private reason which faith often is inforced to captivate but into the authority of God revealing and the Church proposing I believe it saith Tertullian because it is impossible viz. to humane reason I reply 1. Chillingworth makes not reason the only Judge of controversies nor any Protestant therefore the conclusion is ill fathered on them 2. The reason of H. T. his denial of the consequence is insufficient For it supposeth the consequence to imply that our acts of faith are ultimately resolved into private reason and this private reason judging that onely to be true of which it conceives how it is possible But the truth is they that make reason the Judge of controversies neither resolve ultimately their acts of faith into private reason neither do they conceive they have reason to believe onely what they conceive how it is possible to humane reason but resolve their faith into Gods authority as the formal and ultimate reason of their believing and make their reason onely the means or instrument by which they finde that God hath revealed that which they believe not excluding their teachers credit and Churches example as a fit motive to hearken to it as a thing credible Which opinion is confirmed by this authors own words making faith an act of reason and discourse and approbation of reason alwayes a previous and necessary condition to it and therefore in all acts of faith even when it rests on the Churches Authority yet eachmans private reason is the Judge for himself discerning in controversies why he is to believe one and not another all the difference is the Papist thinks he hath reason to believe transubstantiation Popes supremacy c. because he takes the Church of Rome or Pope to be infallible The Protestant doth not believe them because the Scripture doth not say thus which alone he takes for an infallible rule to judge by in such controversies Whether Papists faith be ultimately resolved into the Authority of God revealing hath been before considered a little and will more in that which follows To Tertullians words I can return no answer till I know where to finde them As they are here cited they seem nor right Yet again saith H. T. Ob. There is no Apostolical tradition for the Churches infallibility Answ Yes a more universal one then for the Canon of the Scripture it self which notwithstanding you believe on that score if at all For there is not any one book either of the old or new Testament which hath not been rejected by some heretick or other if therefore it be a sufficient proof of an universal tradition for the whole Canon of Scripture that some one or two general Councils have set down the number and names of all the books of Scripture though not without some variety and that the Fathers have given testimony to them some to some books some to others but few to all and that the Church in after ages hath accepted them for such how much more universal is the tradition for the Churches infallibility which is virtually decided and attested by the Anathema's and definitions of all the general Councils that ever were condemning all who did not humbly obey and subscribe to them every decision being attested by all the Fathers no one contradicting or condemning the stile and most unanimously accepted by the whole Church of after ages I reply the speech of H. T. here that there is a more universal Apostolical tradition for the Churches that is not only the Church diffused over all the world unanimously teaching but also the Church represented in a Council perfectly Oecumenical that is to say call'd out of the whole world and approved by the Pope it's infallibility in definitions of faith then for the Canon of the Scriptures it self is so monstrously false and so pernicious as tending to the undermining of the fabrick of Christian Religion that it shews an impudent face and an impious heart in the assertor For 1. The tradition of the Canon of the old Testament is by the whole Nation of the Jews from Moses to Christ and from Christ and his Apostles who have testified that to them were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 1 2. and this witnessed by the Jews unto the death and by the complement and events verifying it And though it be that some hereticks have been adversaries to the Law and Prophets yet scarce any but such as have been little better then phrenetick have denied it to be divine however they have conceived them not binding And for the Canon of the new Testament though some parts have been a little while somewhat doubted of in the second and third ages by some few yet the rest have had universal and undoubted tradition from the Apostles and Evangelists and primitive teachers who witnessed the truth of the doctrine by many evident undeniable divine miracles and by their martyrdome by which also in after ages many of the Fathers and other Christians gave testimony to it and since the Churches Greek and Latin Protestant and Popish Heretical and Orthodox in Asia Africa Europe have attested it as divine But for the Churches infalibility in that sense in which this Author means it how little hath been brought appears by the answer here made and that much may be said against it will appear by that which follows Yea I dare bodly say that as H. T. holds it no one Council or Father of esteeme held the Churches infallibility in the first thousand years from Christs incarnation and I think I may say for half a thousand more but many not onely of those who are reckoned for hereticks by Romanists but also such as have been judged Catholicks have opposed it in the second and third ages yea whole Nations Emperors Kings and states have opposed the definitions which the so termed Generals Councils approved by the Pope have made and many learned men have written against it none died for it in that time nor were any miracles wrought to confirme it Nor hath the questioning of some few of the books of Scripture either by some hereticks or a few Fathers for a while abated the credit of those parcels questioned in the Churches of Christ throughout the world So that if it were true that we believed the Canon as I know nothing but uncharitablenesse can make this Author question whether we do onely on that score as we do not yet we have far more abundant tradition for it then is for the Churches imagined infallibility 2. I say the Anathema's and definitions are neither formal nor virtual proofs of an universal tradition or attestation to the Churches infallibility For 1. p. 7. He confesseth in the second and third ages were no councils nor in the tenth in which any controversies of moment were decided p. 25. and therefore here this universal tradition fails 2. Those that were not approved by the Popes but rejected by them and those which were not Oecumenical have not used such Anathema's
Maccabees to be canonical l. 19. Moral c. 17. As for the third Synod of Carthage it was not an Oecumenical Synod and it is over ballanced by the Synod of Laodicea before it who omitted them And if the ancients termed the Apocryphal books canonical or divine they are to be understood according to Ruffinus his explication in his Exposition on the Creed and others that they were canonical in a sort as being read in the Churches by reason of some histories or moral sentences but not so as that they were brought to confirm the authority of faith by them H. T. further saith Ob. The Father 's err'd some in one thing some in another Answ A part I grant all together speaking of any one age I deny and they all submitted to the Church and so do likewise our Schoolmen who differ onely in opinion concerning School points undefined not in faith I reply 1. That the Fathers of some ages did generally hold errors is apparent in many particulars Augustine held it an Apostolical tradition that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was necessary for infants as appears l. 1. de pec merito remiss c. 24. and elsewhere and Maldonat on John 6. v. 53. saith that it was the opinion of Augustin and Pope Innocent the first and that it prevailed in the Church for six hundred years and yet the council of Trent sess 21. c. 4. can 4. saith If any say the communion of the Eucharist to be necessary for little ones afore they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema The like might be said of sundry other points as that of the Millenary opinion the souls not seeing God till the day of judgement c. 2. That all the Fathers did not submit to the Church of Rome is manifest by the Asian Bishops opposition to Victor about Easter to Stephen about rebaptization by Cyprian and others to Boniface Zozimus and Celestin about appeals from Africa to Rome by Aurelius Augustinus and a whole council 3. That the Schoolmen differ in points of faith defined is manifest in Peter Lumbard l. 1. sent dist 17. who held the holy Ghost to be the charity whereby we love God and the dissent from him in that point the differences about the Popes authority above a council power to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance certainty of faith concerning a mans own justification Gods predetermination of mans will and many more yet controverted between Dominicans and Jesuits Jansenists and Molinists 4. All submit not to the Pope but some appeal from him to a council others by withstanding in disputes and otherwise decline his sentence in their cause of which the opposition against Pope Paul the fifth his interdict by the republick of Venice about their power over Ecclesiasticks is a famous instance evidently shewing that all that live in communion with the See of Rome acknowledge not such a supremacy and infallibility to it as the modern Jesuits ascribe to it Yet again saith H. T. Ob. St. Augustin tells St. Hierom that he esteems none but the writers of the Canonical books to have been infallible in all they write and not to erre in any thing Answ Neither do we we esteem not the writers of councils infallible in all they write nor yet councils themselves but only in the Oecumenical decrees or definitions of faith I reply Augustin Epist 19. to Hierom doth not onely say thus I confess to thy charity that I have learned to give this reverence and honour onely to those books of Scriptures which are now called canonical that I do most firmly believe no author of them to have erred any thing in writing but he adds also But I so read others that how much soever they excel in holiness and doctrine I do not think it true because they have so thought but because they could perswade me either by those Canonical authors or by probable reason that it abhors not from that which is true Which plainly shews 1. That he counted only the writers of Canonical Scriptures and those books infallible 2. That the sentence of others however excellent in sanctity and doctrine is not to be believed because they so thought 3. That their sentence prevailed with him so far as it's proof did perswade 4. That this proof must be by the Canonical Scriptures or probable reason H. T. adds Ob. St. Augustin Epist 112. says we are onely bound to believe the Canonical Scriptures without dubitation but for other witnesses we may believe or not believe them according to the weight of their authority Answ He speaks in a particular case in which nothing had been defined by the Church namely whether God could be seen with corporal eyes But the decrees of general councils are of divine authority as we have proved and therefore according to St. Augustin to be believed without dubitation I reply though he speaks upon occasion of one particular case yet the speech is universal but for other witnesses or testimonies besides the Canonical Scriptures by which any thing is perswaded to be believed it is lawful for thee to believe or not to believe as thou shalt weigh how much moment those things have or not have to beget faith There 's not a word of exception concerning a thing defined by the Church yea the opinion of Augustin is full and plain in his second book of baptism against the Donatists ch 3. to take away infallibility from any Bishops or councils Oecumenical which I think fit to translate to shew how contrary it is to Austin to make any councils after the Apostles infallible Who knows not saith he the holy Canonical Scripture as well of the old as of the new Testament to be contained in it's certain bounds and that it is so to be preferred before all the later letters of Bishops that a man may not doubt or dispute of it at all whether that which it is manifest to be written in it be true or right but for the letters of Bishops which have been or are written after the Canon confirmed it is lawful that they be reprehended if perhaps in them any thing have deviated or gone out of the way from truth both perhaps by the wiser speech of any man more skilful in that thing and by the more grave authority of other Bishops and the prudence of the learned and by councils And those councils which are held in single Regions or Provinces are to give place without any windings to the authority of more full councils which are gathered out of the whole Christian world and oft times those former fuller councils may be mended by later when by some trial of things that is open which was shut up and known which did lye hid without any smoke of sacrilegious pride without any swollen neck of arrogance without any contention of wan envy with holy humility with Catholick peace with Christian charity Yet once more saith H. T. Ob. St. Athanasius in his Epistle to the Bishops
specially those that have written large Commentaries according to the literal sense as Salmeron Maldonat Lorinus Cornelius a Lapide Tirinus and many more should reject this foolery of H. T. concerning the expounding of Scripture not according to the literal sense which he calls the dead Letter or else at once blot out all they have written for finding it as a meer encumbrance to the World And the same may be said of not expounding by the private spirit For why do these private men take so much pains to publish Commentaries Is not their spirit as much private as Calvin's Beza's Luther's and others and these mens spirit as publick as theirs Let any man assign Reasons if he can why all the Commentaries of the Romanists should not be cashier'd under this pretence as well as the Protestants who are as learned industrious as they and far more sincere and impartial Why should not the Popes expositions be rejected as well as others Have they any more than a private spirit Do not their very Breves and Monitories and Decrees shew that it is a private spirit they act and decide by Sure the Spirit of God would not dictate such vain things as they utter and which sometimes they are fain to recall lest their nakedness appear Do not the Popes by their own confessions in correcting the vulgar Latin Translation and other things they set forth declare that they use industry and the help of learned men If they have a publick spirit why do not the Popes make us an Exposition of Scripture which all must own Is it not because they are for the most part a race of ignorant and unlearned men specially in the Scriptures and should they attempt such a thing would make themselves appear ridiculous and shew their asinine ears though now they seem terrible and to carry majesty with their Lions skin Is there any thing the Popes can do more necessary than this that they may end all controversies and guide all souls aright But the truth is the Popes have been so unhappy in alleging Scripture in their Bulls and Breves and Monitories in their dicisions of controversies that no side will acquiesce in their determinations they are so vain or so partial but as of old in the controversies between Dominicans and Franciscans about the Virgin Maries immaculate Conception so of late between the Molinists and Jansenists about Gods Decrees each party holds what they held notwithstanding the Popes decision which for the most part is so composed that each party may think it makes for him and he may loose neither And about the Edition of the vulgar Translation in Latin of the Bible how much have the two Popes Sixtus the fifth and Clemens the eighth discovered their unskilfulness when after such profession of diligence and use of learned men as the Popes make yet they have published their Editions contrary one to another The words of Tertullian are cap. 17. against those Hereticks Valentinus Marcion and such as agreed not with Christians in the Rule of Faith set down cap. 13. whom he denies to be Christians and such he thinks it would be unfit to dispute with out of Scripture but he doth not so judge concerning such as agree in the Rule of Faith though some term them Hereticks I may more truly say there is no good got by Popes interpretations of holy Scripture but to make a man sick or mad such Expositions as Alexander the third made of Psalm 91. 13 Thou shalt tread upon the Asp and Basiliâ—k when he trode on the Emperour Frederick's neck or Boniface the eighth when to prove himself above Emperours and Kings he alleged Gen. 7. 16. God made two great Lights that is the Pope and the Sun and the Emperour as the Moon with many more of the like sort are no better than sick mens dreams or mad mens freaks It is added Object All Scripture divinely inspired is profitable for teaching for arguing for reproving and for instructing in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect instructed to every good work 1 Tim. 3. 16 17. therefore Traditions are not necessary Answ St. Paul speaks onely there of the old Scripture which Timothy had known from his childhood when little of any of the new could be written as is plain by the precedent Verse which we acknowledge to be profitable for all those uses but not sufficient neither will any more follow out of that Text if understood of the new Scriptures so that your consequence is vain and of no force I reply that which is profitable to teach reprove correct instruct in righteousness so as that the man of God may be entire fitted or instructed for every good work Sure that is a sufficient Rule for Doctrine of Faith and good Works and so to salvation But such is the Scripture as the Text tells us Ergo. The Major is apparent sith no more is required to a sufficient Rule of Doctrine if there be let it be shewed that it may be known wherein this is defective Sure that which is profitable for all uses to which Doctrine serves is a sufficient Doctrine The Answer of H. T. here is so far from being a full Answer to the Objection as he vainly vaunts in the Title page of his Book that indeed it is a confirmation of the Objection For if the old Scriptures were so profitable as to make the man of God a Teacher of the Church entire that they were able to make him wise to salvation and furnish him with instruction to every good work much more when the Books of the New Testament were added of which one of the Gospels is by H. T. here pag. 104. said to have been written eight years after the Death of Christ and doubtless Timothy knew it and however he had the former Epistle to himself before the Epistle in which this passage is which is ill printed 1 Tim 3. 16 17. it being 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. and therefore the Scripture he had was a sufficient Rule to him a Bishop without Traditions much more to others and so Traditions unwritten are proved unnecessary and superfluous Again saith H. T. Object If any one shall add to these God shall add to him the Plagues written in this Book Apoc. 22. 18 19. Therefore it is not lawfull to add Traditions Answ It follows immediately And if any one shall diminish from the words of this Prophecy God shall take away his Part out of the Book of Life vers 19. By which St. John evidently restrains that Text to the Book of his own Prophecies onely which is not the whole Rule of Faith and therefore by that you cannot exclude either the rest of the Scriptures or Apostolical Traditions from that Rule I reply there is no reason why the same thing is not to be understood of the whole Canon and each particular Book sith there is the like Deut. 4. 2. Prov. 30. 6. Jer. 7. 31. 2 Thess 2. 1 2.
