such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these Words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and Testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet methinks you should not deny but it may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian Heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such Tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the New Testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books must be discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in Reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or Seal in the End The End of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and Authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as
43. is as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as can possibly be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hindrance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgment all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken and Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high points of Faith and obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was Universally believed of all Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to Heaven For why should men be more rigid than God Why should any Error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of Eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those points of Doctrine which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old and New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrines are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrine of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrines how have they complied with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and Man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of Saint Mark and Saint John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other very profitable things in the larger Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke And that Saint Marks Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their Tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did Preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the Scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been Preached by Peter and Luke the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was Preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephseus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Hereticks Lib. 3. c. 2. that pretended as you know who do now adaies that some necessary Doctrines of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was Preached by S Peter was written by S Mark and so other necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirm than confute their Error It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary Doctrine of the Gospel which was Preached by Saint Peter was written by Saint Mark. Now you will not deny I presume that Saint Peter Preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Mark wrote all 42. Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Johns intent in writing his Gospel whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to Eternal Life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much less than the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justifie what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ Neither will I deny but S. Johns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary Doctrine is in S. John which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should do before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospel what that was certainly no Father in the World understood it better than himself Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signs saith he also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have Life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signs are written
believe would prove his intent had not the corruptions of the Roman Church possessed and infected even the publick Service of God among them in which their Communion was required and did not the Church of Rome require the Belief of all her Errors as the condition of her Communion But howsoever be his reasons conclusive or not conclusive certainly this was the profest opinion of him and divers others as by name Cassander and Baldwin who though they thought as ill of the Doctrine of the most prevailing part of the Church of Rome as Protestants do yet thought it their duty not to separate from her Communion And if there were any considerable number of considerable men thus minded as I know not why any man should think there was not then it is made not only a most difficult but even an impossible thing to know what was the Catholick Judgment of our Fathers in the points of controversie seeing they might be joyned in Communion and yet very far divided in opinion They might all live in obedience to the Pope and yet some think him head of the Church by Divine right others as a great part of the French Church at this day by Ecclesiastical constitution others by neither but by Practice and Usurpation wherein yet because he had Prescription of many Ages for him he might not justly be disturbed All might go to Confession and yet some only think it necessary others only profitable All might go to Mass and the other Services of the Church and some only like and approve the Language of it others only tolerate it and wish it altered if it might be without greater inconvenience All might receive the Sacrament and yet some believe it to be the Body and Blood of Christ others only a Sacrament of it Some that the Mass was a true and proper Sacrifice others only a Commemorative Sacrifice or the Commemoration of a Sacrifice Some that it was lawful for the Clergy to deny the Laiety the Sacramental Cup others that it was lawful for them to receive in one kind only seeing they could not in both Some might adore Christ as present there according to his Humanity others as present according to his Divine Nature only Some might pray for the Dead as believing them in Purgatory others upon no certain ground but only that they should rather have their Prayers and Charity which wanted them not than that they which did want them should not have them Some might pray to Saints upon a belief that they heard their Prayers and knew their Hearts others might pray to them meaning nothing but to pray by them that God for their sakes would grant their Prayers others thirdly might not pray to them at all as thinking it unnecessary others as fearing it unlawful yet because they were not fully resolved only forbearing it themselves and not condemning it in others Uncle I pray you then remember also what it is that Protestants do commonly taunt and check Catholicks with is it not that they believe Traditions It is a meer Calumny that Protestants condemn all kind of Traditions who subscribe very willingly to that of Vincentius Lerinensis That Christian Religion is res tradita non inventa a matter of Tradition not of mans invention is what the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God Chemnitius in his Examen of the Council of Trent hath liberally granted seven sorts of Traditions and Protestants find no fault with him for it Prove therefore any Tradition to be Apostolick which is not written Shew that there is some known Word of God which we are commanded to believe that is not contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and we shall quickly shew that we believe Gods Word because it is Gods and not because it is written If there were any thing not written which had come down to us with as full and Universal a Tradition as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture That thing should I believe as well as the Scripture but I have long fought for some such thing and yet I am to seek Nay I am confident no one point in Controversie between Papists and Protestants can go in upon half so fair Cards for to gain the esteem of an Apostolick Tradition as those things which are now decried on all hands I mean the opinion of the Chiliasts and the Communicating Infants The latter by the confession of Cardinal Perron Maldonate and Binius was the Custom of the Church for 600 years at least It is expresly and in terms vouched by S. Austin for the Doctrine of the Church and an Apostolick Tradition it was never instituted by General Council but in the use of the Church as long before the First general Council as S. Cyprian before the Council There is no known Author of the beginning of it all which are the Catholick marks of an Apostolick Tradition and yet this you say is not so or if it be why have you abolisht it The former Lineally derives its pedigree from our Saviour to St. John from S. John to Papias from Papias to Just in Martyr Irenaeus Melito Sardensis Tertullian and others of the two first Ages who as they generally agree in the Affirmation of this Doctrine and are not contradicted by any of their Predecessors so some of them at least speak to the point not as Doctors but Witnesses and deliver it for the Doctrine of the Church and Apostolick Tradition and condemn the contrary as Heresie And therefore if there be any unwritten Traditions these certainly must be admitted first or if these which have so fair pretence to it must yet be rejected I hope then we shall have the like liberty to put back Purgatory and Indulgences and Transubstantiation and the Latin Service and the Communion in one kind c. none of which is of Age enough to be Page to either of the forenamed Doctrines especially the opinion of the Millenaries Uncle What think you means this word Tradition No other thing certainly but that we confute all our Adversaries by the Testimony of the former Church saying unto them this was the belief of our Fathers Thus were we taught by them and they by theirs without stop or stay till you come to Christ We confute our Adversaries by saying thus Truly a very easie confutation But saying and proving are two Mens Offices and therefore though you be excellent in the former I fear when it comes to the Tryal you will be found defective in the Latter Uncle And this no other but the Roman Church did or could ever pretend to which being in truth undeniable and they cannot choose but grant the thing Their last refuge is to laugh and say that both Fathers and Councils did Err because they were men as if Protestants themselves were more Is it not so as I tell you No indeed it is not by your
