Apostle and to refuse the Gospel of Thomas who was an Apostle and to retain Luke ' s Gospel who saw not Christ and to reject the Gospel of Nicodemus who saw him 14. Another Answer or rather Objection they are wont to bring That the Scripture being a principle needs no proof among Christians So i Pag. 234. D. Potter But this is either a plain begging of the question or manifestly untrue and is directly against their own Doctrin and Practice If they mean that Scripture is one of those principles which being the first and the most known in all Sciences cannot be demonstrated by other principles they suppose that which is in question Whether there be not some Principle for example the Church whereby we may come to the knowledg of Scripture If they intend that Scripture is a Principle but not the first and most known in Christianity then Scripture may be proved For Principles that are not the first nor known of themselves may and ought to be proved before we can yield assent either to them or to other verities depending on them It is repugnant to their own Doctrine and practice in as much as they are wont to affirm that one part of Scripture may be known to be Canonical and may be interpreted by another And since every Scripture is a Principle sufficient upon which to ground divine Faith they must grant that one Principle may and sometime must be proved by another Yea this their Answer upon due ponderation fals out to prove what we affirm For since all Principles cannot be proved we must that our labour may not be endless come at length to rest in some Principle which may not require any other proof Such is Tradition which involves an evidence of fact and from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Wherefore the ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of God's Church k In Synopsi S. Athanasius saith that only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the holy and Catholique Church have so determined The third Councel of l Can. 47. Carthage having set down the Books of holy Scripture gives the reason because We have received from our Fathers that these are to be read in the Church S. Augustine m Cont. ep Fundam c. 5. speaking of the Acts of the Apostles saith To which book I must give credit if I give credit to the Gospel because the Catholique Church doth alike recommend to me both these Books And in the same place he hath also these words I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholique Church did move me A saying so plain that Zuinglius is forced to cry out Here I n To. 1. fol. 135. implore your equity to speak freely whether this saying of Augustine seem not over-bold or else unadvisedly to have fallen from him 15. But suppose they were assured what Books were Canonical this will little avail them unless they be likewise certain in what language they remain uncorrupted or what Translations be true Calvin o Instit c. 6. Sect. 11. acknowledgeth corruption in the Hebrew Text which if it be taken without points is so ambiguous that scarcely any one Chapter yea period can be securely understood without the help of some Translation If with points These were after S. Hieroms time invented by the perfidious Jews who either by ignorance might mistake or upon malice force the Text to favour their impieties And that the Hebrew Text still retains much ambiguity is apparent by the disagreeing Translation of Novelists which also proves the Greek for the New Testament not to be void of doubâ—fulness as Calvin p Instit c. 7â— Sect. 12. confesseth it to be corrupted And although both the Hebrew and Greek were pure what doth this help if only Scripture be the rule of Faith and so very few be able to examine the Text in these languages All then must be reduced to the certainty of Translations into other Tongues wherein no private man having any promise or assurance of Infallibility Protestants who rely upon Scripture alone will find no certain ground for their faith as accordingly whitaker q Lib. de sancta Scriptura p. 52. affirmeth Those who understand not the Hebrew and Greek do erre often and unavoidably 16. Now concerning the Translations of Protestants it will be sufficient to set down what the laborious exact and judicious Author of the Protestants Apology c. dedicated to our late King James of famous memory hath to this r Tast 1. Sect. 10. subd 4. joyned with Tract 2 cap. 2. Sect. 10 subd 2. purpose To omit saith he particulars whose recital would be infinite and to touch this point but generally only The Translation of the New Testament by Luther is condemned by Andreas Osiander Keckermannus and Zuinglius who saith hereof to Luther Thou dost corrupt the Word of God thou art seen to be a manifest and common corrupter of the holy Scriptures how much are we ashamed of thee who have hitherto esteemed thee beyond all measure and now prove thee to be such a man And in like manner doth Luther reject the Translation of the Zuinglians terming them in matter of Divinity Fooâ—s Asses Antichrists Deceivers and of Asse-like understanding In so much that when Froschoverus the Zuinglian Printer of Zurich sent him a Bible translated by the Divines there Luther would not receive the same but sending it back rejected it as the Protestants Writers Hospinianus and Lavatherus witness The Translation set forth by Oecolampadius and the Divines of Basil is reproved by Beza who affirmeth that the Basil Translation is in many places wicked and altogether differing from the mind of the holy Ghost The Translation of Castalio is condemned by Beza as being sacrilegious wicked and Ethnical As concerning Calvins Translation that learned Protestant Writer Carolus Molinaeus saith thereof Calvin in his Harmony maketh the Text of the Gospel to leap up and down he useth violence to the letter of the Gospel and besides this addeth to the Text. As touching Beza's Translation to omit the dislike had thereof by Selneccerus the German Protestant of the University of Jena the foresaid Molinaeus saith of him de facto mutat textum he actually changeth the text and giveth farther sundry instances of his corruptions as also Castalio that learned Calvinist and most learned in the tongues reprehendeth Beza in a whole Book of this matter and saith that to note all his errors in translation would require a great volume And M. Parkes saith As for the Geneva Bibles it is to be wished that either they may be purged from those manifold errors which are both in the text and in the margent or else utterly
nothing that is material and considerable pass without some stricture or animadversion 30. You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is God's Word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. § 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall find that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed That ordinaly the first Introduction and probable Motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The Question then being by what means we are taught this * Some answer so but he doth not some answer that to learn it we have no other way than Tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that (a) The first outward Motive not the last assurance whereon we rest the first outward Motive leading men to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of God's Church For when we know (b) The whole Church that he speaks of seems to be that particular Church wherein a man is bred and brought up and the Authority of this he makes an Argument which presseth a man's modesty more than his reason And in saying It seems impudent to be of a contrary mind without cause he implies There may be a just cause to be of a contrary mind and that then it were no impudence to be so the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof (c) Therefore the Authority of the Church is not the pause whereon we rest we had need of more assurance and the intâ—insâ—cal Arguments afford â—t the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing (d) Somewhat bâ—t not much until it be backed and inforced by farther reason it self therefore is not