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A67649
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Dr. Stillingfleet's principles of Protestancy cleared, confuted, and retorted And the infallibility of the Roman-Catholick Church asserted; and that the same church alone is the whole Catholick church. In a letter from a Catholick gentleman to a Protestant knight.
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Warner, John, 1628-1692.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing W911; ESTC R219411
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19,248
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38
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Dr. STILLINGFLEETS PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANCY Cleared Confuted and Retorted AND THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE ROMAN-CATHOLICK CHURCH Asserted And that the same Church alone is the whole CATHOLICK CHURCH IN A Letter from a Catholick Gentleman to a Protestant Knight Printed in the Year 1673. THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER NOtwithstanding the Multiplicity of Learned and solid Answers to Dr. Stillingfleets Principles of Christianity I thought fit also to publish this Short and Substantial Peece though neglected by the Author as more particularly suited for men endowed with strength of Reason and Judgement yet not much versed in Book-Learning SIR ACcording to your desire I have perused Dr. Stillingfleet's Discourse of Idolatry and his Principles of Protestancy To deliver my Opinion of either seemeth to be superfluous it being credible both are answered in England ere now But because you press me to it and the Answer may be as long expected here as the Book hath been I will venture to give my Judgement of Dr. Stillingfleet and do confesse ingeniously that of all Protestant Writers I ever read I take him to be not only the wittiest but the wisest especially where he rallies and endeavours to make the Roman Religion ridiculous For to imagine that rational men can be moved by serious Discourses to believe that God would send Martin Luther John Calvin Martin Bucer Thomas Cranmer c. to reform Christianity their lives having been so scandalous and un-christianlike or that he would oblige the world to credit such vicious men without shewing any Credentials or Miracles to confirm their Testimony and new sense of Scripture is to make God take a new and unreasonable Method Therefore Dr. Stillingfleet had very good Reasons not to insist upon this old and ordinary way of his Protestant Controversers he fixt upon a better for his own purpose which is to rail at the Saints and rally us out of their Religion and Miracles But notwithstanding the judicious choice of his new Method I humbly conceive he hath overshot himself by aiming so high and letting his arrows fly against so ancient a Patriarch as St. Bennet of whose supernatural gifts and Miracles never any one doubted that believed so authentick an Authour and Doctor of Gods Church as * Bishop Godwin in his Catalogue of Bishops c. p. 3. saith That blessed and holy Father S. Gregory was the oâ—casion of Re-planting the Christian Faith in our Countrey The same saith D. Whitaker contra Durcum lib. 5. p. 394. M. Bell in his Survey of Popery p. 187. termeth him S. Gregory sâ—rnamed the Great the holy and Learned Bishop of Rome D. Humphrey in his â—esuatism par 2. pag. 624. saith Gregory both in Name and in very Deed Great was indâ—ed with many Gifts of divine grace S. Isidore de Scripâ— Ecclesiast c. 27. saith Gregory Bishop of the Apostolick See of Rome c. was by the grace of the holy Ghost so greatly indued with light of knowledge as no Doctor of this present Age or in timâ—s pâ—â—t was equal to him S. John Damasâ—en speaking of his Dialogues and the life of S. Bennet which S. Gregory writ saith Let Gregory that wrote the Book of Dialogues Bishop of the elder Rome be brought forth a man as all know that was renowned both for holiness of life and learning c. St. Gregory the Great who writ his Life And truly Dr. Stillingfleet is the first Protestant Doctor I heard of did except against St. Gregories sincerity or sufficiency in relating matters of fact or faith He might think fit to make bold with S. Ignatius because he was Founder of the Jesuites with St. Dominick also because he invented the Inquisition But to think that his Raillery could reach to discredit the Miracles and Sanctity of S. Bennet and the Testimony of S. Gregory the Great is an unpardonable Crime And yet D. Stillingfleets Friends and his Enemies may excuse the heinousness of this Crime by the impossibility of Defending his Cause otherwise then by facing us down that all the Roman-Catholick Prelats and Preachers since the Primitive times were either so witless as to be seduced by foolish Saints and feign'd Miracles or so wicked as to conspire against Gods known Worship and plain Word to damn themselves and posterity And withall were so obstinate in adhering to the Errours of Popery that in whatsoever Age any Preachers began to reform that Doctrine they were suddenly cried down and condemned as notorious Hereticks by the Prelats and Councils of the then visible Church But leaving this to the Answerers of D. Stillingfleets Book I will pass to his Principles Dr. Stillingfleets PRINCIPLES Cleared Confuted and Retorted Of his Six Principles pretended to be agreed upon on both Sides TO his three first Principles I have nothing to say D. Stillingfleets Fourth Principle is That in order to mans obeying the Will of God it is necessary that he Know what it is for which some manifestation of the Will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not Principle V. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the Rule of mans Obedience may be certainly known to be his Will HIs Fourth Principle must be examined before any Christian can agree with him in it If he means that in order to mans obeying the Will of God it is necessary that he know what it is with clear or undeniable Evidence the Principle is false it is sufficient that he knows what Gods Will is by Credible Testimony or publick authority though the infallible certainty thereof doth not clearly appear So children are bound under pain of damnation to honour their Parents and Subjects to obey their Soveraigns though no infallible certainty appeareth that they are their Parents or Soveraigns In like manner though no undeniable certainty appears to us that God speaketh or declareth his Will by Scripture or by his Church yet we are bound under pain of damnation to beleeve that what is proposed and commanded by them is the Word and Will of God and accordingly we ought to obey The reason of this assertion is that mans understanding being imperfect its assent is more frequently directed by outward signs to the truth than by any immediate sight of the same And therefore even in things of greatest concern we are accustomed and indeed for want of better evidence forc't to rely upon the Tradition Testimony and Information of others and thereupon to ground our judicial decrees and Sentences both in Church and State This Custom being agreeable to reason and the Law of nature it cannot be against either to conform ourselves thereunto in supernatural Mysteries or matters of Faith seeing we understand lesse of these than of any others Therefore not only the Fourth Principle but the Fifth also which Dr. Stillingfleet pretends to be agreed unto on both sides are false inasmuch as they suppose that a clear
