame upon me for my censure of his words to this purpose His words were these if he would have given us a book for Iudge he would never have given us for our Iudge such a book as Scripture is which very often speaketh obscurely sometimes so prophetically that most would think it spake of the present time when it speaketh of the time to come that it speaketh of one person for example of David when it speaketh of another for example of Christ And much more I added to this effect that I might be rightly understood when I said that God would never have given us such a book for our judge To what of this he said in his former treatise I said Sir Let me have leave to speak affectionately to you Do not you see what disrespects of Scripture if not blasphemies your opinion doth miserably betray you to if you follow it Would any sober man let fall such words as if God had intended the Scripture for our judge such a book as Scripture is So you This I said And now he examins these words strictly and saies My adversary to avoide this argument so mangleth the sense that he may-make my words sound of a blasphemous disrespect reporting them as if I should have said if God had intended Scripture for our Iudge he would not have given us such a book as Scripture Ans Surely this is a false charge that I have mangled his words for I have given the full sense of them And this may be demonstrated by denying of the end which he makes to be to avoide the argument For I do not see any such difficulty in the argument that I should decline it and fall upon the person This is not my mind or manner But I could find fault with his dealing with me even here for he puts together that which I did not put together For he saies I accused him of a blasphemous disrespect whereas I said disrespect if not blasphemies and also the termes if not blasphemies without a grain of charity might have been construed without an affirmation Nether doth he right me or clear himself in the prosecution of his defence For my words in all reason doe represent as much as if I had added what he said I should have added These words if God had intended a book for our Iudge he would not have given us such a book as Scripture must connotate this sense that he would not have given us such a book as Scripture for our Iudge And therefore he needed not to quarrel upon the omission as if I had not dealt fairely with him consider it in the form of an hypothetical proposition if God had intended a book for our Iudge he would not have given us such a book as Scripture is what need be added for our Iudge when it is understood of course They know the rule Quod necessario subintelligitur nunquam deest That which is necessarily understood is never wanting And therefore have I not done his words any injury by mangling them nor yet by interpretation of them still they seem to sound such an imperfect book as Scripture and must do so if they have full sense in them But also if we might say what S. Austin said of the Heretiques words Bene haec acciperentur nisi ab eo dicerentur cujus sensus notus est so here these words might be better construed if they were not spoken by such whose sense was known For unless the Scripture be a book imperfect in regard of matter what need of tradition unless the Scripture were imperfect in regard of cleareness what needed an infallible judge to decide controversies about the sense Therefore he cannot get clearely off Aqua haeret And surely he doth not helpe himself or his cause by a like case he puts if God had intended the Scripture for sole Iudge in Law controversies he would never have given us such a book as Scripture is for our Iudge Doth this passe any handsome and respective reflexion upon Scripture As if it were no fitter to decide controversies in Divinity then in the Law And do they not think that we may have more reason to be bold with them than they with Scripture if God had intended that we should have been absolutely determined in matters of faith by General Council would he have given us such a pack'd Council as the Council of Trent was And yet moreover all he saies is besides the mark For this we doe not contend for that the scripture is the sole Judge
also confesse yet I also say that this Church of Christ must be confessed to be Infallible But withall I would have every one know that the Roman Church doth oblige to no more then to believe that the Pope defining with a lawful General Councel cannot erre for it is no necessary Article of Faith to believe that the Pope or head of the Church cannot erre when he defineth without a General Councel Now that this definition of a whole General Councel is Infallible ought not to seem strange to any Christian for who can think it strange that Christ for the secure direction of the first Christians whom the Apostles converted should give this Infallibility to all and every one of the Apostles and that he should regard so little the secure direction of all other Christians who were to be from the Apostles time to the end of the world that for their sakes for the secure direction of their Souls he would not give this Infallibility so much as to one Man no not to all the Prelats of Christianity assembled together with their head to define matters most necessary and in which all error would be most pernicious who I say could think this strange especially being this gift of Infallibility is given not for their private sakes to whom it is given but for the universal good and necessary direction concord and perpetual unity of the whole Church You must acknowledge that he gave Infallibility of Doctrine to all those who did write any small part of the Old or New Scripture He gave it to David though he was an Adulterer he gave it to Solomon who proved not only a most vicious Man in Life but who for his own person in point of Faith came to fall into Worshipping of Idols This you will not have thought strange but you will hold it Incredible that he should give this Infallibility not to one Man but the whole Church represented in a General Councel Let us passe on further yet and see how firmly this Infallibility is grounded I have above shewed how strongly it is grounded on those words of God promising a Holy way a way so direct unto us that fools cannot erre by it See here the third Number In the eight Number I have shewed that we cannot ground that Faith by which we believe the Sabbath to be changed to the Sunday upon Scripture but we must ground it upon the Tradition of the Church which if it be not Infallible we have no Infallible Ground at all for this point And in the ninth Number I have shewed the self-same to be about eating Blood or Chickens or any thing that is strangled In the 11 12 and 13. Number I have demonstrated that by the Scripture we cannot know which is true Scripture which is false which Books be Infallibly the Word of God which not for the Scripture hath not one Text in which it telleth us this and therefore for this Important point of Faith we can finde no other sure Ground then the Tradition of an Infallible Church for a fallible Tradition may deceive us In the 14. Number I have shewed that when Controversies arise as most and most Important Controversies do arise about the true meaning of the Scripture even after we have conferred all places together and looked upon the Original Languages the the Controversies still remain undecided and no Infallible way can be found to decide them by Scripture There is therefore no Infallible way to decide them if the decision and definition of the whole Church in a General Councel be not Infallible This is so clear that to the wonder of the world Luther himself in his Book of the Power of the Pope writeth thus We are not certain of any private Man that he hath the Revelation of the Father The Church alone it is of which it is not lawful to doubt So he In the 15. Number I have shewed that there be many points necessarily to be believed under pain of damnation which points are not at all set down in any clear Scripture For these points it is manifest that we can have no other ground then the Authority of the Church If this be not Infallible then we have onely fallible ground which cannot be a ground of Faith In the 16. Number I have confirmed the same Doctrine by the Authority of Saint Austin and Saint Chrysostome In the 17. Number I have proved this Doctrine clearly out of Gods Promise that he would build this his Church upon a Rock and that the Gates of Hell should not prevail against it which the Gates of Hell might easily do if the Church could come to teach damnable errors carrying her and her Children into the Gates of Hell it self The same in the same place I have proved by Gods commanding us to Tell the Church and commanding us to hold all those who will not hear the Church as Publicans and Heathens and by making good in Heaven the Sentence of the Church given upon Earth which he would not do if the Church should have at any time failed in her definition and that in points damnably erroneous In the 18. Number I have alledged other Texts still proving the same In the 19. Number I have shewed that for two Thousand years together before the Scriptures were written the true believers had no other sure ground of their Faith but the Authority of the Church which if it had been fallible the very ground of their Faith had been groundlesse and none at all The first Believers also and many whole Nations had no other ground then the said Authority of the Church as there I have shewed out of Saint Irenaeus and it is clear of it self for they did not build their Faith on any Scriptures Thus far I have gone already in the proof of the Infallibility of the Church Now I go on with those words of Saint Paul 1 Tim. 3. v. 15. where the Church of the living God is called The Pillar and Ground of Truth May not Men rely securely upon the Pillar of Truth May they not ground themselves assuredly on the ground of Truth No ground being surer ground and more infallible then the ground of Truth it self Yea my Adversary having found a place in St. Irenaeus calling the Scripture the Foundation and Pillar of Faith doth infer that if it be so then it is the ground and cause of our faith If this consequence be strong which I deny not then is it yet a stronger that the Truth is no where surer grounded then upon the Pillar and Foundation of Truth But my Adversary would take this place of St. Paul from me because he saith This expression may very reasonably be referred not to the Church but to the mystery of Godlyness and so be an Hebrew form c. Surely he forgot that this Epistle was not written in Hebrew but in Greek and then again No Hebrew form in the world can make the sense he intends What can be
Why so Mark if his ground be not as I told you Because saith he I have believed the Gospel it selfe upon the preaching of the Catholiques Can he more clearly ground upon the Infallible Authority of their teaching then upon this to believe the Gospel it selfe He goeth on thus Again If you hold to the Gospel my hold shall still be on the Authority of that Church upon whose Authority I believed the Gospel I saith he will hold my self to those by whose teaching I have believed the Gospel and these commanding me I will not believe thee And Saint Austin goeth so far upon this Ground as a Ground Infallible that he saith If perhaps you Manichaeans can find me any clear place in the Gospel to prove that Apostleship of Manichaeus that then indeed they shall weaken the Authority of the Catholiques But what do you think will follow I pray note it well Their Authority being weakned and shewed once fallible now neither can I so much as believe the Gospel And why so Because upon the Authority of these Catholiques I had believed the Gospel The ground of his belief in the Gospel was their Infallible authority as not onely these but also the next words shew manifestly Wherefore saith he if in the Gospel there be found nothing that is evident to prove the Apostleship of Manichaeus then I will believe the Catholiques rather then You. But if You shall read me out of the Gospel something that is evident to prove Manichaeus an Apostle then I will neither believe the Catholiques nor thee Why so I will not believe the Catholiques because they whose Doctrine I thought Infallible have lyed to me concerning your Manichaeans But I will not believe thee even when thou citest clear Scripture for of this case he speaketh and why so Because thou dost cite me that â—cripture to which Scripture I had now believed upon their Authority who have lyed unto me Thus he Could he more clearly say that if once in one single Lye he should finde the Churches Authority to be fallible he should then have left unto him no Infallible Ground at all upon which he were to believe Scripture To deliver a Doctrine thus inculcated over and over again and thus still relying on this one Ground is far and very far from letting a word slip in heat of disputation And therefore to speak plainly my Adversary could not deal sincerely when he said If we considered the whole Chapter we should be of his minde for nothing can make us lesse of his minde then to consider the whole Chapter as I have faithfully done excepting one little parcel in the end which most strongly confirmes all I have said for it followeth but God forbid I should not believe the Gospel having so Infallible Authority for it as the Church is yet believing this Gospel I do not see how I can believe thee teaching me Manichaeus to be an Apostle for we know which Apostle it was who was chosen in the place of Judas the Traytor This we have read in the Acts of the Apostles And because the Manichaeans did not believe the Acts of the Apostles he addeth which Book of the Acts I must necessarily believe if I believe the Gospel And why Because the Catholique Authority doth in like manner commend both these Scriptures to me See here again most evidently he saith the Ground upon which he believeth the Acts of the Apostles as well as he believed the other Scriptures to be the self-same Catholique Authority which in one and the same manner commendeth both Scriptures to us to be believed Had he said that he believed this or any other Scripture for the Light he received by the reading of it by which he discovered it to be Canonical then the Manichaeans might as easily have said that by the like Light we clearly discover the Gospel of Manichaeus to be Canonical Thus I have given a large and most faithful account of this Chapter setting most of it down word for word