of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speaketh in common but abstracting from such particular cases as may change wholly the nature of the question For example sake hath not the Church reason to say he that denyeth the blessed Trinity is an Heretique It hapneth one who hath conversed among the Tritheites hearing them use the word Trinity for three Gods meaning to speak against them denyeth there is any Trinity shall this man be comprehended in the foresaid condemnation Or was the sentence ill pronounced Neither as I think For bo h was it well done by the Church to condemne denyers of the Trinity because per se loquendo as the Phylosophers speak that is according to the ordinary course and nature of things who denyeth a thing in words denyeth it in heart yet the man forespoken did not so and was not condemned in that sentence In like manner when the Church condemneth all such as are not in actuall union and communion with her she doth well because according to the ordinary course this doth not fall out without either presumption and damnable pride or else culpable eitherignorance or feare and love of private interest before God and his Church But it followeth not thence that by accident no man may sometime be excused The words of our Saviour concerning Baptisme and Eucharist their necessity are very precise yet the Church doubteth not to excuse those who have it in voto But to proceed unto the point The corrent of Catholique Doctors holdeth that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who wilfully doth mis-beleeve and that to doe so it is required that faith be sufficiently proposed unto him And what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines that teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Herisie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not beleeving Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church of God according unto the ordinary opinions of Catholiques it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine case who be damned and who not So that the Catholique position is not so crude as peradventure the Author understood it to be though the words be rough and ought to be so as being of what is according to the course of nature not what chance and accideuts may invent The other point was of puting Heretiques to death which I think he understandeth to be done Vindicatively not Medicinally I meane imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischeife or oppresse it in the head If the Circumcellians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I meane by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better wits Saint Augustine justifieth such proceeding against Here tiques Saint Gregory advised the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather increased then decreased in the practise of it Mores's speech I beleeve is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholiques which shewed Lucius to be none But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith be the way of Salvation and hereby the bane of Faith if Salvation be the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplying of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion Why then doth not reason force us to use the meanes to prevent it which the same reason and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the zeale of the Author to his own and Countries Salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point For supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preached by another leadeth to damnation I know not why Caipha's words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth not expedire that unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat He urgeth afterwards against the unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag off And I confesse we brag of it and thinke we have reason too And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some Land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I thinke he will find that our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a civill Government and a barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a civill Estate there be no quarrels or amongst Barbarians there is no quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in nature What is then the goodnesse of Government but that in a well govern'd Country there is a meanes to end quarrels and in an Anarchy there can be no assured peace This therefore is that we brag of that amongst us if any controversie rise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who part from us And secondly that there is no assured agreement amongst those who are parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond nor tye why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not deny it For he confesseth we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they relie hath not this vertue to take up controversies clearly Againe I doe confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures sheweth slight wayes how our well-meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an error what is there to retaine these men from disagreeing with the rest of their brethern and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is passed light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall terme
you neither agree of any certaine and proper markes to know her by nor when it is that she interposeth her judgement some take it to be the particular Church of Rome others of which number you are all which communicate with her supposing the first to be true yet not being de fide it will serve but ill by your rules to build our faith upon and even when she delivers her opinion is not certainlie agreed whether the people of Rome be to have Votes or onelie the Clergie or of them onelie the Pope with the Cardinals or the Pope onelie without them if the Pope whether onelie in his Chaire and what circumstances are required to his decreeing in Cathedra would beget more questions If all that communicate with her as you say it is as things now stand First I would know whether they be sure to be at all times the Church to that you refuse to determine and so inclusivelie denie Secondlie It is not possible that such a multitude should ever give any sentence explicitelie nor can we ever know that it hath even tacitelic done so if they be to decree onelie by representation then how large a companie represents them with all their power of whom that companie is to consist how many of them are to agree to make it a binding sentence c. are things yet undefined and like to be and if any goe about to determine them their power being it selfe still a question could not end these Therefore whereas you say that we have no definitive sentence besides that truly to have one and not to know when we have one is much alike I answer that whensoever the Scripture shall seeme to us to have defined we are according to our doctrine readie to yeeld and so the controversie is ended and sure the Scripture may be said to be a definitive sentence as well as the written Councell of Trent and till then though we differ about interpretations of not plaine places we have as much Unitie as you who are not resolved upon the sence of manie decrees of that and other Councels and if a desire and diligence to finde the true meaning of them and an aptnesse to assent when it is found be thought to secure among you those who mistake the true sence of these Councels why should not the same disposition in us towards the Scripture be thought every whit as sufficient not onely to keepe us in unitie but to secure us from danger To conclude though unitie be a thing much spoken of by you yet I finde it chieflie onely in your discourse your differences are many and great onelie you say you agree in what is necessarie and make the measure of things necessarie what you agree in so the summe is you agree in what you doe agree which it is impossible you should not though you had carried away the bayes from Bibrias his Tombe eager against us and yet divided among your selves like the state of an Armie in Tacitus Manente Legionum auxiliorumque ubi adversus Paganos certandum foret consensu and if your Church brag of such an Unity I perceive a small matter will make her brag Againe I do confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some Book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures shewes slight waies how our well meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an Error what is there to retaine those men from disagreeing with the rest of their Bretheren and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is past light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall tearm them of the Trinitie Incarnation Say our Saviour did strange things in vertue of some Constellation and delivering these things so Oratorically that for a new heat some of these things shall seem more conformable then his Arrianisine what then shall hinder this man to become a Jew and at last to prove himself so great a Clerk as to write de tribus Impostoribus Take away the power of the Church which every man doth who taketh away the Infallibility what can retaine any man why he should not yeeld to that discourse which seemeth fairest seeing nothing is certaine And if you should meet with a book which should give probable solutions to the places of Scripture and reasons which you now think prove the authority of the Church and bring other though suppose but slight yet such as may seem strong Arguments to prove it not infallible and shew waies of the same kind how your ancestors may have slipt in that and by that into other errors what is there to retaine you with the rest of your Bretheren and betaking your selfe to us If you say this is impossible to be done so think the Protestants that the Arrians can give them no probable answer to their places of Scripture and such as will seem so to some is no imputation to their grounds since so may and do our Answers and Objections to some of you who thereupon leave you and yet you count not your grounds disparaged For my part I professe my self not onely to be an Anti-Trinitarian but a Turk whensoever more reason appeares to me for that then for the Contrary and so sure would you be too for the pretended infallibility of your Church could no longer hold you if you thought you saw reason to beleeve it fallible as you must do if all weighed more reason appeared of her adversaries side either your proofes of her authority not to be probable or else your Doctrinestaught by her more contrary to reason then her authority though probably founded yet not upon demonstrations is sufficient to caution and answer for It is true so long as you stick to this hold upon the Roman Church you are sure to receive no error but which she offers you and indeed you need not for those are enough but that destroied which is apter to be destroied then most of the Protestants as weaklier supported by reason then no error that a Protestant may fall into but so may you too and the other is but such a Priviledge as I may have by sticking to the English Church as well as you to the Roman And though this following your guide may be able as long as she keep her self to keep you from some Ditches into which you might otherwise fall yet it may lead you unto others and indeed there is no error but by this way you are liable too yea even of those which she now condemnes since though she changed her opinion which is neither impossible nor unlawfull yet you are by your blind obedience to believe that she had not and to submit your understanding in this Question to some distinction though without a difference These things then I dislike in what
it was a wise fear of the Foxe's lest he might call a knubb a horn And sure Sir they will in this case be Judges not onely of that which is Spiritual but of what it is that is so and the people receiving instruction from no other will take the most Temporal matter to be Spiritual if they tell them it is so The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated by Mr. William Chillingworth SECT 1. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider onely what is essential and necessary to it we shall find in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocesse and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastours and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT 2. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable motion if we humbly desire those that are in authority especially the High Court of Parliament that in may not be sacrificed to clamour or over-borne by violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and courage as not to give it up untill they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT 3. I shall speak at this time onely of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confesse it SECT 4. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have per-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truely this form of Government all Chuches every where received SECT 5. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatus genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not onely a priority of order but a superiority of power and authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearely professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr callsthem in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT 6. Certainly from these two great defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation layd by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT 7. For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received in any one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuer at error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT 8. For what universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie you will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question To wit that the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or fore-seeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councells to make a Law for a generall change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had
