poor Elijah and so Michaiah were left alone nor those in Malachy's daies that the Priests caused them to stumble at the Law Malac 2. 8. nor the Crucifiers of Christ that they obeyed the decrees of their Priests and Rulers I list not to repeat what I have said elsewhere therefore read Nullity of Romish Faith ch 2. sect 12. And will you yet stumble at the same stone 2. The people will not be excused by their Priests misguidance because they neglect their duty If indeed there were no duty incumbent upon the people but to believe what your Priests say and do what they require then your Church speaks reason But that none but a mad man will say There are several duties required of the People no less than of the Priests the Law of God was not given only to the Priests but to all the People God publisheth this law in the hearing of all the people and speaks in the singular number to every one of the people thou shalt do or forbear this or that and the curse is threatned to the people Deut. 27. 26. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them and all the people shall say Amen Which the Apostle repeats Gal. 3. 10. Cursed is every one not Priests only but the People too that continueth not in all things which are written in this book of the law to do them If the Priests then should have taught the Israelites as your Priests now teach you thou shalt worship a graven image when God saith thou shalt not worship a graven image can any serious man think this would have freed them from that curse and that it was safer for them to obey the Command of men than of God O the impudence of your Priests that dare say so O the blockishness of those people that will believe them when they say so your Pope may well contend with us for it seems your Priests will contest with God for Supremacy When the Priests and Prophets in Isaiahs daies were generally corrupt the people are not advised to believe all that they taught and to obey all that they decreed which is the strain of your Church but are commanded immediately to go to the law and to the testimony and if any speak not according to them they are to be rejected because there is no light in them Isa. 8. 20. Even people are required not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits 1 John 4. 1. Nor did the Apostles exempt themselves and their doctrines from this Tryal but allowed commended and required it in the people The Beraeans are not reproved and censured as they would certainly be that should tread in their steps at Rome but commended for examining the Doctrine of S. Paul by the Scripture Acts 17. 11. And the same Apostle allows the Galatians not only to try his Doctrines whether they were agreeable to what they had received but in case they find them contrary he gives them Commission to censure and anathemize him Gal. 1. 8 9. And he bespeaks the Corinthians in this language I speak to wise men judge you what I say 1 Cor. 10. 15. And he commands the Thessalonians to prove all things without exception as well as to hold fast that which is good 1 Thess. 5. 21. Consider these things I beseech you and do not wilfully cast away your precious souls upon trifles God hath given the Scripture as a rule to try things by and this was written for the Ignorant and the people as well as the learned and the Priests John 20. 31. he hath given people reason to try things with if you will hide these Talents in a Napkin at your peril be it The Prince was commanded to read and meditate in the Book of the Law that he might observe to do all that is written therein Iosh. 1. 8. Can you seriously think that if the corrupt Priests had agreed to teach him to do contrary to all that was written therein that this would have excused him before God then that Precept was both superfluous and dangerous and if you do not think so as you must needs if you have any Conscience then neither will it excuse your people for according to the Doctrine of your Church Prince and People are alike in this both tied to believe as your Church believes God commands every Christian to prove his own work and tells us that every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6. 4 5. and that every man shall give an account of himself to God Rom. 14. 12. Do not think your Priests account shall serve turn and all the Christian people of Corinth are commanded to examine themselves whether they be in the faith 2 Cor. 13. 5. And dare you still live in the wilful breach of all these Commands and blindly give up your Souls and Consciences by an implicite faith to the conduct of your Priests to lead them whether they please 3. The Scripture hath given you full warning of your danger Read but two places Ezek 33. 8. where God assures us that the wicked shall die in his iniquity though he perished through the Watchmans fault and Matth. 15. 14. where Christ confutes this very opinion of yours which was also the opinion of the Jews that they were safe enough while they folowed their Priests Decrees and Counsels and tells them If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the Ditch and doubt of this if you can or dare In a word if this senceless Doctrine were true not only Men would have dominion over our Faith contrary to express Scripture Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Matth. 23. 10. Not that we have dominion over your faith said the great Apostle but also Christ should lose his dominion and have no authority in his Church but as your Priests please and it seems he shall not have this favour from you to continue in his Office quamdiu bene se gesserit but quamdiu vobis placuerit and Christs power is apparently limited to your Interpretation but the power of your Church is absolute and unlimited and the People obliged to believe them quamcunque sententiam tulerint whatsoever they shall decree as Gretser expresseth it If this be not to make the word and Authority of God and Christ void through your Traditions I know not what is I will trouble you no further If you be capable of Counsel take warning and suffer not your selves to be lead hoodwinckt to Hell to serve a Carnal Interest of some among you but quit your selves like men and by the grossness of this delusion learn to suspect the rest and with humble and honest hearts read what is here proposed to you for your Souls good and God give you light Let my Soul prosper no otherwise than I heartily wish the good and salvation of you all but if you will still persist in your blindness and add further obstinacy to your