And this last place as also many other quite overthrow what my Adversary saith that he spoke here of himself as now a Manichaean for you see he speaketh of himself as one believing the Acts of the Apostles and believing it by a necessary consequence because he hath already believed the other Canonical Books upon the same Authority of the Church And if upon this Authority I may with St. Austin believe the whole Scripture to be Gods Word from the beginning to the ending though it containeth so many strange Stories such a world of several points why may I not upon the same Infallible Authority believe Prayers to Saints Prayer for the dead and other like points Neither can it be said that St. Austin as my Adversary saith was settled in the belief of the Scripture for the authority of Scripture it self for I have given you his plain words to the contrary saying that the Authority of the Church being weakned he cannot now so much as believe the Gospel which he might still do if he believed it for it self and not merely for the Infallible Authority of the Church yea l. de Utilit Cred. cap. 14. he saith that his belief in Christ was grounded upon that Authority which certainly he must then needs hold for Infallible If he did thus and was never noted for singularity in his faith for doing thus why may not I prudently doe what he did Yea how can I poor simple creature not doe imprudently if I refuse to do what he did who understood the Scriptures as well as any man the Church had Having now shewed the Church to be the Judge appointed by Christ for all Controversies and that the Definition of this Judge is Infallible and consequently a sufficient ground for Faith I will now show that all this Doctrine must be applyed to the Roman Church and cannot be applyed to the Protestant Church For first this Protestant Church doth not so much as lay claim either to have any such Authority as being Judge in all Points of Controversie or to the having any infallible Authority If either of these belonged to her she would know her own right from which she now disclaims and so by her own doctrine she cannot be Judge or infallible for so as an Infallible Iudge she should judge her self to be fallible No more need to be said to exclude her or any other Church acknowledging by evident and infallible Scripture as they profess their own fallibility and that they are not Iudges in Controversies being infallibly fallible and so uncapable of these Priviledges as is Evident And even this might serve to exclude all other Churches but the Roman She onely claimeth as she is bound to do her due right to be Judge in all Controversies and her infallible authority to decide them with truth All other Churches of all other Religions doe say indeed that they are themselves the onely true Churches but none of them say themselves to be either
and besides that which is beside it as a Rule is against it For if any thing be a Rule besides it then is that not a Rule For a Rule or Canon as it excludes defect so doth it exclude excess and therefore in necessaries to faith and salvation nothing is to be added as in the 22. of the Apocalypse the 18. If any man shall adde hereunto God shall adde unto him the Plagues that are written in this Book After the consignation of the Canon nothing is to be added as he said And your glorious asserting which follows in your Treatise that you onely do truly believe the Scripture because you onely believe it to be the Word of God upon Divine Revelation manifested by Gods Church which as you will shew is infallible is certainly not very sound Because first this is not yet put out of question that the Church is infallible This you would beg and have to be granted unto you therefore you passe the proof of it here and skip from this to the denial of true faith to the Protestants For this Demonstration we must wait your leisure Secondly we deny unto you any reason of this your glory in the belief of Scripture upon this consideration that the Faith of Protestants is more grounded then yours is for whatsoever authority the Church hath towards this perswasion we also make use of as a motive to this Faith and then we do resolve and settle and determine our Faith hereof by the autopistie of the word of God which you say is the infallible Word of God If it be infallible it cannot deceive us Neither can be it be said that we cannot be assured of its infallibility by its self because we cannot be assured of the Authority of the Church but by the Word of God Yea this is the ratio formalis of Divine Faith to believe what he saith to be true because he saith it Therefore must we believe that the Scripture is the Word of God because he saith it And suppose the Church were Infallible yet must we ground and terminate our Faith hereof in Scripture unlesse it did otherwise appear Infallibly to be so or else we are in everlasting motion to and fro as Why do I believe the Scripture to be the VVord of God because the Church saith it VVhy do I believe the Church because the Scripture beareth witnesse of it How do I know the Scripture saith it because again the Church saith so You must then come to us and our principles if you will have any grounded constitution of Divine Faith we fluctuate and hover up and down like the Dove untill we come to set a sure foot on the ground of Scripture The prime and indemonstrable principle of all Divinity amongst principles complexe must be this that the Scripture is the VVord of God And hereupon that which you say in your eighth page That it is no where written in Scripture that such and such Books of Scripture be Canonical and the undoubted VVord of God c. makes no prejudice against us and yet that which is quoted in Scripture from any other book under such a name is upon this consideration Canonical for they are worthy to be believed for themselves As we assent unto prime principles in the habit of intelligence by their own light so do we assent unto Scripture to be the VVord of God through the help of the Spirit of God do we see the Scripture to be the VVord of God as by its own light Therefore hath Faith more proportion to Intelligence then to Science since we see no reason to believe but by the credibility of the object which hath upon it impressed the Authority of God And this in effect even Aristotle did see in his Rhetoricks when he speaks of that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is either by Humane Testimony or by Divine in the latter whereof that which makes the Faith is the Testimony of God And that testimony of Saint Austin which your Bellarmin produceth against those who were for private Revelations beside Scripture in his first Book De verbo Dei cap. 2. and he takes it out of the 12 of his De Civit. cap. 9. infers as much in these words Scripturae fides mirabilem autoritatem non immeritò habet c. The Faith of the Scripture hath not undeservedly an admirable Authority in the Christian VVorld and in all Nations which amongst other things that it spoke it did by a true Divinity foretell would believe it It hath an admirable Authority not undeservedly mark that not from the Christian world but in the Christian world and in all Nations which it did foretell would believe it not the Church for they that were the Church were to believe it first it did foretell by a true Divinity if then we would use a scientifical argument and intrinsecal from the Scripture it should be this that what it hath foretold is come certainly to passe and what is come to passe in the belief of it it did foretell The humane Faith then such as that whereby we believe Cicero's or Virgils books is indeed yours for you are they who have no other then humane grounds and consequently an humane Faith if your Faith doth rest upon the authority of Man VVhat you have more to say to this out of the virtue of General Councils you refer me to in the 19 Number but all the light they give comes from the Sanctuary of Scripture and therefore what Light you have must be more then Mans. In the middle of your eighth page you say you have a second convincing Argument it is easily denyed to be a second convincing Argument for it cannot be a second convincing Argument untill the first proves so But the summe of this Argument is drawn from our uncertainty of the knowledge of the Scripture to be the VVord of God by our translations since the Scriptures were written in Ebrew and Greek which one of ten thousand doth not perfectly understand But do you not consider that this Argument will rebound with more force against you for you have nothing at all for your belief but the Authority of the Church in your Translation Latin Yea the people must have no knowledge at all by any Translation which they understand therefore their Faith upon this account is lesse Divine because they have no understanding of Scripture by any Interpretation Secondly The Translations are the VVord of God not absolutely but so far as they agree with the Originals and therefore by them we do not ground our Faith as such but we ground our Faith upon that which is translated to be the VVord of God because God by his Spirit perswadeth us of it therefore the Fallibility of Translation doth not destroy our Faith for we do not build it upon a Translation but this you do you rely upon your Latin Translation Session the 4. as Bel. in the 30. B. De verbo Dei c. 9.
it to be noted that herein he followed the authoritie of the Churches Notwithstanding which Saint Jerome as before did not receive them which makes a sufficient reason to hold that the authority of the Churches is not a sufficient ground of faith in the belief of Canonical Books or else St. Jerome who in this may be compared with St. Austin for his judgement is in the same condemnation with us Afterwards you plead that since the Gospel of S. Matthew was written in Hebrew whereof there is not extant any one Copy in the world and it is not certain who or how faithfully he did translate it we cannot be certain by the Scripture that this is the word of God therefore by the Church This I think is the sum of your plea. We answer First Again we do not disclaim the use of the Catholique Churches in the credence of the Word of God but this doth not certifie us Secondly You Catholiques as you would be called speak largely that not one of the Ancients conceived it to be written in Greek surely all the Ancients did not write surely all that did write are not now had But take it of all that did write and are now extant and put it to be so that all were of Saint Jeromes Opinion in his Preface upon Saint Matthew yet all that you say is not certainly true that there is not a Copy of the Hebrew Gospel extant in all the world For not to speak of the Hebrew Gospels set out by Munster and Mercer which Ludovicus de Dieu takes notice of in the Preface to his Notes upon the Gospels if you will give any heed to your Isidor Clarius he will tell you I suppose otherwise when he saith in a little Preface which is a Testimonie out of Saint Jerome in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastick writers that St. Jerome there affirms ipsum Hebraicum habetur usque hodiè in Casariensi Bibliotheca which Pamphilus the Martyr studiosissimè confecit and that he had the liberty by the Nazaraeans who in Beroea City of Syria do use this volume to describe it So he Now it may be that remains there and therefore you cannot be certain of what you say And this is more then an ordinary Authority of the Church in an interpretation Again how come your Latin interpretation of this Gospel to be authentique if it was not taken out of an authentick copie for the Church can doe no more then declare that which is authentique then must it be authentique otherwise they make Scripture Again let me give you one intimation that possibly so might yet at first be written in Greek my reason is this in the first of Saint Matthew 23. verse it is said of Christ they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us If it were written in Ebrew what need of any interpretation in the same Language since the Letters of the Word put together without any variation do make that signification Again if the Church hath made the Greek Translation authentique why is your Latin made authentique Is there two authentiques If it be not authentique by the Church what would you infer Again the harmony of it with other Gospels hath more in it to perswade Faith then the credit of the Church Again if it be an Interpretation yet unlesse you do evince it that we do build our Faith upon the Interpretation you do nothing Now then as your people do fix their Faith upon that which is interpreted not up-upon the interpretation so may we build our belief upon this Gospel to be the Word of God by the illumination of the Spirit of God and yet not upon the Translation The Translation doth but conveigh unto our knowledge the words but it is the Spirit of God that doth work in us belief thereof that it is the VVord of God The Translation attends the Notification of the object what that is which is to be believed but it is the Divine perswasion which attends the act and is the cause why it is believed the Interpretation is but the Instrument of Faith the ground of it is the perswasion of God that it is the Truth and VVord of God and therefore your argumentation goes upon a wrong supposition as if we resolved our Faith in the Translation as such And what you except afterwards against the certainty of our Faith upon the account of the Greek Translation doth also return easily upon you for the same possibility of error is urged against your Latin either by ignorance or negligence or on purpose for the upholding of your new opinions And let me ask you why you account your Latin to be Authentique you will say because the Church of Rome was infallibly assisted in it VVas it then Infallibly assisted when it renders the Ebrew in Genesis ipsa for ipsum that it might be for the honour of the Virgin VVell but give it that the Latin was infallibly made by the Church why not the Greek also infallibly made by the Church and more confirmed by the Church then your Latin one you get nothing then by this exception And this may satisfie you how a Manichaan might believe the Gospel of Saint Matthew which you put to the question An opinion thereof he may have by the judgement of the Church some knowledge of it to be the Word of God he may gather by the agreement with the other Gospels but the Faith of it to be such is to be wrought by the Spirit of God whereby those who heard the Apostles were caused to believe that which they preached to be the Word of God without perswasion of the Church which was not then in a body when some first believed As for the Fathers holding Books to be Canonical by the Church we have spoken to already in this paper and we shall meet with it again You speak indeed of them as in general upon designe ad faciendum populum but you do not name the places onely Saint Athanasius you are pleased to quote VVe answer if you mean that he received the Gospels and rejected the Gospel of St. Thomas upon the Authority of the Church as the cause of his Faith of them you do not prove it by what he saies If you mean that he was induced to think well of them by the reception of the Church and to refuse the other by their refusal this doth not come home to the question And suppose the Church its refusal of the Gospel of Saint Thomas was sufficient for him to refuse it too yet doth it not follow that because the Church did receive the other Gospels he received them no otherwise then because they did for this makes the reception of the ChurCh to be but as a necessary condition not the formal cause of his Faith As for Tertullians and Saint Jeroms and St. Austins authorities in this case we shall finde an answer when you quote the places The Testimony of Eusebius which you produce