to passe that something which at first bindeth not the Churches beleef afterward commeth to bind it For if it were ever a Tradition it must ever be publique and bind the Church And if once it were not it appeareth not how ever it could come to be for if this age for example hath it not how can it deliver it over to the next age that followeth But if we consider that the hope of Christian doctrine being great and the Apostles preaching in so great varietie of Countries it might happen some point in one Countrie to have been lesse understood or peradventure not preached at all which in another was often preached and well both understood and retained we may easily free our selves from these brambles For the Spirit of Tradition residing in this that the testimony of that the Apostles delivered this Doctrine be exceptione majus and beyond all danger of deceit It is not necessary to the efficaciousness of Tradition that the whole universall Church be witnesse to such a truth but so great a part as could be a Warrant against mistaking and deceit so that if all the Churches of Asia or Greece or Aphrique or Egypt should constantly affirm such a Doctrine to have been delivered unto them by the Apostles it were enough to make a Doctrine exceptione majorem Whence it insueth that if in a meeting of the Universall Church it were found that such a part had such a Tradition concerning some matter whereof the rest either had no knowledge or no certainty such a Doctrine would passe into a necessary bond in the whole Church which before was either unknown or doubted of in some part thereof A likely example thereof might be in the Canonicall bookes the which being written some to one Church and some to another by little and little were spread from those Churches unto others and so some sooner some later received into the constant beleife of the Catholique world The Third question may be How Christian religion consisting in so many points it is possible to be kept incorrupted by tradition the which depending on memory and our memory being so fraile and subject to variation it seemeth cannot without manifest miracle conserve so great diversity of points unchanged for so many ages But if we consider that Faith is a Science and Science a thing whose parts are so connexed that if one be false all must needs be false we shall easily see that contrarily the multitude of divers points is a conservation the one to the other For if one be certaine it of it selfe is able to bring us to the right in another whereof we doubt And as in a mans body if he wanteth one member or the operation of it he must needs find the want of it in another And as a Common-wealth that is well ordained cannot misse any office or part without the redounding of the dessect upon the whole or some other part so a Christian being an essence instituted by God as specially as any naturall creature hath not the parts of his faith and action by accident and chance knitted together but all parts by a naturall order and will of the Maker ordred for the conservation of the most inward essence which is the charity we owe to God and our Neighbour Wherefore Christian life and action consisteth but upon one main tradition whose parts be those particulars which men specifie either in matter of Beleefe or Action So that this connextion of its parts amongst themselves added to the Spirit of God ever conserving zeale in the heart of his Church with those helpes also of nature wherewith we see wonders in this kind done will shew this conservation to be so far from impossibility that it will appeare a most con-naturall and fitting thing Let us but consider in constant nations their language their habits their manners of sacrificing eating generally living how long it doth continne amongst them See that forlorne nation of Jewes how constantly it maintaineth the Scripture how obstinately their errors The Arabians of the desert from Ismael his time unto this day live in families wandring about the desert Where Christians labour to convert Idolaters they find the maine and onely argument for their errors that they received them from their fore-fathers and will not quit them The King of Socotora thinking to please the Portugals by reducing a nation that had the name of Christians to true Christianity he found them obstinately protest unto him that they would sooner lose their lives then part with the religion their Ancestors had left them The Maronites a small handfull of people amongst Turks and Heretiques to this day have maintained their religion in Siria And certainly thousands of examples of this kind may be collected in all Nations and Countries especially if they be either rude and such as mingle not with others or such as be wise and out of wisedome seek to maintaine their ancient beleefe And Catholiques are of both natures For they have strict commands not to come to the Ceremonies and Rites of other religions and in their own they have all meanes imaginable to affect them to it and conserve a reverence and zeale towards it CHAP. VII TO come at length to the principall aime of this Treatise that is to give an answer to him that demandeth a guide at my hands I remit him to the moderne present visible Church of Rome that is her who is in an externe sensible communion with the externe sensible Clergy of Rome and the externe sensible Head and Pastour of the Church If he aske me now how he shall know her I suppose he meaneth how he should know her to be the true I must contreinterrogate him who he is that is in whose name he speaketh Is he an ignorant man Is he unlearned yet of good understanding in the world Is he a Scholler and what Scholler A Gramarian whose understanding hath no other helpe then of languages Is he a Phylosopher Is he a Divine I meane an Academicall one for a true Divine is to teach not to aske this question Is he a Statesman For he who can think one answer can or ought be made to all these may likewise expect that a round bowle may stop a square hole or one cause produce all effects and hang lead at his heels to fly withall Yet I deny not but all these must have the same guide though they are to be assured of that in divers sorts and manners If therefore the ignorant man speaketh I will shew him in the Church of God an excellencie in decencie Majestie of Ceremonies above all other Sects and Religions whereby dull capacities are sweetly ensnared to beleeve the truth they hear from whom they see to have the outward Signs of vertue and devotion If the unlearned ask I shew him the claim of Antiquitie the multitude the advantages of sanctity and learning the justifiableness of the cause how the world was once in this accord and those who
opposed when they first parted first began the Schism how the points of difference be such as on the Catholike side help devotion and on the contrary diminish the same and such like sensible differences which will clearly shew a main advantage on the Catholike side which is the proportionall motive to his understanding To the Grammarian I will give two Memorandums First that seeing Catholiques were first in possession both of the Scriptures and the interpretations the adverse part is bound to bring such places as can receive no probable Exposition by the Catholikes It is not sufficient that their Expositions seem good or better that is more conformable unto the Text but they must be evincent to which no so sound answer even with some impropriety can be given For who knoweth not that is conversant in Criticks how many obscure and difficult places occurre in most plain Authors and the Scripture of all Books the greater part of the men who wrote them specially the new Testament being not eloquent and writing not in their native tongue for the most part are subject to many Improprieties The other Memorandum is That to prove a Catholike point by Scripture it is sufficient that the place brought do bear the Explication the Catholike beareth and if it be more probable by the very letter it is an evincent place The reason is Because the Question being about a Christian Law the Axioms of the Jurists taketh place that Consuetudo optima interpres Legis So that if it be manifest that Christian practise which was before the controversie be for the one sense and the words be tolerable no force of Grammar can prevail to equalize this advantage The Grammarian therefore who will observe these rules I turn him loose to the Scriptures and Fathers to seek in them what is the faith of Christ and properties of his Church to know her by Of the the Philosopher I exact to go like a Philosopher and to search out the specificall differences of every Sect and when he hath found them if any one but the Catholike hath any rule of Faith and good life which I remit to him to enquire But at least when he hath found the Catholiques to be this claim of Tradition before declared then if this doe not bring him as demonstratively as he knoweth any conclusion in Philosophie and Mathematicks to the notice that this is the only true Church of Christ for my part I shall quit him before God and man The Divine if he hath truly understood the principles of his Faith in the nature of a Divine I mean Trinity Incarnation Redemption Eucharist Beatitude the Creation and Dissolution of the World and hath seen the exact conformitie with the deepest principles of nature with an unspeakable wisedome of the contriver If he does not plainly confesse it was above the nature of man to frame the Catholike Religion and seeth not that onely that is conformable to nature and it selfe I say he hath no ground sufficient to be of it At last the Statesman who is truly informed of the Church how far it is really of Christs Institution and what either pious men have added or peradventure ambitious men encroached If he does not find a government of so high and Exotick strain that neither mans wit would dare to have attempted it neither mans power could possibly have effected it If he findeth not eminent helpes and no disadvantage to the temporall government I shall think there wanteth one Star in the Heaven of the Church to direct these Sages to Bethlehem But if God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way which goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the fit way for himselfe and what in other matters of that way he accomptech evidence And if there be no interest in his soule to make him loath to beleeve what in another matter of the like nature he would not stick at or heavy to practise what he seeth clearly enough I feare not his choice but if God send him time and meanes to prosecute his search any indifferent while it is long ago known of what religion he is to be of After this followeth no order of Chapters because it is applied to the discourse which was occasion of it Although if what is already be not satisfaction unto the writing and the Author thereof for whose sake and contentment all that hath been discoursed hitherto hath been set down I confesse that I have not ability to give him satisfaction yet least it should be interpreted neglect If I did not make an application of it unto the writing I shall as breifly as I can for avoiding tediousnesse runne over the discourse And true it is speaking of the Church of Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shye of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding questions impertinent to our discourse The first for those which are concerning the connection of the Sea of Rome to the universall Church The latter to avoid such questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Phylosophicall or other such like matter which questi on s are not so pertinent to our matter Neither doe I remit the Questioner unto Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I think it very rationall For nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable principle in all natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our understanding hath some principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some such principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its principall part in the very head And if there be such a principle the whole Church is infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Neither can I deny but that the Author well excepteth or assumeth that there is no lesse necessity the Church should be known to be infallible or which is this Church then that there is one For if I should admit absolutely that it is necessary for every man to know the Church is Infallible precedently to the knowledge of which is the true Church
