3. Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saith Here did he first (x) Ep. 163. attempt to affirm that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby nevertheless they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meer necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest than he who should affirm that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so far diffused as the Sect of the Donatists I have no desire to prosecure the similitude of Protestanes with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and Who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likeness of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chair of Rome the Chair of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's own phrase wherein he is less excusable than they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duly ponder these words of S. Augustin against the Donatists If I persecute him justly who detracts (y) Conc. super gest cum Emerit from his Neighbour why should I not presecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith This is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Dona i st who wrote against Parmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you do even in this your Book write against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zelots among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come nor into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universal For which very cause S. Augustin complains of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an heart (z) De doctr Christ lib. 3. cap. 30. so extremely absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Ticonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence (a) Cont. Parm. l. 1. cap. 1. he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained united not with them who were divided from the communion and unity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticonius maintained than by yielding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enjoyed the Communion of that Unity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How firly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But these and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let pass and only urge the main point That since Luther's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true and unsported Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O blasphemy an Harlot Moreover the same heresie follows out of the doctrin of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresie and damnable whether the matter be otherwise of it self great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithful persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore clear that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse than the Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for a long space before Luther she was no where at all But let us go forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. John They went out (b) 2. Joan. 19. from us And Some who (c) Act. 15.24 went out from us And Out of you shall (d) Act. 20.30 arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever (e) Lib. adversus haer c. 34. began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Universality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise wel known that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way liable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating (f) Dimid temp cap. 5. with the universal Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which likewise is no less clearly proved out of S. Cyprian saying Not we (g) Ep. 57. ad Damas departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schisms are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsaken the head and origin of Truth 19. And that we might not remain doubtful what Separation
ignorance even of some Fundamental Article of Faith through want of capacity instruction or the like and so not offend either in such ignorance or error and yet we must absolutely say that error in any one Fundamental point is damnable because so it is if we consider things in themselves abstracting from accidental circumstances in particular persons as contrarily if some man judge some act of virtue or some indifferent action to be a sin in him it is a sin indeed by reason of his erroneous conscience and yet we ought not to say absolutely that virtuous or indifferent actions are sins and in all sciences we must distinguish the general Rules from their particular Exceptions And therefore when for example he answers to our Demand Whether he hold that Catholiques may be saved or Whether their pretended errors be Fundamental and Damnable he is not to change the state of the question and have recourse to Ignorance and the like but to answer concerning the errors being considered what they are apt to be in themselves and as they are neither increased nor diminished by accidental circumstances 23. And the like I say of all the other Points to which I once again desire an answer without any of these or the like ambiguous terms in some sort in some sense in some degree which may be explicated afterward as strictly or largely as may best serve his turn but let him tell us roundly and particularly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands those and the like obscure mincing phrases If he proceed solidly after this manner and not by way of meer words more like a Preacher to a vulgar Auditor than like a learned man with a pen in his hand thy patience shall be the less abused and truth will also receive more right And since we have already laid the grounds of the question much may be said hereafter in few words if as I said he keep close to the real point of every difficulty without wandring into impertinent disputes or multiplying vulgar and thred-bare objections and arguments or labouring to prove what no man denies or making a vain ostentation by citing a number of Schoolmen which every Puny brought up in Schools is able to do and if he cite his Authors with such sincerity as no time need be spent in opening his corruptions and finally if he set himself awork with this consideration that we are to give a most strict account to a most just and impartial Judge of every period line and word that passeth under our pen. For if at the latter day we shall be arraigned for every idle word which is spoken so much more will that be done for every idle word which is written as the deliberation wherewith it passeth makes a man guilty of more malice and as the importance of the matter which is treated of in Books concerning true Faith and Religion without which no Soul can be saved makes a man's Errors more material than they would be if the question were but of toys The Answer to the PREFACE AD 1. 