to the Pontificians who assert the Government of the Church to be Monarchical by Christs Institution for if part of the authority be in the General Council then is it not all in one the Pope Or if the Council be called onely ad Consilium and they have no Votes decisive how doth this agree to all the former Councils wherein they had authority of Vote and he may determine without them as to advise since he determins without them in the authority and suppose they advise him to let them have power of Vote he can yet determine against them Fifthly How many Councils have been opposite to one another In which or with which did not the Pope erre The Nicene and that of Ariminum as before decreed contrarily one for the Arrians the former against them which did not erre and yet if neither had did ever any of the ancient Councils determine of their own infallibility And what think you of Nazianzens Opinion about Councils in his Epistle to Procopius the 42. Shall I tell you it I have no mind to derogate from General Councils but if you would have me tell you his judgement it is in such words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am thus affected as to shun all meetings of Bishops if I must speak the truth for I never saw any Good end of a Synod nor that had an end of the Evils more then an addition Nay did not the Bishop of Bitâ—nto break out into these words in the face of the Council at Trent I would that with one consent we had not altogether declined from Religion to superstition from Faith unto infidelitie from Christ unto Antichrist from God to Epicurus Did he not say so And this may serve for your Answer to all the rest of this your Paragraph We cannot think it strange that the definition of a General Council should be fallible until you bring forth your strong reasons to induce my assent that such assistance was ever promised to a General Council as the Apostles and Prophets had or that any General Council had such assistance or that there was the same reason of such assistance And to say no more of this point measure the infallibility of the Trent Council by the determinations thereof in things of Religion and see how they agree with Scripture which you say is a rule of Faith and by this Argument be you judge of the infallible Judge Let us not see your Opinions by infallibility which you pretend but do you see your infallibility by the determinations it did put forth namely such wherein we differ and therefore I need not name them In the 22. Paragraph we have recapitulation and a passage of Luther which you use as an Argument ad hominem We Answer you do then hereby give us occasion to shew our ingenuity to truth that as we follow him and any other with it so we will not follow others or him without it But secondly If this book was written after his recession from the Church of Rome it is not meant of the Roman Church but of the Catholique Church which yet he doth not here compare with the Scripture but with a private man which seems to be spoken against Enthusiasts Neither doth he say that it is not lawful to doubt of the Church that whatsoever it saith is true but that it hath the Revelation of the Father to wit because it hath the revealed Word of God with it Or that the undoubtednesse of it doth not belong to it per se but per aliud because it hath for its priviledge the Revelation of Scripture And thus it maketh not for you Now this brings on your forecited passage of Saint Paul to Tim. 1.3.15 Where the Church of God is called the Pillar and Ground of Truth And you aske May not men rely securely upon the pillar of Truth May they not ground themselves assuredly on the ground of Truth no ground being surer ground and more infallible then the ground of Truth it self So you Supposing the words read according to this way we answer There is a double Pillar and a double ground one Principal the Scripture the other lesse principal and subordinate the Church now as this pillar and this ground is subordinate to the main pillar and ground we may rely and ground our selves but then the principal reliance and grounding must be upon that which is principal the Scripture For let me ask you likewise what is the Pillar and Ground of the Church Is it not the Scripture then the Church is but the pillar and ground by accident because that doth rely and is grounded upon the Scripture And therefore the Scripture is the more sure and infallible ground because what truth the Church hath it hath by participation and it is possible for it to hold forth and to have hung upon it somwehat which is false according to your own confession as I conceive you although not damnative And this doth well corroborate my inference from Saint Irenaeus words of the Scriptures being called the Pillar and Ground of Truth that therefore it is the Ground of Faith yes very rationally because it is the prime and supreme pillar and ground of Truth Yet you will raise a consequence upon mine for your cause thus If this consequence be strong which I deny not there is yet a stronger that the Truth is no where surer grounded then upon the pillar and foundation of Truth So you Sir What do you mean Do you make any difference betwixt the ground and foundation Do you mean that the Scripture is the ground of Faith but the Church is the Foundation This is your sense I suppose otherwise how a stronger Consequence For there is no comparative but where there is some difference And if this be what you would have then I think I may say I have what I would have and yet we are not agreed For then you confesse what I have hitherto held that the Scripture is the ground of Faith You said at first that the authority of the Church was the ground of Faith I said the Scripture was the ground of Faith and now you say as I say that the Scripture is the ground of Faith and so your contradiction is come into my affirmation But yet we are not agreed in that which you now superadd that the Church is the Foundation of Truth the Scripture is the Ground the Church the Foundation Is it so then have you changed the Question And why had we not the right state of it at first And was it not enough that the Church should be the ground of Scripture but must it be the Foundation in a more excellent sense I must not let this passe for your sake First what gives you occasion from the Text to assert the Church to be the Foundation signanter I do not see For the word in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie a Foundation but that which doth uphold
that the invisible Church shall not perish which is true although the visible Church be under a possibilitie to erre since every errour is not destructive of salvation In the 25. Number you tell me what you have said before but that you have given me some additional Testimonies in the supplement of the last which have their answer without repetition Onely you no where I think find that Saint Jerome did receive all those books which you receive for Canonical and for those Authours which held the Consubstantiality of the Son and those several properties of the Holy Trinity you will give me leave with judicious men to suspect Eusebius Beleeve your Cardinal herein Bellarmin in his De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis p. 94.5 6. where he brings the attestation of Saint Athanasius and Saint Jerome to the same purpose and Saint Jerome calls him not onely an Arrian but the Prince of the Arrians sometimes sometimes the Ensign-bearer Yea the 7. Synod he sayes and the Apostolical Legats rejected his authority as being an Arrian Heretique as he saies And as for Austins expression that the relying on the Church's authority is the most true and inviolable Rule of Faith you refer it to your 16. Number and there referre me to the 13. chapter of the first book Contra Cresconium which I cannot see there If it should be so disertly yet this must be understood respectively to those cases wherein the Scripture doth not clearly passe the Verdict in which the authority of the Church is the best rule we can then have as towards practice But this in his Opinion doth not absolutely leave us to follow Tradition of the Church in points of Faith unlesse he contradicts himself as you shall see at the end But you are afraid of want of Number to make noise because you say I said you had no other Testimony but Saint Austins I did not say that you had none but his absolutely but you had none but his that I could see of those you produced Neither him indeed if you please to tell us what you see Therefore we shall look over your reinforcing his and the main testimony for your cause in my answer whereunto I see yet no place for amendments or abatement I said if you consider the whole tenâ—â—r of the chapter you may be inclined to think that it came from him in some heat of dispute and methinks I may think so still Your men are wont to answer evidences of the Fathers which are against them when they please that such passages came from them not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and surely we may have that liberty when there is such occasion given for us to interpret them as here if we consider how he was displeased with himself for a former respect to that Epistle and also if we take notice of his short returns of discourse in this Epistle and also if we mark his check and correcting and taking up himself towards the end of the chapter with an absit Sed absit ut ego Evangelio non credam And if this answer doth not weigh with you then I gave you another that this might be spoken of himself not in sensu composito as then but in sensu diviso as in order to that time when he was a Manichee himself To which purpose I told you it was familiar to him and other writers of that part of the world to expresse a tense more then past by the imperfect and the sense is that when he was a Manichee he would not have believed the Gospel but that the authority of the Church had moved him to it One place of this usage I found to be in a chapter you quoted in his De Predestinatione Sanct. lib. 2. cap. 1. s 14. Qui igitur opus est ut eorum ferutemur opuscula qui priusquam ista haresis â—riretur non habuerunt necessitatem in hâc difficili ad solvendum quastione versari quod procul dubio facerem si respondere talibus cogerentur where you have the Imperfect Tense for the Tense more past facerent for fecissent and so the other So in his first Book of Retract cap. 51. Profecto non dixissem si jam â—uns essem literis Sucris ita eruditus ut recolerem where you have essem for fuissem and so the other And also by the way let me observe somewhat from those two places towards the main question besides the use of them in the way of Criticisme For by the former you have the reason why the Tradition of the Church in Doctrines received will not make an end of our differences since the questions were not then started and also by the second you may observe that we cannot swallow all that was said by Saint Austin without chewing since he sayes himself that had he been so well instructed he would not have said this and that And indeed his books of Retractations are books against you and do conclude wholly that we are not to take whatsoever the Fathers wrote to be as true as Gospel Yea some such books of Retractations all of them might have made as some think Origen did although they are perished as to us But the answers which I gave you to that passage of Saint Austin will not content you Therefore you endevour to shew at large that they will not serve You say unlesse he will stand to that ground he must needs seem to say nothing against his Adversary What ground do you mean VVhat that he was moved by the Churches Infallible Authority as you would conclude at every turn No supposing him not to speak in aestu Sermonis yet what he said against his Adversary was reasonable without urging the Infallible authority For the consent of the Church might be considered by him as a condition towards the reception of any doctrine and yet not to be that which he built his Faith upon as upon an Infallible ground You may know the Causa sine qua non is not a cause although such a thing be not without it yet is not this the cause thereof And therefore make what you can of the place it will not afford you a firm foundation if his authority could do it You say that this is his first argument to shew that his Adversary by citing Texts out of the Gospel to prove Manichaeus a true Apostle could prove nothing against those who as yet have not believed the Gospel So you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what then Because the Adversary can prove nothing by Scripture to those that deny it therefore Saint Austin must infer that the authority of the Church is infallible and he must believe the Gospel upon no other ground VVhat consequence is this as if because Saint Austins adversary cared not for the judgement of the Church therefore we must be guilty of that which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which hath so much wronged the Church as nothing more This