it self I am not capable of discerning to be so any more then a blind man is likely to assent to an argument drawn from Colours of which he could have no possible notion Now whereas you say that the world was once of this accord it is more then I know we are told that wholeChurches in the East had long denied this when Luther first left you and howsoever that it could not be brought in time by arts propt by power to accord in an error is more then you have proved Whereas you say that those who opposed this when they first parted first began the contrary Sects I answer that our men pretend that they began no new Doctrine but onely scoured off the rust which time and worldly ends in some and negligence in others had suffered to grow on Which Question againe remaines to be tried if you refuse Scripture as your side useth to do by a Jury of such who are for the most part untranslated or those which are by Parties and whose language I cannot spell nor consequently determine by their evidence Now whereas you say that the points in controversie on your side help Devotion and on ours diminish it I wish you had instanced which and wherein for I for the most part see nothing towards it they being meere speculative opinions and not reduceable to life as especially this whereof we most differ which is your Churches being a generall guide Those which most may seem such are either Confession which yet we denie onely to be necessary not profitable if well used which is practised by some of us and recommended to all and which as you have tempered it making contrition sufficient for his salvation who hath till his hour of death lived in all sin and making attrition with absolution of the same force as contrition and requiring to attrition as I am told you do onely sorrow for sin though arising from the feare of Hell so some love of God being joyned to it which none can want but an Infidell will not help Devotion much but rather diminish it or Monastick life which was grown into great excesse and disorder which yet many wise and moderne Protestants think might as well have been reformed as the other parts of the Church without totall obolition and so upon this is left no Question or Fasting which if you think Protestants are against I pray read Bishop Andrews his Lent Sermons and which if it be not so much used among us as it should is not so much the fault of the Religion as of the Men and all these things considered I find none of your motives to shew a maine advantage on your side and therefore I have yet no cause to leave my owne And if in some of these things you should seeme to have more Truth then we yet that would not free you from having more error in other points then this comes to much lesse from having any at all without the beliefe of which I should not be received among you though I were willing to come And this lieth upon you to prove and that not by probable but by infallible arguments if you require as they say your side useth to do an assent of that Nature To the Grammarian I will give two Memorandums first that seeing the Catholicks were first in possession both of the Scriptures and the Interpretations The adverse part is bound to bring such places as can receive no probable Exposition by the Catholickes For who knoweth not that is conversant in Criticks how many obscure and difficult places occurre in most plaine Authors and the Scripture of all Bookes the greater part of the men that wrote them especially the New Testament being not eloquent and writing not in their native Tongue for the most part are subject to much impropriety The other Memorandum is that to prove a Catholique point by Scripture it is sufficient that the place brought beare the Exposition the Catholique giveth and if it be the more probable by the very letter it is an evincent place The reason is because the question being of a Christian law the Axiome of the Jurists taketh place that Consuetudo optima Interpres Legis so that if it be manifest that Christian practise which was before the controversie bee for the one sence and the words be tolerable no force of Grammer can prevaile to equalize this advantage The Grammarian therefore who will observe these Rules I turne him loose to the Scriptures and Fathers to seeke there what is the Faith of Christ and proprieties of her Church to know her by To your first Memorandum I answer that you have grounded it wholly upon begging the question for if those of your Religion had first been in possession of the Scriptures then the Christians had been of it in the Apostles times which if you could prove you would need to prove no more but all would easilie follow and then for your consequence that is equallie false for though I confesse to make any Doctrine a point of Faith it is required that the place be as plaine as you please yet to the making it the more probable opinion and consequentlie excluding the contrarie from being necessarie so much is not required The greatest cause of the obscuritie of those bookes in which Criticks are conversant is the negligence and ignorance of Transcribers so that some Authors would scarce know their own Bookes if they were revived whereas the great care of Christians about so deare a pledge hath much if not wholly hindered the same cause from perverting and so obscuring Scripture At least if it have not it seemes your Church is not so faithfull a Guardian of her deposit as her deare friends moved by partiallitie or ends would make us beleeve Besides till now I ever thought that Eloquence rather lead men to speake improperlie then the want of it since ignorant persons keepe themselves within the bounds of what preciselie they meane whereas the eloquent wander into figures which are so many and have gotten such footing in language whilst in the search of significancie proprietie is lost that those who use them are obliged to those who will please to understand because all they say may beare two sences the one proper the other improper And though it be true that they have over-flowne even into the language of the ignorant yet it is as true that both they are much lesse used among these and that they had not hence their beginning but from Eloquence And though the Apostles write not in their native Tongues yet they write in an inspired language so that they were not likely to commit at least any such soloecismes as should destroy the end of the Inspirer which was that they should be understood by it To your second Memorandum I answer that since every man is free till some thing binds him you who pretend that we are bound to receive more doctrine as necessarie then appeares to us
comprehensible by all capacities and the controversies of doctrine so intricate and so many as they required much time and learning for their disquisition onely I found my selfe unprovided for both those requisitions for this undertaking and for the decision of the other I needed not much presumption to beleeve my selfe a competent Judge when it consisteth onely in the perusall of authentique Testimonies Secondly I considered that there was no one point of controverted doctrine whereon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the dicision of it determined all the rest for if Luther could be proved to be the Innovatour of the Protestants faith it was necessary evicted of not being the true ancient Apostolicall Religion Therefore I began with this enquiry which Protestants are bound to make to answer to this Objection to find out an existence of some Professors of the reformed Doctrines before Luthers time for finding the Catholicks were not obligedto prove the Negative it was my part to prove to my selfe the Affirmative that our Religion was no innovation by some pre-existence before that but in the perusall of all the Stories or Records Eccesiasticall or Civill as I could choose I could finde no ancienter a dissention from the Roman Church then Waldo Wickliffe or Husse whose cause had relation to the now-professed Protestancy so as I found an intervall of about eight hundred yeares from the time that all the Protestants confesse a Unity with the Church of Rome down to those persons without any apparent profession of different Faith To answer my selfe in this point I read many of our Protestant Authors who treated of it and I found most of them reply to this sence in which I cite here one of the most authentique Doctor Whitaker in his Controversie 2. 3. pag. 479. where they aske of us where our Church was heretofore for so many Ages We answer that it was in secret solitude that is to say it was concealed and lay hid from the sight of men and further the same Doctor Chap. 4. pag. 502. our Church alwayes was but you say it was not visible doth that prove that it was not No for it lay hid in a solitary concealment to this direct sence were all the answers that ever I could meet to this Objection I repeat no more these places being so positive to our point This confession of Invisibilitie in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed to me even to offend Naturall reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an Ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is described to be seeming to me repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church on Earth which is to be conserver of the Doctrine Christs precepts and to conveigh it from age to age untill the end of the world Therefore I applyed my study to peruse such arguments as the Catholicks brought for the proofe of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all Ages and apparance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacrament in proofe of this I found they brought many provisoes of the Scripture but this text most literall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the saints till we meet in the Unity of the Faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seemed to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall Reason not being able to proportion to a man a cause that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a cause being necessary to mankinde which otherwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remained no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authority we could not of and that in so plaine a manner as the simplest may be capable of it as well as the learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our Faith is originally derived but this suceeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessary it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own Mouth and so from Age to Age untill the end of the world and in what Age soever this thred of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey mankind through the darknesse of this world was extinguished and mankind is left without a Guide to infallible ruine which cannot stand with Gods providence and goodnesse which Saint Austine affirmes for his opinion directly in his book de Util. Cred. Cap. 16. saying If divine providence doe preside over humane affaires it is not to be doubted but that there is some authoritie constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certaine steps we are carried to God nor can it be said he meant the Scriptures onely by these steps sinoe experience shewes us the continuall alteration about the right sence of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then leanned men and besides the Scriptures must have been supposed to have been kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other thing then the Church in all Ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scriptures free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuall visibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his book Cont. Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certaine signe that it cannot be hid therefore it must be known to all Nations but that part of the Protestants is unknown to many therefore cannot be the true no inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealement of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sence of all the Fathers of the Church in every severall Age which seemed to me most cleare that which in this cause weighed much with me was the confession and testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his Book of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God alwaies had and must have some visible Church upon Earth and Doctor Field the first of Eccles. cap. 10. It cannot be but those that are the true Church must be known by the profession of truth and further the same Doctor sayes How should the Church be in the world and nobody professe openly the saving truth of God and Doctor White in his defence of the Way chap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left Monuments and Stories for the confirmation
