not by forcing of Assent destroy the Nature and Virtue of it and he hath declar'd that he will permit Heresies that those who are approved and excellent Christians may be distinguished from those who are not This Expedient of the Romanists is like that of the Atheist Spinoza who has left the following Maxim to the World as his Legacy for Peace viz. That the Object of Faith is not Truth but Obedience and the quiet of human Society And they say in effect Shut all your Eyes and agree in one who shall lead you all and you will all go one way But the difficulty lies in getting them to agree It is not difficult to say a great deal more upon this Subject but in stead of that which might be here offer'd from myself I will refer the Reader to a Book lately publish'd and call'd A Discourse concerning a Iudge in Controversies if he be not satisfi'd with that which Mr. Chillingworth hath said long ago and to which this Author has here said nothing You say again confidently That if this Infallibility be once impeach'd every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse By which if you mean Discourse not guiding itself by Scripture but only by Principles of Nature or perhaps by Prejudices and popular Errors and drawing Consequences not by Rule but by Chance is by no means true If you mean by Discourse Right Reason grounded on Divine Revelation and common Notions written by God in the Hearts of all Men and deducing according to the never-failing Rules of Logick consequent Deductions from them If this be it which you mean by Discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their Actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to Happiness should be left unto it And he that follows this in all Opinions and Actions and does not only seem to do so follows always God whereas he that followeth a Company of Men may oft-times follow a Company of Beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no And the Rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider whether they Confess IESUS to be Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their Action not Whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians To try all things and hold fast that which is good Than S. Peter in commanding all Christians To be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them Then our Saviour himself in forewarning all his Followers that if they blindly followed blind Guides both Leaders and Followers should fall into the Ditch And again in saying even to the People Yea and why of your selves judge ye not what is right And though by Passion or Precipitation or Prejudice by want of Reason or not using what they have Men may be and are oftentimes lead into Error and Mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by Discourse truly so called such as I have described you yourself have given them security For what is Discourse but drawing Conclusions out of Premises by good Consequence Now the Principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be Infallibly true And you have told us in the Fourth Chapter of this Pamphlet That from Truth no Men can by good Consequence infer Falshood Therefore by Discourse no Man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his Conclusions he must of Necessity either err in his Principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his Discourse that is indeed not Discourse but seem to do so 13. You say Thirdly with sufficient confidence That if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural Wit and Iudgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly err in her Judgment touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the private Spirit and the Examination of the Contents which latter way may conclude the Negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcileable Contradictions but the Affirmative it cannot conclude because the Contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not Written by Divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness that this Infallible Authority of the Church being denied no Man can be assured that any parcel of the Scripture was Written by Divine Inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of Modesty and full of Iniquity The First because the Experience of Innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the Infallible Authority of your Church or any other The Second because if I have not ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church Infallible then can I have no ground at all to believe it Because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe the Church Infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 15. Fifthly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the Infallible Authority of your Church but he must abandon all infused Faith and True Religion if he do but understand himself Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of the Heart you speak very often that all Christians besides you are open Fools or concealed Atheists All this you say with notable Confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their Confidence of Prevailing in their Confident manner of Speaking but then for the Evidence you promis'd to maintain this Confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible Hitherto I have been arguing against our Author but now in the close I cannot but joyn with him in his Protestants Exhortation to Humility It is an Admirable Virtue and may God grant to me and to all Men a greater Measure of it It is a Virtue proper even for Guides in Religion that they may humbly help the Faith of others and not exercise Dominion over it And because a late Writer has been pleas'd to suffer this severe censure to drop from his Pen it is the less to be admir'd that our Author is such a stranger to that Spirit of
