any of them I therefore answer that when any such question arose amongst the Jews they were neither to have their last refuge to the Kings of Israel or Judah nor to the State Magistrates or common people for resolution in what they were to believe but to the lawful High Priest for the time with his High Council or Synod of other chief Priests and Doctors in the Law of Moses And they were to conform their belief to what they defined and taught them so that whatsoever either the Kings or some number of inferior Tribes or some particular Priests taught practised or believed contrary to the Doctrine and definition of this Supreme Spiritual Council was to be held erroneous and those who held forth such erroneous Doctrine pertinaciously or practised publickly contrary to it were to be esteemed in their doctrine Hereticks and in their practise Nonconformists to the True Church or Separatists from it If therefore a Jew in the times mentioned in the Querie should have demanded which was then the True Visible Church wherein Salvation could be acquired the answer must have been That it was the High Priest then being and all these believers who conformed their Faith Practises and Communion to him and his high Council ut supra And all such as stood in oppositions against him and division from him were Aliens so long as they continued in that state from the True Church Now if the Querist had proved efficaciously that the High Priest with his fore named Council taught the people either Idolatry the common sin of the Jews or any other breach of Gods Law to be lawful or any error against Gods Revelations to be true or any of his Revelations to be false he had overthrown the whole fabrick of my Queries But seeing this is not yet done by him his Queries are neither an Answer nor any obstruction to mine and therefore they remain in their full vigour against him For notwithstanding all he says in his second Query which is the main force of his instance I have clearly shewed a Jew of those times which was then the True Visible Church out of which Salvation could not be had Now it is impossible to prove any such matter unless he enervate the words of our Saviour Mat. 23. 2 3. where he says That whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees taught who had and did sit in Moses his chair that is succeeded in his Spiritual authority was to be observed and done by all the Jewish people which supposes evidently they could not teach them either error in Faith and Manners as part of Gods word for then he should have commanded to do evil and believe errors so that they were infallible in their teaching till Shiloh came And the reason why they were so infallible says our Saviour was because they sate upon Moses his chair and so governed successively the Church of God faithfully in matter of doctrine as he did in his time Upon the chair of Moses have sate the Scribes and Pharisees All therefore that they shall say unto you Observe and do it And this reason proves not only those that sate then when our Saviour spake these words but that all those who sate before them ever since the time of Moses were infallible in all divine doctrines both of Faith and Manners The third Querie is therefore thus answered That the Jewish Church understood ut supra could not teach any error as matter of Divine Faith or Religion To the fourth Querie I answer That though from the precedent Answers it followes that the Jewish Church by divine direction preserved the Holy Scriptures so entirely that it never rejected any true part of Gods written word nor received into their Canon of Gods written word any Book or Sentence which was not his word yet it followes not thence that every private person should find out every particular point of Religion by particular or express proofs out of that written word alone but that the Authority of the Jewish Church ut supra in matters controverted should interpose it self and determine the controversie Nor do the two Texts quoted in the Querie prove thus much For that Esa 8. 20. proves only this that they were neither to have recourse to Soothsayers nor to extraordinary visions but to the Law and Testament when doubts arose Now this is so far from forbidding to have recourse to the present respective Priests and Governors of the Church that the Law and Testament command expresly that recourse is to be had to them in doubtful cases Deut. 17. from the 8th to the 12th verse and Malachi 2. from the 4th to the 8th In which places the interpretation of the Law is reserved to the Priest and the disobedience to the Priests command declared to be so great a sin that it is to be punished with no less than death And for the Scriptures themselves it was so far from the Ordinance of Moses his Law that every particular or private Believer had license or opportunity or ordinary possibility to peruse them and gather from them by his sole perusal what was and what was not to be believed as private Protestants now do that the Law was only to be read to them once in Seven years Deut. 31. 10 11. and was accordingly performed by Esdras Nehem. 8. 1 2 3. And this was all we read in Scripture of the common People knowing the written word And it appears that the people were so far from undertaking by their own private judgements to attain to the full meaning of every hard sentence in the Law that it is said v. 79. that the Levites interpreted to the people and that Esdras taught them And v. 13. not only the people but the inferior Levites and Priests came to Esdras the chief Priest to hear from him the interpretation of the Law Now the respondent if he will make a parallel between the common people of the Jews and his Protestants must produce some clear place of Scripture where the Books of the Law of Moses and not only they but the whole Old Testament was as common and familiar in the houses and hands of every ignorant Jew as the Old and New Testament is now in the houses and hands of every ignorant Protestant which I believe he will find a very hard task seeing Printing being then unknown to the world it would have been very difficult to have found so immense a number of copies as are now since Printing of the Bible amongst Protestants Yet are not we of opinion that the Scriptures are either not profitable as Saint Paul says they are or not sufficient supposing them to be the written word of God by some precedent proof by way of Rule to make us wise unto Salvation For they contain many of the most important points of Religion clearly and expressely to all who are not willfully pertinacious and what they contain not in particular expressions by general rules they refer to the Church