for your use Take it by it selfe and it will come to this that a clear place in the Gospel would perswade him to lessen his opinion of the authority of the Catholicks then he would hold clear Scripture above or against the authority of the Church then their authority is not in his judgement Infallible or else Infallible authority of the Church may be opposite to Infallible authority of the Scripture and one in his opinion of them the Scripture is more Infallible then the other the Church which is incongruous for in Infallibility there is no degree no more then in Truth And if you say that the Scripture yet may be more Infallible to him this spoyls all your cause for you say you go to Faith by the Church because that way is more plain c manifestâ— Therefore you hasten me from this passage to shew me what will follow But what do you think will follow I pray note it well their authority being weakned and shewed once fallible now neither can I so much as believe the Gospel And why so because upon the authority of these Catholicks I had believed the Gospel So you But do you see how you interpose your glosse in your Parenthesis thus their authority being once weakned and shewed once fallible Do you imagine that we can neglect or overlook this your glossall inference or opposition and shewed once fallible as if there were no authority but that which is Infallible and there were no weakning of authority but to make it fallible Authority may stand with Fallibility for we grant Authority to the Church distinguishing it from Infallibility And if you had done so you had saved many a wound which your Church hath got by that unfortunate word Infallibility as one of your own men happily confessed Neither therefore doth it follow that the authority of the Catholicks being weakned and shewed once fallible he could not at all believe the Gospel because by the authority of the Catholicks he had believed the Gospel but he could not then believe the Gospel by that inductive and motive of the authority of the Church for the first Christians believed the Apostles severally without the authority of the Church Yea if upon that consideration he could not have believed the Gospel their authority by whom he did believe it being weakned yet doth it not from hence flow necessarily that when he did believe the Gospel he did believe it upon an Infallible authority because although he could not believe the Gospel without it yet might he account it as towards belief but a condition not a cause of his Faith And this you must have or else you do not contradict Whatsoever is necessary to an effect is not the cause of it although whatsoever is a cause thereof is necessary to it Therefore that is not so which again you say that the ground of his beleef in the Gospel was their infallible authoritie as not only these but also the next words shew manifestly When will you by your proof put the infallible proposal of the Church out of question when shall we have any more then supposals of it Let us see your next words Wherefore if in the Gospel there be nothing found that is evident to prove the Apostleship of Manichaeus then I will beleeve the Catholicks rather then you but if you shall read me out of the Gospel something that is evident to prove Manichaeus an Apostle then neither will I beleeve the Catholicks nor thee Why so I will not beleeve the Catholicks because they whose Doctrine I thought infallible have lyed to me concerning the Manichaeaus But I will not beleeve thee even when thou citest clear Scripture for of this case he speaketh and why so because thou dost cite me that Scripture to which Scripture I had now beleeved upon their authority who have lyed to me So you And what now from hence can you gather more then from the former passage of the same nature unlesse you did make good another Parenthetical supposition whose Doctrine I thought infallible This is not in Saint Austin but comes from your own private Spirit And therefore if you will not be ruled by our Spirit because of the former exception to the contrary surely we have no cause to be overperswaded by your judgement without any reason for it Secondly May you not from hence take notice that what I said of Saint â—ustin that in the Testimony here he might speak as in some heat of Dispute For can we think that Saint Austin had such a soul as to say soberly and categorically that he would not beleeve clear Scripture which was cited by any one because Catholicks had told him otherwise Did Saint Austin in your conceit differ in judgement from your Aquinas or did your Aquinas differ from Saint Austin Consider then what your Aquinas saith in his Summes the first Part the first question and the eight Art Innititur enim fides nostra revelationi Apostolis Prophetis facta qui Canonicos libros scripserunt for our Faith doth rely upon the revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets who wrote the Canonical Books but not upon the revelation if any other was made to other Doctours Nay he confirms it by Saint Austin out of his 19. Epist a little after the beginning Solis enim Scripturarum libris c. For I have learned to give this honour onely to the Books of Scripture which are called Canonical as to believe most firmly that none of the Authours thereof did erre in writing any thing but others I so read that whatsoever holynesse or learning they are excellent in I do not think true therefore because they thought so or wrot so Compare then this passage with the other or the other with this and then judge whether either he did not differ from himself in his Principles or did not speak the former as a disputant Thirdly Let me note whereas you do rightly translate Saint Austin as speaking of his beleef by the Catholicks in the tense more then past you give your self occasion to think that he meant the main passage non crederem not of himself then but as before a Manichee And your argument which you produce a little after against this last answer because he speaks here of beleeuing the Acts of the Apostles and beleeving it by a necessary consequence because he hath already beleeved the other Canonical books upon the same authority of the Church doth not overthrow my answer because you say your self that this book of the Acts he did beleeve by consequence by the authority of the Church he was at first moved to beleeve the other books and therefore by consequence he did beleeve the book of the Acts because the Catholick authority did in like manner commend both Scriptures The speaking here in the present doth not derogate from my answer because the beleeving by consequence supposeth an act of beleeving antecedent Also Fourthly note that here he said the
Crimen falsi for I do not see upon the place any half Syllables out of which you may draw any such interpretative Confession I have often upon your occasion said the contrary that the authority of the Church cannot be the cause of faith And therefore whether you have any faith of the Articles of Religion or of Scripture in all your Church is more easie to be found then said And assuredly though we talk of faith in the world the greatest part of it is but opinion which takes religion upon the credit of man and not of Scripture And as for us we have also the authority of the Church Catholick to move our judgement and Scripture to settle our faith And we are more related to the foure General Councils in consanguinitie of Doctrine as he said then your Church now And now at the end of all you doe fairly rebate the edge of your censure of my Expression namely Excesse of Faith But you say my distinction doth no way salve the improprietie of my Speech For there is still a difference in more believing Objects and believing more Objects But granting that it may be improperly spoken yet even in that sense it is not truely said because there can be no Excesse of Faith in believing that which God hath said So then by my Distinctions which is your School of Fides Subjectiva fides Objectiva fides Qua fides Quae there may be an Excesse of Faith in the Object if we beleive more then God hath said supposing we can believe what God hath not said although there be not an excess of faith in the Subject for we cannot have too much faith in that which is to be believed But the quarrel against the speech was not becacause it was not proper enough and congruous in this Discourse but because of the Application of it to you as it now appears and therefore here would you vindicate the Church in this upon the same ground of infallibilitie and therefore for your Faith in whatsoever you believe you have this Warrant Thus saith the Lord. But since this infallibilitie of yours you cannot have without begging of the question even to the last nor shall have it surely by begging you are yet to finde out some Expedience of Means or Arguments how to preserve your selves from that just charge of Excesse of Faith and the chief of that kind is that you speak of your infallibilitie for which you have not Thus saith the Lord. How then do you prove it by Tradition And how do you prove Tradition by the infallibility of the Church Therefore go not to Faith about by a circumference If you have a desire to rest your judgement and your soul in certain infallibilitie by your own word then center in Scripture from which all Lines of Truth are drawn and dismisse Tradition as your men state it for which this infallibilitie was devised and yet cannot be maintained for it cannot maintain it self You close with a passage of Saint Austin If so the words you intend it to set out your Charity to the Church of Christ not to perswade my Faith in its infallibilitie I may love the Church without infallibility because though I doe not love Errour yet must I love the Church when it is in Errour And this gives you occasion to think well of this respective and full answer to your last Paper Excuse me that it was so long ere it came and yet not much above the space of yours and also so long now it is come Onely let me leave you with a Father or two in whose company you are delighted Tertullian in his Prescript cap. 8. We have no need of Curiositie after Christ nor further Inquisition after the Gospell When we believe we desire to believe nothing beyond For this we first believe that there is not any thing beyond which we ought to believe Again against Hermog cap. 22. I adore the plenitude of Scripture And a little after Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis Officina If it be not written let him fear that woe appointed for those who adde or take away And Saint Austin in his 2. book De Doc. Christiana cap. 9. In iis enim quae aperte in Scriptura posita sunt Amongst those things which are plainly laid down in Scripture are found all those things which contain Faith and Manners of Living to wit Hope and Charitie For the excellent modification of Scripture in the 6. chapter Magnifice igitur salubriter Sp. Sanctus ita Scripturas Sanitas modificavit ut locis apertioribus fami occurreret obscurioribus autem fastidia detergeret Nihil enim fere de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissime dictum alibi reperiatur And the same in the 7. chapter for the second Degree or step to Wisedome He saith Deinde opus est mitescere Pietate neque Contradicere Divinae Scripturae sive intellectae si aliqua vitia nostra percutit sive non intellectae quasi nos melius sapere meliusque percipere possimus sed cogitare potius credere id esse melius verius quod ibi scriptum est etiamsi lateat quam id quod nos per nos met-ipsos sapere possumus And again Saint Austin contra Literas Petit. Lib. 3. cap. 6. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicam nos nequaquam comparandi ei qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit Si Angelus de Coelo vobis annuntiaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepistis Anathema sit Consider what is said and the Lord give you understanding in all things To the Reader How in these times in which there be so many Religions the true Religion may certainly be found out 1. A Satisfactory Answer to this Title will alone put an end to the endless controversies of these dayes This made me think my labour well bestowed in treating this point somewhat largely And because that Treatise hath received a very large answer the examining of this answer will make the Truth yet more apparent That this may be done more clearly I will briefly tell you the Order I intend to observe in the examination of the said answer And because this answer directly followeth the same Order which I observed in treating the question prefixed in my Title Therefore when I have shewed you the Order of that Treatise you will clearly see that I shall most orderly answer the Reply against it 2. That Treatise had a short Preface to tell the intent of it My first Chapter must then be the Examination of what is said against this Preface Again that Treatise did shew five things First it did shew the necessity of a Judge to whom all are bound to submit Secondly That Scripture alone did not suffice to decide all necessary Controversies without a living Judge to