the farthest reason and the last resolution somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it self hath setled may be proved a truth infallible (e) Observe I pray Our perswasion and the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture may be proved true Therefore neither or them was in his account the farthest proof In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintain the Authority of the Books of God by Arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kind of proofs so to manifest and clear that Point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent Principle such as all men acknowledg to be true (f) Natural reason thâ—n built on principles common to all men is the last resolution unto which the Churches Authority is but the first inducement By this time I hope the Reader sees sufficient proof of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelie's great ostentation of exactness is no very certain Argument of his fidelity 31. But seeing the belief of Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture How can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the Instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6 Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the Means and instrumental Objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covel and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Lutherans the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had Why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of
whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand What they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you inferre from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but an highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet me-thinks you should not deny but may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true stories are and have been and Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say Some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholler writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us That in the New Testament by the above-mentioned Rule of whose Authority was never doubt in the Church divers Books must be dis-canonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place That our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over those of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mysterie of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly-received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or seal in the end The end of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only she esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly-received She meant by the Church of Rome then by the same reason must she receive divers Books of the Old Testament which she rejects 41. Certainly a very good consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us ye must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our Side you must do so when we have no reason 42. The Discourse following is but a vain Declamation No man thinks that this Controversie is to be tried by Most Voices but by the Judgement and Testimony of the Ancient Fathers and Churches 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received passe for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of Principles which no man grant for who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference
I have already satisfied in my Answers to the Second and the Fourth and in my Reply ad § 2. toward the end And though you say your repeating must be excused yet I dare not be so confident and therefore forbear it 25. Ad § 17. To the seventh Whether error against any one truth sufficiently propounded as testified by God destroy not the Nature and Unity of faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding salvation I answer If you suppose as you seem to do the proposition so sufficient that the party to whom it is made is convinced that it is from God so that the denial of it involves also with it the denial of Gods veracity any such Error destroys both faith and salvation But if the Proposal be only so sufficient not that the party to whom it is made is convinced but only that he should and but for his own fault would have been convinced of the Divine Verity of the Doctrin proposed The crime then is not so great for the beliefe of Gods Veracity may well consist with such an Error Yet a fault I confess it is and without Repentance damnable if all circumstances considered the Proposal be sufficient But then I must tell you that the Proposal of the present Roman Church is only pretended to be sufficient for this purpose but is not so especially all the Rayes of the Divinity which they pretend to shine so conspicuously in her Proposals being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26. Ad. § 18. To the Eighth How of disagreeing protestants both parts may hope for salvation seeing some of them must needs err against some Truth testified by God I answer The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus far agree 1. That those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of in the Church are the undoubted Word of God and a perfect rule of faith 2. That the sense of them which God intended whatsoever it is is certainly true So that they believe implicitely even those very Truths against which they err and Why an implicite faith in Christ and his Word should not suffice as well as an implicite faith in your Church◠I have desired to be resolved by many of your Side but never could 3. That they are to use their best endevours to believe the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they perform as I hope many on all Sides do truly and sincerely it is impossible but that they should believe aright in all things necessary to salvation that is in all those things which appertain to the Covenant between God and man in Christ for so much is not only plainly but frequently contained in Scripture And believing aright touching the Covenant if they for their parts perform the condition required of them which is sincere obedience Why should they not expect that God will perform his promise and give them salvation For as for other things which lie without the Covenant and are therefore lesse necessary if by reason of the seeming conflict which is oftentimes between Scripture and Reason and Authority on the one Side and Scripture Reason and Authority on the other if by reason of the variety of tempers abilities educations and unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously formed and fashioned they do embrace several Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will damn them for such Errors who are lovers of Him and lovers of Truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodness it is to make Man desperate and God a Tyrant But they deny Truths testified by God and therefore shall be damned Yes if they knew them to be thus testified by him and yet would deny them that were to give God the lie and questionless damnable But if you should deny a truth which God had testified but only to a man in the Indies as I said before and this testification you had never heard of or at least had no sufficient reason to believe that God had so testified Would not you think it a hard case to be damned for such a denial Yet consider I pray a little more attentively the difference between them and you will presently acknowledge the question between them is not at any time or in any thing Whether God says true or no or Whether he says this or no But supposing he says this and says true Whether he means this or no As for example Between Lutherans Calvinists and Zwinglians it is agreed that Christ spake these words This is my Body and that whatsoever he meant in saying so is true But what he meant and how he is be understood that is the question So that though some of them deny a Truth by God intended yet you can with no Reason or Justice accuse them of denying the truth of Gods Testimony unless you can plainly shew that God hath declared and that plainly and clearly