2. § If beginnings be ominous as they say they are D. Potter hath cause to look for great store of uningenuous dealing from you the very first words you speak of him viz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the Point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2. For first The Point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their several Professions But Whether you may without uncharitableness affirm that Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation And that this is the very question is most apparent and unquestionable both from the title of Charity Mistaken and from the Arguments of the three first Chapters of it and from the title of your own Reply And therefore if D. Potter had joyned issue with his Adversary only thus far and not medling at all with Papists but leaving them to stand or fall to their own Master had proved Protestants living and dying so capable of Salvation I cannot see how it could justly be charged upon him that he had not once truly and really fallen upon the Point in Question Neither may it be said that your Question here and mine are in effect the same seeing it is very possible that the true Answer to the one might have been Affirmative and to the other Negative For there is no incongruity but it may be true That You and We cannot both be saved And yet as true That without uncharitableness you cannot pronounce us damned For all ungrounded and unwarrantable sentencing men to Damnation is either in a proriety of speech uncharitable or else which for my purpose is all one it is that which Protestants mean when they say Papists for damning them are uncharitable And therefore though the Author of C. M. had proved as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably and therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Jews and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Jew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian damned 3. But then secondly to shew your dealing with him very injurious I say he doth speak to this very Question very largely and very effectually as by confronting his Work and Charity M. together will presently appear Charity M. proves you say in general That there is but one Church D. Potter tels him His labour is lost in proving the unity of the Catholique Church whereof there is no doubt or controversie and herein I hope you will grant he answers right and to the purpose C. M. proves you say secondly That all Christians are obliged to hearken to the Church D. Potter answers It is true yet not absolutely in all things but only when she commands those things which God doth not countermand And this also I hope is to his purpose though not to yours C.M. proves you say thirdly That the Church must be ever visible and infallible For her Visibility D. Potter denies it not and as for her Infallibility he grants it in Fundamentals but not in Superstructures C.M. proves you say fourthly That to separate one's self from the Churche's Communion is Schism D. Potter grants it with this exception unless there be necessary cause to do so unless the conditions of her Communion be apparently unlawful C.M. proves you say lastly That to dissent from her Doctrine is Heresie though it be in points never so few and never so small and therefore that the distinction of points fundamental and unfundamental as it is applyed by Protestants is wholly vain This D. P. denies shews the Reasons brought for it weak and unconcluding proves the contrary by Reasons unanswerable and therefore that The distinction of points into fundamental and not-fundamental as it is applyed by
it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect Rule of it self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a Rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or lesse perfect in its kind as it is more or lesse fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a Rule so farr as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no Rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7. Now that a writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident Rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident Rule of Faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sun answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writting all these which she pretends to be divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written 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 writting 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 cleerness to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writting 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 acknowledg 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 beholding 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 perpetuall miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And this though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its owne 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 onely 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 books of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer Every Text of Scripture though it hath 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 cosen-german to the former When the first books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritten 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 Scripture's 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 unlesse 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 God's Word written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that