these seas of examples overwhelm contrary to the sence and practice of the greatest Doctors and Saints of Gods Church A man that can beleeve this may be credulous enough to think he can perswade the world to look upon all Miracles as mistakes and upon the Saints that wrought them as fools and phanaticks But if Dr. Stillingfleet will secure him elf and all Protestants from impostures let him enquire into the motives and Miracles which induce us to beleeve that the Roman-Catholick Church is infallibly assisted by God in delivering and interpreting his Word and Revelations He will not then presume to make every mans private Judgement according to his 5. and 6. Proposition the only ballance of so weighty an affair neither will he prefer his own particular opinion before the publick Testimony and constant Tradition of Christendom for many Ages especially if he will examine whether Gods Veracity Goodness and Providence be consistent with permitting fraud or falshood in that Doctrine which a Church in all appearance miraculous and supernaturally qualified proposeth as divine Whether the Miracles of the Roman-Catholick Church be true or false we dispute not at present but only averr that seeing so many * See S. Aug. de Civit. Dei lib. 22. c. 8. where amongst other Miracles he telleth how that in the presence of him and others a devout woman called Palladia was suddenly cured by praying to St. Stephen and at his Monument his words are Ad sanctum Martyem crare periexerat quae mox ut cancellos attigit sana surrexit S. Malachias Miracles you may see in his life written by S. Bernard who says in what kinde of old Miracles did not Malachias excel he wanted not Prophecy not Revelation not the gift of healing and to conclude not raising of the dead and relates them particularly as also how himself assisting at Malachias his death got his blessing and after he expired took his hand and laying it on the withered and useless hand of a boy then present he was restored to perfect health because in the dead Saint saith S. Bernard lived the grace of curing diseases All these and other more ancient and modern Miracles as those of S. Bernard himself are by the Century Writers Ostander and most Protestant Authors said to be cheats delusions or inchantments See Ostander for one in Epit. cent 12. pag. 310. Partim permissione Dei praestigiis Satanicis effecta existimo not saith he that I think S. Bernard was a Magician but it is likely Satan wrought such Miracles to confirm Idolatry and the worship of Saints c. See S. Xamir his Miracles wrought to convert the Indians and Japonians to Popery himself being a Jesuite wise and wary men in every Age for at least a 1000. years and after a severe Scrutiny and serious study have judged our most authentick Miracles true if all these men should be mistaken none can be condemned for following their judgement And all prudent and learned men must confesse it is a mystery not intelligible how the infinite Veracity of God can be infinitely averse from fraud and falshood if he permits both the one and the other to be countenanc't and promoted by apparent Miracles so plausibly fathered upon the Divine Omnipotency that such as pretend them to be counterfeit cannot discover the fraud nor disprove the fact nor finde out any natural cause to work such prodigious effects and therefore are forc't imâ—â—â—ting the obstinate Jews to attribute them to the power of Beelzebub or to the craft of those very Monks which they would have the world beleeve were mad-men and yet now make them so witty as to contrive the cheat so cunningly and to counterfeit supernatural Miracles so naturally that our Protestant Adversaries have been hitherto as unsuccessful in discovering any fallacy in them I mean still those which moved the Popes to canonize Saints as the first Reformers Luther and Calvin were unfortunate in being convicted of Folly and Forgery in imitating them when the one attempted to cast out the devil in Germany and the other to revive the dead in Geneva Proposition XIV To suppose the Books so written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole minde or the Writers with insincerity in not setting down and the whole Christian Church of the first ages with folly in believing the fulness and perfection of the Scriptures in order to salvation Proposition XV. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober Enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible Society of men either to attest or explain these Writings c. Proposition XVI There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians then for any person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving any equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by Miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by these very persons who challenge this Infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who do not beleeve it The 7.8.9.10.11.12 and 13. Propositions and but so many Prefaces to induce us to beleeve the 14. which says that if all things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in the Holy Scriptures of the New and Old Testament it followeth that God was fraudulent in not delivering his whole minde or that the Writers were insincere in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first ages fools for believing the fulness and perfection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation These consequences suppose but 't is not proved that God promised or decreed to deliver his whole minde so plainly in the Scriptures concerning all things necessary for Salvation that every one may easily understand his meaning and that the Primitive Church believed so But this agreeth not with the Records of Antiquity nor with the words of S. Peter 2 Pet. 3.16 saying that in S. Pauls Epistles there were some things hard to be understood and easily wrefted by men to their damnation And is further demonstrated to be false by the continual contestations of Protestants against the Roman-Catholick sence of Scripture about Image-worship whether it be prohibited in the Second Commandement and many other Controversies as the Real Presence c. For if Scripture or Gods meaning therein were as plain as is pretended in the 15. Proposition consciencious sober and learned men could not differ so irreconcileably in the true sence thereof Wherefore nothing is more clear to men in Scripture then that Scripture is not clear and that God did not intend it for the