they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
câ—stodiri quemadmodam scriptura Canonica tot linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non defuerunt tamen qui sub nominibus Apostolorum multa confingerent Frustra quidem Quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate fundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quod adversus eos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent contra Donat Rogat That in his judgment the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the Translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with Universal care and dilligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us b In hac Germani textus pervestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumentum esse certius ac firmius quam antiquorem probatorum codicum latinorum fidem c. sic Sixtus in praefat That in the prevestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have to build upon as well as He had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56. This is not all I have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the 8th set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extreme impudence deny that until then there was great variety of Copies currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clements's time have any certainty what that one true Copy and reading was if there were any one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholden to Clement but how fouly they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57. This certainty therefore in what Language the Scripture remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary what became of your Church for 1500 Years together All which time you must confess she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this point yet are you as far as ever from any true and real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentick Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. Ad 16. § C. M. Objects to Protestants That their Translations of the Scripture are very different and by each other mutually condemned Luthers Translation by Zwinglius and others That of the Zwinglians by Luther The Translation of Oecolampadius by the Divines of Basil that of Castalio by Beza That of Beza by Castalio That of Calvin by Carolus Molinaeus That of Geneva by M. Parks and King James And lastly one of our Translations by the Puritans 59. I HIL All which might have been as justly objected against that great variety of Translations extant in the Primitive Church and made use of by the Fathers and Doctors of it For which I desire not that my word but S. Austins may be taken They which have Translated the Scriptures out of the Hebrew into Greek may be numbred but the Latine Interpreters are innumerable For whensoever any one in the first times of Christianity met with a Greek Bible and seemed to himself to have some ability in both Languages he presently ventured upon an Interpretation So He in his second Book of Christian Doctrine Cap. 11. Of all these that which was called the Italian Translation was esteemed best so we may learn from the same S. Austin in the 15. Chap. of the same Book Amongst all these Interpretations saith he let the Italian be preferred for it keeps closer to the Letter and is perspicuous in the sense Yet so far was the Church of that time from persuming upon the absolute purity and perfection even of this best Translation that S. Hierome thought it necessary to make a new Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew Fountain which himself testifies in his Book de Viris Illustribus And to correct the vulgar version of the New Testament according to the truth of the Original Greek amending many Errors which had crept into it whether by the mistake of the Author or the negligence of the Transcribers which work he undertook and performed at the request of Damasus Bishop of Rome You constrain me saith he to make a new Work of an old that after the Copies of the Scriptures have been dispersed through the whole World I should sit as it were an Arbitrator amongst them and because they vary among themselves should determine what are those things in them which consent with the Greek verity And after Therefore this present Preface promises the four Gospels only corrected by collation with Greek Copies But that they might not be very dissonant from the Custome of the Latine reading I have so tempered with my stile the Translation of the Ancients that those things amended wich did seem to change the sense other things I have suffered to remain as they were So that in this matter Protestants must either stand or fall with the Primitive Church 62. C. M. But the Faith of Protestants relies upon Scripture alone Scripture is delivered to most of them by Translations Translations depend upon the skill and honesty of Men who certainly may Err because they are Men and certainly do Err at least some of them because their Translations are contrary
Mr. Chillingworth's Book CALLED THE Religion of Protestants A SAFE WAY TO SALVATION Made more generally useful by omitting Personal Contests but inserting whatsoever concerns the common Cause of Protestants or defends the Church of England WITH An ADDITION of some genuine Pieces of Mr. Chillingworth's never before Printed Isaac Casaub in Ep. ad Card. Perron Reg. Jac. nomine scripta Rex arbitratur rerum absolute necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestas nullam ad ineundem concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m fi diligentèr separentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simpliciter necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expresse verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia esicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo se◠Ecclesiastico candidè separatetur non videtur de iis quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam pauca illa sunt ut modò dicebamus fere ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae bodie Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere London Printed for R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-yard C. Harper at the Flower de-Luce in Fleetstreet W. Crook at the Green-Dragon without Temple-Bar and J. Adamson at the Angel in S. Paul's Church-yard 1687. An Advertisement concerning this Edition I Hope I shall incur no blame from those who deservedly value this Excellent BOOK of Mr. Chillingworth for having made it of a lesser bulk and an easier purchase than before after I have told them my way of proceeding herein I have not Epitomized it in the usual way by contracting any where his sense and giving it more briefly in words of my own which would have been indeed an injury to him who knew so well how to express his own sense fully and perspicuously beyond most men without any redundancy of style but by paring off and leaving out some parts of it which I thought might be well spared and make the Reading of his Book more pleasant as well as more generally useful when his defence of the Protestant Doctrins and the cause of the Reformation lay more closely together not being interrupted with so many pages spent to justifie Dr. Potter in the personal contests betwixt him and his adversary or in detecting the sophistry frauds and falsities of the Jesuit where the matter was not of common concern But where I thought it was I have been scrupulously careful to omit nothing so far from it that I am apt upon a review to think that the pleasure of reading his admirable Confutation has bribed me to insert more than was needful in pursuance of my first design The reason why the Jesuits Book which Mr. Chillingworth answers is not here reprinted was partly because it is too tedious and wordy abounding in impertinent cavils and affecting to fetch a great compass to amuse and lose the Reader before he comes to the point in Question which he scarce ever attempts closely to prove and chiefly because Mr. Chillingworth has commonly all along set down in a different Character as much of