relie 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 you your self in the very leaf after this take notice that D. Potter doth so Where to this Question How shall I know in particular which Points be and which be not Fundamental You scurrilously bring him in making this ridiculous answer Read my Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. There you shall find that Fundamental Doctrins are such Catholick Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved All which words he used not to tell what Points be Fundamental as you dishonestly impose upon him but to explain what he meant by the word Fundamental May it please you therefore now at last to take notice that by Fundamental we mean all and only that which is 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 you say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse so full of un-ingenuous dealing with your adversary perhaps would have done reasonably in a Farce or a Comedy and I doubt not but you have made your self and your courteous Readers good sport with it But if D. Potter or I had been by when you wrote it we should have stopt your carere at the first starting and have put you in mind of these old School-Proverbs Ex falso supposito sequitur quodlibet and Uno absurdo dato sequuntur mille For whereas you suppose first that to a man desirous to save his soul and requiring whose direction he might rely upon the Doctors answer would be Upon the truly Catholick Church I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master on Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he should enquire where he should find this direction He would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should enquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the doctrin 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 And that he might not instruct him as partial in this advice he might farther tell him that a Gentleman that would be nameless that has written a Book against him called Charity maintained by Catholiques though in many things he differ from him yet agrees with him in this that Tradition is such a principle as may be rested in and which requires no other proof As indeed 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 direction to 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 too little Books of it S. 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 of 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 Commandements 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 at least into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fal into no pernicious 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 being feee from err our but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from err our is by this way made the only condition of Salvation As for your supposition That he would advise such a man to rely upon the Catholique Church for the finding out the doctrin of Christ he utterly disclaims it and truly very justly There being no certain way to know that any Company is a true Church but only by their professing the true doctrin of Christ And therefore as it is impossible I should know that such a company of Philosophers are Peripateticks or Stoicks unless I first know what was the doctrin of the Peripateticks and Stoicks so is it impossible that I should certainly know any company to be the Church of Christ before I know what is the doctrin of Christ the Profession whereof constitutes the visible Church the
had said By shewing the Tradition of the Roman Church we confound all Heretiques For to this Church all Churches must agree what had this been but to give for a reason that which was more questionable than the thing in question as being neither evident in it self and plainly denyed by his adversaries not at all proved nor offered to be proved here or elsewhere by Irenaeus To speak thus therefore had been weak and ridiculous But on the other side if we conceive him to say thus You Heretiques decline a trial of your Doctrin by Scripture as being corrupted and imperfect and not fit to determin Controversies without recourse to Tradition and instead hereof you fly for a refuge to a secret Tradition which you pretend that you received from your Ancestors and they from the Apostles certainly your calumnies against Scripture are most unjust and unreasonable but yet more-ever assure your selves that if you will be tryed by Tradition even by that also you will be overthrown For our Tradition is far more famous more constant and in all respects more credible than that which you pretend to It were easie for me to muster up against you the uninterrupted successions of all the Churches founded by the Apostles all conspiring in their Testimonies against you But because it were too long to number up the Successions of all Churches I will content my self with the Tradition of the most ancient and most glorious Church of Rome which alone is sufficient for the confutation and confusion of your Doctrin as being in credit and authority as farr beyond the Tradition you build upon as the light of the Sun is beyond the light of a Gloworm For to this Church by reason it is placed in the Imperial City whither all mens affairs do necessarily draw them or by reason of the powerful principality it hath over all the adjacent Churches there is and always hath been a necessity of a perpetual recourse of all the faithful round about who if there had been any alteration in the Church of Rome could not in all probability but have observed it But they to the contrary have always observed in this Church the very Tradition which came from the Apostles and no other I say if we conceive his meaning thus his words will be intelligible and rational which if instead of resort we put in agree will be quite lost Herein therefore we have been beholding to your honesty which makes me think you did not wittingly falsifie but only twice in this sentence mistake Undique for Ubique and translate it every where and of what place soever in stead of round about For that it was necessary for all the faithful of what place soever to resort to Rome is not true That The Apostolique Tradition hath alwayes been conserved there from those who are every where is not Sense Now instead of conservata read observata as in all probability it should be and translate undique truly round about and then the sense will be both plain and good for then it must be rendred thus For to this Church by reason of a more powerful principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithful round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwayes observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conservata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farr from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same Greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latin might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which anciently wrote Books and understood them not might not easily commit such an errour Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in God's name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non-sense 30. But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaeus but to us or our cause it is no way material For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata help us to any evasion For though at the first hearing of the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome The confounding Heretiques 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 Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declined 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 contain'd 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 wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition farr more general than it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrins plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a farr greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolique 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 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 neer 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 corruptand 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 playes the Historian only and not the Prophet and sayes only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches
would make choice of him for this service And besides I had good assurance that in the framing of this building though you were the only Architect yet you wanted not the assistance of many diligent hands to bring you in choise materials towards it nor of many careful and watchful eyes to correct the errors of your Work if any should chance to escape you Great reason therefore had I to expect great matters from you and that your Book should have in it the Spirit and Elixir of all that can be said in defence of your Church and Doctrine and to assure my self that if my resolution not to believe it were not built upon the rock of evident grounds and reasons but only upon some sandy and deceitful appearances now the wind and storm and floods were coming which would undoubtedly overthrow it 2. Neither truly were you more willing to effect such an alteration in me then I was to have it effected For my desire is to go the right way to eternal happiness But whether this way lie on the right hand or the left or straight forwards whether it be by following a living Guide or by seeking my direction in a Book or by hearkning to the secret whisper of some private Spirit to me it is indifferent And he that is otherwise affected and hath not a travellers indifference which Epictetus requires in all that would find the truth but much desires in respect of his ease or pleasure or profit or advancement or satisfaction of friends or any humane consideration that one way should be true rather than another it is odds but he will take his desire that it should be so for an assurance that it is so But I for my part unless I deceive my self was and still am so affected as I have made profession not willing I confess to take any thing upon trust and to believe it without asking my self why no nor able to command my self were I never so willing to follow like a sheep every Shepherd that should take upon him to guide me or every flock that should chance to go before me but most apt and most willing to be led by reason to any way or from it and alwaies submitting all other reasons to this one God hath said so therefore it is true Nor yet was I so unreasonable as to expect Mathematical demonstrations from you in matters plainly incapable of them such as are to be believed and if we speak properly cannot be known such therefore I expected not For as he is an unreasonable Master who requires a stronger assent to his conclusions then his arguments deserve so I conceive him a froward and undisciplin'd Scholar who desires stronger arguments for a conclusion than the Matter will bear But had you represented to my understanding such reasons of your Doctrine as being weighed in an eaven ballance held by an eaven hand with those on the other side would have turned the scale and have made your Religion more credible than the contrary certainly I should have despised the shame of one more alteration and with both mine arms and all my heart most readily have embraced it Such was my expectation from you and such my preparation which I brought with me to the reading of your Book 3. Would you know now what the event was what effect was wrought in me by the perusal and consideration of it To deal truly and ingenuously with you I fell somewhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency and sincerity but was exceedingly confirmed in my ill opinion of the Cause maintained by you I found every where snares that might entrap and colours that might deceive the simple but nothing that might perswade and very little that might move an understanding man and one that can discern between Discourse and Sophistry In short I was verily perswaded that I plainly saw and could make it appear to all dis-passionate and unprejudicate Judges that a vein of sophistry and calumny did run clean thorow it from the beginning to the end And letting some Friends understand so much I suffered my self to be perswaded by them that it would not be either unproper for me nor unacceptable to God nor peradventure altogether unserviceable to his Church nor justly offensive to you if you indeed were a lover of Truth and not a maintainer of a Faction if setting aside the Second Part which was in a manner wholly employed in particular disputes repetitions and references and in wranglings with D. Potter about the sense of some supernumerary quotations and whereon the main question no way depends I would make a fair and ingenuous answer to the First wherein the substance of the present Controversie is confessedly contained and which if it were clearly answered no man would desire any other answer to the Second