Faith or Catholick Church but not any longer And this Authour may as some in case of Marriage conceive he is obliged to keep faith with Inâ—idels and yet not with Hereticks And for the determination of the Council of Trent Sess 15. 18. neither durst Protestants then trust to the safe conduct then given and before and since sad instances of Papists perfidiousness have given too much occasion to Protestants to suspect the lurking of a Snake under the grass I mean some hidden deceit under a covert of fair words especially when we consider this Authour a little before counted the definition of the Council of Constance to be of faith Sess 15. 18. In which Sess 19. that Council as it is in Binius hath these words The present holy Synod doth declare that no prejudice to the Catholick faith or to Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction is generated or impediment can be or ought to be made by any safe conduct granted by the Emperour Kings and other secular Princes to Hereticks or defamed of Hereâ—ie thinking so to recall the same from their Errours with whatsoever Bond they have bound themselves but that the said safe conduct notwithstanding it may be lawfull for a competent Judge and Ecclesiastick to inquire of the Errours of such persons and otherwise duly to proceed against them and to punish them as much as justice shall perswade if they shall refuse stifly to revoke their Errours although trusting to their safe conduct they have come to the place of judgement who otherwise would not have come nor doth he that so promiseth when he hath done what lies in him remain obliged by this in any thing Which surely amounted then to as much as this and hath been thousands of times objected by Princes and others that publick faith is not to be kept with Hereticks And how little reason Protestants have to trust Papists not onely the actions of former Papists for a thousand years past but also of late their actings in Ireland Poland Piedmont shew Whom he means by the Popes flatterers or particular Doctors I do not well understand should he call Bellarmine Baronius or such like men so perhaps he may be served as Francis a St. Clara and others were I judge H. T. to be a gross Flatterer in maintaining the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility there being in this tenet no better than blasphemous Antichristian flattery ascribing to some of the worst and oftentimes most ignorant men that which is due to the Son of God And for his Corollary I deny the Major and Minor both sith that may be a true Church which hath neither local personal Succession nor conspicuous Visibility nor such Unity Universality Infallibility Sanctity Power of Miracles Universal Bishop as H. T. requires as necessary to a true Church nor hath he made it plain that these marks do agree to the present Roman Church or Bishop and no other but his mistakes in these are shewed I follow him in the rest ARTIC VIII Unwritten Tradition now no Rule of Faith The unwritten Tradition which H. T. terms Apostolical is not the true Rule of Christian Faith SECT I. The Argument for Apostolical Tradition unwritten as the Rule of Faith from the means of planting and conserving Faith at first is answered H. T. intitles his eighth Article of Apostolical Tradition and saith Our Tenet is That the true Rule of Christian Faith is Apostolical Tradition or a delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles and nothing ought to be received as Faith but what is proved to have been so delivered which we prove thus The first Argument That is now the true Rule of Faith which was the essential means of planting and conserving it at first But oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books was the essential means of planting and conserving it at first therefore oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books is the true Rule of Faith The Major is proved because the Rule of Faith must be immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is The Minor is proved because the first Gospel was not written till eight years after the Death of Christ or thereabouts in which space the Apostles had preached and planted the Faith of Christ in many Nations over almost all the World Add to this that many Ages were passed before all the Books of Scripture were dispersed and accepted for Canonical by the whole Church so that when any difference arose in points of Faith among the Christians of the first Age they were not to inquire what had been written but whether the Apostles so taught Answ THis Doctor whether it be by reason of his ignorance or heedlesness or malignity to the holy Scriptures determines worse than his fellows yea against the Doctrine of the Trent Council and Pope Pius the fourths Bull. For whereas in the Trent Council Sess 4. it is said that the truth and Discipline of Christ and his Apostles is contained in written Books and Traditions without writing and would have both to be received with equal affection and reverence of piety and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull requires the admission of the sacred Scripture and Apostolical Tradition H. T. concludes that written Books are not the true Rule of Faith but oral and Apostolical Tradition If he had said they had not been the entire Rule of Faith he had agreed with the Trent Council and the Popes Bull but now he contradicts them as well as the Protestants and his Argument doth as well conclude that the holy Scripture is no part of the Rule of Faith as that it is not the whole But leaving him to be corrected by his fellows let 's view his Dispute Setting aside his non-sense speech of being received as Faith in stead of being received as the object of Faith and taking Apostolical Tradition to be meant of that which is truly so called I grant his Tenet and say with him that the true Rule of Christian Faith is Apostolical Tradition that is the Doctrine which the Apostles delivered or that delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles and that nothing ought to be received as Faith that is a thing to be believed with a Christian divine Faith which all Christians are bound to believe but what is proved to have been so delivered For though in general any divine revelation is to be the object of Christian Faith by whom or what way soever it be delivered and God hath delivered divers revelations in the Books of the Old Testament which are objects of Faith yet sith now Christ and his Apostles have delivered those divine revelations as the oracles of God and what the Apostles preached and thought needfull for us to know and believe to salvation is written and these Writings are conveyed from father to son by hand to hand we grant the Tenet being meant of them and yield further that if they can
authority of the Church but to know the true faith by which alone the true Church is known and it is a most impudent assertion which H. T. takes on him in his first Article to maintain that the Church now in communion with the See of Rome is the only true Church of God unless he can prove none are believers but they So that this very definition of the Lateran council is sufficient to overthrow the main drift of H. T. in this book and to shew how heedless or impudent a writer he is H. T. tells us also that the fourth Lateran council defin'd in the profession of faith can 1. that the true body and blood of Christ is in the Sacrament of the Altar under the forms of bread and wine the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the body and the wine into the blood Which is granted if it be true that the Council it self did define any thing and not Pope Innocent himself three years after the Council Platina saith in his life that many things then came into consultation indeed and yet not any thing could be openly decreed But were it the Council or the Pope alone that thus decreed it was a most bold and presumptuous act in either or both to make that a point of faith of which as Bellarm. tom 3. cont l. 3 c. 23. confesseth Scotus in quartum sent dist 11. q. 3. said that the tenent of transubstantiation was no tenet of faith before the Lateran Council and Scotus and Cameracensis expresly say that neither by words of Scripture nor by the Creeds nor sayings of the ancients are we compelled to the tenet of transubstantiation And Cardinal Cairt in 3. Aq. q. 75. art 1. saith that nothing out of the Gospel doth appear to compel us to understand these words this is my body properly To the same purpose John Fisher Bishop of Rochester contra capt Babylon c. 1. For which reason Cuthbert Tonstal l. 1. of the Eucharist p. 46. said perhaps it had been better to have left every curious man to his conjecture concerning the manner of Christs body being in the Eucharist as before the Lateran Council it was left at liberty and therefore he was ost heard to say if he had been present at the Lateran Council he would have endeavoured to perswade Pope Innocent to have forborn the decreeing of transubstantiation as an article of faith And indeed the reason of the Council is so grosly absurd that had there been any understanding men at the making of the decree it 's likely it had not passed For this reason they give of their decree that to perfect the mystery of unity we our selves may take of his what he received of ours the bread being transubstantiate into the body the wine into blood by the divine power intimates 1. That the bread is transubstantiate into the body and wine into the blood not either into body and blood and then he that drinks not the wine drinks not the blood nor is it said to be transubstantiate into it as an animate body so that that determination makes it a transubstantiation without life 2. It faith that we may receive of his what he receives of ours which in plain sense intimates that Christ receives our body and blood by eating and drinking as we do his 3. It makes this the mystery of our unity as if the mystery of our unity by faith were not perfect without this gross Capernaitish Cannibalitish eating Christs very flesh made from bread by a Priest and drinking his very blood with our mouth in drinking transubstantiate wine All which are such gross irrational unchristian absurdities as had not the age been blockish and Popes and popish writers and people dementate they would with abhorrency have rejected that determination H. T. adds that the fourth Lateran Council can 1. defined in the profession of faith that no man can make this Sacrament but a Priest rightly ordained by the keys of the Church given to the Apostles and their successors which although it be otherwise in the text Matth. 16. 19. expresseth wherein the keys not of the Church but of the Kingdom of heaven are mentioned as given to Peter not to the Apostles and their successors yet were it true that the keys were given to the Apostles and their successors this would overthrow the Popes supremacy if it be deduced from that gift of the keys For if Christ himself gave the keys of the Church to the Apostles and their successors then not to Peter only and his successors but to other Apostles and their successors as well as Peter and consequently according to their own principles to other Bishops as well as the Bishop of Rome As for the definition of the Council that none can make this Sacrament but a Priest then it is to Priests only that it is said do this for from those words he deduceth p. 215. the power to make Christs body but that is most absurd for then they only should eat the doing this being meant plainly of eating the bread being spoken not to the Priest conficient only but to all the Apostles at table also and if so not only the cup should be kept from the people but the bread also contrary to 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. 11. 28. H. T. tells us that they defined that baptism profits little ones as well as those who are of riper years unto salvation and condemned the heresie of Abbas Joachim which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants though it be suspected that if Abbat Joachim had not been a man whose reputed holiness and free speeches against the Popes and the clergy troubled them he might have escaped that censure The definition concerning confession and receiving at Easter are points of disciplin not part of the profession of faith and so impertinent to the present business H. T. mentions also the Council of Lyons Fathers one hundred Pope Gregory the tenth presiding Anno 1274. against the Grecians which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants and that which is added this hitherto saith the Council the holy Roman Church the mother and mistris of all Churches hath preach'd and taught besides the non-sense how frequently soever it be used of the Churches preaching and teaching who preach not nor teach but they are preached to and taught it is but a piece of palpably false flattery the Church of Rome being not the mother of all Churches it being certain that the Church of Jerusalem was before that of Rome and the Jerusalem from above is stiled the mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. Among his Catholick professors of this age H. T. nominates St. Dominick and St. Francis Institutors of their holy orders of Friers but how they should be Saints whereof one was a bloody instigator of war against the innocent sheep of Christ the Waldenses and the other an observer of humane inventions with neglect of Gods command to work with his
Catholicks and owned as children of the church yet do not profess the now Roman faith of the Popes supremacy which H T. and the Jesuited party among Papists the Popes flatterers ascribe to him As for the presence of the Greeks in the Council of Florence it was of a few needy ones driven out or brought low by the Turks who yielded to that in the Council for some relief to them in their low estate which the Greek churches after would not own nor do yet to this day And therefore that which H. T. hath done in setting down the Popes and Councils of this Age is done deceitfully concealing the true state of things and so he hath done of Catholick Professors mentioning some of small worth but leaving out Gerson Picus Mirandulanus and some others though in communion with the Roman church and men of more abilities and repute than many of those he sets down because Gerson held that the Church might be without a Pope in his book de auferibilitate Papae and he and others differ'd in some other points from the now Roman tenets As for the Nations converted which he mentions they are names of people said to be in Africa but whether there be such people or are converted or what numbers of them have been converted is known onely by the vain-glorious Writings of some popish Writers of that sort who for the extolling of the Papacy either feign that which is not or it is likely make a Mountain of a Mole-hill such conversions as they boast of being not known to other people though sailing into and trading in all parts of the known world H. T. adds his catalogue of chief Pastors in the sixteenth Age and half the seventeenth to 1654. and sets down two and twenty Popes as chief Pastors of the Church Of them are Julius the second a Warriour Leo the tenth who to maintain his Luxury and for his sister Magdalen's Dowry set Indulgences to sale himself venting his infidelity to Cardinal Bembus as if he counted the Gospel a profitable Fable Paul the third an incestuous father of a Sodomitical son whom he cocker'd full of cruelty and craft sending an Army with Farnesius to destroy the Protestants in Germany Julius the third that created his Ganymede Innocentius a boy Cardinal and had for his Nuntio at Venice John Casa Arch-bishop of Benevent who in a book praised Sodomy Paul the fourth hated by the Romans for his cruelty Pius the fourth that made the new creed of the Roman church Pius the fifth that excommunicated Queen Elizabeth Gregory the thirteenth that set up Stukely to get Ireland for his base son Sixtus the fifth that animated the Spaniard in the Expedition against England 1588. praised James Clement the Frier who murdered Henry the third King of France Gregory the fourteenth who cursed Henry the fourth of France Clement the eighth who afore he absolved him proudly lasheth his Embassadour with a Rod Paul the fifth who had the Title of Vicedeus given him and not disclaimed who interdicted the Venetians for not obeying his Monitory to revoke their Laws about Ecclesiasticks and to release two Ecclesiastick prisoners one a poysoner another that committed uncleanness in a Temple and did forbid the taking the Oath of Allegeance in England by Papists without doing any thing against some of the priests privy to the Gunpowder Treason to shew their detestation of it Among them all there is not one that their own stories do relate to have been a diligent preacher of the Gospel but politicians medling with the affairs of the Kingdoms and Empires of the World and so no Successors to our Lord Christ or Peter the Apostle but their memories are to be abhorred specially by us English as the pests of mankinde H. T. mentions two general Councils the last Lateran Council Pope Julius the second and Leo the tenth presiding 1512. I finde not the certain number of Fathers it was a general Council But Bellarmine lib. 2. de concil auth cap. 13. saith Some doubt whether it were truly general and there was reason sith it was called by a Faction adhering to Julius the second to establish his tyranny in opposition to another party gathered in France to establish the pragmatick Sanction But what did this Council define The soul of man immortal and that there be as many humane souls as bodies anathematizing all such as obstinately defend or hold the contrary in the communion of the Church of Rome Sess 8. A point which a Council of Philosophers might have decided However it intimates there were that did then hold or teach the contrary in the communion of the church of Rome and that Pope John the two and twentieth his Doctrine was not quite extinguished but this Council is of little account among a great party of the Papists themselves It is the other Council the Council of Trent Pope Paul the third and Pius the fourth presiding against Martin Luther and his fellow Protestants Anno 1546. of which he saith The definitions are conformable to those of all precedent general Councils for us and against Sectaries as our Adversaries know and cannot deny But this is most false it being by Bishop Jewel and many other learned Protestants averred and proved that the Decrees of that Council in many points about the Popes power half communion transubstantiation worshiping Images and other points are contrary to the Councils and Fathers for the first five hundred years at least And for this Council not onely Sleidan but also Frier Paul a man greatly honoured by the Venetian Senate for his learning prudence and integrity in his History of the Trent Council hath shewed that it was nothing but a meer packed and fraudulent conventicle of a crue of prelates most of them Italians some meerly titular and the Popes pensioners and parasites few of them who had any knowledge in the Scripture or Divinity but canonists courtiers and school-men who understood not the Protestants Doctrine in the great point of justification by faith carried on by Paul the third Julius the third Pius the fourth and their Legates to cheat the World by innumerable artifices not onely hindring the freedom of speech of the Protestants in the Council but also of some of the popish Bishops when they endeavoured to recover the right of Bishops taken away from them by the Popes in so much that not onely the Protestants have protested against it but also the French Kings by their Embassadours and Parliaments and it is not owned by the French popish churches unto this day and the vanity and impiety of its Decrees hath been detected by Kemnitius Calvin and innumerable learned protestants besides what may be gathered from the contrary Writings of persons who were there as Catharinus Soto Vega and others in so much that if men were not blinded with prejudice and faction they would easily discern that Council to have been a corrupt Synod justly to be detested As for the catholick professours he mentions