his words as was needful to let the Reader see what it is he makes a Reply to and where I found any omission of this kind I have transcribed out of the Jesuits Book such passages and citations as might give further light to it besides that every one who has a mind or any doubt remaining about this matter may easily consult the Folio Edition satisfie himself I have added a large Table of Contents at the end which was wanting before whereby the Reader may find any Argument or head of Discourse therein contained with little or no trouble which Table will serve any Edition of the Book because the numbers after the Chapter refer to the divisions of the Chapters at the side not to the Pages at the top As for the Additional pieces that follow the Book and were never before printed he that reads them will find by the clearness of expression the close way of arguing and strength of reasoning sufficient to convince him that they are not spurious but the genuine productions of this great Man but yet for his further satisfaction he may know that the Manuscript out of which most of them were faithfully transcribed is an Original of Mr. Chillingworths own hand-writing and now in the custody of the Reverend Dr. Tennison to whom he is beholden for their present Publication TO THE Most High and Mighty PRINCE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING of Great Brittain France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most sacred Hands a Defence of that Cause which is and ought to be infinitely dearer to you than all the world Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censured for a double boldness both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and again for presenting it to such a Patron whose judgment I ought to fear more than any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my self and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of my self whose personal defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience to Him who said Tu Conversus confirma fratres not to S. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodness of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the prejudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to truth in one place perhaps lead to error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and search into the grounds on both sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my self For my inscribing to it your Majesties sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Majesties Patronage and protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special Order from Your Majesty was written some years since chiefly for the general good but peradventure not without some aim at the recovery of One of your meanest Subjects from a dangerous deviation and so due unto your Majesty as the fruit of your own High humility
requiring men upon only probable and Prudential motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of Faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some Texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your Calumnies against Protestants in general are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one Error which may well be termed the Capital and Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their Heresie in affirming that the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted Succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the Infallibility of such a publick Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse and talk not here of holy Scripture for if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private Spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else epon natural wit and judgment for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of Gods Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by Divine Inspiration or that all the Contents are infallibly true which are the direct Errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his Soul would live or die in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholicks while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but jointly he must be left to his own wit and ways and must abandon all infused Faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which Discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that the denyal of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denialaof the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one Error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The Doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Popes Infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur it a facis Sir Why do you thus but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume he deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up himself In as much as he that requires that his Interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his Interpretations should be the Laws and he that is firmly prepared in mind to believe and receive all such Interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgment they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeys only the Interpreter As if I should submit to the Laws of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sence which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it accordingly to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it who would not say that I were a Christian in pretence only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the Law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any foul interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this Power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primative Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable
that ever they should have brought in the Worship of Images and Picturing of God as now it is that they should legitimate Fornication Why may we not think they may in time take away the whole Communion from the Laity as well as they have taken away half of it Why may we not think that any Text and any sense may not be accorded as well as the whole 14. Ch. of the Ep. of S. Paul to the Corinth is reconciled to the Latine service How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden than the Worship of Angels in the Ep. to the Colossians than the teaching for Doctrines Mens commands in the Gospel of S. Mark And therefore seeing we see these things done which hardly any man would have believed that had not seen them why should we not fear that this unlimited Power may not be used hereafter with as little moderation Seeing devices have been invented how Men may worship Images without Idolatry and Kill Innocent Men under pretence of Heresie without Murther who knows not that some tricks may not be hereafter devised by which lying with other Mens Wives shall be no Adultery taking away other Mens Goods no Theft I conclude therefore that if Solomon himself were here and were to determine the difference which is more likely to be Mother of all Heresie the denial of the Churches or the affirming of the Popes Infallibility that he would certainly say this is the Mother give her the Child 12. You say again confidently that if this Infallibility be once impeached every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse which if you mean Discourse not guiding it selfe by Scripture but only by principles of Nature or perhaps by prejudices and popular errors and drawing consequences not by rule but chance is by no means true if you mean by Discourse right reason grounded on Divine revelation and common notions written by God in the hearts of all Men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them if this be it which you mean by Discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happiness should be left unto it and he that follows this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seem to do so follows alwaies God whereas he that followeth a Company of Men may oftimes follow a Company of Beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. John to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider whether they confess Jesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions not whether they acknowledg the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good than S. Peter in commanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them than our Saviour himself in forewarning all his followers that if they blindly followed blind Guides both leaders and followers should fall into the Ditch and again in saying even to the People Yea and why of your selves Judge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or prejudice by want of Reason or not using that they have Men may be and are oftentimes led into Error and mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your self have given them security For what is discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth chap. of this Pamphlet that from truth no man can by good consequence infer falshood Therefore by discourse no Man can possibly be led to Error but if he Err in his conclusions he must of necessity either Err in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some Error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seem to do so 13. You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may Err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural wit and Judgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly Err in her judgment touching this matter yet have we other Directions in it besides the private spirit and the examination of the Contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcilable contradictions but the affirmative it cannot conclude because the Contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not written by Divine inspiration other Direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assured that any parcel of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible Authority of your Church or any other The second because if I cannot have ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church infallible then I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church Infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 16. Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead Men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you you deny the Infallibility of the Church of England Ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the Infallibility of the Roman Church Ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes Infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to the
And whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If she cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible Teacher of all Divine verities and an infallible interpreter of obscurities in the Faith for she cannot teach us all Divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her do it and then we shall have a writing not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can do or not do no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Jesus if he had pleased could have writ us a rule of Faith so plain and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any clearness to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writing there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledge a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8. You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholden to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answer First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetual Miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And thus though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its own saying so for nothing is proved true by being said or written in a Book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it self yet it may be so in it self and contain all the material Objects all the particular Articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this Writing doth contain the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirm against Papists that Scripture is a perfect rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the Book called Scripture is the Word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants do contains all the material Objects of Faith is a compleat and Total and not only an imperfect and a partial Rule 9. But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is Infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other Book of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer Every Text of Scripture though it have the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say a Text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10. The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry Cosin German to the former When the first Books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritter Tradition Therefore now also that all the Books of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which Argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the Divine Doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the Divine Doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scriptures being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would fain confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it contain not all necessary Divine Truth But unless it do so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you do not imagine that we conceive any Antipathy between Gods Word Written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de Facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospel of Christ the whole Covenant between God and Man is now Written Whereas if he had pleased he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the Progress shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that says It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyned but that we deny The fidelity of a Keeper may very well consist with the Authority of the thing committed to his Custody But we know no one Society of Christians that is such a faithful Keeper as you pretend The Scripture it self was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be Divine and yet in several parts of your Church all of them until the last Age were so esteemed The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholly lost there remains no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glances at in his second Epistle to the Thesalon of the cause of the hindrance of the coming of
Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an Universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the Fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c so new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our Faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily persuade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a fair way to make the Faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not Usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one Age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the Shell as the Popes Infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalities of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolick Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others and some things which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgment of those that have Wisdom and Experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not the Scripture 103. To this I answer As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Judge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Judge otherwise you might make your self Judge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Judge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with Sopistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to infer in the end which indeed was more than you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Judge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still run upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Judge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say Thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Judge of Controversies that they have the Authority of Fathers to warrant their manner of speaking as of * Contra Parmen l. 5. in Prin. Optatus 104. But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Judge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both do what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intellible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether they be learned or unlearned And my reason hereof is convincing and demonstrative because nothing is necessary to be believed
nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair Cards for the Title of Apostolick Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millinaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to Judge all Controversies by methinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be Judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some Principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book of S. Austines to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can Challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can Challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these means is but hypocrital for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is Infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You confer places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrin not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the objects of our Faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the well-being of it Iraeneus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrin of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the Books wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should believe the matter of these