A DISCOURSE OF INFALLIBILITY With Mr. Thomas White 's Answer to it and a Reply to him By Sr. Lucius Cary late Lord Viscount of Falkland Also Mr. Walter Mountague Abbot of Nanteul his Letter against Protestantism and his Lordship's answer thereunto with Mr John Pearson's Preface The Second Edition To which are now added two discourses of Episcopacy by the said Viscount Falkland and his Friend Mr. William Chillingworth Published according to the Original Copies LONDON Printed for William Nealand Bookseller in Cambridge and are to be sold there and at the Crown in Duck-lane 1660. A SPEECH CONCERNING EPISCOPACY Mr. Speaker WHosoever desires this totall change of our present Government desires it either out of a conceit that is unlawfull or inconvenient To both these I shall say something To the first being able to make no such arguments to prove it so my self as I conceive likely to be made within the walls of so wise a House I can make no answer to them till I hear them from some other which then if they perswade me not by the liberty of a Committee I shall do But this in generall In the mean time I shall say that the ground of this government of Episcopacy being so ancient and so generall so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious Antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church nor Houses under any other that our first Ecclesiasticall Authors tell us that the Apostles not onely allow'd but founded Bishops so that the tradition for some Books of Scripture which we receive as Canonicall is both lesse ancient lesse generall and lesse uncontradicted I must ask leave to say that though the Mysterie of iniquity began suddenly to work yet it did not instantly prevail it could not ayme at the end of the race as soon as it was started nor could Antichristianism in so short a time have become so Catholique To the second this I say that in this Government there is no inconvenience which might not be sufficiently remedied without destroying the whole and though we had not par'd their Nails or rather their Tongues I mean the High-Commission though we should neither give them the direction of strict rules nor the addition of choyce Assisters both which we may do and suddenly I hope we shall yet the fear sunk into them of this Parliament and the expectation of a Trienniall one would be such banks to these rivers that we need fear their inundations no more Next I say that if some inconvenience did appear in this yet since it may also appear that the change will breed greater I desire those who are led to change by inconveniences onely that they will suspend their opinions till they see what is to be laid in the other ballance which I will endeavour The inconveniences of the change are double some that it should be yet done others that it should be at all done The first again double 1. Because we have not done what we should do first and 2. Because others have not done what they should do first That which we should do first is to agree of a succeeding Form of Government that every man when he gives his Vote to the destruction of this may be sure that he destroys not that which he likes better than that which shall succeed it I conceive no man will at this time give this Vote who doth not believe this Government to be the worst that can possibly be devised and for mypart if this be thus proposterously done and we left in this blind uncertainty what shall become of us I shall not onely doubt all the inconveniences which any Government ment hath but which any Government may have This I insist on the rather because if we should find cause to wish for this back again we could not have it the means being disperst To restore it again would be a miracle in State like that of the resurrection to Nature That which others should do first is to be gone For if you will do this yet things standing as they do no great cause appearing for so great a change I fear a great Army may be thought to be the cause And I therefore desire to be sure that Newcastle may not be suspected to have any influence upon London that this may not be done till our Brethren be returned to their Patrimony We are now past the inconveniences in poynt of Time I now proceed And my first inconvenience of this change is the inconvenience of change it self which is so great an inconvenience when the Change is great and suddain that in such cases when it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change To a person formerly intemperate I have known the first prescription of an excellent Physitian to forbear too good a diet for a good while We have lived long happily and gloriously under this Form of Government Episcopacy hath very well agreed with the constitution of our Laws with the disposition of our People how any other will do I the lesse know because I know not of any other of which so much as any other Monarchy hath had any experience they all having as I conceive at least Superintendents for life and the meer word Bishop I suppose is no man's aime to destroy nor no man's aim to defend Next Sir I am of opinion that most men desire not this change or else I am certain there hath been very suddenly a great change in men Severall Petitions indeed desire it but knowing how concern'd and how united that party is how few would be wanting to so good a work even those hands which value their number to others are an argument of their paucity to me The numberlesse number of those of a different sense appear not so publiquekly and cry not so loud being persons more quiet as secure in the goodnesse of their Lawes and the wisdom of their Law-makers And because men petition for what they have not and not for what they have perhaps that the Bishops may not know how many friends their Order hath lest they be incouraged to abuse their authority if they knew it to be so generally approved Now Sir though we are trusted by those that sent us in cases wherein their opinions were unknown yet truly if I knew the opinion of the major part of my Town I doubt whether it were the intention of those that trusted me that I should follow my own opinion against theirs At least let us stay till the next Session and consult more particularly with them about it Next Sir it will be the destruction of many estates in which many who may be very innocent persons are legally vested and of many persons who undoubtedly are innocent whose dependances are upon those estates The Apostle faith he that provides not for his family is worse then an Infidel This belongs in some analogy to us and truly Sir we provide ill for our Family the Common-wealth if
I should forget what I had before said that satisfaction is to be given to every one according to his capacity It is sufficient for a Childe to beleeve his Parents for a Clown to beleeve his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes to him of beleeving and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what termes he be with the first The good women and Clownes in Italy and Spaine trouble not themselves to seek the grounds of their faith but with a Christian simplicity seek to live according unto that their Preachers tell them and without question by perseverance come to the happinesse great Clearks by too much speculation may faile of Such therefore know no otherwise the Infallibility of the Church then because she telleth it them to whom they give credit as innocently as any child to his Mother The Church therfore was made infallible because so it was fitting for her Maker so it was fitting for her selfe so it was fit for that part of mankind that had more refined wits not because it was necessary for every one which was to come to her or live in her whereof the greatest part first commeth to her drawn by some of the meanes before delivered and beleeveth her about her infallibility Neither doe I remit him to a generall and constant tradition as if himselfe should climbe up every age by learned Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible Testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full tradition I much doubt Neither doe I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chain giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from father to sonne being a link in it I send him therefore no further then to this present age where he shall beyond all doubtfulnesse find that this doctrine was delivered unto this age by the care of their Ancestors And if we seek upon what termes we find that upon a fixed opinion of damnation in failing and so that they had received it so from their fore-fathers upon the same termes with opinion that it had continued ever since Christ his time by this meanes And he who is able to look into the meanes how this can remaine constantly so many ages may find it not onely the far securer but an evidently infallible succession of doctrine inviolable as long as there is a Church And this doth not onely shew that there is one but which she is and that there can be no other For I suppose no man will be so senselesse as to say the Apostles preached one thing in one part and the contrary in another wherefore it will be agreed that once the Church agreed in her faith This supposed let us set the time when one part changed and will it not be evident that the changing Church being challenged cannot plead she received it from her Ancestors because it is manifestly false to both parties Then must needs one onely Church remain with that claime And although we did not know what the Greek Church doth by her History yet the force of consequence would tell us they cannot doe this which the Westerne Church doth because the doing of one is incompatible with the doing of the same by the other As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels infallibility it is not to my purpose to medle of them because on the one side the way I have begun there is no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in quarrels betwixt Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall Wherefore I shall omit those Paragraphes if I onely note concerning the tradition imposed upon Papius that the very narration of it sheweth that it is no tradition in the sence we speak of tradition but in the sence some Heretiques have pretended tradition as it were a doctrine secretly delivered and gathered out of private conference with the Apostles and not their publique preaching delivered to the Churches which is the way we exalt tradition in The witnesses also of ancient Fathers are no parts of tradition but signes and markes where it hath passed whereas the body of tradition is in the life and beleife of the whole Church For the Church as I have said is an essence composed as it were of interne and externe parts the interne being faith the externe the outward action which must needs be conformable to the internall faith nor can there be a materiall change in the action but it must argue the internall change of faith nor internall change in faith but it must draw with it an Iliad of altered actions As for the place of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is acquainted with the course of the present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their bookes sometimes are hindred from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up The reason is the multiplicity of Catholique doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection to the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many compilers as theso latter ages have produced As for the two points he saith avert him from Catholique doctrine I am mistaken if he be not mistaken in both The first is that Catholique doctrine damnes all who are not in the union of their Church He thinketh the sentence hard yet I thinke he will not deny me this that if any Church does not say so it cannot be the true Church For call the Church what you will the Congregation of the Elect the Congregation of the Faithfull the Congregation of Saints or Just call it I say or define it what you will doth it not clearly follow that whosoever is out of that Church cannot be saved for he shall not be Elect Just Faithfull c. without which there is no Salvation How then can any Church maintaine these two propositions I am the true Church and yet one may be saved without being in me But peradventure he is scandalized that the Catholique Church requireth actuall communion externall with her which he thinketh in some case may be wanting without detriment
from the Apostles then they must alwaies have been esteemed so by Christians whereas their doctrine is so farre from having any Tradition against it that if anie opinion whether controverted or uncontroverted except that Scripture which never was doubted may without blushing pretend to have that for it it must be this of theirs My Reasons are these The Fathers of the purest Ages who were the Apostles Disciples but once remov'd did teach this as receiv'd from them who professed to have receiv'd it from the Apostles and who seem'd to them witnesses beyond exception that they had done so they being better Judges what credit they deserv'd then after commers could possibly be All other opinions witnessed by any other Ancients to have Tradition may have been by them mistaken to have been so out of Saint Austin's and Tertullian's rules whereas for this and for this alone are delivered the very words which Christ us'd when he taught it Of the most glorious and least infirme building which ever in my opinion was erected to the honour of the Church of Rome Cardinall Perron was the Architect I mean his book against King James and that relies upon these two pillars that whatsoever all the Fathers he meanes sure that are extant witnesse to be Tradition and the doctrine of the Church that must be receiv'd for the doctrine of those ages and so rested upon If these rules be not concluding then the whole book being built upon them necessarily becomes as unconsiderable for what he intended it as Bevis or Tom Thumb If they be then this doctrine which is now hereticall in your Churches beleife was the opinion of the Ancient Church For if being taught by the Fathers of anie Age none contradicting it be sufficient this all for above two Ages and those the first teach not anie Father opposing it before Dionysius Alexandrinus 250. yeares after Christ at least that we know or Saint Hierome or Saint Austine knew and quoted wherein I note besides that both these Fathers either thought that no signe of the opinion of the Church or cared not though it were And if Fathers speaking as witnesses will serve let Pappias and Irenaeus be heard and believ'd who tels us it came to them from Christ by Verball Tradition and Justine Martir who witnesseth that in his time all Orthodoxe Christians held it and joynes the opposers with them who denied the Resurrection and esteemes them among the Christians like the Sadduces among the Jewes which proves that you have the same reason expallescere audito Ecclesiae nomine to grow pale at the mention of the Ancient Church the nearest to the Apostles as we have to start at that of two hundred years agoe and to be asham'd of your Dionysius Alexandrinus as wee of Luther Thus that great Atlas of your Church hath helpt us to pull it down the samewaies by which he intended to support it and though he have best of any undergone the burden of proving that to be infallible which is false yet he must have confest that either these are not proofes or they prove against himself And this advantage we have that unlesse you prove your own infallibility which you will never be able to do in what point soever you confute us that falls like a Pinacle without carrying all after it