inclined to believe that the way to Socinianism has been much open'd and widen'd by the Popish Doctors who have so vehemently urg'd the Obscureness of the Scriptures in the Doctrine of the Trinity and who at this very time furnish the Hawkers with their little Dialogues endeavouring to equal the new Doctrine of Transubstantiation with that of Three Persons in one incomprehensible Essence For to say that that invention of Paschasius is as reasonable to be believ'd as the great Mystery of the Trinity by all good Catholicks is in effect to say that neither of them is reasonable CHAP. II. Considerations touching the General Argument of the Protestants Plea for a Socinian shewing the weakness of it and that it is not of force enough to overthrow the Plea of the Reformed LET that which hath been said suffice for the Quality of this Writing I will proceed to the General Argument of it which may in brief be thus represented The Protestants and Socinians agree in their Plea they alledge Scripture they measure Faith by it as by a compleat and clear Rule They reject Councils and the Major part of Church Authority if they are not convinc'd that they are founded on the Scriptures in finding out the sense of which both sides profess due Industry Both parties excuse themselves whatsoever Doctrines they advance whatsoever Wounds they open in the Church as uninfected with Hâ—…si and free from Schisan till their private Spirit be satisfi'd and before the Tribunal they erect in their own Heads they are self-accus'd and self-condemned Therefore Protestants make Apology for Socinians and are neither able to confute them upon these Principles and Methods nor to justifie themselves but are oblig'd to appeal to the Infallible Iudge or the Major part of the Bench of Iudges in the Roman Church where all such Controversies may be effectually ended The force of this specious Argument will be abated as all such Arguments may easily be whose force lays only in plausible appearance by a few plain Considerations First the Socinians will not allow their Plea to be perfectly the same with that of the Protestants especially those of the Established Church of England The Socinian Author of the Brief Disquisition proceeds upâ—…n a supposed difference and he endeavours to shew that unless the Evangelical quitted their own way of Resolving Faith and made use of the Methods of Socinus they could not Solidly and Evidently refute the Romanists and particularly the Judgment of Valerianus Magnus concerning the Protestant Rule of Believing Secondly Both Arians and Socinians plead Tradition though their Plea is not manag'd exactly after our better manner And when they plead Tradition why is not theirs then as much the Popish Plea as when they plead Scripture it is the Protestants for neither do they plead that just as this Church does Two Assertions may be here advanc'd First that the Arians and Socinians plead Tradition Secondly that some Papists have help'd the more Modern of them to Materials for the making of that Plea. First Arians and Socinians plead Tradition against the Divine Nature of Christ as the Romanists plead Tradition for it Artemon taught the Heresie of our Saviours being a meer Man. And we are assured by an unnamed but an antient and as appeareth by his Fragments a very sagacious Author that his Party declared that they follow'd Antiquiry that their Ancestors and the Apostles themselves were of the same belief that to the time of Pope Victor the true Doctrine of the Apostles was preserved and that it was corrupted in the times of his Successor Zephyrin These how unjust soever were their Allegations Socinus takes the boldness to affirm That the Romanists are not able to defend their Principles about the Trinity by the Authority of the Fathers And on the contrary that the Earlier Fathers who liv'd before the Council of Nice were firm in his belief He cites the Council of Ariminum Iustin the Martyr and S. Hilary He promiseth upon supposition of leisure to write a Tract on this Subject for the satisfaction of those who are moved with such Authority Crellius pretends that during 300 years after Christ the Doctors of the Church consented in this Faith That the Father was the most High God whilst the Son was a Diety different from the Creator of the World. He says of Grotius in upbraiding manner That he must needs know of this Historical Truth being a Man conversant in the Fathers He quotes Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho as Evidence on his side He has the Confidence to say That the Men of his Way have demonstrated this and that the very Adversaries of the Unitarians have confessed this to be true in Tertullian and Origen He introduceth S. Hilary as a Patron of that Doctrine which denies the Divinity of the Spirit of God. He presumes to say That the nearer approaches we make to the Anti-Trinitarians the higher we come to the Apostolical Faith. Moscâ—…rovius charges his Adversaries with misrepresenting of the first Fathers when they bring them in as Witnesses of that Faith concerning the Trinity which they profess And he proceeds in telling of them That Ignatius the most antient of those Church-Doctors whose Writings are extant does openly say the contrary in his Epistle to those of Tarsus affirming that Christ is not the Deity who is God over all but only the Son of God. He goes on in citing Iustin Martyr Irenaeus Origen how much to the purpose it is not my business here to determine It is true Ignatius is not the most antient of those Doctors whose Writings are extant but when he wrote this Mr. Young had not published Clements Epistle nor Mâ—…rdus that of Barnabas It is also confess'd that he cites a spurious Piece of Tradition for Ignatius wrote not that Epistle Ad Tarsenses but in the mean time to Tradition he in part appeals Lubieniecius spends a Chapter in Demonstrating as he imagin'd that God had not left his Church from the Apostles times to his without Witnesses of the Doctrine which denies the Trinity He glories in Artemon Samosatenus Photinus and others for Men are apt in all Factions to pretend to Number and Antiquity Christopher Sandius wrote his indigested Heap of Church-Story with this very design that in the several Centuries he might take especial notice of the Favourers of the Arian Doctrine And under the borrowed Name of Cingallus he gives himself the Honour of having made a most solid proof concerning all the Fathers of the three first Ages that they believed as Arius believ'd Mr. Biddle in the Appendix to his Book against the Holy Trinity endeavours to strengthen his Plea with the Testimonies of Irenaeus Iustin Martyr Novatian Theophilus Origen Arnobius Lactantius Eusebius of Caesarea and Hilary of Poictiers He pretends to the Fathers though he is guilty of false mustering Monsieur-Aubert du Versoy tells the World with great assurance That all