Church were Infallible therefore the Clurch is Infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austin's account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was always a Tradition of the ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church Infallible not so much in consigning ancient Traditions as in defining emergent controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrins which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrins for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet happily it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingeniously with you and the world I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it nor that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the nearness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falsehood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrin so believed or the custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own Opinions but as Apostolick Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrines must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrines of the Ancient Church of some age or ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholick at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrine of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian a De Corona Militis c 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Council of Trents profession to receive them and the written Word with the like affection of Piety are now rejected and neglected by the Church of Rome For example Immersion in Baptism Tasting a mixture of Milk and Honey presently after Abstaining from Bathes for a week after Accounting it an impiety to pray kneeling on the Lords day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in the 3. chap. He adds another in the fourth of the Veiling of Women And then adds Since I find no law for this it follows that Tradition must have given this observation to custom which shall gain in time Apostolick authority by the interpretation of the reason of it By these examples therefore it is declared that the observing of unwritten Tradition being confirmed by custom may be defended The perseverance of the observation being a good testimony of the goodnest of the Tradition Now custom even in civil affairs where a law is wanting passes for a law Neither is it material whether it be grounded on Scripture or reason seeing reason is commendation enough for a law Moreover if law be grounded on reason all that must be law which is so grounded A quocunque productum Whosoever is the producer of it Do ye think it is not lawful Omni fideli for every faithful man to conceive and constitute Provided he constitute only what is not repugnant to Gods will what is conducible for discipline and available to salvation seeing the Lord says why even of our selves judge ye not what is right And a little after This reason now demand saving the respect of the Tradition A quocunque Traditore censetur nec auctorem respiciens sed Auctoritatem From whatsoever Traditor it comes neither regard the Author but the Authority Quicunque traditor any Author whatsoever is founder good enough for them And who can secure us that Humane inventions and such as came à quocunque Traditore might not in a short time gain the reputation of Apostolick Seeing the direction then was b Hier. Precepta majorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 46. But let us see what S. Chrysostom says They the Apostles delivered not all things in writing who denies it but many things also without writing who doubts of it and these also are worthy of belief Yes if we knew what they were But many things are worthy of belief which are not necessary to be believed As that Julius Caesar was Emperor of Rome is a thing worthy of belief being so well testified as it is but yet it is not necessary to be believed a man may be saved without it Those many works which our Saviour did which S. John supposes would not have been contained in a World of Books if they had been written or if God by some other means had preserved the knowledge of them had been as worthy to be believed and as necessary as those that are written But to shew you how much a more faithful keeper Records are than report those few that were written are preserved and believed those infinity more that were not written are all lost and vanished out of the memory of men And seeing God in his providence hath not thought fit to preserve the memory of them he hath freed us from the obligation of
believing them for every obligation ceases when it becomes impossible Who can doubt but the Primitive Christians to whom the Epistles of the Apostles were written either of themselves understood or were instructed by the Apostles touching the sense of the obscure places of them These Traditive interpretations had they been written and dispersed as the Scriptures were had without question been preserved as the Scriptures are But to shew how excellent a Keeper of the Tradition the Church of Rome hath been or even the Catholick Church for want of writing they are all lost nay were all lost within a few Ages after Christ So that if we consult the Ancient Interpreters we shall hardly find any two of them agree about the sense of any one of them Cardinal Perron in his discourse of Traditions having alledged this place for them Hold the Traditions c. tell us we must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist to the Thessalonians yet were afterwards witten and in other Books of Scripture because it is upon occasion of Tradition touching the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist which was never written that he lays this injunction upon them to hold the Traditions Well let us grant this Argument good and concluding and that the Church of the Thessalonians or the Catholick Church for what S. Paul writ to one Church he writ to all were to hold some unwritten Traditions and among the rest what was the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist But what if they did not perform their duty in this point but suffered this Tradition to be lost out of the memory of the Church Shall we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to Salvation to be lost and he has suffered this Tradition to be lost therefore the knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to do that which you cannot do your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or do you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can ye or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnation are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot go then and Vaunt your Church for the only Watchful Faithful Infallible Keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Premitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no Footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine Faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodness of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written S. Chrysostoms counsel therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withal that we are persuaded we cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good Plea to be the unwritten Word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture to be the written Word of God 47. You conclude this Paragraph with a sentence of S. Austin's who says The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor do these things which are against Faith or good Life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor never can do so But though the argument hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does it not follows with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never do it nor can never do it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Januarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remains that the thing you inquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore do that which he finds done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why do you not infer from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custom that is against Faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austin of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against Faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austin according to you thought approve or dissemble or do any thing against Faith or good Life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely than the commandments of God himself This S. Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholesom precepts of the Divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the Earth with his naked Foot than he that shall bury his Soul in Drunkenness Of these he says that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councils nor corroborated by the Custom of the Universal Church And though not against Faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian Liberty which made the condition of the Jews more tolerable than that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facultas tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so far through the indiscreet devotion of the People always more prone to superstion than true Piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their Birth that himself though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare non audeo Many of these things for fear of