I now make a return to that part as well as to the former and indeed to the whole Question 1. Errors that endanger Salvation do not alwaies destroy it 2. God hath promised to preserve his Church from destruction but not from danger 3. All errors when they are discovered are to be rejected 4. No doctrines offered by any Church to her Children are to be received without examination 5. The Catholick Church as it signifies the whole Body of Christendome is too big to be a teacher that may be consulted and hearkened unto 6. The Church in this mans sense and explication that is an Assembly of chief Pastors in Council may teach errors endangering Salvation Arianism hath been taught in as large Assemblies of chief Pastors as the true Faith hath been 7. But because it is the design of this man that we should take the Roman Church for the Catholick I stick not to say that the Roman Church teaches her children errors that endanger the attaining of Salvation My fift Answer is excepted against for the interposition of these words so long as it continues so which looks like a condition and seem to suppose that the Catholick Church can cease to be so The words are capable of another construction viz. The Holy Catholick Church so long as it continues secured from teaching destructive errors cannot even for that reason abuse the world with forged Scriptures This was then my meaning who had no intention that my last Answer should contradict my first Let us now see what he draws from my Answer if it were Categorical and how rational his inference is For now we are come to the bottom of his project And he thinks he hath catched us so fast in his trap that either we must give him the Cause or be condemned out of our own mouths If mine Answer be says this new fashioned Logician that the Church can never ohtrude false Scripture c. then you must grant that the Catholick visible Church is infallible in the delivery of Scripture If so then is there an infallible Judg upon the earth concerning this point How rash this inference is and how incoherent the conclusion with the premises a few words will serve to discover It is acknowledged on both sides that the primitive Church which received the Scriptures was not and because Gods spirit guided and governed the Church in this important business could not be abused and mistaken in the receiving of Canonical Scripture The Catholick Church being quickly after enlarged and spred through many regions of the earth did together with the Gospel preached receive Copies of the Scriptures which had been communicated by the particular Churches to which they were directed at first unto their neighbour Churches These Scriptures were by all Churches reverenced and preserved as the Grand Charter of their Salvation and the Laws and Records of their Society as the Church was the Kingdome of Christ distinguished from the world The zeal of Christians for their Laws and their knowledg of them which were frequently read in the publick Assemblies according to an * Apostolical order to which we must add above all the Providence of Gods watching over the Church for the preservation of Scriptures being more pretious to God than to Man and as pretious to God as the world it self these being well considered may assure us that it was morally impossible that the whole Church of God should be cousened into the reception of any forged Scriptures And if the Church in following ages could not combine together to coyn counterfeit Scriptures then the Church universal could never obtrude any thing upon the world for Canonical Scripture which was not received from the Primitive Church at first But how doth it follow from hence that the Church is an Infallible Judg in this point A creditable witness is not presently an Infallible Judg. A faithful Depositary that keeps Records is not the same thing with an unerring Judg. The Tradition of the Church Universal which hath derived the Holy Scriptures from age to age is not an Act of Judicature The Nation of the Jews is at this day a credible witness of the divine Original and authority of the Old Testament at least at the first plantation of the Church Christian the Jevvish Church did preserve and deliver the Holy Scriptures intire so much at least as God thought necessary or expedient and if any book vvere lost that by being lost became unnecessary and vvas secured by Gods Providence in the conveyance of his Oracles to Christians Doth it hence follovv that the People of the Jews was a visible Infallible Judg in that point and if so then in all matters of Faith For thus the Papist proceeds If so I require some satisfactory reason says the Querist why the Church should be infallible in this and fallible in other points of Faith c. I have already shewed that the Case is not so as this man imagines therefore I am not bound to give him the satisfaction which he requires Yet for your further information I add this 1. The reception and tradition of Scriptures by the Church is a fact which God orders as expedient for the preservation of Religion 2. The certain number of the Books written by inspiration is not a point of faith necessary for every Christian to know and believe unto Salvation 3. The Catholick Church cannot err in any point of faith necessary to salvation 4. But any particular Church may believe and teach erroneous Doctrine for matter of Faith The Church of Rome which is not the sole keeper of Scripture may and doth err in several points of their Religion and doth impose upon her children uncanonical Books for Scripture and false Doctrines for matters of faith as is evident by the Canons of the Conventicle of Trent And yet it is not in the power of the Church of Rome to abuse the whole Christian world by the imposition of counterfeit Scriptures upon it I shall yet persist in my reflexion upon the Jews that I may shew that the keeping of Scriptures without forgery falsification and corruption is a thing distinct and separable from erring teaching errors The Jews cannot be denied to have been good keepers of the Books even then when they corrupted the Religion enjoyned by the Law written in those Books Never yet was any man so weak as to conclude that the Priests and Rabbies of the Jews were Infallible Judges of the Doctrine concerning the Messias even those who condemned Christ the Son of God to be guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death because they kept the Books of Moses and the Prophets There is now less reason why we should take the present Church of Rome which we evidently see to teach Doctrines and set up a worship as contrary to the Scriptures as darkness is to light to be an infallible Judge of faith upon this account because the Primitive Roman Church in communion with other Churches did