he had seven thousand at that time in Israel where he was therefore Elias spake figuratively when he complained he was left alone 3 Kings 19. Nay the contrary follows that he did not speak figuratively because God corrects him and shews his mistake in saying he was left alone that is there were no more besides himself left 2. But yet if it were granted that the speech is figurative and the meaning as H. T. would have it it no whit avoids our objection that the Church of God though consisting of seven thousand yet were so obsâ—ure that they appeared so few to Elias as that he took himself to be left alone As for the other exception of the Kingdom of Juda it takes not away the objection as the Protestants frame it but as H. T. frames it it is not our objection and so though the consequence be false yet it hurts not us who gather not hence the failing of the Church but the obscurity of it and that there may be a true Church which is so hidden that it is not discerned at some times no not by such an eminent Prophet as Elias and so though we cannot shew our Church in every age before Luther yet there might be then and we may be now a true Church for all that The next objection he brings is that though Arian heresie infected the whole world Ergo c. and answers you mistake the fury of that lasted not full fouâ— years viz. from the council of Ariminum to the death of Constantine and that only in the Eastern Churches the Western feeling little or nothing by it St. Augustin answers the Donatists objecting the same that even the canonical Scriptures have this custome that the word seems to be addressed to all when it reaches home only to some few Epist 48. To which I reply If the Arian fury lasted but four years and in the Eastern Churches only yet it might have been more than one hundred and then the succession had ceased and the Eastern Churches then were so obscure that a catalogue of professors could not be given though there were doubtless then true Churches in the East But it is false which H. T. writes that the Western felt little or nothing by the Arian fury for in Italy the Arians prevailed so far as to bring Liberius Bishop of Rome to subscribe to the council of Ariminum Nor do I know how the words of Augustin yeild any thing in answer to the objection that in the time of the Arian prevalency the Church was so obscured that the whole world seemed to be Arians therefore the Churches succession may be so interrupted or obscured at least as that a catalogue of it's pastors and professors at all times cannot be framed For suppose the meaning of the speech should be that the words concerning the number of Arians seem to be addressed to all when they reach home only to some few yet if the words shew the number so great as that the other part of the Church were obscured so as not to be discerned they serve to prove there may be Churches which are so hidden as that a catalogue cannot be framed But the objection is further pressed thus Object St. Hierom says the whole world groan'd and admired to see it self become Arian in his book against Luciferius To which H. T. saith Answ If she wondred she knew not when it was done if she groaned she approved it not being done therefore the major part were still Catholick To which I reply if H. T. did not presume he should meet with silly readers he would not have thus frivolously inferred from those words which were delivered to shew the Arians to be the greater part that the major part was still Catholick For who knows not that the expression is Rhetorical and the meaning this that Arians prevailed so much that the whole world that is all the churches of the East and West were so infected that they were burdened with Arians as a man that groans under a burden and that on such a sudden as that the accident was as it were a wonder now from such Catachrestical metaphors to infer as if they were proper that while the world was Arian it knew not it was done or approved it not is all one as to say when they were Arians they knew not nor liked Arian doctrine that is while they were Arians they were not Arians which is to make Hieroms speech self-contradicting But H. T. adds Let St. Hierom answer for himself The Bishops saith he against Luciferius that did the fact of Ariminum were deluded viz. by the new Creed there made which might have born a good sense few defending the fact and some lamenting it And St. Augustin tells us that the church then appeared in her most constant members Athanasius and others ep 48. To which I reply It is true that when they came to see their error they did lament it yet were for the time Arians and though Athanasius did not yeild to subscribe to it yet Liberlus Bishop of Rome did And I believe H. T. his fellow Papists will not allow his speech that the decree made at Ariminum might have born a good sense It is added by H. T. thus Obj. The church will fail in the time of Antichrist according to that unless there come a revolt first c. 2 Thes 2. 3. Answ No she will not she shall then suffer great persecution Apoc. 20. 8. and therefore shall be to suffer many will revolt all shall not I reply that if the revolt be of so many and the persecution so great as that they shall be dispersed and obscured so as not to appear it is sufficient to prove the succession to be then either so interrupted as not to be or so obscured as not to be discerned by enemies or brethren further off and so as that the making a catalogue of Pastors and professors in that age cannot be expected justly from the churches in after ages which is enough for our purpose to shew that the defect of such a catalogue shews not the nullity of the Protestant churches nor is with any justice or reason such a catalogue of Pastors and professors in all ages required of them by Papists Yet however this Author conceives his fellows the Rhemists Annot. on 2 Thes 2. 3. think the Apostasie shall be so great as that Antichrist shall pull down generally all kind of religious worship saving that which must be done to himself alone nor is that Apoc. 20. 8. to the contrary For neither is it certain that time is the time of Antichrists reign nor if it were doth it appear that the thing done is afore the end of that reign But H. T. adds Obj. What if men would not persevere how then you hold freewill I hope Answ With St. Augustine to the Donatists as if the holy Ghost were ignorant what would be the freewill of men which yet foreseeing he foretold that the church
and the souls detained there are holp by the Suffrages of the faithfull nor that the Saints reigning with Christ are to be worshipped and prayed unto nor their Relicks to be worshipped nor that the Images of Christ and the Mother of God always a Virgin and other Saints are to be had and retained and that to them honour and veneration is to be given nor that the power of Indulgences such as the Pope grants was left by Christ in the Church nor that the use thereof is most wholesome to Christ's people nor that the Roman Church is the holy Catholick and Apostolick Church nor the Mother and Mistress of all Churches nor that true obedience is to be vowed and sworn to the Bishop of Rome nor that he is the Successor of Peter nor that Peter is the Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ Neither let them name the Popes Councils or Fathers for the first five hundred years for they held not these points Papists pretence to the Fathers of the first five hundred years is very idle because were it true as it is most false that those Fathers were Papists yet could not that suffice to prove them a continued Succession of sixteen hundred years Secondly because those of the sixth Age must needs know better what was the Religions and Tenets of them who lived in the fifth Age by whom they were instructed and with whom they daily conversed then our modern Papists can now do and they have not protested on their salvation that it was the very same with the now popish Doctrine nor that they received it from them by word of mouth and so from age to age and finally because if our Tenets in which we differ from Papists and are opposed by them be taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years then it is wholly impossible they should be for Papists and against us But our Doctrines in which we differ from Papists and are opposed by them are taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years Therefore it is impossible that the Fathers of the first five hundred years should be for Papists and against us The Major is manifest of it self The Minor is proved 1. By what hath been already cited out of those Fathers as also by what shall be cited out of them in the following dispute 2. By the ingenuous confessions of our Adversaries Cardinal Cusanus in his second Book of Catholick Concord cap. 13. saith The Pope is not the universal Bishop but the first above or among others Cardinal Bessarion of the Sacrament of the Eucharist We reade that these two onely Sacraments were delivered plainly in the Gospel Cardinal Cajetan tract de Indulg cap. 1. There can be no certainty found touching the beginning of Indulgences there is no authority of the Scripture or ancient Fathers Greek or Latin that brings it to our knowledge Durand in lib. 4. sent dist 20. qu 3. Of Indulgences few things can be said of certainty because the Scripture speaks not expresly of them Cardinal Fisher Bishop of Rochester Assert Luth. confes art 18. pag. 86. Touching Purgatory there was very little mention or none at all among the ancient as the Greeks to this day believe it not which words are cited by Polyd. Virgil. lib. 8. de invent rerum cap. 1. Cardinal Bellarmine lib. 5. de Just cap 7. For the uncertainty of our own righteousness and for avoiding of vain-glory it is most sure and safe to repose our whole confidence in the alone mercy and goodness of God Cardinal Cajetan in 3. part 2. Th. qu. 80. art 12. qu 3. The custome of the peoples receiving the Wine endured long in the Church Georg. Cass in his Defence of his Book entituled De officio pii viri saith The use of the Blood of our Lord together with his Body in the ministring of this Sacrament is both of the institution of Christ and observed by the custome of the whole Church for above a thousand years and unto this day of the Eastern Churches And although the use of one kinde came up about the year 1200. yet the most learned of those times never taught that it was necessary so to be observed Tonstal Bishop of Durhom de verit corp sanguinis p. 46. till the Council of Lateran it was free for all men to follow their own conjecture concerning the manner of Christs presence in the Eucharist Polydor Virgil. de invent rer l. 6. 13. afore the Index Expurgatorius put them out had these words By the testimony of Hierom it appears how in a manner all the ancient holy Fathers condemned the worship of images for fear of Idolatry Cassand consult tit de imag It is verily manifest out of Augustin writing on Psal 113. that in his age the use of Images in Churches was not Claudius Espencaeus a Bishop in Tit. c. 1. many hundred years after the Apostles by reason of the want of others Priests were married Greg. de Val. tom 4. disp 9. punct 5. sect 9. with others confesseth that in the most ancient times of the Church and after the Apostles death Priests had their wives Harding in his answer to Jewel on the third Article Verily in the primitive Church this was necessary when the faith was in learning And therefore the prayers were made then in a common known tongue to the people for cause of their further instruction who being of late converted to the faith and of Painims made Christians had need in all things to be taught John Hart in his Epistle to the Reader before the conference with Dr. Rainold in the Tower In truth I think that although the spiritual power be more excellent than the temporal yet they are both of God neither doth the one depend of the other Whereupon I gather as a certain conclusion that the opinion of them who hold the Pope to be a temporal Lord over Kings and Princes is unreasonable and improbable altogether For he hath not to meddle with them or theirs civilly much less to depose them or give away their Kingdoms that is no part of his commission He hath in my judgement the Fatherhood of the Church not a Princehood of the world Christ himself taking no such title on him nor giving it to Peter or any other of his Disciples Bishop Jewels challenge and performance is known Bishop Mortons Catholick Apology and Appeal besides many other books are extant by which it may be plainly discerned that Papists have not the Fathers of the first five hundred years for them and that even the learned writers of the Popish party have vented so much in their writings as yeilds an apology for Protestants in all or many of the points in difference between Protestants and Papists SECT III. Protestants have had a sufficient succession to aver their doctrin in the Latin Churches BUt I shall add a direct answer to H. T. his argument 1. By denying his syllogism to
be right as having these words added in the minor or tenets c. which were not in the Major whereby there is a fourth term which makes a syllogism naught 2. By denying his Major and as a reason of that denial I say agreement of doctrin with Christ and his Apostles in the main points of faith and worship though there be no Bishops nor Priests is sufficient to a true Church and such succession as H. T. requires is not necessary 3. To the Minor though Protestants have not a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another from Christ and his Apostles to this time in the profession of the same faith or tenets the thirty nine Articles or any other set number of tenets expresly holding and denying all the same points yet they do agree with Christ and his Apostles in the doctrin of the Christian faith and the Christian worship and there hath been a succession in all ages hitherto of Christian professors holding the same points of faith in the fundamentals although sometimes more purely and conspicuously than at other times and they have opposed though not with the like success agreement or largeness in every age the Popish errors now avouched in Pope Pius the fourth his Creed and the Trent Canons And for answer to the proofs of the Major I deny that the Major proceeds from the definition to the thing defined a continued number of Bishops Priâ—sts and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time being not the definition of the continued succession necessary to the being of the true Church of God as hath been proved before in the answer to the former Article Sect 4. 5. And to the proof of the Minor I answer that Protestants may have true succession from Christ and his Apostles and may be esteemed Christians and Catholicks though they differ in many material points as long as they hold the same fundamental points and Protestants opposing all or some of the chief points of Popery as they arose and were discovered to them though they did not discern all their errors nor relinquish all their practises or the communion of the Churches subject to the Bishop of Romes rule but they were truely Protestants however otherwise named while they did hold the same fundamental truths we hold and opposed as they appeared to them all or some of the Popish corrupt worship and errors which the Protestants now do And for proof of this we rightly name the Waldenses Hussites Wicklevists Albigenses Puritan Waldenses Beringarians Grecians of whom writers testifie they excepted against the Popes supremacy purgatory half communion transubstantiation setting up and worship of Images propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for quick and dead invocation and worship of Angels and Saints deceased seven Sacraments with other errors of the now Romanists and yet in the chief points of Christian faith and worship did agree with the now Protestants as may be gathered from the confessions and writings of their own either extant or acknowledged in the histories and writings of their adversaries such as were Rainerius Aeneas Sylvius Cochlaeus and others See Samuel Morlands history of the Evangelical Churches in Piedmont the first book by which their confessions and treatises are brought to light agreeing with Protestants What H. T. brings against this is either falsly ascribed to them by the calumnies of their adversaries whose recitals of their opinions to the worst sense no man hath reason to believe especially considering their works extant do refute them and it hath been often complained of that they have been misinterpreted and misreported or else if true is insufficient to invalidate our allegation of them H. T. tells us the Waldenses held the real presence that the Apostles were lay men that all Magistrates fell from their dignity by any mortal sin that it is not lawful to swear in any case c. Illiricus in Catalog Waldens Confes Bohem. a. 1. and Waldo an unlearned Merchant of Lyons lived but in the year 1160. Answ Sure he was not altogether unlearned of whom it is said by some that have seen his doings yet remaining in old parchment monuments that it appeareth he was both able to declare and to translate the books of Scripture also did collect the Doctors minas upon the same Yet were he unlearned sure he had store of companions among the Romanists Friers Bishops and Popes of those times by one of whom a Bishop was condemned as an heretick for holding that there are Antipodes and Paul the second saith Platina pronounced them hereticks who should from thence forth mention the name of the Academy either in earnest or in jest The very decrees and Epistles of the Popes in their Canon law shew that few of them had any skill in the Scriptures or the original languages competent to divines and who so readeth their writings observingly shall find that the ablest of their schoolmen in those dayes were very ignorant of the Scripture sense and language Nor do I think the Popes and generality of Bishops and Priests and Preachers among the Romanists at this day are men of much learning in the holy Scriptures So that I presume Waldus as unlearned as he was was comparable to the Roman Clergy at that time in learning and for holiness of life by the relation even of Popish writers exceeding them as much as gold exceeds lead and therefore as likely to know the mind of God as any Pope or Bishop or Frier at that time Now clear it is by an ancient manuscript alledged by the Magdeburg cent 12. c. 8. that the Waldenses held that the Scripture is the only rale in the Articles of faith fathers and councils no otherwise to be received then as they agree with the Scriptures that the Scriptures are to be read by all sorts of men that there are two Sacraments of the Church that the Lords supper is appointed by Christ and to be received by all sorts in both kinds that Masses were impious and that it was a madness to say Masses for the dead purgatory to be a figment the invocation and worship of dead Saints to be idolatry the Roman Church to be the whore of Babylon that the Pope hath not the supremacy of all the Churches of Christ marriage of Priests to be lawful with sundry more which are agreeable to Protestant tenets against Papists which is confirmed because much to the same purpose Aeneas Sylvius in his Bohemian history writes of their opinions Nor is it likely they held what they are said by H. T. to have held For it appears by the dispute between them and one Dr. Austin set down by Mr. Fox Acts and Monuments at the year 1179. out of Orthuinus de gratiis that their opinion was that Christ is one and the same with his natural body in the Sacrament which he is at the right hand of his Father but not after the same