whereas if we disprove any one of your Religion we disprove consequently that infallibility which is the foundation of it all so that like them who vse poison'd weapons wheresoever we wound we kill but we are like those creatures which must be killed all over or else their other parts will remaine alive Neither must you think that you have answer'd the Chillasts by tying them to the Carpocratians and the Gnosticks which is but like Mezentius his joyning Mortua corpora vivis dead bodies to the living since the opinions of the two latter assoon as they were taught made the teachers accounted Hereticks and were oppos'd by allmost all whereas that of the first found in above two ages no resistance by any one known and esteemed Person and the teachers of it were not onely parts but principall ones of the Catholique Church and such as ever have been and are reputed Saints though by I know not what subtlety you dispence with your selves for departing from what doctrine was received from them as come down from the Apostles and yet threaten us with damnation if we will not believe more improbable Tenets to be Tradition upon lesse Certificate For as Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wine measures to buy with are great and to sell by are small so when you are to put a doctrine to us how small a measure of Tradition would you have us take one place of one Father speaking but as a Doctor seemes enough but when you are to receive any from us how large and mighty a measure will yet give you no satisfaction Neither can I find out what it is by which you conclude that their Tradition was gathered the Hereticall way from private discourse with the Apostles Irenaeus indeed tells us that Presbyteri meminerunt one of which Pappias was but not a word that it was deliver'd in secret or the auditors but few nor that others had not heard other disciples teaching the same doctrine and me thinkes that if you had evinced what you desire as you seem to me not to do unlesse to affirm be to prove it would make more against you sure if from so small a ground as the word of one onely disciple that he in private discourse was taught this by the Apostles a false doctrine could so generally be received by all the first Doctors of the Christian Church and that so long after Dionysius Alexandrinus had used his great Authority to destroy it Saint Hierome was yet halfe afraid to write against it as seeing how many Catholiques he should enrage against himselfe by it as he testifies in his Proem to the eighteenth Book of his Comment upon Ifaiah what suspitions must this raife in the mindes of those of your own party least what they esteemed Tradition had at first no greater a beginning and no firmer foundation but onely better fortune for why might not the same disciple have cozn'd them from whom their beliefe is descended in twenty other things as well as in this and why not twenty as well as he especially since you confesse some of your doctrine not to have had Vniversall Tradition but onely Tradition enough which if those Fathers did not think they had had for this they would never have receiv'd it but have excepted against the Hereticall way of their delivery if they had known that to be a private one and a private one to be such and if they were so deceived in this way might not they and more have been so too in other points and in time all If you say as it hath been said to me by one whose judgment I value as much as any
sending his Apostles and Disciples to Preach the Gospel and after four of them writing his Gospel which shewes if the Books be true to the title that they writ all they preacht at least that was necessarie for else they were not Gospels but Parts of it that they should not rather leave out any thing else how important soever then not have imploied themselves about teaching us that the Churches Definitions are a Rule of our Faith and instructing us in Markes so proper to her that we might never need to doubt whether it be she that defines or no and whether their not having done this evince not in Reason that this your Doctrine is false Secondly I pray consider whether if there were any such continu'd Tradition about the Definitions of the Church whether that must not also have taught or else have been to small purpose when it is that the Church hath defin'd but yet that is a case not fully judged among you For some hold that the Church hath defin'd when a Councel hath although unapproved by the Pope which is denied by others Thirdly Consider whether supposing as was before suppos'd it must not also have taught certaine Notes to know the Church by but yet about those you are not agreed Salmeron putting Miracles among the false Signes of the Church and Bellarmine and many more among the True ones Fourthly Consider whether the Church have an eternall spring of Doctrines within her or but a finite number and onely those which the Apostles preacht and I believe you will pitch upon the latter Not then to ask how they come to know them nor if you answer by Tradition to ask you againe how come men then not to know before a Definition what it is they Preacht for if the Bishops of which a Councell is compounded know it not now how will they know it when they meet I will desire to know why the Church will not at once teach us all she knowes and not keep us in doubts which she may resolve and did the Apostles teach their Doctrines to be lockt up or taught to us And then having considered this you will find I believe that the Church do with Doctrines as Fathers with Estates never give their Children all that they may still have something to keep them in awe with because if she should she could never have after pretended a Power to end any new emergent controversie keeping in secret what she knowes any that ariseth she may still pretend is endable by her Fiftly Consider that it will appear but a shift if you say that there is a Tradition that all the Churches Definitions be true and so excuse the particular Doctrines for otherwise having none and yet avoid giving us any Rules to know the Church by at all times and answering those Questions which must be ended before we can know at any time when she hath defin'd Now I confesse if you had said Tradition teacheth that the particular Church of Rome is so the Admiral ship that we may know any other if it be of God's Fleet because then it must follow her that is be subject to her decrees theirs which joyn with her this would have bin plainly to let me know your mind and we might quickly have examin'd whether there were any Tradition for the Church in this sence to be alwaies obeyed when she Teaches and without you say this you say nothing and will never be able to give any such Note of the Church as the ignorant may without blushing pretend to know it by Because therefore I guesse that when not I but your Adversaries reasons for I am but one of the worst transcribers of them have driven you from your own Fort you must retire to that of your friends or like them which are drowning you will rather catch at a Twigg then sink I will consider this Assertion which I suppose you must lay hold of so far forth as to shew it to be indeed but an Assertion That there hath no such Verbal Tradition nor indeed any come downe seems to me for these reasons Saint Cyprian by opposing the Church of Rome and that with many Bishops about the Rebaptization shewes sufficiently that he and they knew of no such Tradition and then in what Cave must it have lain hid if the chiefe Doctor of that age was ignorant of it and even his Adversaries claim'd it not And that he knew no such appears not onely by his Actions but also by his words for to them who claim'd Tradition for the particular point propos'd though none for the Authority of the Church proposing he answers if it be contain'd in the Gospels Epistles or Acts let it be observed at one blow cutting off not onely that for sure this authority of the Church of Rome is no way taught in the Scriptures but all other unwritten Traditions which Cardinal Perron thought most skilfull in that kind of Fence was not able to ward but Du Plesis objecting it receiv'd no other answer then that the opinion of Cyprian was condemn'd and that Tradition although unwritten maintain'd Which answer though it be as far from befitting the Cardinall as from answering the objection since it is plaine that this opinion was once held by such as were of chiefe estimation among the Orthodox and consequently the contrary was not then the generall and necessary doctrine of Christians and the prevailing of the one since proves not the other false but rather unfortunate or the spreaders faulty yet I confesse I excuse him for as I have learnt from Aristotle that it is ridiculous to expect a Demonstration where the matter will beare but a probability so would it be in me to expect even a probable solution of an Argument the evidence of which will suffer none at all Neither was he I mean Cyprian the first that without blot of Heresie oppos'd the Tradition of the Church of Rome but that courage which he left to others after him when they saw the Christian World joyne in counting him a Saint and a Martyr whom the Bishop of Rome had stiled a false Christ and a false Apostle the same had he received by seeing that the Asian Bishop had also rejected and oppos'd her Tradition and yet Policrates ever had in great honour and the rest never branded with the crime of Heresie nay even the more neighbouring Bishops and who joyn'd with the Pope in the time of celebrating Easter as Iraeneus yet thought the difference not worth excommunication and for want of skill in the Canon Law transgrest so farre as to reprehend for it whereas if to that Church all else had been to conform themselves then Iraeneus ought therefore to have thought the matter of weight enough because she thought it so who were to small purpose made a Judge if she were not as well enabled to distinguish between slight and materiall as between False and Truth though that it seemes she was not for the
of our Faith hath in vaine spent so much sweat and paines if after he passed from hence he hath left no meanes to assure mankind what it was he taught and practised I suppose this speech is directed at me who as you conceive take away all meanes because I have no Judge but I would faine know of you whether Plato and Aristotle have not left us meanes to know what they taught although they have not left us any living infallible Judge to deliver us their doctrine verbally or to expound their works Or if you intended your Accent upon the word Asture and if you mean by that some in fallible knowledge I desire you out of your own words to consider whether humane nature be capable of it For my part supposing as I doe that his Faith is in a sufficient degree which brings forth obedience I require not any motives more assuring except form them who claime that they cannot erre then such as any man unpraepossest with passion or prejudice will beleeve sufficiently to obey and such in my opinion are mine For though I know you count any way without a guide but groping in the dark yet if God had not given us so much light as we desired we must not therefore set up false lights and because we would be sure to have a guide make one our selves But he seemes to me to have dealt with us in Religon not very un-analogically to what he hath in the world giving us two lights Scripture and Universall Tradition whereof one gives light to the other and both to us Universall Tradition is our Guide to Scripture as whatsoever else that guided us to we would receive if there were any such thing and Scripture is our way to God By Universall Tradition we know much better that these Books were written by Christs Disciples who are sufficient witnesses of what he taught then the Aristotelians know that these were Aristotles works or the Academicks knew Plato's since Christians have both kept them with more care and in the acceptance of them used more caution as thinking them so much more important In the Scripture I conceive that according to that rule which I am sure I have either read in Chrysostome or very often quoted out of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that is necessary is clear or if any man that strives to square both his actions and opinions by that Rule chance to fall into any error for which his understanding is onely in fault and not his will it shall not hinder his rising to heaven Such an infallible way excludes if not all use at least all necessity of an infallible guide and is as good as a Judge to keep Unity in Charitie which is onely needfull though not in opinions and indeed since you must grant that if any man mis-interpret the Councell of Trent it shall not damne him so he doubt not of its truth desire to discover what it meant and be in a Propension of beleeving that when he knowes it me thinkes as Cineas told Pirrhus you had as good doe that at first which you must doe at last that is say the same with us at first concerning Scripture which after much trouble you are forced to say concerning Councels and in hard matters let the same implicite Faith in God serve which serves in them who can claime no authority but from and under him And which is more then I affirme that no man but by his own being wicked can come into any error by false interpretation of Scripture see I pray what Saint Austine saies in his forty ninth Sermon de Verbis Domini that God hath so hedg'd in all-his own sayings that whosoever would interpret any place of Scripture false he that hath a circumcised heart by reading what is before and after may find that sence which the other would pervert Yet if you can shew me reason to beleeve that there is any standing guide upon earth and without reason it were unreasonable to hope to perswade me