more necessary for Christians then now Little Children keep your selves warily from Idols And Christs Admonition concerns us nearly Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees Since Papists are thus manifestly the heirs and successors of the Scribes and Pharisees let all that love their own souls decline the snares of these travellers to make Proselytes lest while they think to find a new way to Heaven which is called Tradition they be made the children of Hell Here indeed we have set one snare of the Devil before thine eyes the Papists first set it to take Christians captive and set it in secret in chambers whispering in the dark but now what was spoken in the dark and in the closet is brought forth to be examined by the light and I hope that this stratagem of our enemies is defeated by being discovered Indeed it is a happy ignorance not at all to know the depths of Satan but since God hath in his wise and just providence let loose Satan amongst us who can transform himself into an Angel of light and transfigure's his messengers into the Apostles of Christ who spare no pains to vent his delusions we had need to pray heartily that God will be our Sun to enlighten us with the saving beams of his heavenly truth which shine in his written Word and our shield our shelter our shadow to secure us from the snare of the Fowler from the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction the bold faced Devil that wasteth at noon-day And that the Christian Reader may be provided of an Antidote against this noysom pestilence and that he may both see and escape the deceit and destruction of this snare is the end of this publication which God make prosperous to his Glory Amen C. G. First SECTION Containing the PAPISTS QUERIES Five Queries propounded in Religion _1 WHether there is not in all ages a visible Catholick Church 2. Whether out of the visible Catholick Church any can attain Salvation 3. Seeing there are now very many Professions amongst Christians which give themselves out to be either the holy Catholick Church or part of it I desire to know by designation which amongst them all is now the holy Catholick Church 4. Whether the Holy Catholick Church so designed can teach her Children any error as matter of Christian Faith either destructive of Salvation or endangering the attaining of it 5. If the said Catholick Church can teach errors as matter of Christian Faith how any Christian can be infallibly certain that She hath not taught some error in determining the Canon of Scripture and in teaching some Book or Books to be the word of God which is not so and then what certainty any one can have that all those Books are Gods word which Gods Church delivers to be his word A Categorical Answer to these Queries is demanded Second Section containing the Divines Answer 1. THe Queries answered by propounding others reflecting upon the State of the Jewish Church of God to which God had made as ample promises of its continuance till Shiloh came in humility as he made of the Christian Churches perpetuity till the same Saviour come in glory 1. Whether according to the veracity of Gods promises there were not then to be a Visible Church of the Jewes 2. Seeing the Kingdom and Church of the ten tribes pretended to the truth and service of God as well as the House of David with the Priesthood at Hierusalem and even that Kingdom and Priesthood were sometime infected with gross Idolatry and that publickly set up and erected I desire to know by what designation a Jew that was truly inquisitive of the way and means of Salvation should then discern and discover that Church in which he might find it and out of which he could not since as Christ himself affirms John 4. 22. Salvation was then of the Jews 3. Whether the Visible Society of the Jewish Nation that was in covenant with God could not teach her Children any error as matter of Religion that was corruptive of the same and destructive of Salvation 4. If the said Church could teach such errors how any Jew could be infallibly certain that the living Oracles committed to that people were not corrupted or lying legends obstructed under pretence of Holy Scripture 5. If God in that Oeconomie did preserve the Holy Scriptures which were to be the standing Rule of Religion to which private persons were to have recourse for their direction to secure themselves from the seducement of erring Guides Esa 8. 20. and 9. 16. compared and also the Instrument of publick Authority for reformation of a corrupted Church why may not the Scriptures of the New Testament added to the Oracles of the Old be sufficient to make us wise unto Salvation and to enable them who have their senses exercised therein to discern between good and evil If the Querist can frame a good Answer that might satisty the conscience of a Jew then mutatis mutandis the same will be an Answer to his own Queries II. Take this Categorical Answer to the said Queries 1. There was is and shall be till the worlds end ae Catholick Church that in every age is visible by the profession of Christianity to the persons then living 2. Out of this Catholick Church ordinarily there is no Salvation 3. That is the Holy Catholick Church which professeth that One Holy Catholick Faith once for all delivered unto the Saints whereof the Holy Scriptures are the Conservative and Rule 4. That Holy Catholick Church teaches no error destructive of Salvation 5. Therefore cannot so long as it continues so abuse the world by imposing false or forged Scriptures upon it Quere further What reason now from hence can be deduced why any rational person should desert the Church of England that adheres to the acknowledged Rule of Faith the Scriptures and enter into the present Church of Rome which at the threshold requires him to renounce his Senses Reason and Charity and obliges him to the belief of a Creed composed a few years ago at Trent which we desire the Papists to prove was the Catholick Faith of the truly antient and Catholick Church Third Section containing the Papists Reply N. 1. A Categorical Answer to the Queries concerning the Jewish Church I Admit the promises of God here mentioned respectively to Jews and Christians To the first I answer affirmatively The Second commits a fallacy of Ignoratio elenchi The Queries about the Christian Church to which these ought to correspond proceed not upon any particular Kingdom no nor upon any particular Church nor on every one or any particular mumber of the Priests or Pastors of the Church but upon the representative Catholick Church in a full and lawful meeting of the chief Pastors to teach the Church diffusive what she is to believe as matter of Faith or to reject as errors in Faith when questions arise about