great an opinion Of the four later surely the two last lesse deserve the name the later Nicene council being affronted by the Carolin council about Images at Frankford and the eighth by another of the same place of better note by Michael the Emperor and Photius the learned Parriarch of Constantinople who sure acknowledged not the Popes Monarchy but lived and died in contest against them But neither the four first nor the four last did ever ascribe to the Pope of Rome the monarchy and supremacy which are now arrogated nor did they ever receive what they professed because they professed it nor doth the desire or acceptance much lesse the having the Popes approbation at all prove any authority over them in him it being a thing usual to seek approbation of men who have no authority over the seekers by reason of their esteem for prudence learning and other qualities and for the more ready receipt of what they seek to have approved But the councils determinations and that with Anathema to the gainsayers shewed that they judged themselves to have decisive power without the Pope though his consent also were added as useful for some purposes 3. Saith H. T. The first revolt was made by the Grecians denying the procession of the holy Ghost from God the Son they were united again to the Church of Rome in the council of Florence sess last Answ 1. The denying of the procession of the Holy Ghost from God the Son is shewed to be an error only in manner of speaking by Sir Richard Field of the Church third book ch 1. and other learned men 2. The revolt so long shews the Protestants had predecessors for many hundred years together in opposing the usurpations and errors of the Roman Popes and Churches 3. The reconciliation at Florence was but an imperfect thing by persons whose acts were not avowed afterwards nor did the union hold but was quickly dissolved 4. The council of Florence was a council not allowed by that at Basil as being only of a faction to avoid the questioning of Pope Eugenius See Platina in vita Eugenii 4. 4. Saith H. T. they held transubstantiation seven Sacraments unbloody sacrifice prayer to Saints and for the dead cens eccles orientalis c. 7 10 12 13 21. Answ The Grecians hold not any such transubstantiation as whereby the elements are abolished and cease to be that they were but whereby they become what they were not and the transubstantiation they hold is a change of the communicants into the being of Christ that is partakers of the divine nature as the Apostle means when he saith they are the body of Christ as Dr. Field proves out of Dam. scen Cyril and others in his third book of the Church ch 1. Bishop Jewel reply to Hardings answer art 10. Nor are the speeches of transubstantiation transelementation and such like terms used by the Greeks any other than lofty hyperbolical speeches such as the Apostle useth when he saith Christ was crucified among the Galatians Gal. 3. 1. which abound in Chrysostome Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita c. insomuch that Chrysostom sometimes expresseth the presence of Christ in the eucharist as if it were sensible the communicants touching Christs body seeing his blood having their mouths made red by it sucking his blood receiving him into our house with more of the like as may be seen in Chamier Panstr cath tom 4. lib. 11. c. 9. As for seven Sacraments the Greeks do not teach them to be so many and no more nor the unbloody sacrifice any otherwise then by it to mean a commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ as Chrysostom in his hom on the tenth to the Hebrew expresseth it It cannot be proved that the Greeks use such prayer to Saints as the Papists do directing their prayers to them as hearers and by vertue of their merits helpers to them that call on them Neither do they pray for the dead shut up in purgatory which as I alleged out of Roffensis the Greeks do this day deny and there enduring punishment of sense for deliverance thence but commemorate the dead even the most holy martyrs and confessors and pray for their happy resurrection and acquittal in the last judgement As for the Egyptian Christians and Armenians what they hold is not so easie to know by reason of their remoteness from Europe nor what Succession they have had But this is manifest enough that they did never submit to the Bishop of Rome as their Head except what was done at Florence for which Michael Paleologus the Greek Emperour was abhorred by the Greeks and denied Burial and Isidor Arch-bishop of Kioâ—ia in Russta deposed and put to death or by some obscure persons whose acts the Churches never owned and yet there doth not appear sufficient reason to exclude them out of the Catholick Church notwithstanding such Errours as are imputed to them nor to question their Succession Nor is the Protestants pretence to the Fathers of the first five hundred years idle it being not false but most true and so proved by Jewel and others and the Answers of Harding and other Romanists proved insufficient that they were in the most material points Protestants that is held otherwise than the Romanists now do And though it prove not a Succession of sixteen hundred years continued yet it proves a Succession of so long continuance as will make void the popish claim of Succession as peculiar to them and with any considerate person so far take place as to justifie the Protestants opposition against the modern Papist's Errours and Innovations 'T is true those of the sixth Age must needs know better what was the Religions and Tenets of them who lived in the fifth Age by whom they were instructed and with whom they daily conversed than Protestants can now do in those things which they delivered by word of mouth to them if they were heedfull intelligent and mindefull of what they heard But what they left in writing we may know as well as they And experience shews that oft times upon mistakes and sometimes voluntarily the sayings of men spoken yea sometimes their very Writings either by unskilfulness or negligence or fraud are mis-reported and therefore notwithstanding this reason of the acquaintance of those of the sixth Age with those of the fifth yet it may be that Protestants may know the minde of the Fathers in the fifth Age as well as those that lived in the sixth But that those of the sixth Age have protested on their salvation that the Doctrine taught by the Fathers in the fifth Age was the very same with their in every point or the Doctrine now taught by the Romanists was received from them by word of mouth and so from Age to Age is not true yet if they should we have no more cause to credit them than the Church had to believe the Millenaries and Quartodesimans because of Papias and others their report of John with whom they conversed SECT
Catholick for time and place is not the church of Christ 2. But the Protestant church and the like may be said of all other Sectaries is not universal or Catholick for time and place 3. Therefore the Protestant church is not the church of Christ The Major hath been proved before The Minor is proved because before Luther who lived little above â—ixscore years ago there were no Protestants to be found in the whole world as hath been proved by us and confessed by our adversaries To which you may adde they have never yet been able to convert any one Nation from infidelity to the faith of Christ nor ever had communion with all nations nor indeed any perfect communion among themselves therefore they cannot be the Catholick Church Answ The Major That church which is not universal for time and place is not the Church of Christ If meant of actual or aptitudinal universality is not true For the church of the Jews afore Cornelius was converted by Peter had been no church of Christ which was actually yea and aptitudinally that is according to Peters and other Christians circumcised their opinions and intentions to be confined to the Jews and therefore no other church than on earth were or was believed by Peter and those who contended with him Act. 11. 2. and yet there was a Church of Christ before as is manifest from Acts 2. 47. But if the Major be understood of universality of faith thus That church which is not universal for time and place by holding the faith once delivered by the Apostles to the Saints is not the church of Christ it is granted but in that sense the Minor is false the Protestants church is universal for time and place that is holds the same faith which was in all places preached by the Apostles and Apostolical teachers to believers And in this sense Protestants have been in every age before Luther and have as really converted Nations from infidelity to the faith of Christ as the Popish church or Teachers and have had more perfect communion with all Nations and among themselves then Papists as such have had and the Papists have not been so but have held a new faith not embraced by a great part of Christians nor in all places received or known nor for many hundreds of years taught in the churches but lately by the Italian faction devised to uphold the Popes tyranny and their own gain And therefore I retort the argument thus That church which is not universal or Catholick for the time and place is not the church of Christ But the Popish Roman church is not universal or Catholick for time and place but is of late standing therefore it is not the true church of Christ SECT VII The words of Irenaeus Origen Lactantius Cyril of Hierusalem Augustin are not for the universality of H. T. which he asserts the Catholicism of the Roman church but against it AS for the words of the Fathers which H. T. allegeth on this Article they are not for H. T. his purpose to prove that that is the only true church which is subject to the Bishop of Rome or that the Roman church is the Catholick church but they prove the contrary For the words of Irenaem l. 4. adv haereses c. 43. are these Wherefore we ought to obey those Presbyters which are in the church those which have succession from the Apostles as we have shewed who with the succession of Bishoprick have received the certain gift of truth according to the pleasure of the Father but to have the rest suspected either as hereticks and of evil opinion or as renters and lifted up and pleasing themselves or again as hypocrites working for gain and vain glories sake who depart from the original succession and are gathered in every place For all these fall from the truth By which it may be perceived 1. That H. T. omitted sundry words which would have shewed that Presbyters and Bishops were all one 2. That Irenaeus requires that those to whom he would have obedience given be such as have not only succession of place but also the certain gift of truth Whence it follows 1. That this speech doth not prove that we are to obey only the Bishop of Rome or the Roman Church but any Presbyters 2. That the succession required is not confined to Rome but extended to any place 3. That succession to any of the Apostles as well as Peter is termed original succession 4. That Presbyters who in any place depart not from the truth are in the church And therefore this place is so far from proving the necessity of unity with the Roman church or that it is the Catholick church that it proves the contrary The words of Origen are not for H. T. which require no other doctrine to be kept but that which is by order of succession from the Apostles and remains in the church to his time For neither do they say the church is only the Roman church nor that doctrine to be kept which remains in it or that which is delivered from Peter only or by order of succession from his chair or is delivered by unwritten tradition but that which is delivered any way from the Apostles by succession in any place The words of Lactantius are lesse for H. T. which do not at all call the Roman the Catholick church nor say in it only is Gods true worship and service and hope of life but in the Catholick church that is the Church of true believers all over the world as the words of Cyril of Hierusalem next alleged do shew in which is nothing for H. T. or against us And for the words of Augustin in his Book de vera religione cap. 7. We must hold the communion of that church which is called catholick both by her own and strangers they are maimedly recited Augustin saying that we are to hold the Christian Religion and communion of that church not onely which is named catholick but which is catholick and is named catholick and cap. 6. he explains what is meant by Catholick church per totum orbem validè latéque diffusa spread over the whole World firmly and largely and of the Religion which he terms the History and Prophecy of the temporal dispensation of the divine Providence for the salvation of mankinde to be reformed and repaired unto eternal life Whereby it may be perceived that he neither accounted that Christian Religion which is about the Bishop of Rome's power or any of the Popish Tenets which Protestants deny but the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ nor the catholick church the Roman onely but the Christian church throughout the World which consists of them who are named Christians Catholicks or Orthodox that is Keepers of integrity and followers of the things which are right as he speaks cap. 5. And for the words of Augustine Epist 152. that whosoever is divided from the catholick church how laudable soever he seems to himself to
I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used 1 Cor. 7. 37. for stedfast and 1 Cor. 15. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stedfast unmoveable are made synonymous and Col. 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grounded and setled in the faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not moved away from the hope So that the meaning is no more but this the Church of the living God is not a tile which is often shaken and blown down with the winde but a pillar that abides unshaken and the seat or ground or basis of truth where it abides being received and embraced by it Which is to be understood of the invisible Church of true believers and though not of every truth yet of the main truth of the Gospel as it is termed Gal. 1. 5. the Word of truth James 1. 18. the truth John 17. 17. which is expressed in the next words 1 Tim. 3. 16. from which he foretels an Apostasie 1 Tim. 4. 1. and cannot be meant of any truth whatsoever which may be in controversie For it is certain no meer mortal man nor all men were ever so infallible Which being rightly understood makes nothing for infallibility in all points which the Catholick Roman Church Oecumenical council or Pope or all together shall define as H. T. would have it The next text Matth. 16. 18. is as little to his purpose For it is not said against the Roman Church much lesse it is said against an Oecumenical council or the Pope of Rome the gates of hell shall not prevail but against my Church that is Christs wheresoever 2. Nor is it proved that by the gates of hell are meant heresies as this Author supposeth The truth is however by the modern use the term hell is appropriated almost to the place of the damned and the tormented there yet the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated hell is either never or not many times used in the bible for that place or those persons nor was of old the word hell appropriated to that place of torment but meant of the grave or the state of the dead in which sense it was meant of old that Christ went into hell that is for a time to abide among the dead as the learned Usher proves in his answer to the Jesuits challenge ch 8. and the gates of hell are no more than the gates of death or the grave as Isa 38. 10 Psal 9. 13. c. is meant So that the meaning of Matth. 16. 18. is no more but this the gates of hell or the grave that is death shall not so prevail against my Church but that I will raise it up at the last day to life eternal as our Lord Christ speaks John 6. 39. Which being the genuine meaning it is true onely of the church of the elect not of the meer visible nor of that is such a prevalency denied but that they may erre in faith however it be assured that it shall not erre in faith finally to perdition The next Text John 14. 26. is ill translated shall suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall say to you the words being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he shall minde you of all things which I have said to you nor is this meant onely in points of faith as this Authour adds without any reason in the Text that he might restrain it to them in which he would have the church to be accounted infallible but also in matters of practise and this is meant onely of the Apostles as the words which I have said to you and particularities expressed vers 25 28 29. chap. 15. 27. chap. 16 4 6 12 13. shew And in like manner is the next Text John 16. 13. appropriate to the Apostles to whom the words were spoken Nor are the words restrained to matters of faith but extended also to points of practise and there is a promise of shewing them also things to come Which argues plainly that it is not a promise to the whole Church or Pope or Council or every particular believer sith it is certain that to none of these it is verified they have not things to come shewed to them according to that promise and therefore it must needs be impertinently alleged by H. T. to prove his Minor The last Text Acts 15. 28. H. T. himself confesseth was said by the Apostles in council not by Peter onely nor by a council without the Apostles much less by any Bishop of one City as Rome is and therefore proves not any unerringness in any but the Apostles nor in them at all times in all points of faith but onely their not erring in their determination at that time So that his Texts do none of them prove his Minor SECT V. There may be good assurance of the Word of God and its meaning and of our salvation without supposing the churches infallibility H. T. adds The consequence is confirmed because were not the Church infallible in things of faith we could have no infallible assurance at this distance what were the Word of God what not or what is the true sense and meaning of any one Book or Chapter in the whole Bible nor consequently of our salvation since without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Answ H. T. Hath here vented a most poysonous and impious speech which tends to ruine the Foundation of Christian Faith and to promote Atheism yea in seeking to promote the arrogant claim of the Roman Bishop he doth by his arguing quite pull it down For if there be no infallible assurance without the churches infallibility in things of faith what is the Word of God what not nor what is the meaning of one Book or Chapter in the whole Bible then there is no certainty but from the Churches testimony of the truth of Christian Religion and that being questioned we have no way to convince an Atheist or Jew or Maâ—omâ—tan who deny such inâ—allibility nor hath the Pope any way to prove his Supremacy or Transubstantiation to be certain points of Faith but by the Churches infallibility that is indeed his own saying in which he that believes him upon no better ground is departed from faith in God to faith in a confesâ—edly sinfull and oft times notoriously wicked man and so makes not God's authority the formal moâ—ive and object of his faith as H. T. said pag. 58. falsly the Romanists do Besides how injurious is it to God to make him to have delivered his minde so as none can understand it without the Pope or a Council approved by him of whom according to H. T. his Doctrine who saith pag. 202. that sense cannot judge at all of substance though it be under sensible accidents there is no certainty whether they be men or not if we cannot judge of substance by sense Surely Christ did very ill to direct Infidels to search the Scriptures John 5.