the Fathers who liv'd before the Council of Nice were ignorant of that Notion of the Trinity which is now commonly embrac'd that all of them deny'd the Eternal Generation of the Son of God that all believ'd the Father to be the only Sovereign Omnipotent Eternal God. The Socinians who offer'd to make Application here to the late Ambassador of the King of Fez and Morocco would in their Epistle perswade his Excellency That Antiquity was on their side from Adam to Christ and that all the Primitive Christians in and after Christ and his Apostles times never own'd any other besides the single and supreme Deity of the Father This could not be said of all the Fathers from a Judicious Reader of them but might be borrow'd from the same Person who furnish'd Sandius with his false Witnesses This brings to my memory in due method the Second Assertion That some of the Arians and Socinians who put Tradition into their Plea have fetch'd their Materials from a Roman Storehouse thâ—…ugh not directly from the Church herself The Jesuite Petavius is the Man And his Second Tome of Ecâ—…lesiastical Doctrines is their Magazine Insomuch that the Companions of Monsieur Clerc having first taken notice of the Citations of Curcellaeus in favour of the Arian Doctrine do after that refer us to Father Petau as to the Author whom he follow'd The Modern Arians have also call'd Huetius in to their assistance in their Plea from Tradition against the Divinity both of the Son and of the Spirit of God But the mistakes of Petavius and others in this matter have been publickly shew'd by a Learned Person of this Church whose Work though the Friends of Monsiâ—…ur Clerc have touch'd upon they have not refuted Mr. Chillingworth urg'd some such thing as this in part of his Answer to the Iesuite who charg'd the Protestant as the Advocate of the Socinian and he cited only the Notes of Petavius on Epiphanius the Ecclesiastical Doctrines of that Father not being then come forth into the Light. I will set down Mr. Chillingworths words because they are omitted by this Author who quotes him often where it is less to the purpose and omits that in which he speaks directly to his point The Iesuite had thus Misrepresented the Faith of the Reformed Chap. 〈◊〉 Sect 2. The very Doctrine of Protestants if it be follow'd closely and with coherence to itself must of necessity induce Socinianism To this Charge Mr. Chillingworth makes the following Reply 16. Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead Men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you You deny the Infallibility of the Church of England Ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the Infallibility of the Roman Church Ergo they induce Socinianism nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes Infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe Virtue Vice and Vice Virtue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers ways the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those Pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the antient Doctors 17. For Scripture your Men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De Verbo Dei C. 19. By Gretserus and Tannerus in Colloquio Ratisbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the World that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his Third Book 2 Chap. of his Reply to King Iames Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any errour in this matter in or near his time denied the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arian Is it not the same Perron in his reply to K. Iames in the Fifth Chapter of his Fourth Observation And doth he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Council of Nice that the Arians would gladly be tried by them And are not your Fellow Iâ—…suites also even the prime Men of your Order Prevarieators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Floyd in his Book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. Iames speak dangerously to the same purpose in his discourse of the resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand that the new reformed Arians bring very many Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see that to common People they are unanswerable yea that common People are not capable of the Answers that Learned Men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates First Iust in Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice whose Speeches he says touching this Point Cum Orthodoxa Fidei regulâ minimè consentiunt Hereunto I might add That the Dominicans and Iesuites between them in another matter of great importance viz. Gods Prescience of future Contingents give the Socinians the Premises out of which their Conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one side That God can foresee nothing but what he decrees The Iesuites on the other side That he doth not decree all things and from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do That he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this That you agree with one consent and settle for a Rule unquestionable That