what was his meaning in these words I say plainly and clearly For he that speaks obscurely and ambiguously and no where declares himself plainly sure he hath no reason to be much offended if he be mistaken When therefore you can shew that in this and all other their Controversies God hath interposed his Testimony on one Side or other so that either they do see it and will not or were it not for their own voluntary and avoidable fault might and should see it and do not let all such Errors be as damnable as you please to make them In the mean while if they suffer themselves neither to be betraid into their Errors nor kept in them by any sin of their will if they do their best endevour to free themselves from all Errors and yet fail of it through humane frailty so well am I perswaded of the goodness of God that if in me alone should meet a confluence of all such Errors of all the Protestants in the World that were thus qualified I should not be so much afraid of them all as I should be to ask pardon for them For whereas that which you affright us with of calling Gods Veracity in Question is but a Panick fear a fault that no man thus qualified is or can be guilty of to ask pardon of simple and purely involuntary Errors is tacitely to imply that God is angry with us for them and that were to impute to him the strange tyranny of requiring brick when he gives no straw of expecting to gather where he strewed not to reap where he sowed not of being offended with us for not doing what he knows we cannot do This I say upon a supposition that they do their best endevours to know Gods will and do it which he that denies to be possible knows not what he sayes for he sayes in effect That men cannot do what they can do for to do what a man can do is to do his best
is infallible And seeing there is no such Rock for the Infallibility of this Church to be setled on it must of necessity like the Iland of Delos flote up and down for ever And yet upon this Point according to Papists all other Controversies in saith depend 26. To the 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. § The sum and substance of the Ten next Paragraphs is this That it appears by the Confession of some Protestants and the Contentions of others that the Questions about the Canon of Scripture what it is and about the Various Reading and Translations of it which is true and which not are not to be determined by Scripture and therefore that all Controversies of Religion are not decidable by Scripture 27. To which I have already answered saying That when Scripture is affirmed to be the Rule by which all Controversies of Religion are to be decided Those are to be excepted out of this generality which are concerning the Scripture it self For as that general saying of Scripture He hath put all things under his feet is most true though yet S. Paul tell us That when it is said He hath put all things under him it is manifest he is excepted who did put all things under him So when we say that all Controversies of Religion are decidable by the Scripture it is manifest to all but cavillers that we do and must except from this generality those which are touching the Scripture it self Just as a Merchant shewing a Ship of his own may say All my substance is in this Ship and yet never intend to deny that his Ship is part of his substance nor yet to say that his Ship is in it self Or as a man may say that a whole house is supported by the foundation and yet never mean to exclude the foundation from being a part of the house or to say that it is supported by it self Or as you your selves use to say that the Bishop of Rome is Head of the whole Church and yet would think us but captious Sophisters should we infer from hence that either you made him no part of the whole or else made him head of himself Your Negative Conclusion therefore that these Questions touching Scripture are not decidable by Scripture you needed not have cited any Authorities nor urged any Reason to prove it it is evident of it self and I grant it without more ado But your corollary from it which you would insinuate to your unwary Reader That therefore they are to be decided by your or any Visible Church is a meer inconsequence and very like his collection who because Pamphilus was not to have Glycerium for his Wife presently concluded that he must have her as if there had been no more men in the World but Pamphilus and himself For so you as if there were nothing in the World capable of this Office but the Scripture or the present Church having concluded against Scripture you conceive but too hastily that you have concluded for the Church But the truth is neither the one nor the other have any thing to do with this matter For first the Question whether such or such a Book be Canonical Scripture though it may be decided negatively out of Scripture by shewing apparent and irreconcileable contradictions between it and some other Book confessedly Canonical yet affirmatively it cannot but only by the testimonies of the Ancient Churches any Book being to be received as undoubtedly Canonical or to be doubted of as Uncertain or rejected as Apocryphal according as it was received or doubted of or rejected by them Then for the Question Of various readings which is the true it is in reason evident and confessed by your own Pope that there is no possible determination of it but only by comparison with ancient Copies And lastly for controversies about different translations of Scripture the Learned have the same means to satisfie themselves in it as in the Questions which happen about the translation of any other Author that is skill in the Language of the Original and comparing translations with it In which way if there be no certainty I would know that certainty you have that your Doway old and Rhemish new Testament are true translations And then for the unlearned those on your side are subject to as much nay the very same uncertainty with those on ours Neither is there any reason imaginable why an ignorant English Protestant may not be as secure of of the Translation of our Church that it is free from errour if not absolutely yet in matters of moment as an ignorant English Papist can be of his Rhemist Testament or Doway Bible The best direction I can give them is to compare both together and where there is no real difference as in the Translation of controverted places I believe there is very little there to be confident that they are right where they differ there to be prudent in the choice of the Guides they follow Which way of proceeding if it be subject to some possible errour yet is it the best that either we or you have it is not required that we use any better than the best we have 28. You will say Dependance on your Churches infallibility is a better I answer it would be so if we could be infallibly certain that your Church is infallible that is if it were either evident of it self and seen by its own light or could be reduced unto and setled upon some Principle that is so But seeing you your selves do not so much as pretend to enforce us to the belief hereof by any proofs infallible and convincing but only to induce us to it by such as are by your confession only probable and prudential Motives certainly it will be to very little purpose to put off your uncertainty for the first turn and to fall upon it at the second to please your selves in building your house upon an imaginary Rock when you your selves see and confess that this very Rock stands it self at the best but upon a frame of timber I answer secondly that this cannot be a better way because we are infallibly certain that your Church is not infallible and indeed hath not the real Prescription of this Priviledge but only pleaseth her self with a false imagination and vain presumption of it as I shall hereafter demonstrate by many unanswerable Arguments 29. Now seeing I make no scruple or difficulty to grant the conclusion of this Discourse that These controversies about Scripture are not decidable by Scripture and have shewed that your deduction from it that therefore they are to be determined by the Authority of some present Church is irrational and inconsequent I might well forbear to tire myself with an exact and punctual examination of your premises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which whether they be true or false is to the Question disputed wholly impertinent Yet because you shall not complain of tergiversation I will run over them and let
Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involves an â—â—ndence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alleaged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholique Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostels Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholique Church the Church of all Ages since Christ was to be understood As for the Councel of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular book they may haply erre and think that book received as Canoniel which was only received as profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concern not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist cleerly intimates (a) Neque enim sic poturt integrit as atque notitia literarum quamlibet illust is Episcopi castodiri quemadmodum Scritura Canonica tet linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non desuerunt tamâ—n qui sub nominibus Aposiolorum multa consiagerent Frustra quidem quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate sundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quòd adversus cos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent cont Donat. Rogat That in his judgement the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with universal care and diligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us (b) In hac germani textus peâ—vestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumenum esse certius ac sirmius quà m antiquorum probatorum codicum Latinorum fidem c. sie Sâ—xtus in Praef. That in the pervestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have to build upon as well as he had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56. This is not all I have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the eighth set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extream impudence deny that until then there was great variety of Copes currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clement's time have any certainty what that one true Copie and Reading was if there were one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholding to Clement but how foully they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57. This certainty therefore in what language the Scripture remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary What became of your Church for 1500 years together All which time you must confess she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this Point yet are you as far as ever from any true real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentique Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. In the sixteenth Division It is objected to
they judge aright and that they proceed according to the Evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a murderer to the Gallows A Traveller is not always certain of his way but often mistaken and doth it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your Error here is your not distinguishing between Actual Certainty and Absolute Infallibility Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not Infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her Definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the Infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already The Church may err in her Proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the Authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other Assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused And Assurance it may be to himself but no Argument to another As for the infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of Scriptures Incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their Authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing That there is an Infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in these places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought Infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your Observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort Whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations How can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a Divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were How then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churche's omission to teach it for some Ages as an Article of Faith nay degrading it from the number of Articles of Faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 19. And then for the other part of it that never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold Asseveration but extremely false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of St. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not With what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabees I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregorie's time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it
relie Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the house of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole fabrick of the Faith no more than the foundation of a house alone can be a house 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a house which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a house Now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary And you your self in the very leaf after this take notice that D. Potter doth so Where to this Question How shall I know in particular which Points be and which be not Fundamental You scurrilously bring him in making this ridiculous answer Read my Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. There you shall find that Fundamental Doctrins are such Catholick Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved All which words he used not to tell what Points be Fundamental as you dishonestly impose upon him but to explain what he meant by the word Fundamental May it please you therefore now at last to take notice that by Fundamental we mean all and only that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will you say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse so full of un-ingenuous dealing with your adversary perhaps would have done reasonably in a Farce or a Comedy and I doubt not but you have made your self and your courteous Readers good sport with it But if D. Potter or I had been by when you wrote it we should have stopt your carere at the first starting and have put you in mind of these old School-Proverbs Ex falso supposito sequitur quodlibet and Uno absurdo dato sequuntur mille For whereas you suppose first that to a man desirous to save his soul and requiring whose direction he might rely upon the Doctors answer would be Upon the truly Catholick Church I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master on Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he should enquire where he should find this direction He would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should enquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the doctrin it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all wise men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient Records and Universal Tradition And that he might not instruct him as partial in this advice he might farther tell him that a Gentleman that would be nameless that has written a Book against him called Charity maintained by Catholiques though in many things he differ from him yet agrees with him in this that Tradition is such a principle as may be rested in and which requires no other proof As indeed no wise man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of people This tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary direction to eternal happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but too little Books of it S. Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction of the world not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandements and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all truth that is certainly at least into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fal into no pernicious error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to eternal happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that fools unless they will cannot err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and being feee from err our but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from err our is by this way made the only condition of Salvation As for your supposition That he would advise such a man to rely upon the Catholique Church for the finding out the doctrin of Christ he utterly disclaims it and truly very justly There being no certain way to know that any Company is a true Church but only by their professing the true doctrin of Christ And therefore as it is impossible I should know that such a company of Philosophers are Peripateticks or Stoicks unless I first know what was the doctrin of the Peripateticks and Stoicks so is it impossible that I should certainly know any company to be the Church of Christ before I know what is the doctrin of Christ the Profession whereof constitutes the visible Church the
pretend or only as you say I know not what is another Question and which comes now to be farther examined D. Potter in confirmation of it besides the authorities which you formerly shifted off with so egregious tergiversation urges five several Arguments 73. The sense of the first is this If all the necessary Points of simple of Belief be not comprized in the Creed it can no way deserve the name of the Apostles Creed as not being their Creed in any sense but only a part of it To this you Answer § 25. Upon the same affected ambiguity c. Answ It is very true that their whole faith was of a larger extent but that was not the Question But whether all the Points of simple belief which they taught as necessary to be explicitely believed be not contained in it And if thus much at least of Christian Religion be not comprized in it I again desire you to inform me How it could be called the Apostles Creed 74. Four other Reasons D. Potter urges to the same purpose grounded upon the practice of the Ancient Church The last whereof you answer in the second part of your Book But to the rest drawn from the ancient Churches appointing her Infants to be instructed for matters of simple belief only in the Creed From her admitting Catechumens unto Baptism and of Strangers to her Communion upon their only profession of the Creed you have not for ought I can perceive thought fit to make any kind of Answer 75. The difficulties of the 27. and last § of this Chapter have been satisfied So that there remains unexamined only the 26. Section wherein you exceed your self in Sophistry Especially in that trick of Cavillers which is to answer objections by other objections an excellent way to make controversies endless D. Potter desires to be resolved Why amongst many things of equal necessity to be believed the Apostles should distinctly set down some in the Creed and be altogether silent of others Instead of resolving him in this difficulty you put another to him and that it is Why are some Points not Fundamental expressed in it rather than others of the same quality Which demand is so far from satisfying the former Doubt that it makes it more intricate For upon this ground it may be demanded How was it possible that the Apostles should leave out any Articles simply necessary and put in others not necessary especially if their intention were as you say it was to deliver it in such Articles as were fittest for those times Unless which were wondrous strange unnecessary Articles were fitter for those times than necessary But now to your Question the Answer is obvious These unnecessary things might be put in because they were circumstances of the necessary Pontius Pilate of Christ's Passion The third day of the Resurrection Neither doth the adding of them make the Creed ever a whit the less portable the less fit to be understood and remembred And for the contrary reasons other unnecessary things might be left out Beside who sees not that the addition of some unnecessary circumstances is a thing that can hardly be avoided without affectation And therefore not so great a fault nor deserving such a censure as the omission of any thing essential to the work undertaken and necessary to the end proposed in it 76. You demand again as it is no hard matter to multiply demands Why our Saviour's descent to Hell and Burial was expressed end not his Circumcision his manifestation to the three Kings and working of Miracles I answer His Resurrection Ascension and Sitting at the right hand of God are very great Miracles and they are expressed Besides S. John assures us That the Miracles which Christ did were done and written not for themselves that they might be believed but for a farther end that we might believe that Jesus was the Christ and believing have eternal life He therefore that believe this may be saved though he have no explicite and distinct faith of any Miracle that our Saviour did His Circumcision and Manifestation to the Wise men for I know not upon what grounds you call them Kings are neither things simply necessary to be known nor have any neer relation to those that are so As for his Descent into hell it may for ought you know be put in as a thing necessary of it self to be known If you ask why more than his Circumcision I refer you to the Apostles for an answer who put that in and left this out of their Creed and yet sure were not so forgetful after the receiving of the Holy Ghost as to leave out any prime and principal foundation of the Faith which are the very words of your own Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. 2. c. 10. num Likewise his Burial was put in perhaps as necessary of it self to be known But though it were not yet hath it manifestly so near relation to these that are necessary his Passion and Resurrection being the Consequent of the one and the Antecedent of the other that it is no marvel if for their sakes it was put in For though I verily believe that there is no necessary Point of this nature but what is in the Creed yet I do not affirm because I cannot prove it that there is nothing in the Creed but what is necessary You demand thirdly Why did they not express Scriptures Sacraments and all Fundamental Points of Faith tending to practice as well as those which rest in Belief I answer Because their purpose was to comprize in it only those necessary Points which rest in Belief which appears because of practical Points there is not in it so much as one 77. D. Potter subjoyns to what is said above That as well nay better they might have given no Article but that of the Church and sent us to the Church for all the rest For in setting down others besides that and not all they make us believe we have all when we have not all This consequence you deny and neither give reason against it nor satisfie his reason for it which yet in my judgment is good and concluding The Proposition to be proved is this That if your Doctrin were true this short Creed I believe the Roman Church to be infallible would have been better that is more effectual to keep the believers of it from Heresie and in the true Faith than this Creed which now we have A Proposition so evident that I cannot see how either you or any of your Religion or indeed any sensible man can from his heart deny it Yet because you make shew of doing so or else which I rather hope do not rightly apprehend the force of the Reason I will endeavour briefly to add some light and strength to it by comparing the effects of these several supposed Creeds 78. The former Creed therefore would certainly produce these effects in the believers of it An impossibility of being in any formal Heresie A necessity of
conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he sayes not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was fore-warned that she also Rom. 11. Nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they lookt not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no Reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrin of the Chiliasts was in his judgement Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgements in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not In Dial. cum Tryphon he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his â—ime viz. That there is one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of this Excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinal Perron to avoid the stroak of this convincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words Lib. 3. cap. 2. Of his Reply to King Iames. c. 2. sect 32. which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispel and let his Idolaters see that Truth is not afraid of Giants His words are these The first instance then that Calvin alleageth against the Popes censures is taken from Eusebius a an Arrian author and from Ruffinus b enemie to the Roman Church his translator who writ c that S. IRENAEUS reprehended Pope Victor for having excommunicated the Churches of Asia for the question of the day of Pasche which they observed according to a particular tradition that S. JOHN had introduced d for a time in their Provinces Calv. ubi supra because of the neighbourhood of the Jews and to bury the Synagogue with honour and not according to the universal Tradition of the Apostles Irenaeus saith Calvin reprehended Pope Victor bitterly because for a light cause he had moved a great and perillous contention in the Church There is this in the Text that Calvin produceth he reprehended him that he had not done well to cut off from the body of unity so many and so great Churches But against whom maketh this Ruffin in vers hist Eccl Eus l. 5 c. 24. but e against those that object it for who sees not that S. IRENAEUS doth not there reprehend the Pope for the f want of power but for the ill use of his power and doth not reproach to the Pope that he could not excommunicate the Asians but admonisheth him that for g so small a cause he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Irenaeus saith Eusebius did fitly exhort Pope Victor that he should not cut off all the Churches of God which â—eld this ancient tradition And Ruffinus translating and envenoming Eusebius saith Ruffin ib. c. 24. Iren l. 3. c. 3.1 Book Ch. 25. He questioned Victor that he had not done well in cutting off from the Body of Unity so many and so great Churches of God And in truth how could S. IRENAEUS have reprehended the Pope for want of power he that cites To the Roman Church because of a more powerful principality that is to say as above appeareth h because of a principality more powerful than the temporal or as we have expounded otherwhere because of a more powerful Original i It is necessary that every Church should agree And k therefore also S. IRENAEUS alleageth not to Pope Victor the example of him and of the other Bishops of the Gauls assembled in a Council holden expresly for this effect who had not excommunicated the Asians Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 22. nor the example of Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem and of the Bishops of Palestina assembled in another Council holden expresly for the same effect who had not excommunicated them nor the example of Palmas and of the other Bishops of Pontus assembled in the same manner and for the same cause in the Region of Pontus who had not excommunicated them but only alleadges to him the example of the Popes his predecessors Iren. apud Euseb hist Eccl. 5. c. 26. The Prelates saith he who have presided before Soter in the Church where thou presidest Anisius Pius Hyginus Telesphorus and Sixtus have not observed this custom c. and nevertheless none of those that observed it have been excommunicated And yet O admirable providence of God the l success of the after-ages shewed that even in the use of his power the Popes proceeding was just For after the death of Victor the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople and of Ephesus Conc. Antioch c. 1. Conc. Const c. 7. Conc. Eph. p. 2. act 6. excommunicated again those that held the same custom with the Provinces that the Pope had excommunicated and placed them in the Catalogue of Heretiques under the titles of heretiques Quarto-decumans But to this instance Calvins Sect do annex two
forcible from the Donatists against the Catholiques than from Papists against Protestants in regard Protestants grant Papists no more hope of salvation than Papists grant Protestants whereas the Donatists excluded absolutely all but their own Part from hope of Salvation so farre as to acount them no Christians that were not of it the Catholiques mean while accounting them Brethren and freeing those among them from the imputation of Heresie who being in error quaerebant cautâ sollicitudine veritatem corrigi parati cùm invenerint 23. Whereas you say That the Argument for the certainty of their Baptism because it was confessed good by Catholiques whereas the Baptism of Catholiques was not confessed by them to be good is not so good as yours touching the certainty of your salvation grounded on the confession of Protestants because we confess there is no damnable error in the Doctrin or practice of the Roman Church I Ans No we confess no such matter and though you say so a hundred times no repetition will make it true We profess plainly that many damnable errors plainly repugnant to the precepts of Christ both Ceremonial and Moral more plainly than this of Rebaptization and therefore more damnable are believed and professed by you And therefore seeing this is the only disparity you can devise and this is vanished it remains that as good an Answer as the Catholiques made touching the certainty of their Baptism as good may we make and with much more evidence of Reason touching the security and certainty of our Salvation 24. By the way I desire to be inform'd seeing you affirm that Rebaptizing those whom Hereticks had baptized was a sacriledge and a profession of a damnable Heresie When it began to be so If from the beginning it were so then was Cyprian a sacrilegious professor of a damnable heresie and yet a Saint and a Martyr If it were not so then did your Church excommunicate Firmilian and others and separate from them without sufficient ground of Excommunication or Separation which is Schismatical You see what difficulties you run into on both sides choose whether you will but certainly both can hardly be avoided 25. Whereas again in this § you obtrude upon us That we cannot but confess that your Doctrin contains no damnable error and that yours is so certainly a true Church that unless yours be true we cannot pretend any I answer there is in this neither truth nor modesty to outface us that we cannot but confess what indeed we cannot but deny For my part if I were upon the rack I perswade my self I should not confess the one nor the other 26 Whereas again presently you add that D. Potter grants we should be guilty of Schism if we did cut off your Church from the body of Christ the hope of Salvation I have shewed above that he grants no such matter He saies indeed that our not doing so frees us from the imputation of Schism and from hence you sophistically inferre that he must grant If we did so we were Schismatiques and then make your Reader believe that this is D. Potter's confession it being indeed your own collection For as every one that is not a Papist is not a Jesuit and yet not every one that is a Papist is a Jesuit As whosoever comes not into England comes not to London and yet many may come into England and not come to London As whosoever is not a man is not a King and yet many are men that are not Kings So likewise it may be certain that whosoever does not so is free from Schism and yet they that do so if there be sufficient cause may be not