39 and never to repair to the Church to be resolved in points of faith if H. T. say true How much doth he abase the credit of the Scripture who makes it to depend on mens for such is the Churches pretended infallibility report and ascribes it to Popes and Councils who do oft contradict themselves and one another which is onely to be had from God and his Word What is this but as in another case Tertullian said of the Roman Senates decreeing who should be worshipped as God God shall not be God unless man will so Gods Word shall not be his Word unless man will Which is so much the worse in H. T. who Art 8. ascribes that assurance to unwritten tradition of which there is no assurance but from men confessedly fallible as shall be shewed Art 8. which he denies to be from Scripture as if the obscure tradition of unknown persons from Age to Age were more certain than the great written tradition received from Apostles by the whole Church Besides how doth he reckon of all other besides Popes and Councils as if they were all idiots and fools that they can understand no Chapter of the Bible without the Pope who hath been sometimes altogether unlearned What Blockheads would he have men think themselves after all their study of Languages and Arts and of the Scripture that yet they cannot be certain what is the true sense and meaning of Matth. 4. Acts 8. or any other Chapter in the Bible unless the Church that is the Pope tell them Why do not all their Commentators and Preachers first ask the Pope of the meâ—ning of the Scripture afore they by writing or preaching take on them to expound it Why doth not the Pope forbid them to expound till they have consulted him Will â—e permiâ— them to teach that of which they have no infallible assurance Why doth he tie men to follow the consent of Fathers as Pope Pius the fourth in his Bull did if the Fathers yield no infallible assurance of the true meaning of any Chapter in the Bible without the Churches that is the Popes or his Councells infallibility How did it come to pass that the Fathers Chrysostome Hiâ—rome c. did so well expound the Scriptures as that their consent must be the Rule of modern Exposition Did they first consult the Church or the Church them Pope Damasus I believe had more help from Hierome to expound Scripture by than Hierome from Dâ—mâ—sus Have the Popes any better means to expound Scripture by than the Fathers or the Fathers than other learned men in these days Wherein did any of the Fathers exceed Cajetan Arias Montaâ—us and such learned Romanists or any of all the Popes after the Apostles days in ability to open Scripture Would not such men as these secretly disdain and smile in scorn if any should prefer any of the best Expoâ—itions of Popes before their own Will the Jansenians or Moliniâ—â—s think either the late Pope Innocent or the present Pope Alexander more infallible in their Eâ—positions than themselves I trow not so little is the pretended infallibility of the Church esteemed when it toucheth themselves however they make a great noise of it against Protestants yea some Papists have well preferred the Expositions of later Writers before the Fathers and Councils and Popes giving this for a Reason that later Writers have had more help in that they have had their own abilities and diligence to boot for finding the meaning of Scripture besides the Fathers Writings and may see farther than they did as a Childe set on a Giants shoulder as Banner did fitly express it Do not at this day the learned Expositors reject the Expositions of Fathers and Popes and Councils Doth not Maldonat the Jesuit expresly reject in his Commentâ—ry on John 6. 53. the Exposition of that Verse by which Pope Innocent Augustine and many of the Fathers following held the giving the Eucharist to Infants necessary to their salvation which the Council of Trenâ— it self doth condemn So sottish a conceit hath H. T. here vented that doubtless none but the ignorant sort of Popish Proselytes can believe him in if they do not resolve not to seem to see what they do see But were it granted that the Church were infallible I would fain know how H. T. can demonstrate who or which is that Church which is infallible or give assurance at this distance from Rome that this or that point of faith is thus determined by that infallible Church Will he make every Priest or Legate or Register of the Pope to be infallible If not let him tell me how he is infallibly assured that Pope Innocent the third or the Latâ—ran Council did define Transubstantiation or Pope Leo the tenth and the last Lateran Council the Popes Supremacy If he say by universal tradition or the Records which are kept and are to be seen and the agreement of opposite parties though in the points named there are none of these means which do give such assurance of those determinations as is given by them of the Scriptures sure me thinks H. T. who makes such determinations to be assuredly theirs upon such or the like Reasons of their credibility should yield that there is more assurance from these without the infallibility of the Church of the holy Scriptures being Gods Word and the true sense and meaning of it Will H. T. be more unbelieving than a Jew who acknowledgeth the Books of Moses the Psalms and Prophets to be Gods Word Will he not allow that to a Christian which the Jew had to wit assurâ—nce infallible from Micah 5. 2. that the Messiasâ—hould â—hould be born at Beâ—hlehem without the Churches infallibility Will H. T. think he can make such men as Arias Montanus or Cardinal Cajâ—tan and other learned Romanists believe that they are not certain of the Gospel of Matthew to be Gods Word or of the true sense and meaning of the third fourth fifth sixth seventh Chapters thereof without the Churches declaration Did they gather their Expositions out of Popes Decrees Canons of Councils or examine them by them Does not he know that in many places those and other learned men have interpreted Texts otherwise than Popes and Councils approved by him have expounded them Do not they know that such an attempt would be but an exposing of Popes and Councils to contempt and make their Canon Law appear â—idiculous What unmercifulness and carelesness of mens souls is there in Popes Councils Churches if they are infallible that in the space of sixteen hundred years they have not given us such a Commentary on the Bible as may take away all doubts from inquiring Christians about the true meaning of the Scripture and determine all controversies in points of faith Sure it 's fitter work than to enrich their kindred advance base sons give audience to Embassadours over-aw Princes and Emperours subdue the holy Land About which Popes and Councils have wasted a world of
blood and treasure when perhaps one Protestant or Popish commentator hath profitably illustrated the whole Bible Why doth H. T. with his collegues if they believe what he saith of the infallibility of the church to be true petition the Pope to do this or call a council and at last together do it To what purpose should any else but Popes and councils study the Scripture compare copies revise Translations examine Interpretation if there be no assurance in points of faith of the meaning of the Scripture without the churches infallibility But alas how far from infallibility Popes are and of all men the unfittest to do any thing in this kinde the shamefull disagreement between Pope Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth their Editions of the vulgar Latin Bible doth abundantly declare as may be seen in Dr. James his Bellum Papale whereby it may be perceived how miserably and perpetually the souls of Christians must fluctuate and be tossed up and down and at last drowned if they have no assurance of the meaning of Scripture but from this pretended infallibility of the church which is no better to stay a Soul than an anchor of cork to stay a ship I abhor therefore justly this blasphemous speech of H. T. whereby the souls of men must be brought to waver in faith if they receive it and not onely sinfull but also the weakest and worst of men for such they confess many of the Popes have been idolized by ascribing that to them which is proper onely to him who cannot be deceived nor deceive And I protest that should the Pope and his Consistory or general Council and all the Churches of the World conspire together to say that the Books of Moses the Prophets the Psalms of the four Evangelists Paul James Peter Jude and John are not the Word of God yet I am assured not onely by tradition of the Jews and Christians but also by the very confessions of Adversaries and chiefly by the matter of them which shews it self to come from God the Spirit of God giving me a discerning understanding thereof that they are the Word of God and that the meaning of them is in the main points of faith as the Articles of the Creed express concerning one God and one Lord his Incarnation Preaching Crucifying Death Resurrection Ascension coming to Judgement the holy Spirit the Church of God forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ Resurrection of the body and life eternal which I know by understanding the meaning of the words and thereby am assured that neither is the Popes Supremacy nor his and his Councils infallibility nor his power of granting Absolutions and Indulgences by his Bull nor the Transubstantiation of Bread into Christ's Flesh nor the worshipping of Images nor a Purgatory fire after Death in a part of Hell nor communion under one kinde nor Invocation of dead Saints and holy Angels nor Prayer in an unknown Tongue nor Justification by Works nor good Works meriting eternal life of condignity taught in them And if I did think I were to doubt of any of these Assertions I should turn Sceptick and doubt whether there were a Moses or David or Solomon or Mahomet whether I knew the meaning of their words yea whether there be such a City as Rome or Trent such a man as the Pope such a Council as the Tridentin such Canons as are said to be theirs or such a Creed as is said to be by Pope Pius the fourth required to be confessed by Romanists or that the meaning were as H. T. conceives in a word I should begin to doubt whether I hear what I hear should affirm any thing make any Confession of Faith but think my self to be in a Dream when I write talk eat drink hear or do any acts of a living waking man As for assurance of our salvation the denial of which H. T. counts an absurdity I am glad to read it and that thereby he gives some occasion to question whether he believes the Doctrine of the Trent Council Sess 6. chap. 9. That no man can know by certainty of Faith which cannot be false that he hath obtained the grace of God But for my part as I know that the Doctrine of the Romanists is inconsistent with it self when they teach that the Priests Absolution and ministring Sacraments doth give infallibly Grace and Remission of Sins and yet that a man cannot be certain with certainty of faith that he hatâ— obtained Grace So I am infâ—llibly assured without any Popes or Councils or Churches determination of my salvation through faith in Christ Jesus by the Spirit of adoption and hope to please God by faith in Christ though I reject Popes Councils Churches Decrees or Canons which are not from the holy Scripture but unwritten tradition or invention of men many of them being most foolish and ridiculous toys and abuses of Scripture more like Mahomeâ—'s Alcoran than the Oracles of God SECT VI. Neither can the Church oblige men under pain of damnation to believe her Definitions of Faith nor is there any such judicature as H. T. asserts to be ascribed to her nor do any of the Fathers cited by H. T. say it is but the words of Irenaeus Cyprian lib. 1. epist 3. August conâ— Epist Fund cap. 5. c. are shewed not to be for it but some of them plainly against it H. T. hath one more Argument for his Delilah the Churches infallibility which is his fourth and last thus The Church hath a power from God to oblige all men under pain of Damnation to believe her in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith But she could not have such a Power from God unless she were infallible in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith Therefore she is infallible in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith The Major is proved by all those Texts above cited in the first and second Arguments as also by the Councils of all Ages which command all men under pain of Damnation to believe and subscribe to her Decrees and Definitions of Faith which hath accordingly been done by the Fathers and all true Believers The Minor is proved by reason because it were not consistent with the justice mercy or veracity of God to give a fallible and erring Judge such a power in things of that high consequence Answ 1. THe conclusion is still different from the tenet 2. The Major is denied and it is denied that the texts cited did prove it noâ— doth the practise of the councils putting anathema to their canons prove it For 1. It is not proved they did well in so doing except when their definitions agree with the holy Scriptures and when they do so they do not more then every believer may do whom they will not say to be infallible 2. Nor have all the Fathers or true believers subscribed to the decrees of councils and their definitions of faith nor do the Papists themselves subscribe to those they call general councils not to
the Chalcedon which gave the Patriarch of Constanâ—inople equal power with the Roman in his Province and ascribed the Popes dignity not to any grant of Christ to Peter but to custome out of regard to Rome as the imperial city not to the council of Basil or Constance which made the council above the Pope But H. T. adds an argument for the Churches supreme power of judicature That is the supreme Judge in every cause who hath an absolute power to oblige all dissenters to an agreement and from whom there can be no appeal in such a cause But the Catholick Church hath an absolute power to oblige all that disagree in controverted points of faith nor is there any appeal from her decision therefore the Catholick Church is supreme Judge in controverted points of faith The Major is manifest by induction in all courts of judicature the Minor hath been proved above by the first second and fourth arguments Answ It is denied that the Minor hath been proved or that there is any other Judge besides the sentence of God in holy Scripture which can so oblige dissenters in those points Nor do a great part of Papists themselves at this day namely the French Papists make such account of the Roman church oâ— Popes judgement but that they do conceive they may and sometimes have appealed from them to a general council Occham held that the Pope was haereticabilis that is might be an heretick some of them being suspected of heresie have been fain to acquit themselves to Emperours by Apologies some of them have been condemned as hereticks by general councils Fathers universitie of Paris Gerson wrote a book de auferibilitate Papae and the French churches conceive their churches may be without a Pope and well governed by a Patriarch of their own It is but a new and late invented doctrine of Jesuits and other flatterers of Popes that the Roman church or Pope or a general council approved by him are infallible nor is there a word in any of the Fathers cited by H. T. to that purpose The words of Irenaeus l. 3. c. 40. are cited maimedly by H. T. they are entirely thus For where the Church is there is also the spirit and where the spirit of God is there is the Church and all grace but the spirit is truth By which it may appear that truth is ascribed to the Church by reason of the spirit and that by the Church he means not only the Roman but any where the Spirit of God is and in the words before he sets down the truth he means to wit that if one God and salvation by Christ which he terms the constant preaching of the Church on every side and equally persevering having testimony from Prophets and from Apostles and from all Disciples By which it is manifest that he commends no other preaching of the Church then is in the Scriptures not the definitions of any now existent Church or after Church without the Scriptures The next words of Irenaeus are not as here H. T. themâ— 1. c. 49. there being not in my book so many chapters but l. 4. c. 43. and are alleged by H. T. art 4. and answered by me before art 4. sect 7. The other words of Irenaeus The Church shall be under no mans judgement for to the Church all things are known in which is perfect faith of the Father and of all the dispensation of Christ and firme knowledge of the holy Ghost who teacheth all truth I finde not any where as he cites them In l. 1. there are not sixty two chapters and in l. 4. c. 62. which I suspect by his former quotation he would have cited the words are thus After he had said ch 53. such a Disciple meaning who had read diligently the holy Scripture which is with the Presbyters in the Church with whom is the Apostolical doctrine truely spiritual receiving the Spirit of God c. judgeth indeed all men but he himself is judged of none in several following chapters sets down various hereticks whom he shall judge and ch 62. saith he shall judge also all those who are without the truth that is the Church but he himself is judged of none For all things constant are known or manifest to him both the entire faith in one God omnipotent from whom all things are and in the Son of God Christ Jesus our Lord and the dispositions of him by which the Son of God was made man the firm sentence which is in the spirit of God who causeth the acknowledging of truth who hath expounded the dispositions of the Father and Son according to which he was present with mankind as the Father willeth By which any one may perceive that H. T. if these were the words he meant hath corruptly cited them mangling them and perverting them to prove an infallibility and supreme judicature of the Roman Church or Pope for others which are meant of every true spiritual Disciple and his private judgement for himself and in the main points of faith and according to and by means of the Apostolical doctrine of the Scriptures which is the very doctrine of Protestants concerning the judgement which each Christian may have and hath in points of faith and the certainty of it according to the Scriptures which while he follows he is judged of none nor needs any ones judgement Popes or others to define what he shall believe The words of Origen That only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagreeth from the tradition of the Church And in our understanding Scripture c. We must not believe otherwise than the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us prefat in lib. periarch Whether they be rightly cited I know not having not the book to examine them by and by his other citations as by his citation of Origen art 4. where the same words as I conceive are cited somewhat otherwise which are answered art 4. sect 7. before the words from the Apostles being here left out and his c. here I suspect fraud Yet if the words be as he cites them they prove not what he brings them for there being no restriction to the Roman Church much lesse to the Pope nor is the tradition of the Church said to be that which is unwritten and other then is in the Scriptures and the faith which by succession the Church is said to deliver is not meant of any of those points which the Pope would obtrude on the Church of God and Protestants reject but in probability the points of faith which were in the Apostles Creed professed at baptism which Irenaeus Origen Tertullian c. were wont to hold forth against the hereticks of their times and Protestants do still avouch The words of Cyprian de unitate Eccles are not meant of the Roman Church but of the Church throughout the whole world as the words precedent shew and the freedom from adultery and the uncorruptednesse and chastity of