to beleeve it I will never be proud so much to my own cost as rather to venture loosing my way by chusing it my selfe then be beholding to him for directing me in it Those to whom during his life he had most fully declared his mind went and told it to others and all was done But this way hath the prejudice of humane Fallibility for seldome it hapneth that a multitude can carry away all in the same manner and one thousand six hundred yeares are passed since ȳt if we looke into the immediate joynts of the descent we cannot finde where it can misse for the doctrine being supernaturall and not delivered by any mans skill or wit the maine principle of it can be no other then to know what was delivered them by their Teachers when therefore an Apostle had preached over and over again the same Doctrine not long nor hard to be carryed away in all the Townes of a Countrey and let him be gone and all dead who heard him speake and some questions arise concerning his doctrine let us see whether error can creep in if Christians keep to their hold that is what they were taught by Christs Apostles Let therefore the wisest and best of those Townes meet and discusse the controversie out of this principle will not there be a quick end of their dispute For every man can say Thus my Father heard the Apostle speak and what is here certaine of the Children of those who heard them may with as much evidence be deriv'd againe in the Grand-children and so in every age Those writings whose businesse is to prove should be like the houses in the Low Countries for as there they take such care of their foundations that what is under ground costs them more then all above it so in these the greatest labour ought to be in setling surely the Principles because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one absurditie granted how fertile error is after what a heard or swarme of strange conclusions follow not onely your selfe have observ'd but Aristotle also hath told all that have read him and experience daily tels mankind since therefore a small mistake encreaseth as much and as speedily as a graine of mustard-seed I must the earnestlier contradict this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this first error of yours as being the Parent of so many more already and being likely in time if by being confuted it be not us'd as Saturne us'd his Father to have yet a more large and numerous Issue 1 Then you leave out one thing out of your History of the Gospell which alone consider'd would have much weaken'd what you say For you speak of the Apostles but forget utterly their Writings a mis-interpretation of which might soon spread an error And certainlie out of them if Christians had been to receive no Instructions but onely to remember what was tanght them by word of mouth both they would have sav'd themselves the
them And first how it happened that divers Heretickes pretended to Tradition as the Chiliasts Gnosticks Carpocratians and divers others yet they with their Traditions have been rejected and the Church onely leftin claime of Tradition For if we looke into what Catholicke Tradition is and what the Herelicks pretended the question will remaine voided For the Catholicke Church cals Tradition that Doctrine which was publiquely delivered and the Hereticks called Tradition a kinde of secret Doctrine either gathered out of private conversation with the Apostles or rather pretended that the Apostles besides what they publiquely taught the world had another mysticall way proper to Schollers more endeared which came not to publique view whereas the force and energie of a Tradition residing in the multitude of hearers and being planted in the perpetuall life and actions of Christians it must have such a publicity that it cannot be unknown amongst them Of the Carpocratians and Gnosticks I have spoke before but sure for the Chiliasts this is onely said and not proved Howsoever this undeniablie appeares that either Pappias and Irenaeus thought not this Tradition to have come such a way as you speake of or else they thought it no hereticall way but such a one as was at least reasonablie to be assented to and both what was the way by which Traditions ought to come and by which this came they were more likely to know then those of following ages which proves that this Objection as much as concernes them especiallie remaines still so strong that in spite of Fevardentius it will be better to answer it Scalpello quam Calamo with a Pen-knife then with a Pen and no Confuter will serve for it but an Expurgatory Index no non si tuus afforet Hector if Cardinally Perron were alive I must by the way take notice of what yon say here that Tradition must have such a Publicity as cannot be unknown among Christians and desire you to agree this with what you say in the next Paragraph that the Apostles may not have preached in some Countries some Doctrines which we now are bound to receive as Traditions for sure those Doctrines were then unknown among many Christians and if they had been necess ry sure the Apostles would no where have forgot wich so good a Prompter as the Holy Ghost to have taught them If they were not then necessary how have they grown to be so since Besides I appeal to your Conscience whether it appeart that the doctrine of the Exchequer of Superabundant merits of which the Pope is Lord Treasurer and by vertue of which he dispenseth his pardons to all the Soules in Purgatory appear to have been known evern to any of the best Christians and whether if it had been known to them as a Tradition being a Doctrine which necessitates at least Wisdome and Charity a continuall practice of sueing for them and of giving them it were possible that of what they knew such infinite Volumes of Authors should make no mention Suppose some private Doctrine of an Apostle to some Disciple should be published and recorded by that Disciple and some others this might well be a Truth but never obtain the force of a Catholique Position that is such as it would be a damnation to reject because the descent from the Apostle is not notorious and fit to sway the body of the whole Church I confesse that to have been no more generally delivered will prove that the Apostles thought not such a Doctrine necessary else their Charity would not have suffered them to have so much concealed it but yet to any such Doctrine it is impossible that any Christian who believes the testimony that it came from the Apostles should deny his assent because it were to deny the Authority upon which all the rest is grounded for the Church pretends to her Authority from them and not they from her and howsoever such a Doctrine although not necessary could not be damnable as you make this Besides here will first arise a Question not easie to be decided how great a multitude of Witnesses will serve to be notorious and fit to sway the body of the Church especially so many having not for a long while been thought fit even by Catholiques though attesting doctrines since received by you all and considering that multitude of your Church which believe the immaculate Conception in as high a degree as it is possible without excommunicating the deniers who either walk not by that which you count the onely Catholique Rule or else claime such a Tradition who yet are not thought fit to sway the rest Secondly I pray observe how easie it was for the two first Ages at least the chiefe of them and all that are extant to have given assent to Traditions so unsufficiently testified or to have mistaken Doctrines under that notion for so they did to this of the Chiliasts and then after for it to spread till it were generall land last as long as men last upon their authority and when once it is so spread how shall we then discover how small an Originall it had when peradventure the head and spring of it will be as hard to find as that of Nilus so that the greatest part of what you receive might possibly appear to be no certainer nor better built if we could digg to the foundation Wherefore since the delivery of a Tradition by subsequent Ages hath its validity onely from the authority of the first me thinks you should either think that they received none but upon better grounds or else think these grounds good Thirdly I know not why you resolve this opinion of the Chiliasts to have had onely such a private Tradition for though they name John the Disciple and mention certaine Priests who heard it from him yet they deny not a moregeneraldelivery of it but peradventure least men might think that the generall opinion that it came from the Apostles might arise from places of Scripture which fallacie their testimony when not so fully expressed was still in danger of concerning any point but that these books were written by these men they therefore thought it fit to name to us their witnesses that it came from Christs owne mouth and in what words And if they had done so much on your side for the differences between us I believe you would now have few Protestant adversaries left for you would have converted the greater part and by that have been enabled to burn the smaller The second Question may be How it cometh to passe that some things which at first bindes not the Churches beliefe afterwards commeth to bind it For if it were ever a Tradition it ever must needs be publique and ever bind the Church and if once it were not it appears not how ever it could come to be for if this age for example have it not how can it deliver it to the next that followeth But if we consider that the
scope of Christian Doctrine being great and the Apostles preaching in so great varieties of Countries it might happen some point in one Country might be lesse understood or peradventure not preacht which in another was often preacht and well both understood and retained we may easily free our selves from these brambles For the Spirit of Tradition residing in this that the testimony be exceptione majus and beyond all danger of deceit It is not necessary to the efficaciousnesse of Tradition that the whole universall Church should be witnesse to such a truth but so great a part as could be a warrant against mistaking so that if all the Churches of Asia Greece or Affrick or AEgypt should constantly affirm such a Tradition to have been delivered them from the Apostles it were enough to make a Doctrine exceptione majorem Whence it ensueth that if in a meeting of the universall Church it were found that such a part hath such a Tradition concerning some matter whereof the rest had either no understanding or no certainty such a Doctrine would passe into a necessary bond of Faith in the whole Church Your sword is so sharp and your shield so weak that I can hardly believe they came out of the same forge but when I observe how much you have a better right hand then a left and that not onely you have raised an objection which you cannot lay but your answer to it multiplies more I cannot but compare you to him in Lucian who travelling with a Magician that had no servant and instead of one was daily wont to say to a Pestle Pestle be thou a man and it would be so and when his occasions were served would bid it return to be a Pestle and was obeyed thought one time to imitate the Magitian he being abroad and made indeed the Pestle a man and draw water but could not make it return to the former state but it continued still to draw wherefore angry and afraid he took up an axe and clove the Pestle-man in two whereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of one water-drawer there lept up two For first I pray consider what could you have found more certaine to destroy all which you had before laboured to settle about the Infallibilitie of your Tradition then this distincton of Exceptione Major since if not a generall one but one which seemed such were required how easie was it for false opinions to get in under that colour testified but by a few reputed honest men and so received by and transmitted from others of great and generall authoritie Secondlie how could you have found a better way to answer your owne Objection against the Chiliasts Tradition for want of being sufficientlie publique since if that had not seemed to them to have had this condition I mean if they had thought they should for this cause have excepted against it it had been impossible these Saints should have received it and concerning the publicitie of it and the number and authoritie of the deliverers they must of necessitie have been the best Judges who then lived and who were the more considerable Doctors of the most considerable Ages so that you must either confesse that a Tradition bindes not unlesse indeed generall or confesse that this doth supposing this not to have been generall which you cannot prove A likely example of this may be drawn from the Canonicall Bookes I deny it to be now necessarie to Salvation to admit of any Bookes for Canonicall which it was lawfull for Christians in past ages to doubt of and which had no generall Tradition and againe this answer helpes against your selfe for it is plaine by Saint Hieromes Testimonie that the Roman Church received not the Epistle to the Hebrewes which the Easterne Churches received whose Testimonie according to your grounds she then should have beleeved to be beyond exception and it is plaine by Perrons Testimonie that the Easterne Churches received not the Macchabees when he saies the Church of Rome did Now it is plaine that the Receivers pretended to Tradition because nothing else could make a booke thought Canonicall whereas other opinions might be brought in by a false Interpretation of Scriptures and after being spread might be thought to come from Tradition So that according to your grounds and these testimonies not onely the Westerne Church ought to have beleeved the Easterne about the Epistle to