upon what was in writing So Cressy Exomol C. 8. N. 3. Now if another in Spain another at Constantinople or other in some remote part from these had bestowed the like or greater expences and industries in procuring Varieties of Manuscripts it is most probable they might have in these places found in every one of them as great variety of lections which multitude of Lections Usher alone found to be incredible almost in every vers The Manuscripts which were before all printing being so exceeding different what assurance have those who did first print such or such a Manuscript rather then a hundred Manuscripts different from that which they printed that the Manuscript which was the true undoubted Copy of the true undoubted Originall was printed by them and published to the world which now contents it self with printed Copies onely and not one among twenty thousand hath recourse to any old written Manuscripts or if they have recourse to any such Manuscript or Manuscripts yet they are so wonderfull farre from having any full assurance that such Manuscripts be the true undoubted Copies of the true undoubted Original that they approach not one inch nearer the Assurance of the Truth by having Recourse to such Manuscripts And here it is that I may farre fitter use these your owne words used in another place against me Alas Sir At what a losse are you and yours in this grand and capital and comprehensive controversie which affords me liberty to think that which is intricated with so many unspeakable difficulties and most manifest uncertainties is not that manifest ground of certainty and infallible certainty by which fools cannot erre for what else can a Collier have infallibly to guide him through all these Labyrinths whose windings are made more unextricable by lying so far from the least glimpse of any Light For as you say Translations are only so farre Gods Word as they agree with the Originals that is with such Originals as are the true and undoubted Copies of the true and undoubted Original But say I it is impossible for any man living who accounteth the judgment of the Church to be fallible to know infallibly which Translation agree with the true undoubted Originals and which not because it is impossible for him to know which be the true undoubted Originals and which not Therefore it is impossible for any man living who accounteth the judgement of the Church to be fallible to know which Translations be the word of God and which not You then have neither infallible assurance of translation nor of Original and consequently you have no assurance of any part of Scripture to be God assured Word And yet all the assurance of your faith is built upon this of which you have no assurance at all For you have no assurance of either Translation or Original or Interpretation of any one book or how many or which books make up the whole Canon 36. As for our assurance of the Word of God it dependeth not upon these inextricable uncertainties If those who received the first true Original Coppy did upon good ground receive it relying upon the authority of those who did give it unto them as an authority infallible we upon no lesse good ground receive as authentical and secure from error both in faith and manners our Vulgar Translation which we receive upon the infallible authority of the Church An infalliblity as well grounded as theirs who received first the true Original Scriptures as I proved Numbers 32.33 But of this infallibility I am to treat at large Chapter 4. If Isidor Clarins in any one title importing faith or manners differs from what we receive upon this infallible authority we have nothing to do with him what you object against us for the different editions of Sixtus and Clement hath bin answered by many and very fully by that famous book called Charitie Maintained written against Potter see it Part. 2. Cap. 6. Numb 3. Where by authentical Testimonies of persons beyond all exceptions is shewed that the decree of Sixtus about his edition was never promulgated and that he himselfe had declared diverse things to have crept in which needed a second review and that the whole work should be re-examined though he could never do it being prevented by death The very self same is told you distinctly in the Preface to our Vulgar Edition but I cited the former book because of his severall proofs and because Chillingworth who with so much applause of many answered this book doth not return one word to disprove his Adversaries most satisfactory answer All your other arguments end in the biting of a flea 37. Next you object two places of S. Austin But Sir you have given me leave to have no more to do with the Fathers Authority Councils you also labour to discredit in the highest degree for you make them like false witnesses in matters concerning the salvation of infinite people to betray their own falsity in affirming things directly contradictory You must not say but prove by S. Austin and other good Authors that two lawful Councils lawfully approved have taught contrary opinions in matter of Faith otherwise you only deceive the people which knoweth not which Councils were lawful which not Would you make us believe S. Austin thought the Council of Ariminum a lawful Council Do you your self hold it so Did not he know it was not so as wel as you After all then you cannot shew which is your prime Principle That take away the infallibility of the Church you can find infallible means by Scripture only to decide all Controversies for by Scripture only it is a plain impossibility to decide which Scriptures be the true word of God which not As also which be corrupted which be not and which be the true original Copies of the true Books which be not This is a true convincing argument 38. Another argument is that there be many Controversies and may be yet many more the decision of which is necessary to Salvation and yet they cannot be decided by Scripture only and consequently some other infallible Judge to wit the Church is necessary for the infallible decision of these points Your second answer still is that the decisions of all such Controversies are plainly set down in Scripture which I have at large shewed in the beginning of this Chapter to be false and now I go to shew it further by specifying divers of these Controversies in particular Of my 8th Number 39. The first of these Controversies is about the necessity of not working upon the Sunday You dare not say that he shall be saved who doth weekly work and resolveth to work upon the Sunday without any necessity You must then affirm that to abstain from working upon that day is a point necessary to Salvation Now I ask where this necessary point is plainly set down in Scripture And I presse you to give me as clear Texts to prove this as I cited at large to
us to keep his Commandements 56. You go on as if I found fault with Scripture I only find fault with those who affirm Scripture to have been intended by God for an end to which I shew it never was intended Because if it had been intended by God to teach us clearly all things necessarie to salvation otherwise then by sending us to the Church and by bidding us keep our received Traditions it would have set the things down clearly and distinctly and not have left these points to be picked out one out of one book another out of another no man knoweth directly where yea divers books contained not so much as one of these points which you hold necessarie to salvation especially in plain and clear terms And those books which do contain such points do intermingle so many other lesse necessarie points or points of doubtful necessitie with those which are wholly necessarie without ever telling us of this lesse or greater necessitie that all the whole Bible must be very carefully and very attentively read over which is impossible because divers whole Books of the Bible are lost before a man can come to the infallible knowledge of such points as you will say are necessarie which points you say are but few and the Books of Scripture are many and divers more have been written and quite lost and how can we tell whether all these we have now contain all points necessarie For the most you pretend is that in the whole Canon all points necessarie were delivered we have not the whole Canon but diverse books of it have perished Therefore we have no assurance that the Scripture we have containeth all things necessarie The Scriptures we have make a book so big that the far greater part of the world taken up with so many necessarie affairs cannot in a very long space of time read over this Book with any part of that exactnesse which according to your own Principles must be required to find out which points be necessarie to salvation For to do this they must first read over the whole Canon and yet divers books of it are lost and not to be had how shall they read them Secondly to have assurance that they have read over the whole Canon they must read over such books as we hold to be part of the true Canon to see whether they be so or no and use such diligences as are necessarie for an infallible assurance They must also note most accurately all places which may perhaps clearly deliver a necessarie point when they shall have been conferred with other places which perhaps be at the other end of the Bible or may occur to me when I lesse observe any kind of connexion with what I read before Besides this for fear Translations which are only so farre Gods Word as they agree with the Original should be taken by me for Gods true Word I must consult with the Original and with the true Original of which I cannot get an undoubted copy infallibly secured from corruption Is it likely that God who hath promised us a Way so direct unto us that fools cannot erre by it would intend to lead us by a way having so many passages open to errour These difficulties shew that God did not intend this Book to be our onely guide His wisedome directs him to the best means to compasse his intention Even our ordinarie wisedom if we had an intention to set forth a writing to end all necessarie Controversies would direct us to set down plainly and clearly in one place all those few as you say points necessarie to be believed When God determined to set down all the Jewish Ceremonies you see how fully particularly and clearly he setteth them down in Leviticus Points of faith necessarie to salvation import incomparably more then points of meer Ceremonie If then God had intended a Book by which only he was resolved to deliver unto us all points necessary to salvation these points as you say being but few he would in some one part of these books have clearly set down these few points a thousand times more importing then the points of Ceremonies Many hold that the Epistles of Saint John were written after his Apocalyps and so by order of time that they were the very last part of the Canon And yet in the very last part of this my last part of the Canon Saint Iohn saith I had many things to write but I will not with inke and pen write them But I trust we shall see thee shortly and we shall speak face to to face No man can say that these many things which St. Iohn had to write were things unnecessarie wherfore many necessary things may not be set down in the Canon And yet the Canon is very compleat in order to its true end and also in order to the ending of all Controversies by sending us to the Church for full instruction as I have shewed And it is apparently false which you say that the Scripture doth give us everie particular point which is necessarie to be believed as I have shewed in this Chapter And whereas you adde secondly That the Scripture giveth also many points not necessary you mark not that the vast number of those points among which here and there we are not assured where the necessarie points are intermingled from the beginning of the Bible to the end is a thing which would make any man far from being fully assured that Gods intention was by this Book alone to decide all Controversies about points onely necessarie which might far more easily for our capacitie have been done in some one Chapter of some one of these Books 57. After this you urge that our Church hath not decided all necessary Controversies Sir Our Doctrine is that the Church can decide any point formerly revealed when any necessity shall require it or the declaration of this point concern our Salvation Salvation hath very securely been had without the decision of those points you speak of If circumstances happen that Salvation cannot be had without their decision they will then be decided If you acknowledge a real necessity to be at all times of the infallible knowledge of those points then by your own principles you are bound to say that they are plainly set down in Scripture And I am sure our Church hath determined that we are obliged to believe all Scripture with an undoubtful beliefe either you must say these points are not necessary and then all your arguments fall of themselves or else you must say these be plainly set down in Scripture and then we are by our Church obliged to believe them with divine faith I adde that our whole Church teacheth the definitions of Councils confirmed to be infallible Submit to this Judge appointed by God who did bid us hear the Church and you shall find her definitions not to leave you ignorant of what is necessary for you to know To cavil at her you will
to shew that all points necessarie be clearly determined according to truth in Scripture you are put upon a necessitie to say that lesse clear Texts suffice to determine this controversie for you though you stifly maintain that more clear Texts are not able to determine against you By which it is apparent how false that Principle is which forceth you to utter these inconsequent consequences By this also you may see that the Contradiction you would find in my words for saying on the one side these Texts are clear and on the other side that this Controversie the Scripture doth not decide doth arise out of my speaking according to your principles For you on the one side say that other Texts which are manifestly lesse clear are clear enough to end the controversies therefore these which are clearer must needs be clear enough for that end And again you say on the other side by these our Texts clearer then yours this Controversie is not clearlie decided Therefore I must consequentlie say that according to you This Controversie the Scripture doth not decide It is according to your Principles that these Texts must be clear because they be clearer then those which you are forced to affirme clear and again you must say they be not clear for fear you should confess them to decide against you Now if these two places be denied to be clear with a clarity sufficient to put an end to the Controversie then according to my principles scarce any Controversie will ever be decided by any Text. And this is most for my turn to shew the necessity of a living Judge whereas afterwards you take occasion to dispute of this Sacrament you do not do it as it should here have been done to the present purpose to wit by alledging more clear Texts to prove that Christs true body is not really in the Sacrament then I alledge to prove that it was really in it For these Texts I do call These Texts I require Without you give me these more clear Texts you will never give me a satisfactorie answer All other things I wave of until I have these clearer Texts The difference of these two hundred interpretations about these four words This is my Body though they be not owned by you yet they make strongly against you in this respect that they shew the Text of Scripture not to have ended but to have occasioned these endlesse differences And consequently they shew this point not to be clear out of Scripture You in vain are busie about other things which are not to the purpose so to entertain your Reader that he may not mark your omitting the main point which was to shew this great Controversie to be clearly decided on your side by Scripture onely Of my 15th Number 60. I go on still pressing other points the belief of which