the Church cannot be meant of every visible Church as if it were free from error but of the true Spouse of Christ nor is the true Spouse of Christ free from error of any sort but that which is in the main points of faith concerning the Father Son and holy Spirit as the words following shew nor is he said to be separated from the promises of the Father or not to have God for his Father who divides from the Church of Rome and hath not it for his mother nor are all other Churches said to be adulteresses who hold not with the now Roman church but he who divides from the Catholick church nor hath it for his mother of whom he had said Illius faetuâ—nascimur illius lacte nutrimur spiritu â—jus animamur whence it appears that he meant the church to be his mother who is born again with the same birth baptism or faith nourished by her milk that is the Word of the Gospel and animated by the same Spirit And of this it is granted that whoever is so severed from the church of Christ that is the multitude or number of believers throughout the world who professe and are baptized into the common faith and are nourished by the same Gospel and quickned by the same Spirit they are divided from God and have not him for their Father But this proves not that he that is divided from the now Roman church is divided from God But there are other words of Cyprian cited by him as found Epist 55. in mine edition at Bafil 1558. l. 1. Epist 3. as Bellar. also cites them l. 4. de Romano pontifice c. 4. which are thus set down by H. T. To Peters chair and the principal church infidelity or false faith cannot have access in which he would insinuate 1. That the Roman church is the principal church 2. That by reason of Peters chair there no error in faith could come to that church But the words being rightly and fully set down and the Epistle being read throughout it will appear that Cyprian had no such meaning as this Author would put upon him The words are these After these things which he had related before concerning the crimes of some excluded by him out of the church of Carthage as yet over and above a false Bishop being constituted for themselves by hereticks they dare saile and bring letters from Schismaticks and profane persons to Peters chair and the principal church from whence sacerdotal unity arose and not think them to be Romans whose faith the Apostle declaring is praised to whom perfidiousness cannot have accesse Iâ— which I grant the Roman church is called the principal church from whence sacerdotal unity did arise and the See of Rome Peters chair the reason of which speech is plainly set down by Cyprian himself in his book de simplicitate Prâ—latorum or de unitate Eccleâ—â—ae in these words The Lord speaketh to Peter I saith he say to thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not overcome it I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and what things thou shalt binde upon earth shall be bound also in the heavens and what things thou shalt loose upon earth shall be also loosed in heaven And to the same after his resurrection he saith Feed my sheep And although to all the Apostles after his resurrection he bestowed equal power and saith As my Father sent me I also send you receive the holy Ghost if ye remit sins to any they shall be remitted to him if ye â—old them to any they shall be held yet that he might manifest unity he hath disposed by his authority the rise of the same unity beginning from one Verily the other Apostles were also that which Peter was endued with equal allotment of honour and power but the beginning comes from unity that the church may be shewed to be one And a little after which unity we ought firmly to hold and vindicate chiefly Bishops who are President in the church that we may prove also Bishoprick it self to be one and undivided Let no man deceive the fraternity with a lye let no man corrupt the truth of faith with perfidious prevarication Bishoprick is one of which by each entirely a part is held By which words it is manifest that Cyprian made the Roman church the principal church not because the Bishop of Rome was above any other in honour and power or that Peters chair was more infallible than other Apostles chairs or that a supremacy over the whole church did belong to the Pope of Rome for he expressely saith that the other Apostles were the same that Peter was that they were endued with equal allotment or fellowship of honour and power and that in solidum wholly and entirely that is as much one as another each Bishop held his part in the one Bishoprick but because he made the unity of Episcopacy to have its original from Christs grant to Peter Matth. 16. 18. that all Bishops might be as one none arrogating more to himself than another And that this was Cyprians minde appears 1. By the words in his Epistle to Pope Cornelius presently after the words which H. T. cites where against the practise of those that sailed to Rome to bring thither letters of complaint against Cyprian he saith But what cause is there of their going and declaring their making a false Bishop against the Bishops For either that pleaseth then which they have done and they persevere in their wickedness or if it displeaseth them and they recede they know whither they should return For sâ—â—h it is decreed by all us and it is â—qual alike and just that every ones cause should be there heard where the crime is admitted and to several Pastors a portion of the flock is ascribed which each Pastor should rule and govern being to give account to the Lord of his own act it is meet verily that thosâ— over whom we are president should not run about nor break the cohering concord of Bishops by their subdolous and fallacious rashness but there plead their cause where they may have both accusers and witnesses of their own crime unless to a few desperate and wâ—etched persons the authority of the Bishops setled in Africa seem less who have already judged of them and by the weight of their judgement have damned their conscience bound with the many snares of their sins Which words shew that Cyprian denied the authority of the Bishops of Africa to he less thâ—n the Bishop of Rome and that persons should appeal from them to Rome but asserts that they ought to stand to the judgement of their own Bishops and that a portion of the flock is given to each Pastor which he ought to rule and govern and thereof must give account to the Lord not the whole to any one no not to the Bishop of Rome and therefore he ought
the Apostles or if restrained to the church of that age it is meant of those that preâ—ched the Gospel to him 2. The words ego vero evangelio non crederem nisi me Catholicae Ecclesâ—ae commoveret authoritas are not well rendred by H. T. as if they did declare his purpose for the future or that he would not believe the Gospel or any other reason but the Roman or present universal churches authority For this had been an impious speech in this sense and unfit for a holy man much more for a Bishop and contrary to many passages of the same Author as particularly lib. confes 9. c. 5. in which he saith that God would not have given so excellent an authority to the Scripture through all lands unless he would that by it God should be believed But either he used the Imperfect tense for the Praeterperfect after the African dialect as he doth in a like speech in his book de beata vita sic exarsi ut omnes illas vellem anchoras rumpere nisi me nonnullorum â—ominum existimatio commoveret where commoveret is used for commovisset which is the same word here used and so the sense is I my self verily had not believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholick Church had moved me noting thereby the occasion of his first believing not the sole Reason or Motive of his present believing and to this sense the speeches Obtâ—mperavi dicentibus credite Evangelio ipsi Evangeliâ— catholicis prâ—edicantibus credidi recte credidisti catholicis laudantibus Evangelium quibus prae ipientibus Evangelio credidi per â—os illi credideram which express the means by which he believed and that was not authority of empire in the Church by reason of their infallible Function and right to define what is to be believed but the credit of their persons by reason of their holiness honesty wisdom and such other acts of Gods providence mentioned in the Chapter before which held him in the Church 3. Or else he speaks upon supposition that the Gospel is not believed by reason of its most sincere wisdom unto the knowledge of which few spiritual men come in this life then in that case nothing would move him to believe the Gospel but the authority of the catholick church unto which sense the words chap. 4. and the series of the Dispute seem to lead and Bellarmine lib. 4. de notis Eccles cap. 14. to reconcile Augustine's words in his Dispute against Donatists that the Church is not demonstrated by Miracles but by the Scriptures and yet against Manichaeus his Epistle of the Foundation that the Church is demonstrated by Miracles not by the Scriptures but the Scriptures by the Church saith that he speaks upon supposition because the Manichees did admit Miracles but deny the Scriptures which countenanceth this last sense Any of these ways which have their probabilities the speech may be right but not for H. T. his purpose Certainly they ascribe no infallibility or supreme judicature in controversies of faith to the Roman Pope or Church If the speech be not understood in the last sense of not believing the Gospel but by the Churches authority on supposition of the excluding the innate evidence of wisdom and truth therein or if the second sense hold not that he speaks of what he had not done at first conversion it it certain the first sense must be acknowledged that he means it of the Catholick Church from the Apostles commending it by the authority of their universal tradition in other sense specially that in which the Papists allege it it were an impious speech and contrary to many other places in his Works Sure he that reades his first second and third Chapters of his second Book of Baptism against Donatists will finde him after Cyprian fully against the ascribing to any Bishop on earth supreme judicature over other Bishops or making any Church or Council infallible but asserting that the former fullest general councils may be mended by the later and that there is no determination of any Pope or Council or Church to be rested on as infallible in points of faith but onely the holy Scripture After all this empty scribling of H. T. he yet adds I now resume the priâ—cipal Argument and retort it thus upon our adversaries The Catholick Church is infallible in all her Proposals and Definitions of Faiâ—h But the Protestant Church and the like of all other Sectaries is not infallible in her Proposals or Definitions of Faith therefore the Protestant Church is not the Catholick Church The Major hath been fully proved before The Minor must be granted by our Adversaries because they have no other way to excuse themselves from being Heretickâ— in the revolt from our Church but by falsly pretending the whole Church errs in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till they began their blessed Reformation a most blasphemous evasion as hath been proved before by which they have excluded themselves from all possible assurance of true faith or salvation and therefore to arrogate infallibility to themselves which they deny to the whole Church were a most frontless impudence And then he adds his Note whom he means by his infallible Church which is set down in the first Section of the Answer to this Article Answ 1. Understanding by the Protestant Church that Church which hath been since the year 1517. termed Protestants from the protesting against the Decree made at Spires Anno 1529. as Sleidan lib. 6. Com. reports the Conclusion is granted we yield the Protestant Church or Churches are not the Catholick Church but Members of it conceiving it would be indeed to hold the Errour of Donatists if they should appropriate the Title of the Catholick Church to themselves or count all out of it that are not of that party as the Romanists do who are in this Successours to the Donatists But if by the Protestant Church be meant the whole number of them who held the same Faith in the Fundamentals which now the Protestants hold so it is the Catholick Church 2. We deny that the Protestants are justly termed Sectaries meaning by Sectaries a party which hath departed from the primitive Christian faith or doth separate from the universal Church as it is or was at any time in its integrity 3. We deny the Major to have been proved understanding it of the universal Church of this or any Ages in which the Apostles were not and did not concur in the Proposals and Definitions of Faith 4. We grant the Minor but to the proof of it we say it is utterly false that we have no other way to acquit our selves from Heresie than by pretending the whole Church erred in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till the Reformation begun 1517. yea we say that the Errours in Faith the Idolatry and Superstition we now accuse the Roman Church of â— were many of
and yet H. T. thinks not his infallibility proved thereby 3. That they did well in using such Anathema's or the Church in submitting to them may be doubted 4. But if that be yeilded that they did well yet surely they did not set their Anathema's to their decisions because they took themselves to be infallible either by their own authority or the Popes approbation yea it is certain the Councils did set to their Anathema's when they opposed the Popes and deposed them and defined themselves above him And even the Council of Trent put their Anathema's to their definitions afore they were tendred to the Pope or Pius the fourth had approved them but they took it they might set their Anathema to their definitions because they thought them right though not themselves infallible in them And thus may any particular person pronounce Anathema as Paul did Gal. 1. 8 9. and yet not be thereby demonstrated infallible So vain is this no better then blasphemous speech of H. T. which will further appear by examining what follows SECT VIII The objections of Protestants against the Churches infallibility from Fathers and Councils are vindicated from the answers of H. T. He saith Objections from Fathers and Councils resolved Ob. The Council of Fanckford condemned the second Nicene Council for giving soveraign honour to images as you may see in the Preface to the Carolin books Answ The second Nicene Council allows no such honour to images but onely a salutation or honorary worship not true Latria or soveraign honour which it defines to be due to God onely Act. 1. 7. The Carolin books are of no authority they say that Council was not approved by the Pope which is false and that it was held at Constantinople in Bythinia whereas Constantinople is in Thracia I Reply That honour to Images which Papists will not have to be termed Latria or soveraign honour proper to God the Scripture makes soveraign honour to be given to God onely in a religious respect to wit bowing down the body to them kissing burning incense offering gifts holding up the hands lifting up the eyes praying to them which the Scripture appropriates to God and denies to images Matth. 4. 10. Revel 19. 10. 1 Kings 19. 18. Exod. 20. 