and the chief Governors of it to learn them from their mouths or from the Vniversal Tradition of Christendome But that every particular Christian is to receive and know what he is to believe what not by his sole perusal of Gods written word as though every particular point of Christian Faith were particularly set down in it or by particular respective consequences or other particular proofs concerning every such point to be deduced from it is so great a Paradox that no man I think who hath his right senses can averr it For besides the unlearned which is the far greater part of Christendome whereof a very great part know neither to write nor read and therefore depend upon the credit of others what are the words of Scripture or if they can read know no other save their Mothers tongue and thereby are subject to a thousand misconstructions of the words or Phrases in the Original or if they arrive to the knowledge of the original know not the true Rules of interpretation of Scripture and thereby run into errors or if they know them out of Pride or self-conceit of their own wit and jugdment will not apply them And as to the Learned seeing they after all their industry skill in Languages comparing one place with another c. are yet so far from according one with another in the interpretation of divers places of Scripture touching points of Faith controverted that there is no hope after 150 years discord they will ever come to an agreement But suppose some learned men might have a greater insight into Scripture and approach nearer to the sense of it then those that are less learned or the ignorant yet Scripture interpreted by private mens judgment cannot be a sufficient Rule of Faith or means to obtain it For the Rule and means appointed by almighty God to attain Faith must be common and universal to all sorts of Christians nor must there be one rule and means for the learned and another for the unlearned Seeing Scripture cannot be sufficiently interpreted by the sole means of Scripture by the unlearned as I have shewed and Scripture interpreted by private men cannot be the Rule and Means appointed by Almighty God for the guiding of consciences in all points of Faith there must therefore be some other for the unlearned and consequently for all Now this other means and rule can be no other excogitable unless we run to the Sole private Spirit of Phanatiques which is more absurd then all the rest save the direction and universal Tradition of Gods Catholick Church as is above declared As to your last sentence I acknowledg That he who can answer these Queries may answer mine and the same substantial answer mutatis mutandis will satisfie a good conscience in both Nor did I ever think my Queries unanswerable for I know I could answer them my self or any one may do who assents to the Principles of the Roman Church But I propounded my Queries to Protestants and shewed they are unanswerable by them and from them only it is from whom I in this occasion expect an answer N. 2. Now let us weigh the Categorical Answers To the first the Answer seems to be affirmative Onely there is some dubiousness in the word Christianity For all Hereticks make a visible profession of Christianity Supposing therefore you mean true Christianity in their whole Profession the Answer is accepted To the second you add the word Ordinarily If therefore you mean by this that some may be saved in extraordinary cases out of the visible Church I take the Answer to be affirmative that some may be saved out of the visible Catholick Church which I think is contrary to the stream of all Christian Antiquity The third hath nothing of a Categorical Answer For I demand amongst all different pretended professions which is now the Holy Catholick Church by designation of some one or some set number of Professions now on foot And you tell me what the Holy Catholick Church is but give no designation of any particular profession or professions of Christians Or if you intended to make a designation you have answered obscurum per aequè obscurum which can be no Categorical Answer For it is now as obscure among Christians which profession that is which now professeth the true Catholick Faith once for all delivered to the Saints c. as it is which is now the Holy Catholick Church Your fourth Answer is defective ex insufficienti enumeratione partium and not Categorical For I put two parts in my Querie Destructive of Salvation or indangering of it You answer to the first but you say nothing to the second wherein notwithstanding was the main force of the Querie Your fifth Answer is not Categorical because only conditional You say The Catholick Church so long as it continues so cannot c Now this conditional So long as it continues so supposes that the Catholick Church can cease to be the Catholick Church which is both contrary to your answer to the first Querie wherein you grant that there is in all ages a Visible Catholick Church and a most damnable error in Christianity For if the Visible Catholick Church can ever cease to be Christ who hath promised it shall ever be Eph. 4. 10 11 12. c. will become a false Prophet But suppose you had given a Categorical Answer That it can never obtrude false Scripture c. then you must grant that the Catholick Visible Church is infallible in the delivery of Scripture If so then is there an Infallible Judg upon the earth concerning this point If so I require some satisfactory reason why the Church should be infallible in this and fallible in other points of Faith seeing it is as great absurdity to abuse the world with salse Faith as with false Scriptures Or what authority is there either in Scripture or Antiquity which limits the infallibility of the Church to the sole determination of Scriptures Or is it not as pernicious to a Soul to be put in danger of damnation by having a dangerous error taught it by the Church as by having some Books happily less dangerous than that error imposed upon it by the Church To your Conclusion I answer The reason why you are to desert the Protestant English Church is not because it adheres to the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith for the Roman doth that as well as the Protestant but because they will have that the sole Rule in exclusion of Vniversal Tradition and the voice of the Catholick Church Nor is it any reason to refuse to join with the Roman Church because it enjoyns one to renounce his Senses and Reason For it enjoyns this no more than Scripture and the Protestant Church does For was not Lot to deny his Senses when he perceived them to be Angels whom his eyes ears and touch taught him to be living men And how could our Saviour pass through a whole crowd of people and neither