and that the Atheist ought to yield to them Pop. Yes doubtless for every man is bound to receive the truth especially when it is so proposed and proved to him Prot. It seems then by this when you list you can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God without taking in the Churches Authority I hope you will allow me the same benefit But again let me ask you your Church that you talk of which believes the Scripture to be the Word of God Doth she believe it to be the Word of God upon solid grounds or no Pop. Yes doubtless our Church is not so irrational as to believe without grounds nor do we pretend Revelation but she believes it upon solid Arguments Prot. I wish you would give me a list of their Arguments But whatever they be that are sufficient to convince your Church why should they not be sufficient to convince any private man Popish or Protestant or Atheist And therefore there is no need of the Churches testimony Or will you say the Church hath no other sufficient reason to believe the Scriptures but her own testimony that is she believes because she will believe Pop. God forbid that I should disparage the Church or give Atheists that occasion to scoff at the Stripture Prot. Then I also may be satisfied without the Churches testimony that the Scriptures are the Word of God and I am so by such Arguments as your self mentioned but really I cannot but smile to see what cunning sophisters you are how you play at fast and loose The same Arguments for the Scriptures are strong and undeniable when you talk with an Atheist and are all of a sudden become weak as water when a Protestant brings them Pop. But if you can prove in the General That the Scriptures are the Word of God yet you cannnot without the Churches Authority tell what Books of Scripture or which are Canonical and so you are never the nearer Prot. Here also I must ask you again How doth your Church know which Books are Scripture and Canonical doth she know this by Revelation Pop. No we leave such fancies to your Church Prot. How then doth she know this and why doth she determine it Is it with reason or without it Pop. With reason doubtless being induced to believe and determine it upon clear and undoubted Evidences Prot. I pray you tell me what are those Evidences upon which she goes Pop. I will be true to you our great Bellarmine mentions these three The Church saith he knows and declares a Canonical Book 1. From the testimonies of the Antients 2. From its likeness and agreement with other Books 3. From the common sense and taste of Christian people Prot. Since a private man especially one that besides learning and experience hath the Spirit of God to guide him which is that anointing given to all Believers which teaches them all things 1 Joh. 2. 27. may examine and apprehend these things as well as the Pope himself and better too considering what kind of creatures divers of your Popes are confest to have been he may therefore know without the Churches Authority what Books are indeed Canonical but I pray you tell me Do not you acknowledge those books to be the Word of God which we do that are in this Bible Pop. I must be true to you we do own every Book you have there but you should receive the Books which you call Apocryphal so that indeed your Bible is not compleat for you believe but a part of the written Word of God which I must tell you is of dangerous consequence Prot. If these Books be a part of Gods Word I confess we are guilty of a great sin in taking away from Gods Word and if they be not you are no less guilty in adding to it so that the only question is Whether these Books be a part of the holy Scripture or no Now that if you please we will try Bellarmines rules Pop. The motion is fair and reasonable Prot. First then for the judgment of the Antient Church let us try that I know you hold the Churches judgment infallible especially in matters of this moment and I suppose you think the Iewish Church was infallible before Christ as the Christian Church now is Pop. We do so and the Infallibility of the Iewish Church and High Priest Deut. 17. is one of our principal Arguments for the Infallibility of our Church Prot. Then only these Books of the old Testament were Canonical which the Jewish Church did own Pop. That must necessarily follow Prot. Then your cause is lost for it is certain the Jews rejected these Apocryphal Books which you receive and they reckoned only 22. Iosephus his words acknowledged for his by Eusebius are most express for us The Iews have only 22 Books to which they deservedly give credit which contains things written from the beginning of the World to the times of Artaxerxes other things were written afterward so the Apocryphal Books are granted to have been but they are not of the same credit with the former because There was no certain succession of Prophets and I am told divers of your learned Authors confess it as Catharinus Costerus Marianus Victor and Bellarmine himself whose words are these All those Books which the Protestants do not receive the Iews also did not receive and this is more considerable because to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. And neither Christ nor his Apostles did accuse them of breach of trust in this matter Moreover I am told and surely in all reason it must needs be true that the Canonical Books of the Iewish Church were written in the Iewish or Hebrew language whereas these were written in Greek only Are these things so Pop. What is true I will acknowledge It is so The Jewish Church indeed did not receive them nor yet did they reject them as our Canus well answers Prot. Either that Church did believe them to be Canonical or they did not if they did then they lived in a mortal sin against Conscience in not receiving them if they did not they were of our opinion Pop. Well what soever the Jewish Church did I am sure the Antient Christians and Fathers did receive these Books as a part of the Canonical Scriptures Prot. I doubt I shall take you tardy there too I am told that the Council of Laodicea in the year of our Lord 364. drew up a Catalogue of the Books of the Scripture in which as in ours the Apocryphal Books are rejected Pop. It is true they did not receive them nor yet reject them Prot. If they did not receive them that undeniably shews that they did not believe them to be Canonical and yet they diligently scanned the point and the Books had then been extant some hundred of years and they were far more likely to know the truth than we at this distance having then