4 5. Nor doth the Scripture make such distinction of Latria and Dulia but that it forbids such worship to be given to any image of an invisible being which shews subjection to them or dependence on them for such worship is religious and is an acknowledgement of a Deity in them The Scripture doth no where appropriate Latriam or the soveraign honour or worship due to God onely to offering of sacrifice but that it also condemns as idolatrous the other acts named if they be not given to Magistrates or superiors out of civil respects but to Images Angels or Saints alive or deceased in a religious respect as superiors to us to whom we are subject and on whom we depend for help and succour And therefore this plaister of H. T. is too narrow to cover the foul ulcer that came from the false Synod called the second Nicene For what is that salutation or honorary worship H. T. saith the second council of Nice allows to Images Is it not bowing down to them which Papists themselves call adoration and difference from veneration which consists onely in a decent usage without defiling defacing or such usage as shews hatred and contempt of the thing or person represented such as is done to monuments or treasure laid up to be kept but not as things set up higher then our selves to be worshipped for that is plain Idolatry and the very same with the Gentiles adoration of their Idols now this did the second Nicene Council require to be given to Images ut erigerentur adorarentur c. yea if Bellarm. lib. 2. de Imagin Sanct. c. 21. say true that Council would have them adored not only by accident that is because joyned with the thing adored but also of themselves as that in which is the reason of veneration nor onely improperly that is in the place of another so as that the proper term of the adoration should not be the Image but Christ himself but properly so as that the Image be honoured ratione sui ipsius in respect of it self as he explains his distinctions ch 20. And this adoration it was conceived by Charles the Great and the Synod of Francfurt that Nicene Council intended to give to Images and was refuted by the four books set forth by Charles the Greats authority yet to be seen and condemned by the authority of the Synod of Francfurt Anno 794. at which were present the Popes legats and did approve of the Synods determination or dissembled the Popes opinion I finde not that the Carolin books say that the second Nicene Council was not approved by the Pope if they did and that they were deprived it makes the more against the infallibility of Councils approved by the Pope which those three hundred Fathers acknowledged not who met at Francfurt The mistake of the Country wherein Nice was is not such as Bellarmin or Baronius conceive derogates from the truth of the thing testified by so many authors of credit all the ancient historians nearest that time besides Hinâ—marus Agobardus and after some English writers as Hoveden c. Bellarmin himself l. 2. de concil auth c. 7. confesseth it condemned the seventh Synod and Platina in the life of Hadrian the first saith that two worthy Bishops Theophylact and Stephan held a Synod in the name of Hadrian of German and French Bishops in which the Synod which the Greeks call the seventh was abrogated H. T. adds Ob. The Lateran Council under Pope Leo the tenth Sess 11. defined a Pope to be above a Council and the Council of Constance Sess 4. defined a Council to be above a Pope Answ Neither part was ever yet owned by the Church for an Oecumenical decree or definition and if it were it would be answered that the Lateran Council defined onely a Pope to be above a Council taken without a Pope or not approved and that the Council of Constance onely defined a Council approved by a Pope to be above a Pope without a Council which definitions are not contradictory no more than to say one part of any thing is bigger then another and the whole bigger then both so that from hence it cannot be inferred that either Council erred nor was either decree approved by the Pope I reply this is impudent outfacing with shifts the truth in things manifest to all that enquire into them He cannot deny that these contrary definitions were of two Councils which he himself p. 33 36. terms general Councils and makes Popes president in both and both he sets down in his Catalogue made to prove a succession in the Church of Rome and yet here he denies their definitions to be Oecumenical what is an Oecumenical definition if that an Oecumenical
is manifest that he makes Roâ—â— no more infallible than the Church at Smyrna or Ephesus referring the Inquisitor into the tradition Apostolical to apply himself to these as well as it for information nor doth he make the resort to be to the Church of Rome always but because at that time there was a succession of men that knew the Apostles or had the Doctrine of Christ delivered from them among whom he reckons Linus as made Bishop by Peter while he lived and so no Successour to Peter but if Peter were a Bishop of Rome which Papist say but we deny there were two Bishops of Rome together yea he makes the Church of Rome to have been founded by Peter and Paul not by Peter onely by reason of which tradition though either false or uncertain he judged there was the best assurance to be had of the Apostles Doctrine about God the Creatour against Valentinus and the rather because he was acquainted with the Teachers there as he had been with Polycarpus of Smyrna who was an acquaintance of John the Evangelist for which reason he directs also to him As for the more potent Principality which Irenaus speaks of whether it be meant of the Church or the State Ecclesiastical or Civil it is uncertain if of the Civil Principality because then it was the Seat of the Empire the necessity of resort thither must be because civil affairs would enforce them to go thither upon other occasions and then they might inform themselves being there most commodiously if of Ecclesiastical Principality yet there is nothing that shews it meant of universal jurisdiction and power over all Churches but of a more powerfull Principality it had in clearing Doctrines and ordering Church-affairs in those parts by reason of the eminency of their Founders and succeeding Teachers who were in those times of great note for purity of Doctrine and constancy in the Faith for which they were Martyrs And indeed were the question now between us and any such as Valentinus or Marcion concerning the Doctrine which the Apostles taught about another God besides the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church of Rome had such Bishops as then they had who had acquaintance with the Apostles or received their tradition from them so near to the Apostles days as the Roman Bishops did then we should also think it meet in such a point wherein we knew they were right to refer it to them to determine But in so doing we should not acknowledg a perpetual Prerogative of infallible Supremacy over all the Churches in the World annexed to that See nor did ever Irenaeus intend it who is known to have opposed Victor Bishop of Rome when he excommunicated the Asian Bishops for varying from him in the keeping of Easter as Eusebius reports Hist Eccles lib. 5. cap. 22 23 24. The words of Origen in cap. 6. Epist ad Roman waving other Exceptions against Citations out of that Commentary as being so altered by Ruffinus that we can hardly know what is Origen's what not were they as H. T. sets them down which I cannot examine now for want of the Book yet they prove not Peter's supremacy of power over the Apostles He might have the chief charge of feeding Christ 's Sheep and the Church be founded on him yet have no jurisdiction over the Apostles and the Church be founded on the other Apostles as well as on him as hath been shewed before in this Article Sect 4. As for Cyprian's words calling Peter the Head and Root of the Church cited by H. T. as in an Epist ad Julian I finde no such Epistle in Cyprian's Works but in an Epistle ad Jubianâ—m concerning Baptism of Hereticks I finde these words about the beginning of the Epistle Nos autem qui Ecclesiae unius caput radicem tenemus that is But we who hold the Head and Root of one Church c. in which Peter is not named nor do I finde any thing that should infer that by the Head and Root of one Church he means Peter but Christ whom in his Book of the Unity of the Church he makes the onely Head of his Church and having alleged immediately before one Baptism as it is Ephes 4. 5. it is likely he meant by one Head the one Lord mentioned vers 5. as after also he mentions one Faith or else the meaning is this we have remained in the unity of the Church which is one and the Head and Root of the faithfull of which several particular Churches are members and branches Nor did he call Peter the Head and Root of the Church would it be for H. T. his purpose unless he meant it in respect of universal Jurisdiction and Supremacy over the whole Church belonging to him and his Successours Bishops of Rome which is not proved and there may be another reason given of such a Title given to Peter's person onely because of his eminent confession Matth. 16. 16. and his preaching Acts 2. 10 c. And though he term the Church of Rome Peter's Chair or rather the Bishoprick of Rome or Peter's Doctrine and teaching there yet that proves not he held the Popes Supremacy but that Peter's Doctrine was then held there Yea it is certain out of his Treatise of the Unity of the Church and his Epistle to Cornelius mentioned before and his opposition to Pope Stephanus that Cyprian did account all Bishops equal and the Bishops of Africa equal in Jurisdiction to the Roman Bishop and the Pope of Rome to be but his Collegue from whom he dissents and to whom he denied Appeals and whom he reproved of ambition and pride when he sought to impose his Judgement on others contrary to what Cyprian and a whole Synod of African Bishops besides Asiaticks held and therein opposed the Bishop of Rome And therefore it is certain that Cyprian never acknowledged the Supremacy of the Pope now asserted Of those which H. T. allegeth in the fourth Age not one of them giveth Peter that Supremacy of Jurisdiction over the Apostles and Christians which the Romanists claim as belonging to the Pope over all Bishops and Churches but either a primacy of order or preheminence of gifts or zeal or esteem or use in moderating in Assemblies The words which seem to be most for it are falsly ascribed to Chrysostom For however Trapezuntius have translated them yet in the four and fiftieth Homily as it is in Eaton Print the words are not as H. T. cites them The Pastour and Head of the Church was once a poor Fisherman But on Matth. 16. 18. he hath these words And I say unto thee Thou art Peter and upon this Stone or Rock I will build my Church that is on the faith of confession or confessed There he shews that many should believe and raiseth up his minde and makes him Pastour And after on vers 19. These things he promiseth to give him to shew a Fisherman stronger than any Stone or Rock
prove there are Traditions truly Apostolical besides those which are written and this Tradition that those Books which we call holy Scripture are divine Writings we will embrace them as things to be believed But then 1. We say it is manifest that in the Apostles days there were Traditions put on the Apostles which were not theirs 2 Thess 2. 1. 2. That the Apostolical Tradition written is sufficient for faith to salvation 3. That unwritten Traditions are uncertain and much corrupted 4. That there is no certain Rule to know which are Apostolical Traditions but by the Scripture or Apostolical Writings 5. That neither the Popes nor Church of Rome nor general Councils determination is a sufficient assurance of Apostolical Tradition unwritten 6. That therefore to us now the holy Scripture is the onely Rule of Christian faith and life And to the Argument of H. T. I answer 1. By denying the Major giving this as a Reason because the means of planting and conserving faith though it were the essential means yet is not the rule of faith necessarily there being great difference between these two The means of faith is any way God useth to beget it as by dreams visions the speech of Balaam's Ass his Prophecy Caiaphas Prophecy the Star which guided the Wise-men Matth. 2. the Wives good conversation 1 Pet. 3. 1. yet these are not the Rule of Faith but the divine revelation it self And if it were supposed any one of these or any other were the essential means of Faith that is that means by which Faith is and without which it were not yet it were not therefore the Rule of Faith but the divine revelation or truth delivered by that means And to the proof of the Major which seems to be thus formed That is the true Rule of Faith which is immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is But the essential means of planting and conserving it at first is immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is Ergo. I answer 1. By denying the Major there are many things immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is and yet are not the true Rule of Faith as namely Gods Decrees and purposes the being of the Heavens the obedience of the Angels c. 2. By denying the Minor For whether the immediate Declaration of God to Adam Gen. 3. 15. or Christ's preaching by himself were the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first or any other yet it is not immutable and the same in all Ages as Faith it self God's Declaration immediately or Christ's preaching by himself are not the same in all Ages yea Heb. 1. 1. it is said that God hath spoken to us in divers manners ways and times by the Prophets and in these last days onely hath spoken to us by his Son vers 2. chap. 2. 3. The salvation was at first begun to be speken by the Lord and since was confirmed by them that heard him which shews the means to be variable by which Faith is planted and conserved The Apostle tells us 1 Pet. 3. 1. that without the Word those that believe not the Word may be won by the conversation of the Wives so that their good conversation was at first a means of converting them and yet that was not to be the Rule of their Faith Whence it may appear that this Argument goes upon these false Suppositions 1. That there is some means essential to the planting and conserving of Faith at first 2. That the same means is essential to the planting and conserving of Faith at first 3. That this means is immutable and the same in all Ages as Faith it self 4. That what is the means of planting and conserving Faith at first must be the true Rule of Faith 2. I deny the Minor that oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books was the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first And to his proof I answer that by oral and Apostolical Tradition in his Tenet he means a delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles now if it be granted there was no Gospel written till eight years after the death of Christ or thereabouts it must be granted also that there was no delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles but onely their preaching viva voce with living speech in their own persons and therefore if that which was according to H. T. the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first must be the true Rule of Faith still and no other then that Rule must neither be unwritten nor written delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles but their own personal Tradition viva voce which now ceasing there is no Rule of Faith at all left but the Quakers device of each mans light within him to be his Rule must take place But to me the Rule of Faith is divine revelation by what means soever it be delivered be it the Law written in the heart or in the Book by the signer of God in Tables of stone or delivered by an Angel in a Dream Vision Apparition by Christ or his Apostles or any other But sith God hath been pleased to order it be it sooner or later that what Christ and his Apostles taught should be written we are assured God would have us to take it for the Rule of our Faith and if Scripture be not the Rule of our Faith Christ and his Apostles did not well to commend it to us Luk. 16. 31. Joh. 5. 39. and to commend them that searched the Scriptures Act. 17. 11. nor the Apostles to direct us to them 1 Pet. 1. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 4. nor to allege them Act. 3. 22. 13. 33 34 35. nor Christ to have used them against the Tempter Matth. 4. 4. 7. 10. nor to have imputed errour to the ignorance of them Matth. 22 29. nor to have sent the Revelation of John to the seven Churches of Asia with declaration of blessedness to the observers of it and denunciation of a curse to the corrupters and infringers of it Revel 1. 1 3. 22. 18 19. nor the Apostles to write a Letter to the Churches Act. 15. 23. nor the Apostles to write several Epistles to several Churches And if many Ages though I think H. T. therein doth exceed were passed before all the Books of Scripture were dispersed and accepted for Canonical by the whole Church yet it is certain some were and they must be the Rule of Faith which were accepted And when any difference arose in points of Faith among the Christians of the first Age though they were to inquire of the Apostles what they taught yet when they could not speak with them they made use of their Letters written as Acts 15. 31. 1 Cor. 7. c. And if we are