clamour and violence from determining any thing as it was the fate of the Council to which the Apostle Paul appeared then what is become of the Visible Guide Or how shall the Jews conscience be satisfied of this fundamental doctrine Certainly he must remain a Sceptick and that is next degree to Atheist if he do not find a clear Rule and a firm Rock whereon to build his holy faith which is the ground of a holy life And if he do he need not look for an Infallible Guide which if he have yet the vain curiosity to seek for he will never have the good hap to find I leave you now to judge of this mans resolution of my Queries And though he be like the Scribes and Pharisees in his industry to make Proselytes yet I have no fear of you but that you can discern the fraudulent course he takes to perswade and discover the sad end to which he leads his abused followers Since now I have out of Gods word evinced that the Priests of the Jews high and low were not only corrupt in their private manners but also grossely ignorant of Gods Law and seducers of the people from the true service of God and suborners of false prophets for that also may justly be taken into consideration for the support of their eredit and power with the people and imployed their Judicial power to condemn the true Prophets I have done enough mine Adversary himself being Judg to overthrow the frame of his Queries which were set up as a Gate or Bulwark of Hell to maintain the Devils devise The Infallibility of the Church of Rome masked with the specious Title of the Catholick Church And because I have also by our blessed Saviours sermons and sentence shewed the impiety as much as absurdity of honouring the Scribes and Pharisees with a priviledg of Infallibility I have said all that I conceive requisite concerning his answer to my second and third Queries which he resolves thus The Jewish Church understood ut supra that is the Pastors of the Church representing the whole and acting with authority for the government of the people could not teach any error as matter of divine Faith or Religion Only take this Corollary He must have a mind able to swallow and concoct Transubstantiation that can believe these Idolatrous Pastors so often complained of by God could do all this mischeif in the Church if they had been as dumb dogs in the Devils cause as they were in Gods and as silent for teaching any error in matter of Religion as they were in the instructing of men in the true way of God Or that these ignorant and debauched Priests being consulted concerning the Law of God would or should of necessity by a secret and powerful instinct of an Infallible Genius perpetually waiting upon them at least inspiring them upon such occasions teach the people contrary to their own perswasions and practise To the fourth Querie c. The vanity falshood and impiety of the precedent Answers to my 3 counter Queries being sufficiently evidenced it may seem superfluous to disprove what he builds upon the sand because this will sink of it self with the unsound foundation But because from that absurd supposition of Infallibility settled in the Jewish Priesthood he inferrs that the Jewish Church he means the Priests or chief Pastors thereof for he is much in proving that the people had very little to do with the Bible by divine direction preserved the Holy Scriptures intire without mutilation or addition of any thing uncanonical I shall briefly consider this Consequence which imports that the preservation of Scriptures depends upon the Infallibility of the Priests or the Church that keeps it I confess that Gods gratious providence is remarkable in preserving his pretious Word conteined in the Book of the Law But I pray you consider how little the Priests above montioned contributed their care to the conservation of the Scripture For in the reign of Idolatrous Kings who sometimes profaned the Temple with Idols sometimes shut up the doors of it the Priests who basely flattered and officiously served their Kings were so far from considering the Law at all and much more from reading and teaching it publickly that it might be the rule of Gods service that in Josiahs time the Penta teuch or the whole Law of Moses or as some think the Book called Deuteronomie being casually found in the ruines and rubbish of Gods house and then read by the High Priest was looked upon as a strange thing which they were not acquainted withal But though Priests were sometimes careless Depositaries yet God inspired such a Love of the Law into many of his People both Priests Levites and Laicks that that inestimable Juel was never lost which God would have preserved to be the Standard of his publick worship the measure of private devotion and the constant light to their walking with God and with men in the fear of God And notwithstanding the scandalous corruption of the Holy Order it self for a time pious persons could then be and were rationally assured that the Book of the Law as well as the law of the Lord was perfect and uncorrupted And I desire you to take notice that this is the Principal thing which is aimed at by way of instance or retortion to his fift Querie For if a direct true Answer be given to my fourth Querie it will follow by Analogie that Christians may be as perfectly ascertained of the integrity of the Canon of Scriptures though the major or more eminent part of Bishops the Bishop of Rome not exempted should be infected with Arianism as once it happened and although all the Bishops of the Roman Church which the Querist would fain have us to take for the Catholick but can never perswade us that a member of a Body is the whole as we can never believe that The Tyrrhene Sea is the whole Ocean do teach errors as matters of Christian Faith Now this being the design of my Question by getting out of a Papists mouth an Answer for a Jew to furnish a good Christian with an Answer to a Popish Cavil and to ensnare the Querist in his own ginn he craftily slips the Question out of the way and without making any direct answer to the Jews inquirie as he offered to do in handling the former Queries turns aside to make an impertinent Harangue concerning private mens use of the Scriptures Mark I pray my fourth Querie and compare the return and you will see nothing of an Answer in this That the infallibility of the Jewish Church was the means to preserve the Scriptures entire The question was not about the means by which the Book of Moses was preserved but about the manner how a Jew might be assured of the integrity of it Now the truly pious Jew who with Jeremy bemoaned the corruption of the Church by the errors and seducements of the Priests could not make