the Hebrewes and the Easterne the Westerne about the Macchabees but also they ought to have required this assent from each other which they not doing as they would have done if they had thought their testimonie so valid as you doe it followes that you doe differ from the Churches of the fifth and sixth age about what is exceptione majus you thinking that to be so which they thought not and againe from all the extant Doctors of the two first ages you thinking that not so which they thought was as also those two times agreed about it as little with each other as you with them both The third question may be how Christian Religion consisting of so many points is possible to be kept uncorrupted by Tradition which depending upon Memory and our memory being so fraile it seemeth cannot without manifest miracle conserve so great a diversity of points unchanged for so many ages But if we consider that Faith is a Science a thing whose parts are so connexed that if one be false all must needs be false we shall easily see that contrarily the multitude of divers points is a conservation the one to the right the other wherein we doubt As in Judges when a battell was to be fought between the children of Israel and the Midianites the Midianites destroyed each other and left nothing to doe for Israel but onely to pursue them so truly your Objections worke so strongly upon your own Party that I have nothing left me to presse and much to applaud For for this very reason I beleeve that all necessarie points were given in writing and onely the witnessing that these were the Apostles writings was left to Tradition which was both much lesse subject to error as being but one point and that a matter of fact and could no other way be done because no writing could have witnessed for it selfe so sufficientlie that we should have had reason to have beleeved it upon no other certificates and to this your answer seemes to me no way satisfactorie since first I deny Faith to be a Science it being nothing but an assent to Gods Revelations neither are those so connexed as you liberallic affirme and sparinglie prove Nay suppose they were yet though errors would be the lesse likely to enter yet when any one by any meanes were got in ' then this connexion would be a ready way to helpe it to let in all its fellowes Besides those opinions which may be superinduct as Traditions which such a connexion could not hinder if they were not
Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full Tradition I much doubt Neither do I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chaine giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from Father to Son being a link in it c. Of this opinion I was wholly before First upon my own small observation which also perswaded me that no controverted opinions had so much colour for such a Tradition out of antiquity as some which now are by both parts condemned And after by consideration of what hath been so temperately learned and judiciously writen by our Protestant Perron D'Aille But though I think that nothing is wholly provable by sufficient testimonies of the first ages to have had Primary and generall Tradition except the undoubted books of Scripture or what is so plainly there that it is not controverted between you and us yet I think the Negative is easie to be proved because any one known person dessenting and yet then accounted a learned and pious Catholique shews the Tradition not to have been generall and that the Church of this Age differs from that of those times if it Anathematize now for what then was either approved of or at least thought not so horrid but it might be borne with And again though we agree upon what will not serve to convince a full Tradition yet we disagree about what will serve for allowing there were any controverted opinions delivered with equall Tradition to the Scripture which I deny to have beene but would receive if it so appeared yet sure you beginne at the wrong end in the examination of what those are which ought to be done by considering the testimonies of the first ages and not of the last for in your own similitude of a rope though to helpe me to climbe by if you put but one end into my hands yet you must shew me that the other end is somewhere fastened or else for ought I know instead of getting up by it I may onelie get a fall and this fastening appeares not to me till I be shewed some more certaine connexion between the Opinions of this Age and those of the Apostolicke times then yet you have done or till you have answered those Arguments by which as I perswade my selfe I have made it appeare that it cannot be done As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels Infallibillity it is not to my purpose to meddle of them because of one side the way I have begun beareth no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in Quarrels betweene Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall With your favour Sir these places concerne not onely questions between your selves but between you and us for I thought you had all agreed though I knew you had not alwaies done so and though it seemes by your declining to speak about it that you doe not yet that generall Councels confirmed by the Pope are infallible and the Doctrines defined by them are to be beleeved de fide which if you be not then the Glew which it is so bragged you have to keepe you still at Unitie is dissolved and if you be then you should both have answered upon what grounds you are so and have destroyed my Objections against the possibilitie of certaintie knowing when it is that these which used to be called the Church have defined finding therefore Altum Silentium where there was so much cause of speaking makes me beleeve that the cause why you have not answered is onely because you could not and then you have a readie Apologie that Nemo tenetur ad impossibilia which I beleeve the rather because I know that to so cleare a judgement as yours that place of Scripture When two or three are gathered together c. which is so often press'd for the Infallibilitie of Councels must appeare to make as much for the Synod of Dort as for the Councell of Trent and to so great a learning as yours it cannot be unknown how few if any of the Ancients have asserted their Infallibilitie and how many both of the Ancients and your Modernes have denied it I am confirmed in this beleife too because you I know would never have accepted that as a sufficient excuse from me if I had avoided to answer an Argument so because Protestants are not agreed upon the point if you had thought it such as that they ought to have been agreed upon it and truelie this is as great and considerable a question as any among us As for the two places of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is accquainted with the course of this present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their Bookes are sometimes hindered from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up the reason is the multiplicity of Catholike Doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection of the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by Method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many Compilers as these latter ages have produced First What Fevardentius confesseth proves plainlie that for which I intended it which was the ridiculousnesse of proving their Doctrine to be true by being conformable to that of the Fathers and yet making themselves Judges of those Judges they appeale too and confessing that many of them erred in many points which if they did they might as well doe the same in those about which we differ although they agreed with you and dissented from us Secondlie What both he confesseth and you confesse with him disproves that way of knowing divine Truths which you propose for neither the Doctors of the ancient Church who were sure more likelie to know what was then taken for Tradition then any late Compilers nor of the Modern who had a mind to deliver truth and trac'd and followed your way of finding it could erre in points of faith if Qui docet ut didicit he that teacheth as he hath been taught must still be in the right for publique Tradition no learned man at least can be ignorant not any man say you of what he was taught
when a Childe as the substance of his hopes for all eternitie and so cannot in reason have his books either forbidden or pasted up for delivering any thing contrary to it Secondly Who are these Censors who forbid and paste up books certainly not the Universall Church nor yet the Representative the latter is not alwaies in being nor when it is at leasure to consider and judge all authors and of the first these Authors are a part if then they be fallible as they must be if they be not the Church why may not they erre and the martyr-Martyr-books speake truth which yet will easily by this meanes be kept from Posteritie if those in the Dictatory Office dissent from it as they will be sure to do if the opinion contradict never so little the power or greatnesse of the Pope upon whose favour these Oecumenicall Correctors must depend or they not longremaine in their places and yet you expect that your adversary should produce succession of their opinions in all ages though nothing be let passe but what a few please and though when in time all of you are agreed as you will soon be or appear to be if one side appear to be gag'd then this consent though thus brought about becomes the consent of the Church and a very notable Motive And since you say that what all are bound to is onely a prompt subjection to the Church why leave you it so in doubt what is the Church as if men were tyed to be subject but must not know to what you say indeed that the adherers to the Church of Rome are now the Church but what they may be you will not plainely declare So that if a Schisme among them should happen we are all as farr to seek as if you had been wholly silent for since the infallibility lies not in the particular Church of Rome and consequently the adhering to her is not ever a sufficient note of the Church as you will not say nor is it among your selves de fide since the Universall Church whatsoever she be can never define any thing and of the authority of the definitions of the Representative and of what constitutes both her and her decrees you refuse to speak what remaines there to which this prompt subjection is to be the onely everlasting Note of the true Church but onely the Truth whensoever she appeares Thus as the Priests of Apollo therefore peradventure called Loxias used to spread lies and secure his reputation the first by the antiquity and the second by the darknesse of his Oracles so doth your Religion gaine upon many men and secure her seflf rom many objections by the manyfold acceptions and consequently difficulty of this tearme Church For whatsoever is said in Scripture concerning her being free from all spot or prevailing against the gates of Hell or their danger who resist her the first meant as I believe and the place denies not by any circumstance of the Church Triumphant the second of the Church of the Elect and the third of the Professors of Christianity in generall or at most of those who are in all necessary points Orthodox among them That they without sufficient proofe resolve to be spoken of the Church in their sence they have fancied That is some ever known body of Christians which must be still guide to the rest and then claime to be that because no other all else being more ingenious claimes it besides themselves whereas if considering that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Oraculous truth of my great Lord Bacon's observation that unlesse men in the beginning of their disputes agree about the meaning of their tearmes they must end about words where they ought to have begun they had marked what other sence these words were capable of for if it will here beare another then this cannot hence be concluded but by leave they would then soon have seen the weaknesse of their building by the slightnesse of their foundation Againe they prevaile much by working upon mens assents by the meanes of their modesties and presse it to be an intollerable pride to oppose their opinions to the consent of the Catholick Church whereas if it be weighed how small a part of it they mean by that word and yet of them how many follow blindly the decrees of one and how soon those prevaile against that few not backed by any power who do not it will then appeare that not onely other Churches but even a John or a Thomas have as much reason to be lead by their own understandings as by the opinions and decrees of and Vrban or a Gregory upon which that consent is so often founded And as they make their advantage of this word in their offensive warres so do they in their defensive for when they are press'd unto the absurdity of their Tenets then though indeed they be generall yet they pretend that they are the opinions but of private though many men and not of the Church and againe when any Fathers who yet sometimes they say are wholly theirs are shewed to contradict some of their Doctrines so plainely that none of those subterfuges which in one of their expurgatory Indexes they consesse they often use will serve to palliate it then they strive to scape by answering that the Church had not then defined it whereas if it be examined how farre they consent about what is the Church and what are her Definitions whereof they are not yet agreed for some say she hath defined what others say she hath not this onely will be certainlie found that it never can be certainlie found what are her opinions of any point or when she hath declared her selfe As besides manie other Arguments some press'd by my selfe and others by other Pens more fit to treat of so weightie a matter appeares by your refusing to leave your Latibula and declare plainlie your opinion concerning it which if you saw defensible and you were all agreed about it you would quicklie have done and not incurred the reprehension of that Axiome which teacheth that Dolosus versatur in generalibus which makes me thinke that if this were generallie enough mark'd you would no longer be able to dazle any mans eyes with the splendid title of Somes to the Catholique Church as Alexander hoped to doe those of the Barbarians with stiling himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sonne of Jupiter although indeed he was so much the more moderate then the second as never to denie that any other could be Sonne to the same Father whereas you will not allow that any may have interest in your Mother besides your selves To conclude this Paragraph give me leave to aske one question and that is how your saying that Truth is more easie to finde now then in the Fathers times will agree either with the way which you say is the onely Catholique one to finde Truth by for sure such a Tradition was alwaies equallie easie to finde and if the first