that many points which are not necessary to be believed absolutely are yet necessary to be believed upon a supposition that they are known to be revealed by God that is become then necessary to be believed when they are known to be Divine Revelations But then I must needs say you do very strangly in saying that the question was what points might lawfully be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that they are Divine Revelations You affirm that none may and so does D. Potter and with him all Protestants and all Christians And how then is this the question Who ever said or thought that of Divine Revelations known to be so some might safely and lawfully be rejected and disbelieved under pretence that they are not Fundamental which of us ever taught that it was not damnable either to deny or so much as doubt of the Truth of any thing whereof we either know or believe that God hath revealed it What Protestant ever taught that it was not damnable either to give God the lie or to call his Veracity into question Yet you say The demand of Charity mistaken was and it was most reasonable that a list of Fundamentals should be given the denial whereof destroys Salvation whereas the denial of other points may stand with Salvation although both kinds be equally proposed as revealed by God 12. Let the reader peruse Charity Mistaken and he shall find that this qualification although both kinds of points be equally proposed as revealed by God is your addition aâ—d no part of the demand And if it had it had been most unreasonable seeing he and you know well enough that though we do not presently without examination fall down and worship all your Churches proposals as Divine Revelations yet we make no such distinction of known Divine Revelations as if some only of them were necessary to be believed and the rest might safely be rejected So that to demand a particular minute Catalogue of all points that may not be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition is indeed to demand a Catalogue of all points that are or may be in as much as none may be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that it is a Divine Revelation At least it is to desire us Frst to Transcribe into this Catalogue every Text of the whole Bible Secondly to set down distinctly those innumerous Millions of negative and positive consequences which may be evidently deduced from it For these we say God hath revealed And indeed you are not ashamed in plain terms to require this of us For having first told us that the demand was what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposition that they are Divine Truths you come to say Certainly the Creed contains not all these And this you prove by asking how many Truths are there in Holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not bound to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as scon as we come to know that they are found in Holy Scripture So that in requiring a particular Catalogue of all points not to be disbelieved after sufficient Proposal you require us to set you down all points contained in Scripture or evidently deducible from it And yet this you are pleased to call a reasonable nay a most reasonable Demand whereas having ingaged your self to give a Catalogue of your Fundamentals you conceive your engagement very well satisfied by saying all is Fundamental which the Church proposes without going about to give us an endless Inventory of her Proposals And therefore from us instead of a perfect particular of Divine Revelations of all sorts of which with a less hyperbole than S. John useth we might say If they were to be written the World would not hold the Books that must be written methinks you should accept of this general All Divine Revelations are true and to be believed 13. The very truth is the main Question in this business is not what Divine Revelations are necessary to be believed or not rejected when they are sufficiently proposed for all without exception all without question are so But what Revelations are simply and absolutely necessary to be proposed to the belief of Christians so that that Society which does propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which does not has not Now to this question though not to yours D. Potter's assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main question being what points are necessary to Salvation and points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary points hath brought you half way towards your Journies end And therefore that which he does is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architects work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a House because he does it not all himself Sure I am if his assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were imbraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and Error could not long stand against the power of truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must need do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schism of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only these points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm Foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flowes naturally from D. Potters Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offenfive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his Life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church does for any Error of simple belief deprive any man so quallified as above either of his temporal life or livelyhood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and Tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 14. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those Verities of
Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less than all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively Faith would certainly bring them to Eternal Life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists has in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for Saint Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel where he declares what he intends to write in these Words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast heen instructed Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he says many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospel of Christ and every necessary Doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word from the beginning delivered not the whole Gospel of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospel of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the principal and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian Faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the principal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonical Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositions which without Controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresie thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44. Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them 46. Now for the foul Contradiction wherein I pray does it lie In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do does he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the Substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way und neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you
Infallibility upon what other motive do you rely Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the House of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole Fabrick of the Faith no more than the Foundation of a House alone can be a House 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a House which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a House now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse is to shew that Protestants give unavoidable occasion of desperation to poor Souls and brings in a Man desirous to save his Soul asking Questions of D. P. and makes answers for him As first if he required whose directions he might rely upon He says the Doctor 's Answer would be upon the truly Catholick Church But I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master upon Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he ask where he should find this direction he would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should inquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by Power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all Wise Men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient records and Universal Tradition No Wise Man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of People This Tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the Works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary directions unto Eternal Happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his Eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but two little Books of it Saint Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction fo the World not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandments and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all Truth that is certainly into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fall into no pernitious Error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this Believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to Eternal Happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that Fools unless they will cannot Err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and not being free from Error but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from Error is by this way made the only condition of Salvation 56. Neither is this to drive any man to desparation unless it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not