hand down to posterity the holy Scriptures without any falsification since the Church of Rome at this day doth both accept and impose upon her own Children and would but cannot upon others Apocryphal Books for Canonical I have now shewed that these Queries are not unanswerable by Protestants adhering to their own principles or Axioms I desire you to consider the result of the whole design Except you allow him at first that the Roman Church is in propriety of speech the Catholick Church this disquisition can advance you not an hairs-breadth to a better opinion of the Roman Church for a Guide then you had before For after all the clamour made for resolution of these Queries concerning the Catholick Church the main Question stands as it did Whether the Church of Rome at this day be to be subjected unto as an infallible Guide and to be communicated with all other Churches being abandoned and particularly the Church of England whereof you are now a setled member Till this be resolved you that know the frame of our Church and the module of our Religion may stay safely where you are It remains now that I examine his Answer to my conclusive Querie And I shall briefly note what you may by your own reason or experience discover either absurd or false in it He doth not require you to desert the Reformed Church of England for adhering to the Scriptures as the Rule of Faith For the Roman Church doth that as well as the Protestant as he says If this Querist do not pretend to Infallibility and Authority over you he will out of modesty allow you to examine whether Papists do as well that is as fully and firmly adhere to the Scriptures as English Protestants Certainly they do not well own them for a Rule who accuse them of obscurity and imperfection and make it a point of faith that the defectiveness of Scriptures must be supplied with unwritten Traditions And as certain it is that we who maintain the fulness of Scriptures in delivery of all things necessary to salvation and the perspicuity in that delivery and therefore admit of no point of Religion that is a meer stranger unto the Scripture do more closely stick to that Rule then the Papists But because you are free to examine the adherence of Papists to the Scriptures in particulars by comparison with the English Protestants try whether a mangled Eucharist the real Sacrifice of Christ by a Priest that makes his Maker and eats his God The publick service of God in a forreign and unknown language to the generality of the people that must say Amen to all Pictures of God used in Religious worship the superlative worship of the Virgin Mary Invocation of Saints Purgatory the ease of departed souls by offering of Masses the baptizing of Bels the treasury of superabundant merits of Christ and holy persons c. be as agreeable to the Scriptures as our Liturgy and the 39 Articles agreed on in our Church If you find it otherwise and Papists do not so much as pretend to make Scripture the Rule of these Doctrines and practices what credit can be given to such an impudent boaster But the ground of deserting us he pretends to be this That we will have the sole Rule of faith to be the Scriptures in exclusion of Universal Tradition and the voice of the Catholick Church 1. Suppose the chief Pastors and Doctors of England should dispute in the Schools about the Rule of faith and exclude Tradition and the voice of the Church from that honour which they think due only to the Word of God in Scriptures now since the decease of the Apostles and the unhappy divisions of Christians that make it difficult if not impossible to know assuredly what is delivered by Universal Tradition or taught by the Catholick Church why must you upon that account or any man desert the Church of England where the worship of God through Christ Jesus is celebrated without any mixture of superstition and the means of salvation are offered to you in a sufficient measure for your conduct in the way of truth and peace Let a Papist if he can prove that our making Scriptures the sole Rule of faith makes the communion with our Church unsafe Must you needs run out of our Church as if it were a House visited with the Plague meerly because it relyes only upon the Scriptures for a Religion And if you must do so must you needs then at the next step run into a Roman Assembly that as my Lord Falkland speaks keeps her children from Scripture as a Mother would keep her children from Rats-bane Think of both these because the Gentleman will not be pleased if you desert us but will not come to them He will think himself still a loser if any water go besides his Mill. 2. This calumny thus impudently fastned upon our Church shews this Querist to drive the Devils trade several wayes in tempting by impostures and in falsly accusing the brethren For I challenge any Papist to quote if he can and will cite an Author faithfully and fairly any Article of Religion or Writing of a Bishop or sentence of an Academy wherein we disclaim Universal Tradition or the voice of the Catholick Church For mine own part I do openly profess that if any point in controversie between us and Papists can be proved to have been taught by the Primitive Church as a matter of faith and derived by the voice of the Catholick Church from age to age and this Universal Tradition be manifested by as good evidence as is usually produced for the divine original of the Scriptures which we receive for Canonical I will embrace that Doctrine as the Word of God 3. SIR you cannot but know that we constantly reject many of the Popish opinions obtruded upon the Christian world as Novelties which not only want a sufficient warrant from the Scriptures but also cannot be made credible and acceptable by Universal Tradition Such are the Popes Universal Bishoprick or Occumenical Headship which Pope Gregorie the great called the character of Antichrist the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and many other points of Popish Religion some whereof I recited above and need not repeat We have incessantly required the Advocates for the Papacy to prove the consent and conformity of the present Roman Church in these particulars with the Primitive Church whose voice is the Precentor in the Quire and the first circle in the diffusion of Universal Tradition Thus let due esteem and credit be given to Universal Tradition but you see how little it is in earnest valued by Papists or how far they are from making use of that Rule which they extol so zealously as you hear thereby to prove the truth of their religion In fine you may apprehend the No reason to desert the Reformed Church of England therefore because she makes the Holy Scripture the sole Rule of Religion when indeed she knows no other given