points your self hold necessarie to salvation and yet you cannot shew them evidently taught in Scripture For you cannot produce an evident Text teaching that God the Father is not begotten God the Son is not made but begotten by his Father onely that the Holy Ghost is neither made nor begotten but proceedeth and that both from the Father and the Son And that God the Son is Consubstantial to his Father Your answer to this is most highly unsatisfactorie You say that although the matter of these points be not found in terminis in Scripture yet the sense of them according to equivalence may as well as Transubstantiation To be as clearly set down as Transubstantiation in Scripture is according to your own principles not to be clearly set down at all In your answer you were to shew that these points were clearly set down in Scripture and you answer that they are as clearly set down as a point which is not clearly set down Is this any way satisfactorie Neither is it more satisfactorie if you mean to argue out of our own principles for according to us all points necessarie and this point in particular are not clearly set down in Scripture And to prove this I have laboured all this Chapter So that you neither satisfie according to your own nor our Principles Your second answer is destroyed by your former for whilest in that you professe to hold these Articles and not hold them upon the authoritie of the Church you leave your self no other authoritie upon which you can hold them but onely such Texts of Scripture as are not clear and no more sufficient to ground faith then other places are to ground a belief of Transubstantiation Be such places sufficient 61. For another necessarie point not plainly set down in Scripture I urge Baptisme of children Of my 16th Number which is by no evident Text of Scripture taught us You answer that it is not necessary for the salvation of the children to be baptized And to prove this pernicious doctrine you bring a Text which clearly speaketh onely of men old enough to believe and desire Baptisme For your Text is He that believeth he is then old enough to believe and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not and consequently would positively not be baptized shall be damned This Text you see speaketh nothing of children and whilest it damneth those who would not so much as believe it sheweth it self to speak of those who would not be baptised and these it damneth How doth it then intimate that those who are children and could have onely baptisme in re and not in voto should be saved without Baptisme for which point you bring it and yet of this point it speaketh not at all much lesse doth it speak as clearly as another text speaketh the quite contrary to wit Except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Jo. 3. v. 5. Hear your own Doctor Tayler in his defence of Episcopacy Sect. 19. P. 100. Baptisme of Infants is of ordinary necessitie to all that ever cried and yet the Church hath founded this Rite Rule upon the Tradition of the Apostles And wise men of whom I hope you are one do easily observe that the Anabaptists can by the same probability of Scripture inforce a necessitie of communicating Infants upon us as we doe of baptizing Infants upon them Therefore a great Master of Geneva in a Book he writ against the Anabaptists was forced to flie to Apostolical traditional Ordination They that deny this Ordinarie necessitie of baptizing Infants are by the just Anathema of the Catholick Church confidently condemned for Heretickes so he This ordinary necessitie of Baptisme to all that ever cried You denie Therefore by the just Anathema of the Catholick Church you are condemned for an Heretick yea you go further then the Pelagian Heresie for they were counted Hereticks See Saint Aust Heresi 88. for saying Although Infants be not baptized they shall possesse an eternal and blessed life though it be out of the Kingdome of God You will admit them
private Priests are far more likely to teach them Gods law by teaching them what the Universal Church holds to be Gods Law then by teaching them what they themselves conceive to be Gods Law as you would have them do 11 Now to prove further the Church to be a competent judge guiding us no lesse securely then those many millions were guided who had an infallible faith and the same Spirit of faith with us as S. Paul said though their faith were grounded on the authority of no Scripture but wholy and intirely on the tradition of their infallible Church I urged that in those two thousand years and more before Moses did write the very first book of Scripture the true faith of all the true believers of those Ages depended in its infallibility upon their Churches being infallible in proposing the traditions she had received shall we allow infallibility to that Church and deny it to Christs Church shall we be worse provided for in so main a point in the law of grace then they were in the law of Nature what text of Scripture is there for this Then it was not written Hear the Church then it was not written that the gates of Hell should not prevail against her Nor that she was the Pillar and ground of truth that the spirit of truth abided with her then teaching her then all truth All this and far more then this as I shall shew in this chapter is written now of Christs Church And yet you will say we are not sufficiently certified of her infalliblity I pray tell me how then were they certified and infallibly certified of the infallibility of their Church How did Men then infallibly know that they were bound under pain of damnation to believe the tradition of that Church shew me then what you demanded of me lastly to shew that is shew the ground they had then to hold their Church infallible and the infallibility of the knowledge of it and infallibly what was the subject of this infallibility If you cannot shew that they could not then do it better then we now then refuse not to stand up to our Creed Your answer to so convincing an argument is most unsatisfactory and it would make a man think your intent were to plead against your self You say this was answered before it was written what was that answer It was that the word in substance of it was before the Church which was begotten by it to this you add that when there is now as much need and as great certainty of tradition as formerly then I may urge this argument so when you speak of the word of God which you say was before all writing and which begot the Church you must speak of the unwritten word This unwritten word is that very thing which we call tradition and indeed when you speak of such a word as must be sufficient for an exterior and an infallible direction for so many millions as were by it onely to be directed in the way of Salvation before any Scripture was written you must of necessity put this word outwardly expressed somewhere and expressed in such a manner as may be able to produce this effect of guiding whole millions in the way of Salvation by an infallible beliefe of what God hath said by that word Now I pray find me out any word of God any where existent before Scripture but in the Orall Tradition of the Church of those times You say Gods word revealed is the ground of all faith They then had faith therefore they then had Gods word revealed and revealed in a sufficient manner to ground divine faith But they only had Gods word revealed by Tradition Therefore Gods word revealed by tradition is a sufficient ground to ground divine faith By this unwritten word that is by this Tradition of the Church she from a small Church consisting of those very few to whom God by his own mouth did first of all speak or by his Angels grew to be a multitude of true believers And so the Church was begotten by Tradition upon which only this multitude that is the Church did judge most prudently that to be the true word of God which was by so powerfull a motive perswaded to be so That hence you may see that this very motive alone is a very sufficient inducement to receive the Verities recommended by it and to receive them with an infallible assent For this was the only inducement which we know the true believers to have had for those 2000. years and more which were before Moses did write the first book of Scripture And those Scriptures which were written from the law of Moses to the time of Christ were only kept among the Iewes and this time lasted two thousand yeares more during which long time many among the Gentiles as apeareth by Job and his friends had true divine faith with out any knowledg of the Scripture wholy unknown unto them this faith of theirs could have no other ground but Gods unwritten Word delivered to them by Tradition Therefore Gods unwritten Word delivered by Tradition only is a sufficient ground for infallible faith 12 And whereas you add That when there is as much need and as great certainty of Traditions as formerly then I may urge this argument I answer that the need or necessity of Traditions which you conceive to have been greater then now doth not make the Traditions more credible Those who have read very much in very many credible books of France have no need at all of any unwritten and orall tradition to make them believe there is such a countrey as France yet these men whom we will suppose to live at Dover doe as certainly know by unwritten or Orall Tradition of men daily coming from France bringing French passengers French commodities and as to those who never read one word concerning France not being able to read at all And those who are not able to read at all are not lesse assured by unwritten tradition that there is such a Kingdome as France because there be many books written of France and the French warrs with the English So though we have now the Scriptures written concerning most points of faith we are not lesse helped by tradition because there be such books extant And good Sir consider how great our necessities are of both these helps for even now when we have Scriptures and Traditions we have ever had with them a perpetuall succession of horrible divisions opening still wider and wider All commonly caused by the misinterpretation of the Scripture to which inconvenience they were not subject before all Scripture was written And therefore in this respect there is now after the writing of the Scripture a greater necessity then ever of Tradition both to assure us which books be the word of God which not which be the true which the false Copies of these books Where they be secure where corrupted And lastly which is the true sense of
which is hard to affirme since we cannot see that there is any such necessity for such assistance And by those words such assistance Your last reply sheweth that you meane assistance extended to Infallibility Sir stand to Scripture and shew out of the Text that he promiseth to be with them securing them from all error in the first age and he promiseth not so much for the second or third age Against your reasons we have our reasons bring against my illimited text another text teaching clearly that my Text ought to be limited to a smaller assistance in other ages then was here promised for the first As for the necessity of the people which was the prime reason why Christ gave this infallibility it was greater in ages remoter from Christ you ask why then be our traditions now equally infallible to those of these times I answer that as it is harder to prove now that Christ did such miracles was crucified did rise again then it was presently after these things happened yet all these things be as infallibily true now as they were then and as infallilible so I say of Traditions which for all this doe not lose a sufficient measure of infallible certainty But to go on What if there be no such necessity of such assistance for other ages what Text have you to prove that God must needs give no more then is necessary and cannot promise more and give what he promiseth I know you will say this infallibility in ages after the Scripture was not necessary because the Scriptures alone would serve to decide all controversies Sir did not the Church alone serve to decide all Controversies before the Scripture was written Yes Why then was Scripture thought necessary by you even for this end for which the Church was well provided before Again the old Scripture did it not testifie as much as was necessary that Jesus Christ was the true Messias Yes To what end then was Saint John Baptist sent to testifie this To what end a voyce sent from Heaven to testifie this To what end so many Miracles wrought to testifie this To what end did Christ and his Apostles still further testifie this Mark here how false your judgement is in thinking God will promise just what is necessary and no more Sir in Ages after the first when the Church should grow from a Grain of Mustard-seed to be a Tree of vast extent in such a vast compasse and in progresse of many Ages a world of doubts would rise which Bookes were Scripture which not Which corrupted Scripture which not Which was the undoubted sense of the uncorrupted Scripture which not Why might not Christ for any thing you know by Scripture think this a sufficient Reason to promise an assistance extended to infallibility for other Ages of the Church as well as for the first age Will an authority so assisted to testifie all this infallibly be lesse necessary then so many Authorities to Testifie that Jesus Christ was the true Messias after it was infallibly Testified by true Scripture And all these Testimonies were given to the Jewes as ill as they were disposed How then can you say of the Church of Christ that she for want of this Disposition was deprived of this Assistance in all Ages but the first VVhat you adde of Traditions hath been already Answered See also Number Twelve But what you adde of Scripture having still the same certaintie is apparently false speaking as you speake in Order to assure us For you your selfe confesse that divers Bookes of Scripture as the Apocalyps c. are now held certain which were not held so before Again many and a good many bookes of Scripture are quite lost How know you by Scripture only that no necessary point for practice or beliefe contained in those bookes only did not perish with the bookes themselves And as for the bookes we have you see how uncertain we remain about the true sense of them in highest points Then they had the Apostles themselves or the known Disciples of the Apostles to tell them the meaning of these words This is my Body is this so really