divided from them and rather Glories that he gives light to all the World than borrows from it The Author of the Brief Disquisition blames the Protestants for the great deference they pay to unwritten Tradition meaning by it that which is not Written in the Scriptures but in the Fathers although at the same time he makes them to ascribe to Councils and single Fathers a greater Authority than they really do notwithstanding they are very just to them Ruarus though he was a Man of extraordinary Candor yet in his Letters to Bergius he does not barely refuse but reject with derision his Catholick Interpretation of Scripture according to the Rule of Vincentius Lirinensis which admitteth That Sense which was every where always and of all beleived A Rule by which we help our selves And he further professeth that he should be much concern'd if the Interpretations of Calvin and Luther were not more solid and acute than those of the Fathers We of this Church consider in the Interpretations of the Fathers not so much the acuteness though in S. Chrysostome for instance sake and in Theodoret it is not wanting as we do the History and the light which they may give us into the consent of the Churches in the Primitive times We are not apt to believe that there was such an Universal Corruption and Apostacy as Socinians speak of immediately after the Apostles times We are not Strangers to the Testimony of Hegesippus of which they make use for the blackning of the Primitive Church He does not say that the Leprosy was spread throughout the Church but that it began early We do not undervalue the Fathers but proceed in the method of the Antients who begun first with the Holy Scriptures and then descended to those who wrote next after the Holy Pen-Men The Calvinists themselves Radon and Silvius in a Disputation at Petricow in Poland did not plead just after the manner of the Socinians They pleaded the Scriptures together with Councils and Fathers as Subordinate Witnesses Their Socinian Adversaries Gregorius Pauli and Gentilis mock'd at their way of arguing They profess'd they would admit of nothing but the pure Word of God as shiing sufficiently by its own Light. And they denied that there was contain'd in formal terms in the Holy Scriptures the Doctrine of Three Persons in one Divine Essence Again the Members of our Church do not imitate the Socinians in traducing Constantine the Great and preferring Constantius the Arian before him They celebrate his Memory as a Defender of the Faith so far are they from reviling him as a Perverter of it They do not joyn with Socinians in reproaching the Fathers of Nice as Mercinary and Flexible Men whom Constantine had gained to his party by interest or force They do not with Gregorius Pauli call the Explication of the Nicene Faith the Creed of Sathanasius They hate the irreverence as much as they despise the jingle They do not beleive that the Nicene Creed is forg'd as some Socinians do though at the same time they take this upon the modern Authority of Laurentius Valla whom they make to say that he read it in very Antient Books of Isidore who in his time was a Collector of Councils Such a Collector of Councils as Varillas of History a Father and a Collector together The truth is it is Valla's business to elude the sense of Isidore and to ascribe a twofold Creed to the Nicene Fathers the Apostolical and that which bears their Name Whereas Isidorâ—… distinguishes betwixt their Creed and that of the Apostles The Protestants repeat in their Liturgy the Creed of Nice in the form agreed on in the Council of Constantinople and would not do so if they did not beleive it Orthodox They do not say with some modern Arians that it was framed by Marcellus Ancyranus a Heretick or joyn with those Spanish Iesuites who it seems charg'd this Creed with the Heresie of Photinus the Master of Marcellus They pay a more just Duty to the Emperour and the Nicene Fathers than to say with the Enemies of the Holy Trinity that setting Council against Council they chuse rather to follow those of Sirmium and Rimini than those of Nice Our Church-Men do not with the Socinians disregard the Fathers who liv'd after that famous Council and acknowledge that those Fathers are against it and bid defiance to their opposition But so does Socinus so does Crellius so does Pisecius for thus he discourseth Do they say Theology knows nothing of this It is enough if the Apostles do S. Austin damns this Christ approves it The same Pisecius is more severe in his censure than Socinus himself and he agrees with Scaliger if Scaliger be by him rightly cited in accusing all the Fathers up to S. Austins time of ignorance in another Doctrine about the Receipt of departed Souls not Martyrs and in affirming that the Errours of the first Fathers prepared the way for Antichrist In fine Though the Church of England does not make the Councils her Rule of Faith or make her last Appeal to them yet she believes that in times of Controversie when the Heads of Men are apt to be disturb'd even in Matters otherwise plain enough by the Heats and Distempers of the Age they live in they are of special use The Authority of them tends to the quelling of the Party And then when the Faction cools it tends to the fixing and further strengthning of the weak and interrupted Faith of many For as in a Ballance one Scale may descend more or less below the Level so there may be Faith and Assent without adding the weight of Fathers and Councils and yet in unquiet Times especially and disputing Ages such Testimonies may give some further strength to Minds made feeble either by publick Distractions or the private Attacks of Crafty Seducers Thus our Church gives to the Scripture the things that belong to the Scripture and to Tradition the Dues of Tradition And it gives more even to the former than generally Socinians do and more also to the latter though with just Caution and Subordination So that their Plea and ours is not in a strict way of speaking the very same But Fourthly If we admit that the Plea of the Protestant and Socinian is the same for the general nature of it we cannot be truly said to plead for them unless the general Plea be with Truth and Pertinence as well as Boldness applied to the very merit of the Cause If two Men will plead the same thing with equal Assurance but not with equal Reason in Truth and Merit 't is not the same If the Confidence of Men in pleading might weigh against the Right of others they that were in the wrong would be in the right For what was wanting in the Reason of the Case would be supply'd by Impudence But is it said by any of the Robe