and unlearned and easier to be applied by particular Christians then the Scripture the study whereof for the discovery of so much as is necessary to be believed and done requires infinitely less pains then is requisite for the certain knowledge of what the Church in all ages and places hath taught as matter of faith necessary to salvation You Sir are pretty well versed in Books and have been inquisitive into Antiquity and I believe you will conclude it much easier to know the mind and will of God which is the measure of spiritual wisdom and the Vnum necessarium the One thing necessary for us to seek after then to learn the sence of the Church that is still according to the Querists Exposition of the chief Pastors in all Ages concerning the points in debate between us To close up this Discourse try whether you find not within your self enough of reason to consent to this resolution he that by attendance on Gods Ordinances dispensed by a faithful Ministry and by private study of Gods Book hath learned the Gospel of Christ and is a good practical Scholar of the saving Grace of God which hath appeared unto all men a Catholick Light common as the Sun teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we live soberly righteously and religiously in this present world this man I say being * taught of God doth know à priori before-hand and by the very seed and in the first principle what the true Church Catholick holds For that Word of God which lives and abides for ever in Heaven Psal 119. 8 9. in the hearts of believers 2 Cor. 3. 3. 1 Joh. 3. 9. in the Scriptures and in the Church is that incorruptible seed by which the Church Catholick is begotten and by which it lives Since then the Church is no longer or further a Church then as it believes the Gospel and the faithful Pastors in all ages do teach that Gospel it must needs be that whosoever knows the Gospel knows what is the sense of the Catholick Church though he never spend an hour in the reading of history whereas if he spend Methusalahs age in tumbling over the Fathers Schoolmens Ecclesiastical Histories and other Volumes he may weary his flesh and yet notknow by them what was the Faith of the Catholick Church Now to the mans conclusion He acknowledges that a direct fit and true answer to my Queries mutatis mutandis would be an answer to his captious questions which he propounds with the same mind as his admired Masters the Scribes and Pharisees did trouble our Saviour Christ with Interrogatories thinking but in vain that we should be intangled in our ovvn Ansvvers whereas indeed he had been catched if he had given apposite Answers But after mine examination which I resign up to your discretion I desire you to transform your self by the power of imagination for a while into the person of a well-minded Jew that seeks for satisfaction in Religion in a distracted estate of the Church and try whether this Querist being forced to turn Respondent hath fully and fitly answered my Counter-Queries My next Task is to examine his exceptions against my Categorical Answers I shall not contend about words nor much crave excuse for want of accurate expression in that hasty delivery of my Conceptions to comply with your request at that time As to the first he excepts against the term Christianity as dubious to make my Answer acceptable I will insert the Term he desires and say True Christianity But I fear the addition will dispel no mist of doubtfulness if there were any such about the answer For Hereticks alwaies pretend to Truth as much as to Christianity and would be taken for the only true Christians But to satisfy his nice and curious palate I answer as fully as he desires There was is and shall be till the worlds end a Catholick Church that in every age is visible by profession of true Christianity to the persons then living That is to say In all ages God had and will have and preserve some Christians who shall so profess the Truth according to the doctrine of the Gospel that their light of Faith shall shine to the men of their generation respectively But I cannot so easily admit another addition sliely made by the Querist to my Answer viz. in their whole profession Latet anguis in herbâ He that professes true Christianity may build hay and stubble upon the foundation and yet not miscarry in his person whilst he holds fast his profession of the saving truth unto the end though he be saved through the fire and loose his superstructure as St. Paul assures us It is not therefore necessary that any person or Church which maintains true Christianity should profess it in such an absolute purity as that water should never be mixed with the wine It is enough that poyson is not admixed with the liquor of life But because I perceive that there is much ambiguity in the termes of the Query for which it deserves to be called Fallacia plurium interrogationum a sophistical trick of asking many things under one word that hath two faces under a hood I will weigh the vvords over again and mould my answer anevv fitted to his explication of the vvord Catholick In common speech Catholick is no more-than Universal Justin Martyr vvho vvith many others of that age believed a particular Resurrection of some that should rise and reign 1000 years before the end of the World calls the last Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or in plain English Universal Resurrection There is also a Catholick Faith vvhich is common to all Christians and comprises all that is necessary to Salvation And the Church of Christ novv unconfined to any one place or nation but spreading like a fruitful vine her branches throughout the earth is called Catholick that is not National as the old Church of the Jevvs vvas but Universal since the Gospel is preached to all the vvorld indifferently and the voice of the Apostles vvent forth into all the earth and their vvords unto the ends of the habitable vvorld It is not to be omitted that in a secondary and borrovved sense the word Catholick is applied to them that hold the true Faith which is common to all Christians and therefore Catholick In this sense not only a particular Church but also a singular person may be called Catholick meaning one that professes the Catholick Faith But the Querist who hath a peculiar language and though he speaks English yet means Italian hath taught me since I first read his Questions and answered them according to the common usage of the words that he meant by the Catholick Church the Representative Church in a full and lawful meeting of the Priests and Pastors to teach the Church diffusive Now according to this sense of the words Catholick Church I do turn my Affirmative Answer into a Negative and