the council of Trent it self when one would expect they should have grown wiser though not better prove the unequal power of Popes Bishops and Priests from Rom. 13. 1. The powers that be are ordained of God that is digested into order I hope ere you have done you will put forth an entire Comment upon the whole Bible which I assure you will be the rarest book that ever saw the light But further I desire to know of you how your Church comes to have this true and certain sense of Scripture hath she it by Revelation or Inspiration Pop. No we pretend to no such thing but she comes to know it by the diligent use of means by prayer by reading and comparing Scripture by consulting ancient Interpreters Analogy of Faith the coherence c. and even the Pope himself when he set forth his Translation of the Bible He professes to all the world that he did it in the very same manner and by the same helps that other Translators do that is by advising with learned Men and consulting Antient Copies and the like Prot. Very good Then I pray you tell me why a Protestant Minister being oft times both a learneder and better man than the Pope may not as certainly hit upon the true sense of the Scripture as the Pope himself Pop. The reason is plain because the Pope is guided by the infallible assistance of Gods Spirit Prot. You ought not to rant at this height until you have solidly answered what our Divines have wrote against this Infallibility And I heard before the woful weakness of your arguments for it is to me the vainest thing in the world to pretend a promise of the Spirit of God infallibly to guide such men as if the Scripture be true have not the Spirit of Christ in them being as you confess many of your Popes and Bishops were sensual not having the Spirit and having apparently no other spirit in them but the spirit of the world the spirit that lusteth to envy and all wickedness But since you pretend the Scripture is so dark I pray you tell me what was the end for which God designed the Scripture Sure I think it was for our understanding my Bible tells me that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning Rom. 15. 4 But if you say true it seems God meant only to put forth riddles Gods Law was designed by him for a light and that even to the simple Psal. 19. 7 8 9. and 119 105. And in a word the Gospel is so clear that Saint Paul pronounceth it is hid from none but them that perish 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. And Saint Luke wrote his Gospel that Theophilus and with him other Christians might know the certainty of those things wherein they had been instructed Luke 1. 4. and generally every discreet man that writes a Book writes it so as it may be understood especially if it be for the benefit of the ignorant as well as the learned which the Scripture assuredly was Tell me then I pray you why should God write his mind so darkly and doubtfully as you know whose Oracles are said to be delivered was it because God could not write plainer and wanted the gift of utterance or because he would not Pop. Notwithstanding all this it is certain the Scripture is full of obscure places Prot. I do not deny this but those things which are obscurely delivered in one place are more clearly delivered in another and those dark places generally are about Prophecies and such other things the knowledge of which is not necessary to salvation But for necessaries the Scripture is plain and I am told that divers of your Authors acknowledge so much Is that true Pop. I confess Costerus hath this expression that things which are necessary to be known by all Christians are plainly and clearly delivered in the writings of the Apostles and some others of our Doctors say as much * See nullity of Rom. faith chap. 7. sect 4. Prot. It could be nothing but the evidence of the truth which forced such an acknowledgment from its greatest Adversaries therefore let this go and let me hear what further you have to say against our Religion Pop. I find you are an obstinate Heretick and setled upon the lees and therefore it will be needless to discourse further with you if any thing could have convinced you surely the Arguments I have offered would have done it for I assure you I have pickt out the strength and marrow of the Catholick Cause in the Points we have discoursed And since I see you turn a deaf ear to my counsel I shall give you over as incorrigible Prot. You see I have heard you with great patience and given you all the freedom you could desire now I have one request to you that you would allow me the same priviledge with patience to hear and if you can answer what I shall object against your Religion Pop. With a very good will I 'le meet you here to morrow at this time so at present adieu The SECOND CONFERENCE Prot. WEll met Sir I see you are as good as your word and I hope you will allow me as much freedom and patience as I did you Pop. I shall willingly do it therefore speak freely and so will I and if truth be on your side let it prevail Prot. I shall divide my discourse into two Parts 1. Some General Considerations which indeed do very much set me against your Religion 2. I shall examine the grounds of your Principal Points of Doctrine for to meddle with all will be needless If your Pillars fall the rest cannot stand For the first there are several weighty Considerations against your Religion I shall give you them in order The first General Consideration is this 1. That your Church declines all Judgment but her own and makes her self Judge in her own Cause you do not allow Scripture to be Judge nor the Antient Fathers for all your talk of Antiquity nor indeed any but your selves the Pope or a Council of your own and your Church it seems must determine whether she be a true Church or no and whether she be pure or corrupted or whether she be Infallible or no Is this so Pop. I confess this is our Doctrine and I think grounded upon Reason Prot. You speak against the common sense of all men In all Controversies or Differences between men and men we generally suspect that party who will submit to no judgment but his own and he who is willing to refer himself to any third indifferent party is generally presumed to have the best cause and thâ—s is our case Protestants do not make themselves and their own Church the only Judge though they might as justly and reasonably do it as you but they are very willing to submit to other Judges they refer themselves to be judged by the Scripture which is acknowledged to be a most indifferent Judge If