go to Heaven unless he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Council may Err and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fools Pilgrimage for Faith and bid you go and confer with every Christian Soul Man and Woman by Sea and 〈◊〉 Land close Prisoner or at Liberty as you dilate the ma◠〈◊〉 But to tell you very briefly that Universal Tradition directs you to the Word of God and the Word of God directs you to Heaven 57. To the next demand How stall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no When Protestants answer If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and that it is very probable that the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple belief The Jesuite takes no notice of the former but takes occasion from the latter to ask Shall I hazard my Soul on Probabilities or even Wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of Probability were as likely to be false as true or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as Hen. the 8th that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even Wager there were none such By this Reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even Wager that your Religion is false And by the same Reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are obnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even Wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than it self which gives testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolick Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches Erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the Fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Iraeneus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks of his time viz. that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Iraeneus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for Excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom she is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he Erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he Erred in doing so 38. Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in these Sections if it be pertinent to the Question must be this Want of Succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same Doctrine and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Hereticks To which I answer That nothing but wnat of truth and holding Error can make or prove any man or Church Heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the Doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and Orthodox Christian by believing all the Doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believed it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his Doctrine with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defined Faith a free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to Divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece of shadow or reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be Divine Revelation And yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have always believed it without any mixture of Error nay I am fully persuaded there hath been no such Succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my Faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Devils at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from Heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I persuade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so Hypersceptical as to persuade me that I am not sure that I believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if a man may persuade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can Err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the aforesaid truths upon the aforesaid motives without any dependence upon any Succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this fancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretick but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretick whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Hereticks depends not on it Besides what is more certain than that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the World had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith regulate his Faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men either will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his Words believed he by his Providence must take order that either by Succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserved and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his Word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no Error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their Faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barr do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined oftimes make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formally alleged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men Orthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39. When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a Creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a Word whether our Bishops and Priests have
without alteration should then be profitable and now unprofitable then all things considered expedient to be used if not necessary and therefore commanded And now though there be no variety in the case all things considered not necessary nor expedient and therefore forbidden The Issue of all this Discourse for ought I can see must be this That either both parts of a Contradiction must be true and consequently nothing can be false seeing that which contradicteth truth is not so or else that the Ancient Church did err in believing something expedient which was not so and if so why may not the present Church err in thinking Latin Service and Communion in one kind expedient or that the present Church doth err in thinking something not expedient which is so And if so why may she not err in thinking Communicating the Laity in both kinds and Service in vulgar Languages not expedient V. An Argument drawn from the Doctrin of the Millenaries against Infallibility THE Doctrin of the Millenaries was That before the worlds end Christ should reign upon earth for a thousand years and that the Saints should live under him in all holiness and happiness That this Doctrin is by the present Roman Church held false and Heretical I think no man will deny That the same Doctrin was by the Church of the next Age after the Apostles held true and Catholick I prove by these two Reasons The first Reason Whatsoever doctrin is believed and taught by the most eminent Fathers of any Age of the Church and by none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned that is to be esteemed the Catholick Doctrin of the Church of those times But the Doctrin of the Millenaries was believed and taught by the eminent Fathers of the Age next after the Apostles and by none of that Age opposed or condemned Therefore it was the Catholick Doctrin of the Church of those times The Proposition of this Syllogism is Cardinal Perrons rule in his Epistle to Casaubon 5. observ And is indeed one of the main pillars upon which the great Fabrick of his Answer to King James doth stand and with which it cannot but fall and therefore I will spend no time in the proof of it But the Assumption thus I prove That Doctrin which was believed and taught by Papias Bishop of Hierapolis the disciple of the Apostles disciples according to Eusebius who lived in the times of the Apostles saith he by Justin Martyr Doctor of the Church and Martyr by Melito Bishop of Sardis who had the gift of Prophesie witness Tert. and whom Bellarmine acknowledgeth a Saint By S. Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons and Martyr and was not opposed and condemned by any one Doctor of the Church of those times That Doctrine was believed and taught by the most Eminent Fathers of that Age next to the Apostles and opposed by none But the former part of the Proposition is true Ergo the Latter is also true The Major of this Syllogism and the latter part of the Minor I suppose will need no proof with them that consider that these here mentioned were equal in number to all the other Ecclesiastical Writers of that Age of whom there is any memory remaining and in weight and worth infinitely beyond them they were Athenagoras Theophilus Antiochenus Egesippus and Hippolitus of whose contradiction to this Doctrine there is not extant neither in their works nor in story any Print or Footstep which if they or any of them had opposed it had been impossible considering the Ecclesiastical Story of their time is Written by the professed Enemies of the Millinaries Doctrine who could they have found any thing in the monuments of Antiquity to have put in the Ballance against Justin Martyr and Irenaeus no doubt would not have buried it in silence which yet they do neither vouching for their opinion any one of more Antiquity than Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived saith Eusebius nostra aetate in our Age but certainly in the latter part of the third Century For Tatianus because an Heretick I reckon not in this number And if any man say that before his fall he wrote many Books I say it is true but