or figuratively only These words Baptize all Nations do or do not include Infants To be a Priest or a Bishop was to have power to sacrifice to absolve or was it not Now times make these held for uncertainties whereas by and by you admit that by this promise of Christ the Church is secure from damnable error though not from all simple errors for then no body should be left for God to be withal you admit that which will destroy quite what you said before For before you said Heresie consisted in opposition to clear Scripture whence all those must needs be Hereticks who opposed clear Scripture Therefore all those who held these prime points in which you and we differ with us against you were Hereticks for they held these points which as you say are against clear Scripture But by your own confession Christ had no visible Church baptizing teaching all Nations c. but those who held these prime points in which we and you differ wherefore we must confesse that Christ was with these Opposers of evident Scripture or else you cannot shew with what Members of the Church he was for all these last ages preceding the Reformation Let us go on 30. What kind of assistance Christ promised may be gathered behold a fifth Text out of several words in the 14. chapter of Saint John there verse 15. he saith I will pray the Father and he shall give another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive And verse 27. The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say unto you And chap. 16. ver 12. I have yet many things to say unto you How be it when the spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth I aske now according to these Texts How long is this spirit of Truth to abide with them in their successours For ever saith the Text. Shall he also secure those with whom he for ever abideth from all errour He will guide you into all Truth saith the Text. Give me then leave lesse to regard what you say to the contrary Where there is all Truth there is no errour If you answer there is no Fundamental errour I Reply that all Truth excludes all errour either in points Fundamental or not Fundamental And being you cannot assuredly tell me which points be Fundamental which not which destructive of salvation which not which be curable which are not you must grant me that she is to be believed in all points And fear not to believe her She will guide you into all Truth Therfore you may securely follow her in all herwaies This promise of Christ made equally to the Apostles and
reason may this be called the Pontificians use plenty of the Fathers against us therefore he will not answer to my testimonies from them nor to my answers to his testimonies against us Doe any of those Pontificians fully answer my testimonies and doe they sufficiently take off my answers If they doe he should have told me which and where But were I as apt to brag as the Romans are I might not be far from crying victoria that I should stand to answer the Fathers and bring them to stand for us though my Adversary saies I bring them to lesse than nothing and yet he that makes so much of them in shew should detrect this way of plea by them Whereas their small errors used presently to be discovered and cryed down This is not altogether true For how many of their errors continued long yea great errors also as the Millenarie opinion And Infant Communion was not presently decreed neither Therefore yet it remaines to be proved that any of the points of difference betwixt the Papists and us was a standing opinion of the Primitive times which my Adversary would insinuate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it would make a learned man amazed to ask as you do how few of them have touched upon our differences Ans There is no such cause of Amazement Learned men in generall wonder lesse and learned men cannot wonder particularly at this as knowing the reason which was added by me having not occasion by Adversaries and therefore doth my Adversary wisely passe by any mention of the reason as not being pertinent for his use But also was that I said well guarded first how few I did not say none Secondly I said touched namely as to handle and this is necessary to be believed because indeed there were few of them Argumentative then though some of them might put out occasionally some expressions relating to our differences yet is not this to touch argumentatively our differences for aliud agentis parva autoritas as the rule is And then thirdly if many of them at least did not touch so as to handle discursively all our differences there is no cause of admiring my speech for if they had handled some not all how should we have been directed in those which they had not handled Now then let all be considered then upon the whole matter let me say this that if any Pontifician can prove that many of them did handle argumentatively all the points of debate betwixt us then I shall give leave for the amazement of my expression Therefore as to the Authors he produceth of his side who give account of the Fathers in our diffâ—rences as Coccius Gualterus the Author of the Progeny of the Catholicks and Protestants or any other named by any other I say this that he should have told me particulary where each of them doth produce any Father and in what point and also should have shewed in them that many Fathers have all conjunctively spoken of the severall points and also that they have spoken of them directly on purpose where the seat of the matter was and also that no where they contradict what in one place they said or at least did not elsewhere speak doubtingly otherwise he concludes not any thing of weight against me And then secondly I can returne my Adversary number for number and weight for weight of our own who have answered all the testimonies of the Fathers which their learned Champions have produced as Bishop Jewell Dr. Whitaker Dr. Reynolds besides Chamier of France who have refuted the instances of the Fathers Yea the challenge of the first of them was never yet well answered as to the testimony of the Fathers And thirdly either the Fathers cannot be brought in with their suffrages for them or they can if they cannot why doth Campian and others crack and brag of the Fathers and then also my Adversaries Authors are disannulled If they can then either the Fathers speak contradictions since we produce them as well for us and therefore cannot we be ruled by them or else my Adversary needed not to have shifted the answering to them but might have found other passages out of them to have commodiously reconciled the seeming variance Yea then either my Adversary had not such cause to rest infallibity in a Council if all the Fathers of all ages agreed or the consent of the Fathers might be a rule to the Council and then my discourse of the Fathers had good conjunction with the Controversie about Councils As for the Author of the Progeny of Catholicks and Protestants whom he brings in here as handling a part all our main differences and doth in all these points give us the very words of our own chief Doctors clearly acknowledging a great number of holy Fathers directly opposit to us in each one of these points To this I answer that it is possible some of our Church may not meet with right editions of the Fathers might not discerne their true works might mistake the sense and application of some words or not being able dexterously to reconcile their expressions to some other passages of the Fathers and to our opinions might conclude them as opposit If this Argument were good then are they also bound to conclude the Fathers to be on our side because Bellarmin produceth in his Disputations testimonies of the Fathers for us Indeed he endeavours to answer those testimonies but I dare affirme that severall of those testimonies which the Author hath produced from our own side of the Fathers may as well be answered as some of those which Bellarmin answers Thirdly my Adversaries might have known also that there is a book written by none of ours which is a Confutation of Papists by Papists So then if they will set our Divines against us we can set their Divines against them yea also in severall points were the testimonies of the Primitive Church urged against some of their points in the Trent Council by some of their Church Fourthly I have read Breerley through it being commended to me by one who thought I think thereby to convince me in the case and I can give no other account than as Mr. Chillingworth doth that he hath not dealt exactly with the Confessions of those of our Church as in the instance of some passages out of Mr. Hooker as may be seen in Mr. Chillingworth page 62. As also in a passage of Luther as may be seen in Mr. Chilling If the pages 79 and 92 be compared And therefore have we no reason to be concluded against upon his word yea some of the authorities he bringeth do not respect the main points betwixt us and as I remember some authorities are not contradictory to our cause and therefore was I rather confirmed by reading of that book And therefore groundlesse is my Adversaries excuse for not medling with the holy Fathers in this Controversie betwixt us Though they did not professedly discusse and determine our questions and
uni tantum aut alteri populo proponuntur in particular judgements and in precepts of manners which are not proposed to the whole Church but to one or another people he saies they may erre in the same Chap. but so may not Scripture therefore can they not receive the vulgar edition absolutely as the first Church did receive the Original Copies so that either my Adversary hath overshot or the Cardinal under and if they will have nothing to do with him that in any title importing Faith or Manners differ from them then they have many to excommunicate on Munday Thursday though they absolve them again on Good Friday as they do the King of Spain for detaining part of St. Peters Patrimony And as for the other exception I made against the vulgar by the varieties of the Edition of Sixtus 5tus and clement the 8th he refers me to a Famous Book called Charity maintained written against Dr. Potter See it Part 2. c. b. n. 3. as I take it in his Copy but he saves me the labour in telling me the effect of it thus That by Authentical testimonies of persons beyond all exception is shewed there that the decree of Sixtus 5tus about his Edition was never promulgated and that he had declared divers things to have crept in which needed a second revew and that the whole work should be re-examined though he could not do it being prevented by death Ans according to their principles no Authentique testimony but of a Council confirm'd by the Pope let them shew such And then we say Secondly what if the decree of Sixtus 5tus was not promulg'd was not this Sixtus 5tus's Edition And it seems there was a decree for it but not promulg'd and the promulgation makes it but legible the decree I hope makes it credible the promulgation attends the binding of it in actu exercito but the decree attends the constitution of it in actu signato And was there no error in it because it was not promulgated Or rather was not it therefore not promulgated because there was error in it Thirdly the Authority of the Trent Council was ingaged rather for this than for that of Clement the 8th for the Trent Council as they know speaks of it as in verbis de presenti haec ipsa vetus vulgata editio quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesiâ probata est this very same old and vulgar edition which by long use of so many ages is approved in the very Church as if it had been so long before born and now when it was of age should be onely Christen'd Fourthly How did divers things creep in which needed a second review what while the Church slept then how can we believe the Church in tradition and purity of Copies for she may sleep while they are stolen or corrupted Therefore have they no cause to triumph that Mr. Chillingworth hath said nothing to this point in defence of Docter Potter as they say in the following words For if the Citation be right Part 2. Mr. Chillingworth did not publish for ought I knew what he had against the second part And he gives an account thereof why he did not in the latter end of his Answer to the 1 part p. 390. And therfore they did not ingenuously charge him with this omission since it was forborne in the whole upon ingenious reasons And if they thinke to save themselves because Sixtus his decree was not published surely Mr. Chillingworth may be excused because the second Part of his Answer was not published However he had said enough against the perfection of the Vulgar translation in his answer to the first part 77. Even upon the opinion of their own men Lyranus Cajetan Pagini◠Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus who in many places have rejected it and differed from it And to these he adds the judgement of Vega who was present at the Council and was instructed therein by the President of the Council the Cardinal S. Cruce as he saies and of Dredo and Mariana who had the opinion of Laines in it the General then of the society and in a sort of Bellarmine also But also if they might boast of not being answered in one point then some body might boast that they have given Treaties for Answers Lastly will they be confident that the decree was not published for the authority of the vulgar edition why then doth it go under the name of Sixtus 5us's Bible yea also Dr. Iames who hath written Bellum Papale to such a purpose in his third part 36. p. hath asserted that all the shifts they have made herein will not serve For both Bull and Bibles are in many mens hands whatsoever Gretser saith to the Contrary This Paragraph might have been spared N. 37. and I might be excused surely for sparing it it gives me a former reason why my two places out of St. Austin are not answered he tells me that I have given him leave to have no more to do with the Fathers This is his reason and my reason is because he will have more to do than he can do to answer them We deny not a tryal by the Fathers though their Judgement be not infallible and since we produce the Fathers for us we are bound to answer them against us as contrarily if they produce them against us they are bound to answer them against themselves and this is a rule of Reason Testem quem quis adducit pro se tenetur recipere contra se the witness which one brings for himself he is bound to receive against himself And therefore whatsoever Coccius saies ad faciendum populum we may I think say well as Nilus did in his first book of Ecclesiastical dissentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is altogether absurd that those who have not the Fathers for their examples should of themselves discern that which is better and that we who have the Fathers should not so neither understand So he of the Romans also so that my Adversary should not have stopt this gap with an exception against my opposing of the Council of Ariminum to the Nicene Council towards proving the contradiction and consequently the fallibility of Councils but this he hath nothing new to say against and therefore I have nothing to answer more then formerly onely he chides me because I proposed the Council of Ariminum as if it had been a lawful Council and so would deceive the people which knoweth not which councils be lawful which not No This spoyles all infallibility is in Councils the people do not know which are right councils and those that are not right are not and where then shall the people find their infallibility where the way so plain that Fooles cannot err as they have told us It is better to be without a guide than to have one we cannot trust So we bid the Roman people good night and take our leaves of this number N. 38. But this