guilty of it 27. Whereas you pretend to wonder that the Doctor did not answer the argument of the Donatists which he saies is all one with yours but referres you to Saint Austine there to read it as if every one carried with him a Librarie or were able to examine the places in Saint Austine I answer The parity of the Arguments was that which the Doctor was to declare whereto it was impertinent what the answer was But sufficient it was to shew that the Donatists argument which you would never grant good was yet as good as yours and therefore yours could not be good Now to this purpose as the concealing the answer was no way advantageous so to produce it was not necessary and therefore he did you more service then he was bound to in referring you to St. Austin for an answer to it Whereas you say he had reason to conceal it because it makes directly against himself I say it is so farre from doing so that it will serve in proportion to the argument as fitly as if it had been made for it for as Saint Austin saies that Catholiques approve the Doctrin of Donatists but abhorre their Heresie of Re-baptization so we say that we approve those fundamental and simple necessary Truths which you retain by which some good souls among you may be saved but abhorre your many Superstitions and Heresies And as he saies that as Gold is good yet ought not to be sought for among a company of Theeves and Baptism good but not to be sought for in the Conventicles of Donatists so say we that the Truths you retain are good and as we hope sufficient to bring good ignorant souls among you to salvation yet are not to be sought for in the Conventicles of Papists who hold with them a mixture of many vanities and many impieties For as for our freeing you from damnable Heresy and yeelding you Salvation which stone here again you stumble at neither he nor any other Protestant is guilty of it and therefore you must confess that this very answer will serve Protestants against this charm of Papists as well as Saint Austin against the Donatists and that indeed it was not Doctor Potter but You that without a Sarcasm had reason to conceal it 28. The last piece of D. Potter's book which you are pleased to take notice of in this first Part of yours is an argument he makes in your behalfe p. 79. of his book where he makes you speak thus If Protestants believe the Religion of Papists to be a safe way to heaven why do they not follow it This argument you like not because many things may be good and yet not necessary to be embraced by every body and therefore scoffe at it and call it an argument of his own a wife argument a wise demand and then aske of him what he thinks of it being fram'd thus Our Religion is safe even by your confession and therefore you ought to grant that aâ— may embrace it And yet farther thus Among different Religions one only can be safe But yours by our own confession is safe whereas you hold that in ours there is no hope of salvation thâ—refore we ought to embrace yours Ans I have advised with him and am to tell you from him that he thinks reasonable
wrought upon are meerly befool'd by the Devil or rather by themselves for so I told you that Saint James says And for an example I propos'd the learned Pharisees who for all their learning and knowledg in the Scripture yet our Saviour denounceth eight several Woes against them for being Fools and blind Guides So that the Fool in hand was not oppos'd to a Learned man but to a Prudent man And therefore a worthy Doctor of our Church did well define Faith to be A spiritual Prudence that is a knowledg sought out only for practise And there I compared Faith with moral Prudence and the fruit thereof Charity with the vertue of Universal Justice Therefore lest the very Heathen should rise up in judgment against us for not doing so much with the help and advantage of Gods Word as they could without it I did and do beseech you not to content your selves with meer knowing and hearing with only a conceit of Faith without Works for that was an ancient Heresie in the Nicolaitans whom God by name professeth an Hatred to as Eusebius tells us And for an effectual motive I told you how at the last great Tryal you shall not be catechis'd How well you can say your Creed or how many Catechisms without Book but How fruitful in works of Charity your Faith hath been And so I come to the second member of the First General namely the consideration how dangerous and grievous a burden Knowledg will be where it is fruitless and ineffectual of which briefly 43. I will once again repeat that divine sentence of the Psalmist in Psal 111.10 The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom Psal 111.10 and a good understanding have all they that do thereafter i.e. Till a man put his knowledg in practise he is so farr from being a good man that he is scarse a man hath not the understanding of a man till he do till he fall a work he was wiser a great deal before he gained his knowledg Knowledg alone is a goodly purchase in the mean time It is so worthy a purchase that as it should seem by our Saviours account till a man have obtained some competency in knowledg he hath gotten no right to the Kingdom of Darkness and Hell 44. For certainly no man can justly challenge damnation but he that is burdened with Sin Now he that hath no knowledg but is utterly blind in his understanding hath no sin that is in comparison the words are Joh. 9.39 c. And Jesus said for judgment I am come into this world Joh. 9.39 c. that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind Not as if Christ did imprint or inflict blindness upon any man but only occasionally that is those which walk in darkness and love it when the light comes upon them and discovers their wandring they hate it and turn their eyes from it and become more perversly and obstinately blind In the same sense that St. Paul saith Rom. 7. Sin taking occasion by the Law becomes more sinful whil'st sin is not oppos'd it goes on in its course quietly but when the Commandement comes and discovers and rebukes it it becomes furious and abominable and much more raging and violent 45. There follows Vers 40. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and said unto him Are we blind also There is nothing in the world that a Pharisee can with less patience endure than to hear any intimation given that he may be suspected of folly And therefore they were not so sensible or conceited of some wrong received when our Saviour call'd them Generation of Vipers as they are when their wisdom and discretion are call'd in question Witness this answer when no man spake to them they suspiciously demand whether Christ in his last words meant them or no. But what answers our Saviour 46. Jesus said unto them Vers 41. If ye were blind ye should have no sin but now ye say We see therefore your sin remaineth As if he had said So little shall this supposed knowledg and wisdom that ye have profit you that you shall curse the time that ever you saw the holy Word of God and wish that all the Sermons that ever you heard all the gracious Invitations and sweet Promises which God by the ministery of his Servants the Prophets hath sent unto you had been sentences of some horrible death and torments from the mouth of a severe Judg. For your sins which otherwise had not been so insupportable now by your abusing the knowledg which God hath given you by your wilful contempt of those many invitations which have continually sounded in your ears are become as a Mountain upon you to crush you into powder You have hang'd a Milstone about your own necks which shall irrecoverably sink you into the bottomless comfortless pit whereas otherwise there might have been some hope of escape 47. And yet for all this let not any one favour and cherish himself in this conceipt That he thanks God he is ignorant enough that a very little practise will serve his turn his knowledg is not so much that it should put him to too great a labour in expressing it in the course of his life For whosoever he be that dares entertain or give way to such a thought as this is