not to do so still why doth this Authour allege Scripture for the Churches Infallibility the Popes Supremacy c. and tells us here pag. 113. There is no better way to decide Controversies than by the Scripture expounded by the Church and according to the Rule of Apostolical Tradition But this is an evidence of Gods infatuating these Romanists that though they have no shew of proof for Peter's Supremacy and consequently the Popes without the Scripture and therefore allege it yet determine it not to be the Rule of Faith and so make void their own proof and the very Rule of Faith which they would fain establish SECT II. Unwritten Traditions are not proved to be the true Rule of Faith from the assurance thereby of the Doctrine and Books of Christ and his Apostles But let us view what he adds A second Argument is That is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of these things But by Apostolical Tradition we may infallibly be assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and by no other means Therefore Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith The Major is manifest because in the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith The Minor is proved because a full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether infallible since sensible evidence in a world of Witnesses unanimously concurring is altogether infallible how fallible soever men may be in their particulars and such a report such an evidence is Apostolical Tradition for all the Doctrinos Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote therefore infallible Answ THe Popish Tenet is that unwritten Traditions of other points than what are in the written Books are the Rule of Faith that so what they cannot prove out of Scripture of Peter's being at Rome being Bishop there Purgatory-fire Invocation of Saints Adoration of the Host mixing Water with Wine in the Eucharist and many more which Popes and Popish Councils obtrude on the Church of God as Apostolical Traditions may be received as Objects of Faith But here H. T. concludes Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith and proves it of no other Apostolical Tradition but that whereby the Books written are known to be the Apostles which I might grant and yet H. T. gain nothing for his purpose sith Apostolical Tradition may be the true Rule of Faith and yet not Apostolical Tradition unwritten much less that which Popes and Councils call Apostolical Tradition which is every corruption that hath been any long time received in the Roman Church and this Apostolical Tradition infallible that the Books of holy Scripture were written by the holy men whose names they bear and that the things in them related are certain and yet other Traditions of other things not so But to his Argument I say the Major is not true nor is it proved by his reason which in form is this That is the true Rule of Faith in which are contained all things that are of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith The Conclusion which followeth from these premises is not his Major that is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of those things nor the Conclusion set down therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith for these terms that by which we may be assured of the Doctrines or Books the infallible means of knowing them are not the same with the Books or Doctrines in which are contained all things that are of Faith and therefore the Major is not proved but indeed the very Protestant Doctrine which he gainsays is proved unawares thus That in which are contained all things that are of Faith is the true Rule of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are the true Rule of Faith Which proves directly what H. T. denies that the Scripture is the true Rule of Faith and shews that he mistook the means of Faith for the Rule of Faith between which there is manifest difference the means of Faith being any outward or inward efficient principal or instrumental by which a person comes to believe the Rule is that by which we know what we are to believe the same means may be the means of believing contrary things Caiaphas and Balaam may prophesie right things of Israel and be a means of expectation of the Messiab and yet also be a means of laying a stumbling-block to overthrow them A messenger that brings a grant wherein a Prince grants a thing is the means of belief and so is the Seal but the Rule of believing is the words of the grant Thomas his seeing and feeling were the means of his believing Christ's Resurrection but the Rule was Christ's words 2. I deny his Minor For though I grant such a full report as he speaks of is infallible nor do I deny that there is such a a report or such an evidence for all the Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote yet I say 1. That this is not the Apostolical Tradition which Papists assert for with them any thing used in their Church a long time and approved by a Pope or a Council confirmed by him is an Apostolical Tradition though it have not such report or evidence 2. That there are other means by which we may be assured what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote besides this full report as 1. The inward testimony of the holy Spirit 2. The innate characters of the Doctrine and Books themselves foretelling things to come opening the Mysteries of God advancing Gods glory enlightning and converting the soul with many more which shew whos 's the Doctrine and Books were Yet by the way I observe 1. That notwithstanding he makes here such an Infallibility in the report and evidence of sense yet pag. 205. he denies evidence of sense infallible in the Sacrament and thereby overthrows his Position here 2. From his words here I argue against his opinion of Transubstantiation thus A full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether
Apostle warned them Gal. 1. 8 9. neither therefore the warning given them nor any state of the Church in this life yields sufficient security of not being deceived nor deceiving others The Church and Teachers thereof may not onely be men and have reason but also good men and conscionable and warned not to deliver any thing but Christ's and his Apostle's Doctrine to be believed under pain of Damnation and yet may build Hay and Stubble and be saved as through fire though their Building suffer loss keeping the Foundation and repenting of all sins and errours though some be secret and unknown to them Let us see what is in the next Argument which he terms the last Argument for Traditions SECT IV. Counterfeits might and did come into the Church under the name of Apostolick Tradition without such a force as H. T. imagines necessary thereto even in points of Faith To make saith H. T. a whole world of wise and disinterested men break so far with their own nature as to conspire in a notorioâ—n Lie to damn themselves and their posterity which is the onely means to make an Apostolical Tradition fallible such a force of hopes or fears must fall upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature in them But such a force of hopes or fears can never fall on the whole World or Church at once which is dispersed over all Nations therefore it is impossible for the whole World or Church at once to conspire in such a Lie or consequently to erre in Faith Answ THis Argument concludes for the Churches Infallibility which was the fifth Article not for Traditions as is pretended in this Article But that the Church militant and all their Teachers setting aside the Apostles are fallible is proved before and how the whole Church of later ages may be not onely fallible but also deceived and deceive others without breaking with their own nature so far as to conspire in a notorious Lie to damn themselves and their posterity and without such a force of fears or hopes falling upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature to them hath been shewed before both by reason and experience and our Lord Christ hath told us it would be that while men sleep the Enemy would come and sow Tares Matth. 13. 25. and the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies by Gods permission that they which are approved may be made manifest Jude 4. there were certain men crept in unawares ordained of old to this condemnation 2 Pet. 2. 1. 1 John 4. 1. And accordingly it fell out in the Christian Church as Eusebius notes out of Egesippus lib. 3. hist cap. 29. The Church of Christ remained a pure and uncorrupt Virgin unto the times of the Apostles but after their decease and those that heard them there was a conspiracy of corrupters which did lurk before that boldly vented knowledge falsly so called much of which was published under the name of Apostolical Tradition Irenaeus lib. 2. advers haeret cap. 39. saith In his days it was reported as from John that Christ lived to the fiftieth year of his Age by all the Elders of Asia which met with John the Disciple of the Lord that John delivered it to them Nor is this to imagine men to break with their nature but to follow their nature which is in all corrupt in the best imperfect As for what H. T. tells us of a whole World of wise and disinterested men it is an Utopia in a countrey called no where but in H. T. his brain Surely the wisest and disinterested men of Fathers and other Preachers have still stood to the Scriptures and have disowned unwritten Traditions as not being a true Rule of Faith Popes and Popish Councils who have been the sticklers for Traditions unwritten as they have been none of the wisest with any holy wisdom but serpentine craft so have they bent all their endeavours to uphold Traditions for their interest of greatness and gain being necessitated to 〈◊〉 unwritten Traditions because their Doctrines cannot be maintained out of Scripture He that shall reade the History of the Council of Trent written by Frier Paul of Venice in which Council Traditions unwritten were first equalled to Scripture may perceive that if ever there were a pack of deceivers and deceived men it was at Trent the Bishops generally being unlearned in the Scriptures many of them meer Canonists and such as understood not the Disputes in the Congregations and the Divines a company of wrangling Sophisters inured onely to School-principles and arguings without skill in the Scriptures and the Popes Legates and Italian Bishops depending on the Court of Rome never applying themselves to search out truth but to hinder any the least breaking forth of it if it opposed any profit or advantage of the Popes and Court of Rome and any thing that tended to justifie the Protestants whom they would never permit to speak for themselves nor were they willing any thing should be concluded but what the Pope of all that ever were in the World the most notorious corrupter and Tyrant in the Church of God liked And he that shall reade the Book not long since published intituled the Mystery of Jesuitism will finde that the chiefest Leaders now in the Popish Churches the Jesuits who are for the Traditions of the Church of Rome are wholly bent though against Scripture and Fathers to carry on their own interest by any devices whatsoever without regard either to Rules of Scripture or of Morality delivered by infidel Philosophers So that the talk of H. T. concerning a World of wise and disinterested men among Popish Teachers is like the talk of a company of honest Women in a society of notorious Whores or of just men in a Band of Robbers H. T. adds It is the assurance of this impossibility that moves the Church of the present Age to resolve her Faith and Doctrines into the precedent Age and so from Age to Age from sons to fathers up to the mouth of Christ and his Apostles teaching it saying We believe it because we have received it Answ 1. This resolution of Faith not into the Scriptures testimony but the testimony of the next age and so upwards and thereby judging what Christ and his Apostles taught can beget no other than a humane Faith sith in this way Christ and his Apostles are supposed to teach what the succeeding ages have taught nor is it any better than an uncertain way sith in some ages it cannot be known what was taught in many points of controversie for as much as this Authour confesseth pag. 25. There was no general or provincial Council that decided any Controversies of moment in the tenth Age which and the next before it are by Genebrard and Bellarmine counted unhappy for want of learned men nor can this be any other than a fraudulent device to draw men from immediate searching into the Scriptures for
themselves I reply were not this man bewitched or as the Prophet speaks Isai 44. 20. Fed on Ashes having a deceived heart that turneth him aside so as that he cannot say Is there not a Lie in my right hand he would never have preferred oral Tradition seconded by erecting and use of Images made by idolatrous Sots and termed Teachers of Lies by the Prophet Hab 2. 18. as a safer and more infallible Rule of Faith than the holy Scriptures inspired by God and his great gift to men though impiously termed by this Wretch dead Letters ' But it is the just judgement of God that they that make Images and adore them should be like them Psalm 115. 8. that is as blockish as the Images are How uncertain oral Tradition is hath been shewed and how impossible it is to be a true and right Rule since the departure of those who could preach infallibly That there is any such uniform and outward practise of the Roman Church which can second oral Tradition aud make any Point of Christian Doctrine much less the whole frame of necessary Points of Christian Doctrine in a manner visible and sensible is a Lie with a witness Christian Doctrine doth not consist in the History of the things sensible to the eye but in the opening of the true causes and ends and uses of things done which can onely be apprehended by the understanding and is brought to it by hearing and reading whence Faith is said to come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10. 14 15 17. It is most false that the erecting of Images of Christ and of the Cross hath been the uniform practise of the Church It is certain by many Writers that Christians had no Images in their Churches for many hundred years yea it is certain that the best Emperours and Bishops of the East and West were against the having them in Churches however Gregory the first Bishop of Rome by his superstitious opposing Serenus his taking them down counting them Lay-men's Books opened a Gap to that Deluge of Ignorance and Idolatry which hath since spread over the Western Churches which have gone a whoring after them This Authour calls them holy Image which the Scripture counts abominable as defiling places and making them not sacred but polluted He saith The Incarnation and all the Mysteries thereof are made sensible by the Images of Christ erected in all sacred places the passion by the sign of the Cross used in Sacraments and set up in Churches But what a notorious falshood is this One Mystery sure is the Holy Ghost's overshadowing the Virgin Mary another the Union of the two Natures Can any Image of Christ teach these What can the sign of the Cross teach but that there was such a kinde of punishment to put men to Death If Images did teach these Mysteries then Image-makers would be Stewards of the Mysteries of God and Successours of the Apostles and Michael Angelo and such like Painters and Carvers more truly Peter's Successours and Bishops of Rome than Popes as doing more to teach the Mysteries of God than Popes do The unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass is a meer figment of a thing present which all the sense of all the men in the World contradicts full of apish gestures and toyish fashions fitter for a Stage-play than a spiritual Service of the Christian Church and being in a Tongue not commonly understood without teaching informs not the Hearers or Seers in the Mystery of the Death of Christ nor makes any lively Commemoration of his Passion but pleaseth superstitious and womanish or childish spirits which are taken with such shews the Sacrament opens no Mystery thereof without the Word written Accedat Verbum ad Elementum fit Sacramentum was the old resolution Put the Word to the Element then it is made a Sacrament Nor is it true that the practice hath been uniform therein the variety of Missals and the corruptions purged out of the Roman Missal as is confessed in Pope Pius the fifth his Bull according to the Decree of the Trent Council prove the contrary The Trinity is known by the institution and practise of Baptism but that is learned out of the written Word not oral Tradition None of these practises do at all open the Mystery of the Gospel as experience shews it being manifest by conference that none of the People in Italy and elsewhere who go to Mass and look on Pictures and have no other teaching do understand any thing of the Mystery of the Gospel the end reason use of Christ's Birth or Death but content themselves with a meer theatrical shew without any true understanding of the grace of God inward feeling or effectual change in their souls thereupon Perhaps it is better with Papists in England where their Superstitions are not altogether so gross and their understanding bettered by neighbourhood and converse with Protestants But that Images should conserve revealed verities or oral Tradition seconded with Images more explicate them than Books which this man again impiously terms dead Letters unless the Images be animated as that was that it's said told Thomas Aquinas Thou hast written well of me which was fit to be silenced by telling it that it had no allowance to speak in the Church is to me unintelligible And if these be such a safe and infallible Rule or means to teach and conserve the whole frame of Christian Doctrine then sure Christ did inconsiderately appoint Writers and Preachers to teach and guide the Church till we all meet in the unity of the Faith Ephes 4. 11 12 13. he should rather for the times after the Apostles have appointed Massing Priests and Painters to have taught the People nor were the Council of Trent and some of the Popes so advised as they might have been in appointing the unnecessary businesses of framing a Catechism and amending the vulgar Latin Edition of the Bible and much more foolish have been all the learned Papists who have in late years and formerly made large Commentaries and other Treatises to conserve revealed verities there being a more compendious way by oral Traditions with the use of Images and Masses and some other things if this impudent Scribler say true Yet H. T. continues thus Object If all things necessary to salvation be not contained in the whole Bible now shall a man ever come to know what is necessary to be known either by the whole Church in general or himself in particular Answ For the whole Church in general she is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde she being made by Christ the Depository of all and having the Promise of divine assistance to all And for each particular man so much onely it necessary to be believed as is sufficiently proposed to him by the Church and her Ministers for the Word of God or would at the least be so proposed if he himself were not in fault