withal would have it remembred that he was Justin Martyrs Scholar and therefore in all probability of his Masters Faith rather than against it all that is extant of him one way or other is but this in S. Hierome de Script Eccles Justini Martyris sectator fuit Now for the other part of the Minor that the forementioned Fathers did believe and teach this Doctrine And first for Papias that he taught it it is confessed by Eusebius the Enemy of this Doctrine Lib. 3. Hist Eccles c. 33. in these words Other things besides the same Author Papias declares that they came to him as it were by unwritten Tradition wherein he affirms that after the Resurrection of all Flesh from the Dead there shall be a Kingdom of Christ continued and established for a thousand years upon Earth after a humane and corporeal manner The same is confessed by S. Hierome another Enemy to this opinion descript Eccles S. 29. Papias the Auditor of John Bishop of Hieropolis is said to have taught the Judaical Tradition of a thousand years whom Irenaeus and Apollinarius followed And in his preface upon the Commentaries of Victorinus upon the Apocalypse thus he writes before him Papias Bishop of Hieropolis and Nepos Bishop in the parts of Egypt taught as Victorinus does touching the Kingdom of the thousand years The same is testified by Irenaeus lib. 5. cont Her c. 33. where having at large set forth this Doctrine he confirms it by the Authority of Papias in these words Papias also the Auditor of John the familiar friend of Policarpus an Ancient man hath testified by writing these things in the fourth of his Books for he hath writtten five And concerning Papias thus much That Justin Martyr was of the same belief it is confessed by Sixtus Senensis Biblioth Stae l. 6. An. 347. by Feverdentius in his premonition before the five last Chapters of the 5th Book of Irenaeus By Pamelius in Antidoto ad Tertul. parad paradox 14. That S. Melito Bishop of Sardis held the same Doctrine is confessed by Pamelius in the same place and thereupon it is that Gennadius Massiliensis in his Book de Eccles dogmatibus calls the followers of this opinion Melitani as the same Pamelius testifies in his Notes upon that fragment of Tertullian de Spe fidelium Irenaeus his Faith in this point is likewise confessed by Eusebius in the place before quoted in these words He Papias was the Author of the like Error to most of the Writers of the Church who alledged the Antiquity of the Man for a defence of their side as to Irenaeus and whosoever else seemed to be of the same opinion with him By S. Hierome in the place above cited de script Eccles S. 29. Again in Lib. Ezek. 11. in these words For neither do we
expect from Heaven a Golden Hierusalem according to the Jewish tales which they call Duterossis which also many of our own have followed Especially Tertullian in his Book de spe fidelium and Lactantius in his seventh Book of Institutions and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Pictavionensis and of late Severus in his Dialogue which he calls Gallus and to name the Greeks and to joyn together the first and last Irenaeus and Apollinarius Where we see he acknowledges Irenaeus to be of this opinion but that he was the first that held it I believe that that is more a Christian untruth than Irenaeus his opinion a Judaical Fable For he himself acknowledges in the place above cited that Irenaeus followed Papias and it is certain and confessed that Justin Martyr believed it long before him and Irenaeus himself derives it from Presbyteri qui Johannem discipulum Domini viderunt from Priests which saw John the Disciple of the Lord. Lastly by Pamelius Sixtus Senensis and Faverdentius in the places above quoted Seeing therefore it is certain even to the confession of the Adversaries that Papias Justin Martyr Meleto and Irenaeus the most considerable and eminent men of their Age did believe and teach this Doctrine and seeing it has been proved as evidently as a thing of this nature can be that none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned it It remains according to Cardinal Perrons first rule that this is to be esteemed the Doctrine of the Church of that Age. My second Reason I form thus Whatsoever Doctrine is taught by the Fathers of any Age not as Doctors but as witnesses of the Tradition of the Church that is not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church of their times that is undoubtedly to be so esteemed especially if none contradicted them in it But the Fathers above cited teach this Doctrine not as their own private opinion but as the Christian Tradition and as the Doctrine of the Church neither did any contradict them in it Ergo it is undoubtedly to be so esteemed The Major of this Syllogism is Cardinal Perrons second Rule and way of finding out the Doctrine of the Ancient Church in any Age and if it be not a sure Rule farewel the use of all Antiquity And for the Minor there will be little doubt of it to him that considers that Papias professes himself to have received this Doctrine by unwritten Tradition though not from the Apostles themselves immediately yet from their Scholars as appears by Eusebius in the forecited third Book 33. Chapter That Irenaeus grounding it upon evident Scripture professes that he learnt it whether mediately or immediately I cannot tell from a Presbyteri qui Johannem Discipulum Domini viderunt Priests or Elders who saw John the Lords Disciple and heard of him what our Lord taught of those times of the thousand years and also as he says after from Papias the Auditor of John the Chamber-fellow of Polycarpus an Ancient man who recorded it in writing a Faverdentius his Note upon this place is very Notable Hinc apparet saith he from hence it appears that Irenaeus neither first invented this opinion nor held it as proper to himself but got this blot and blemish from certain Fathers Papias I suppose and some other inglorious fellows the familiar Friends of Irenaeus are here intended I hope then if the Fathers which lived with the Apostles had their blots and blemishes it is no such horrid Crime for Calvin and the Century writers to impute the same to their great Grandchildren Aetas parentum pejor avis progeniem fert vitiosiorem But yet these inglorious Disciples of the Apostles though perhaps not so learned as Faverdentius were yet certainly so honest as not to invent lies and deliver them as Apostolick Tradition or if they were not what confidence can we place in any other unwritten Tradition Lastly that Justin Martyr grounds it upon plain Prophecies of the Old Testament and express words of the New he professeth That he and all other Christians of a right belief in all things believe it joyns them who believe it not with them who deny the Resurrection or else says that none denied this but the same who denied the Resurrection and that indeed they were called Christians but in deed and Truth were none Whosoever I say considers these things will easily grant that they held it not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church and the Faith of Christians Hereupon I conclude whatsoever they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church that was the Faith of the Church of their time But this Doctrine they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church Ergo it was and is to be esteemed the Faith of the Church Trypho Do ye confess that before ye expect the coming of Christ this place Hierusalem shall be again restored and that your People shall be congregated and rejoyce together with Christ and the Patriarchs and the Prophets c. Justin Martyr I have confessed to you before that both I and many others do believe as you well know that this shall be but that many again who are not of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you For I have declared unto you that some called Christians but being indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks do generally teach blasphemous and Atheistical and foolish things but that you might know that I speak not this to you only I will make a Book as near as I can of these our disputations where I will profess in writing that which I say before you for I resolve to follow not men and the Doctrines of men but God and the Doctrine of God For although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob which also say there is no Resurrection of the Dead but that as soon as they die their Souls are received into Heaven do not ye yet think them Christians as neither if a man consider rightly will he account the Sadducees and other Sectaries and Hereticks as the Genistae and the Meristae and Galileans and Pharisees and Hellenians and Baptists and other such to be Jews but only that they are called Jews and the Children of Abraham and such as with their lips confess God as God himself cries out but have their Hearts far from him But I and all Christians that in all things believe aright both know that there shall be a Resurrection of the Flesh and a thousand years in Hierusalem restored and adorned and inlarged according as the Prophets Ezekiel and Esay and others do testifie for thus saith Isaiah of the time of this thousand years For there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth and they shall not remember the former c.