that Infallibility which he did not believe because he saw the contrary the reason why he believed the Scriptures to be preserved in purity and integrity And it is as impertinent to any of my propositions to proceed as he doth that it follows not thence that every private person should find out every particular point of Religion by particular or express proofs out of the written word alone For I neither make nor suppose any such Inference from any thing premised in my fift Querie But Sir I would have you take notice that when we make the Holy Scriptures the Rule of Religion and Instrument to make us wise unto Salvation we do not exclude the Authority of those persons whom Christ hath made dipensers of Holy Mysteries but alwaies suppose the Mynisterie to be a Means appointed for the edifying us in our Holy Faith Again we allow particular Christians that are endowed with the Spirit of understanding which is one of the gifts which Christ received without measure but hath imparted to all his living members according to his good pleasure in a certain measure to try the Spirits and as the Bereans did to examine the agreeableness of their lawful pastors Doctrine to the Scripture And if a Priest though the highest in a Church tells Christians that the Blessed Cup in the Eucharist is not to be given to all them that receive the Holy Bread or that God may be represented by any picture or devise of men in any shape whatsoever or that any meer Creature is to be worshiped with religious worship the Sheep of Christ that know their chief Shephards voice may use their talent of reason to try these doctrines by the touch-stone of truth But we do not affirm that it is necessary for every Christian to deduce and prove every particular point of Religion out of Scripture But since the faith once delivered to the Saints with the rules of Holy Life are now written for our instruction and direction by God himself on purpose that they may be a Light to our feet and make wise the simple and therefore the Testimonies of the Lord are clear sure and plain in all things that are necessary to be believed and practised therefore every one according to the circumstances of his condition and calling is bound more or less to use the means vouchsafed him by Gods providence and may by diligence satisfy his conscience in building his Faith and Obedience upon Scriptum ect It is written Now let us see what our Querist sayes to prove that a Jew was bound to rest upon the Authority of the Priests though they were Idolatrous or infected with Sadducism he endeavors to invalidate my allegations of the Prophet Esay who expressely sayes in the place alledged The leaders of the people caused them to err and they that are lead of them are destroyed Is it not evident that leaning upon their leaders hand and resting upon their Authority was the peoples ruine God therefore not only to secure them from sorcerers as this man restrains the caution but also from all seducers whatsoever who surely would pretend divine warrant to gain credit to their erroneous doctrine for never any one brought false doctrine upon the stage without a vizard advises his people to have recourse to the Law and the Testimony not excluding the Ministerie of the Priest and Levite who were faithful in things concerning God if any such could be consulted with and some such God did reserve in the worst times but giving the people liberty if the Grandees spake not according to that manifest Rule to disbelieve them as destitute of true Light The Prophet indeed doth not forbid men to resort to the present Pastors of the Church but allows them the judgement of Discretion to try the words of their leaders by the Law which shines brightly enough to enlighten their eyes that they may discern Chaff from Wheat and false doctrine from true Let the next Paper if it can shew the contrary for this offers nothing to that purpose Till then and for ever the Law and Testimony written by Gods special design stand for a Rule of Pastors teaching and peoples obeying Next he brings 2 proofs of his assertion out of Deut. 17. 8. 12. Mal. 2. 4. The Devil could find Scriptures to advance his temptations But Consider the violence offered to Gods word by this racking it As to that of Moses there is indeed there an establishment of a High Court without appeal to whose cognizance are referred all important Controversies about the Law of Moses which being in the whole frame of it divine gives a tincture of Religion to those causes that were for the substance Civil or concerned the outward estate or persons of the people In that Court the Priests and Levites who by their office were bound to study the whole Law of God and fit to expound the political Statutes given by the hand of Moses for the government of that Nation but contrived enacted and endited by God himself did sit with the Elders as Judges Now judg you whether the submission required of all Jews being at difference about civil matters to the sentence of that Court signify any thing to enforce upon Jews an obligation to believe and obey the Priests in all things when common reason assured them that their doctrine practise and injunctions were contrary to the Law of God Submission to the sentence of a Supreme Court which was necessary for peace to put a period to contentions did not oblige the party adjudged to believe the sentence to be just though the aggrieved party had no remedy till the judg of all the world appear to do right That those Judges did often turn judgment into wormwood it is evident by the Prophets and it is well known that that Court setled at Jerusalem having taken to themselves the power of judging Prophets did very often condemn the Lords true Prophets Now what Master of reason can ever fairly deduce from the outward subjection which was necessary both for wrath and Conscience to a Supreme Court of Gods institution though the Judges were not infallible in judicature That those Priests were infallible teachers of Religion whose word was to be taken and relyed on without refusal or so much as tryal As to that of the Prophet Malachi it is subtilly done of him to touch it lightly but fraudulently done to cite it imperfectly It is enough that I have already shewed the full sense of the Prophet who declares what the Priests were by their office obliged to do and from their Dignity and Duty aggravates the crime of the debauched Priests of that age who abused both their power and also the people And this sharp reproof is far enough from proving them then to be infallible But this Querist surely presumes you to be a Papist already and of that form that is unlicensed to read the Book of God Else he could not be so stupid as