Let him be sure that if he do not know so much as God requires at his hands especially now that God hath sealed up the Scripture-Canon now that the whole Will of God is revealed this very ignorance alone will be a thousand weights to fasten him on the earth to make him sure for ever ascending to God in whom there is no darkness at all 48. For it is not so with an ignorant man as it is with one that is blind who if he will be sure not to tempt God by venturing and rushing forward in paths unknown unto him may live as long and as safe as he that is most quick-sighted No Ignorance alone though it be not active and fruitful in works of darkness is crime enough For with what colour of reason will such a one expect the reward of the Just Such a one will not doubt but that the Gates of Heaven are barr'd against the sottish blind ignorant Heathen to whom God never revealed any part of his Will yet himself may fare well enough Is not this a degree beyond madness it self What does such a one think that because he lives among religious people and such as are well acquainted with the way to Heaven that himself shall be sure to go for company Does he make no doubt of his part in the Resurrection of the Just because he was born in England or in such a year of our Lord when the Gospel flourished Nay shall it not be much more tolerable for the worst of the Heathen than for a such a man 49. For if the Heathen were left
the state of the Question and the Doctrine of our Church in the words of one who both now is and for ever will worthily be accounted The glory of this Kingdome Bishop Usher's Ans to the Jesuit Cap. of Confession p. 84. Be it known saith he to our adversaries of Rome I add also to our adversaries even of Great Britain who sell their private fancies for the Doctrine of our Church that no kind of Confession either publick or private is disallow'd by our Church that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient Power of the Keys which Christ bestowed upon his Church The thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Conventicle of Trent in the 14. Session 11. And this truth being so evident in Scripture and in the writings of the ancient best times of the Primitive Church the safest interpreters of Scripture I make no question but there will not be found one person amongst you who when he shall be in a calm unpartial disposition that will offer to deny For I beseech you give your selves leave unpartially to examine your own thoughts Can any man be so unreasonable as once to imagine with himself that when our Saviour after his Resurrection having received as himself saith all power in heaven and earth having led captivity captive came then to bestow gifts upon men when he I say in so solemn a manner having first breath'd upon his Disciples thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into their hearts renewed unto them or rather confirm'd and seal'd unto them that glorious Commission which before he had given to Peter sustaining as it were the person of the whole Church whereby he delegated to them an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth with a promise that the proceedings in the Court of Heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs on Earth Can any man I say think so unworthily of our Saviour as to esteem these words of his for no better than complement for nothing but Court-holy-water 12. Yet so impudent have our adversaries of Rome been in their dealings with us that they have dared to lay to our charge as if we had so mean a conceit of our Saviour's gift of the Keys taking advantage indeed from the unwary expressions of some particular Divines who out of too forward a zeal against the Church of Rome have bended the staffe too much the contrary way and in stead of taking away that intolerable burden of a Sacramental necessary universal Confession have seem'd to void and frustrate all use and exercise of the Keys 13. Now that I may apply something of that which hath now been spoken to your hearts and consciences Matters standing as you see they do since Christ for your benefit and comfort hath given such authority to his Ministers upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition to absolve and release you from your sins why should I doubt or be unwilling to exhort and perswade you to make your advantage of thi◠gracious promise of our Saviours why should I envy you the participation of so heavenly a Blessing Truly if I should deal thus with you I should prove my self a malicious unchristian-like malignant Preacher I should wickedly and unjustly against my own conscience seek to defraud you of those glorious Blessings which our Saviour hath intended for you 14. Therefore in obedience to his gracious will and as I am warranted and even enjoyned by my holy Mother the Church of England expresly in the Book of Common-Prayer in the Rubrick of Visiting the Sick which Doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far I beseech you that by your practise and use you will not suffer that Commission which Christ hath given to his Ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them not to be an antiquated exspired Commission of no use nor validity in these daies But whensoever you find your selves charg'd and oppressed especially with such Crimes as they call Peccata vastantia conscientiam such as do lay waste and depopulate the conscience that you would have recourse to your spiritual Physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease that he may be able as the cause shall require to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives or comfort and temper it with oyl And come not to him only with such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienc'd in the Scriptures as one that can speak comfortable quieting words to you but as to one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins If you shall do this Assure your souls that the understanding of man is not able to conceive that transport and excess of joy and comfort which shall accrew to that mans heart that is perswaded that he hath been made partaker of this Blessing orderly and legally according as out Saviour Christ hath prescribed 15. You see I have dealt honestly and freely with you it may be more freely than I shall be thanked for But I should have sinn'd against my own soul if I had done otherwise I should have conspir'd with our adversaries of Rome against our own Church in affording them such an advantage to blaspheme our most holy and undefiled Religion It becomes you now though you will not be perswaded to like of the practise of what out of an honest heart I have exhorted you to yet for your own sakes not to make any uncharitable construction of what hath been spoken And here I will acquit you of this unwelcome subject and from Zacchaeus his confession of his Sin I proceed to my second particular namely the nature and hainousness of the crime confess'd which is here call'd a defrauding another by forged cavillation 16. The crime here confessed is called in Greek Sycophancy Partic. II. for the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the understanding of which word in this place we shall not need so much to be beholden to the Classical Greek Authors as to the Septuagint who are the best Interpreters of the Idiom of the Greek language in the Evangelical writings Two Reasons of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are given the one by Ister in Atticis the other by Philomnestus de Smynthiis Rhodiis both recorded by Athenaeus in that treasury of ancient learning his Deipnosophists in the third Book which because they are of no great use for the interpretation of S. Luke I willingly omit 17. Now there are four several words in the Hebrew which the Seventy Interpreters have rendred in the old Testament by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the verbal thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One whereof signifies to abalienate or wrest any thing from another by fraud and sophistry opposed to another word in the same language which imports