this I answer by saying that if they would not appeale from the Right Tribunall or rather Rule which is the Scripture those many might casier be ended then this one we building our Faith onely upon plaine places and all reasonable men being sufficient of what is plain but if they appeal to a consent of Fathers and Councells where of many are lost many not lost not to be gotten many uncertaine whether Fathers or no Fathers and these which we have and know being too many for almost any industrie to read over and absolutely for any memory to remember which yet is necessarie because anyone clause of any one Father destroies a consent and being besides liable to all the exceptions which can be brought against the Scriptures being the Rule as difficulty want of an infallible Interpreter and such like and being denied to have any infallibility especially when they speak not as witnesses which a consent of them never doth against us by one partie which the Scripture is allowed to have by both then I wonder not if he think such a way so uncertaine and so long that he was willing to chuse any shorter cut rather then travell it Neither do I beleeve this other to be so short or so concluding as he imagines for if he consider the large extent of Christian Religion so that we know little from any indifferent Relator of the opinions of the Abissins so great a part of Christendome if he consider the great industry of his Church in extinguishing those whom they have called Hereticks and also their Books so that we know scarce any thing of them but from themselves who are too partiall to make good Historians if he consider how carefully they stop mens mouthes even those of their own with their Indices expurgatorii it will then appear to him both a long work to seek and a hard one to find whether any thought like Luther in all Ages and that he concludes very rashly who resolves that there was none because he cannot find any since they might have been visible in their times and yet not so to us for men are not the lesse visible when they are so for not being after remembered as a man may be a Gentleman though he know not his pedigree So that as I will not affirm that there were alwaies such because I cannot prove it so neither ought they to make themselves sure there were none without they could prove that which is impossible and therefore no Argument can be drawn from thence and if it could be proved that such a no-waies-erring Church must at all times be I had rather beleeve that there were still such though we know them not which may be true then that theirs is it which in my opinion cannot Thirdly He saies that he could find no one point of controverted Doctrine whereupon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the decision of it determined all the rest To this I answer That the Question of the Infallibilitie of the Pope at least of those who adhere to him which they call the Church is such a one as if determined must determine all the rest and not onely to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie and determined to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good a Plea upon the Title of Visibility as that of Rome and he would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religio is then evicted of not being the true ancient an and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but he might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence followes Fifthly He saies we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the reformed Religion before Luther which requirie is bound upon his supposition of the necessitie of a continuall succession of a visible and no-waies erronious Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearms By the first I conceive by a place he cites out of Saint Austine that he meanes visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been alwaies so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he meanes a Company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have been alwaies in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessarie that it should be alwaies visible but that it should alwaies be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have been any such Next That such a one he meanes appeares because when Catalogues have been brought of some who in all Ages have differed from them in things which we hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in all things and yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his he useth onely this course of instancing in some things wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the Historie it will appear that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers did in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can do and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessarie for us to do which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beleefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown unto Antiquity as either he or I as the Popes Indulgences having power to deliver out of Purgatorie confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if he find not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are so at Rome as Prayer to Saints their enjoying the Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgement the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sin if he find not some wholly unknown and absolutely condemned which we condemne as the lawfullnesse of Picturing God the Father whereof the first is confest by Barronius in the Margent to an Epistle of a Pope which saies the same and the latter to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints Martyrs of the two first Ages
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
they went by such a Tradition since of that eighty so many persons from so many several Parts are witnesses beyond exception according to your own grounds and that their Infallibility is not thought to depend upon an Impossibility that in the matter of Fact what hath been taught under that Notion they should either deceive or be deceiv'd but upon an infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which may be wanting to any company whereof the Pope is no part or of whose decrees he is no confirmer Now to return to my proofes that against the Arrians there was no such Tradition as you speak of at least that was the ground upon which they were condemned consider if you please that in that Epistle which Eusebius of Caesarea writ to some Arrians after the Councell of Nice he saith First that they assented to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantiall because also they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some eloquent and illustrious Bishops and Writers had us'd the Terme In which I note thatneither claim'dhe any such Verbal Tradition for this as you speak of and of that sort which he claim'd he names onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some as knowing too many had writ otherwise to give such a Tradition leave to be generall Secondly He saith they consented to Anathematize the Contradictors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder men from using unwritten words by which he saith and that truely that all confusion hath come upon the Church And if it be askt why the same reason made them not keep out the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer That I believe or else he is not constant to his own reason that he meant onely those words to be unwritten which were in Scripture neither themselves nor equivalently whereas he took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be in the Scripture in the latter sence And that by written he meant in the Scripture onely appeares by what followes that no divinely-inspired writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using the Arrians Phrase it was neither fitting to say nor teach them Neither can you say that Eusebius being himself a secret Arrian prevaricated herein for Theodoret makes this Epistle an Argument against them which he would not have done if either it had seem'd to him to say any thing contrary to the Catholique doctrine or not to have oppos'd the contrary by a Catholique way at least without giving his leader some Caution concerning it All which reasons move me to think that the generality of Christians had not been alwaies taught the contrary to Arrius's doctrine but some one way others the other most neither as having been onely spoken of upon occasions and therefore me thinks you had better either say with the Protestants that the Truth was concluded as Constantine said it should be by Arguments from Scripture or as some of your own say of other points that before the Councell it lay in Archivis Ecclesiae in the Deskes of the Church then claime such a Tradition for it as appeares it can never be defended that it had Let us consider but two opinions more That Infants are not to receive the Eucharist is now both the doctrine and practise of the Roman Church but six hundred yeeres the Church us'd it Saint Austine accounted it necessary at least in some sence of the word if not absolutely which last is most likely because from the necessity of that which could not be receiv'd but by them who had received Baptisme he and Innocentius a Pope prove the necessity of Baptisme and an Apostolicall Tradition If therefore both these Ages had gone by your Rule how comes this difference between their opinions the Sacrament being the same it was and the Children the same they were This I may consider and see if the same way that this Doctrine hath been altered whether any other might not have received change Next that Saints are invocable you must say is Tradition taught from Father to Sonne as deriv'd from the Apostles if you will be constant to your own principle now though I might disprove this first by the many Fathers that beleeved the Just not to be admitted to the Beatificall vision before the day of judgement for upon this your side now grounds that but to be kept in secretreceptacles and by the long time which pass'd before this doctrine was condemn'd Secondly by the beginning of it which was particular Doctors Hipotheticall prayers with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such conditionall clauses And thirdly by Nicephorus Calistus his Relation who in this is a believable witnesse because he allowes of your opinion that prayers to the Virgin Mary were first brought into the publick Liturgie by one Petrus Gnapheus a Heretick about five hundred yeares after Christ yet I will rather chuse to confute this by the confession of Sancta Clara out of Horantius who to this objection that sub Evangelio which must mean when the Gospel was preacht no such precept is extant not onely denies it not but gives this reason for it least the Pagans should-think themselves brought againe to the worshipping of Men instead of Gods If upon this or any other reason this were not then taught then have not all your Doctrines such a Pedigree as you suppose but allow it were yet howsoever it followes that some at least of the learned of your Church have not been taught that they have or consequently that it is necessary they should have Though it seemes to me little less then Montanisme to believe that any since as it were a Paraclet should perfect the doctrine which then was delivered by the Apostles Neither can you answer that they speake onely of such a Precept and of being extant whereas they might teach it lawfull without giving any Precept and they might have given such a Precept although not extant for I should readily reply that the reason they give why there is none such extant shewes that they mean there was none at all neither Precept nor allowance since the Pagans would have been scandaliz'd at its being accounted lawfull to worship men instead of Gods although it were not commanded and not a whit the lesse whether that in after times were extant or not which they could not foresee The onelie answer which I am able to invent in your behalfe is this that though some of your particular doctrines have not such a Tradition yet there being a Tradition that the Churches definitions are infallible whatsoever she at any time defines is then to be believed upon the strength of such a Tradition and before did latere in causis as Flowers do in Winter Yet to this I may reply by desiring you to enter with me into some few considerations First If this were so and that so much of Christian Religion depends upon the definitions of the Church and our Reception of them upon knowing alwaies which is she and that such is her authority can you perswade your selfe that Christ