other Gospels he does not contradict me in my conclusion which was comparative to the credit of the Church And where he compares the harmonie of this Cospel with other parts of Scripture he doth not conclude contradictorily to me who onely instituted the compare of it with other Gospels It is necessary therfore to set down my words which were these Again the harmony of it with other Gospels hath more in it to perswade faith than the credit of the Church So that all his disputation as to this is peccant in the ignorance of the Elench because it comes not up to a contradiction to my terms And besides if the difficulties about the agreement were so great their infallibility pretended should have cleared them Either we might have saving health notwithstanding those breaches or else the plaister was defective or else there is want of care in the Physitian Or it may be as he said Plus periculi a medico quaâ— a morbo but let them take my own termes in their ordinary sence and then his assaults will lose their force before they come home to the point For what if one who intended a supposititious Gospel would take care not to contradict the others Is not therefore the harmonie of this Gospel with others a better perswasive than the credit of the Church For the Argument from the Church is more extrinsical and such Arguments are in kind less rational And if they say the Church hath an infallible assistance it beggs the question And what infringement of the harmony is it if there be many things related by St. Matthew and not related at all by many others For so they would not find an harmony of the other Gospels and this according to Mr. Cressy would make this Gospel more credible because more things are here expressed and it may be some material But surely to relate circumstances and not to relate circumstances namely the same makes no contradiction in diverse subjects if one did say these circumstances were and another did say these circumstances were not this would contradict but not to say is not to say not For not to say is negative ex parte actus but to say not is negative ex parte objecti which makes the contradiction in diverse subjects Again what if there seem to be any variety betwixt the Gospel of St. Matthew and other parts of Scripture he should have said and other Gospels if he would have spoken ad idem in the History of the generations must Faustus the Manichaean be gratified in honour to the Roman Church If there be any such variety the Roman will have the worst of it for his foundation lies principally in that Gospel And this cannot be salved by the Church because the Church is in question But he will not spare the Gospel of St. Matthew as if the Roman Church needed it not and therefore he tells us of a disagreement in the first chap. of St. Matthew's Gospel with the 2. b. of the Kings the 8th ch about Ioram's begetting Ozias Ioram begat Ozias c. Well if the Roman calls children Nephews more reasonably may the Hebrews call real Nephews children which are as minor sons as he said And so Ioram might be said to begâ—t Ozias who was his Abnepos Or will not Salmerons conceit please them that this was so ordered in an allegory to typifie that as 3 Kings are excluded in the History so those that deny the doctrine of the Trinity and deprive themselves of the three Theological vertues do deserve to be excluded salvation But since it seems it was the spirit of Gods purpose to put the account in tessarodecades it was necessary that in one of them three should be left out And convenient it was that the omission should be in the second that so that curse upon Ahabs family should be here exemplified those three Kings being of his posterity somewhat as Dan in the seventh of the Revel is not numbred because that Tribe did go away from God in Idolatry and did mingle with the Gentiles as is observed Another difficultie he urgeth about the number of the Generations wherein one seems to be wanting you shall finde them to be only fortie one which by the account of thrice fourteen Generations should make fortie two Ans Our question is about the harmonie of the Gospel in the point of doctrine cheifly this concerns historie of fact 2. We have no reason to thinke that because we cannot comprehend all the mysteries in scripture and the waies of the jewish acount there should be any falsitie herein Tertullians ' rule is good Cedat Curiositas fidei 3. Stapulensis it seems said that in old copies it is found thus Iosias genuit Ioaechim Ioaechim genuit Iechoniam and these two are comprehended under one name Since Iechonias is called Iehoiachin 4º Regum ch 24 ver 6. whose father Iehoiachin was the father and the sonne are confounded by the similitude of the names in the greek as some note Another difficultie he urgeth about the 27 of St. Matthew ver 9. Then was fulfilled that which was said by the prophet Ieremie whereas the Prophet Ieremie hath no such matter in him What harmonie appeareth here indeed in the Prophet Zechary there is in substance what St. Matthew said Ans An errour of the scribe cannot discanonize the book in a point of circumstance if it were so as it might be if the Gospel was first written in Hebrew for then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might easily be read for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Ier in short and for Ieremie for by the hand namely of the Prophet which is the usuall form of expression in this kind And also the Syriack expresseth it in the same manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the hand of the Prophet Or it may be 2. As some note they were wont to put severall books together and to name all by the first So Ieremie being first all were reckoned by him and so that which is said by Zecharie is attributed to Ieremie too being the first And so we know that in the old Testament books are called by the first words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 3. However this agrees with the Scripture in generall though not particularly in termes with Ieremie His other exceptions are about the difference of St. Peter's denying his master which compared with other Evangelists seemes to differ in very many Circumstances and then also in the last chap. He saies there are some Circumstances about the resurrection which St. Matthew differs from the rest in Ans These are spoken by him in generall and Generalia non agunt as it is said neither do they make an action And then 2. Somewhat may be diverse which is not adverse And what one sayes another doth not denie If another omission did make a contradiction to what one affirmes then if St. Ierom had called the Bishop of Rome the universall Bishop which yet he doth not then St. Austin
intended by God for we do not say that it is fomally any Judge But we say that the Scripture doth so fully and so plainely set down things necessary so fully and so plainely that there is no necessity of tradition for more matter or of infallible Judge for more clear proposal of things necessary so that this which he saies is peccant in the ignorance of the Elench He saies yet is it not manifest that the Scripture may be a book as perfect as can be for the intent for which God made it This we may take for his proposition Then Bellarmin as before acknowledgeth it to be our rule against the Aanbaptists and therfore it is a perfect rule But elsewhere Bellarmin will have it to be but our commonitory then why doth he dispute it to be a rule against the Aanbaptists Whereas then my adversary would return the disgrace to Scripture upon me he does not or will not understand me for we do not say nor are bound to say that all necessary controversies are plainly decided by Scripture alone and that God intended the Scripture for the plain decision of them and therefore we deny his consequences that since when it comes to the trial we are not able to shew any text of Scripture deciding many and most important controversies this in effect were to say God performed very insufficiently what he intended to doe by Scripture first we doe not say that all necessary controversies are plainly decided by Scripture for we say no controversies are necessary in point of necessary faith He puts in necessary controversies for necessary truths we say the Scripture plainly proposeth all necessary truths and he would bring us in saying that the Scripture plainly decides all necessary contoversies and therefore how can he say that we say God intended the Scripture for the plain decision of them 2. Therefore we deny those points to be simply necessary to salvation which are not clearly proposed in Scripture 3. Whereas they say that the Scripture doth propose upon Gods intention the Church to be the infallible Judge in matters of faith and yet cannot show any text wherein this is clearly delivered they do dishonor God and Scripture and they dishonor God by accusing of Scripture as Nilus before In this number he holds the conclusion that expressions of Scripture are obscure in way of prophecy or type and that there is no certain mean of direction to the sense and then that therefore there must be an infallible Judge But nothing is answered to my answers about it And did he think that the Iewes did not understand the manner of expressions of the prophets in their own language or that David did not beare the type of Christ How else were they saved in the time before Christ And was the exact sense of every expression or type necessary such exceptions do not weigh And then again if there had been need in the time of the law of an infallible Judge for an infallible Illumination of dark expressions then if so dato non concesso what is this to the necessity of an infallible Judge in the times of the Gospel which is the old Testament revealed N 54. To passe by any slips in the former number by the scribe or otherwise we come to this paragr wherein he is not pleased to say any thing to what was replied about the several senses of Scripture But he would here corroborate his argument with Dr. Tailer's Judgment in his discourse of the liberty of prophecying And he saies he thinkes me not to be so much esteemed amongst our own Clergy or Laity as he I confesse it Neque de me quisquam vilius sentit quam ipse as one said But though this is very true that my authority is not comparable to his yet it was not rational for my adversary to diminish me because it makes a prejudice to his cause that so weak a man can oppose it and therefore I can spare him in this kind Let my adversary be the Champion of his cause And yet it may be the Reverend and learned Authour he names is not allwaies pleased with whatsoever he said in that book And yet also we can grant what is said by the Doctor who does not say that no Arguments can be drawn from Scripture but from those Scriptures which have many senses neither doth he say that those texts which have many senses do contain points necessary to salvation nor doth he say that if they did contain points necessary they are not elsewhere explained by more clear texts or may be explained for so he should disagree from St. Austin as before But to say no more let the Doctor have the honour with all my heart of the umpirage of the controversie in the example which my adversary hath put Take for an example those four words This is my body Indeed some there are which would have five words hoc est enim corpus meum And also it may be said that he may exceed in his number of interpretations of these words unless he takes in their own many differences hereabouts in the manner and time of the conversion they will hardly come up to two hundred divers interpretations And whereas he saies that we say that they are spoken in a figurative sense and not in their natural sense we can answer that we do deny the literal sense and do not deny that the figurative sense may be said in a good sort natural to the Sacramental use by reason of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is betwixt the signe and the thing Signified And much more might be said herein but let this point be compromised to the doctour in that excellent book which he hath lately written on purpose He saies all that I can say and more Here he would make good another Argument of his the Scripture useth the imperative mood as well when it counsels as when it commands He asks now what infallible means we have to know what is recommended to us as a counsel or as a precept to be kept under pain of damnation We answer first supposing the doctrine of counsels to be right and sound yet are they in no great danger by the uncertainty whether such a thing is proposed by way of counsels or precept since they hold it to be a thing of greater perfection to performe a counsel Therefore if they take a thing of counsel for a thing of command there is no danger surely in doing more then they are simply commanded to So then if this were all it would be no such difficulty as to practise because if they doe whatsoever is proposed pro imperio in the imperative mood there is no danger if it be commanded it was necessary if counselled there is greater perfection and an accidental reward above the essential God can distinguish which is which though they cannot and surely will if their opinion be true reward them accordingly And if there be any