This therefore I undertook with a full resolution to be an adversary to your Errors but a Friend and Servant to your Person and so much the more a friend to your person by how much the severer and more rigid adversary I was to your errors 4. In this Work my conscience bears me witness that I have according to your advice proceeded always with this consideration that I am to give a most strict account of every line and word that passeth under my pen and therefore have been precisely careful for the matter of my Book to defend truth only and only by Truth And then scrupulously fearful of scandalizing you or any man with the manner of handling it From this Rule sure I am I have not willingly swerved in either part of it and that I might not do it ignorantly I have not only my self examined mine own Work perhaps with more severity than I have done yours as conceiving it a base and unchristian thing to go about to satisfie others with what I my self am not fully satisfied but have also made it pass the fiery tryal of the exact censures of many understanding Judges alwayes heartily wishing that you your Self had been of the Quorum But they who did undergo this burthen as they wanted not sufficiency to discover any heterodox Doctrine so I am sure they have been very careful to let nothing slip dissonant from truth or from the authorized Doctrine of the Church of England and therefore whatsoever causeless or groundless jealousie any man may entertain concerning my Person yet my Book I presume in reason and common equity should be free from them wherein I hope that little or nothing hath escaped so many eyes which being weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary will be found too light And in this hope I am much confirmed by your strange carriage of your self in this whole business For though by some crooked and sinister arts you have got my Answer into your hands now a year since and upwards as I have been assured by some that profess to know it and those of your own party though you could not want every day fair opportunities of
only sayes That there are some points so Fundamental as that all are obliged to know and believe them explicitely but never tels us whether there be any other points of Faith which a man may deny or disbelieve though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God which was the only thing in question For if it be damnable as certainly it is to deny or disbelieve any one truth witnessed by Almighty God though the thing be not in it self of any great consequence or moment and since of two disagreeing in matters of Faith one must necessarily deny some such truth it clearly followes that amongst men of different Faiths or Religions one only can be saved though their difference consist of divers or but even one point which is not in his own nature Fundamental as I declare at large in divers places of my first Part. So that it is clear D. Potter even in this his last refuge and distinction never comes to the point in question to say nothing that he himself doth quite overthrow it and plainly contradict his whole designe as I shew in the third Chapter of my first Part. 4. And as for D. Potter's manner of handling those very points which are utterly beside the purpose it consists only in bringing vulgar mean Objections which have been answered a thousand times yea and some of them are clearly answered even in Charity Mistaken but he takes no knowledge at all of any such answers and much less doth he apply himself to confute them He alledgeth also Authors with so great corruption and fraud as I would not have believed if I had not found it by clear and frequent experience In his second Edition he hath indeed left out one or two gross corruptions amongst many others no less notorious having as it seems been warned by some friends that they could not stand with his credit but even in this his second Edition he retracts them not at all nor declares that he was mistaken in the First and so his Reader of the first Edition shall ever be deceived by him though withall he read the Second For preventing of which inconvenience I have thought it necessary to take notice of them and to discover them in my Reply 5. And for conclusion of this point I will only say that D. Potter might well have spared his pains if he had ingenuously acknowledged where the whole substance yea and sometime the very words and phrases of his Book may be found in far briefer manner namely in a Sermon of D. Usher's preached before our late Soveraign Lord King James the 20. of June 1624. at Wansted containing A Declaration of the Universality of the Church of Christ and the Unity of Faith professed therein which Sermon having been roundly and wittily confuted by a Catholique Divine under the name of Paulus Veridicus within the compass of about four sheets of Paper D. Potter's Answer to Charity Mistaken was in effect confuted before it appeared And this may suffice for a general Censure of his Answer to Charity Mistaken Concerning my Reply 6. For the second touching my Reply if you wonder at the Bulk thereof compared either with Charity Mistaken or D. Potter's Answer I desire you to consider well of what now I am about to say and then I hope you will see that I was cast upon a meer necessity of not being so short as otherwise might peradventure be desired Charity Mistaken is short I grant and yet very full and large for as much as concerned his design which you see was not to treat of particular Controversies in Religion no not so much as to debate whether or no the Romane Church be the only true Church of Christ which indeed would have required a larger Volume as I have understood there was one then coming forth if it had not been prevented by the Treatise of Charity Mistaken which seemed to make the other intended work a little less seasonable at that time But Charity Mistaken proves only in General out of some Universal Principles well backed and made good by choice and solid Authorities that of two disagreeing in points of Faith one only without repentance can be saved which aim exacted no great bulk And as for D. Potter's Answer even that also is not so short as it may seem For if his marginal notes printed in a small letter were transferred into the Text the Book would appear to be of some bulk though indeed it might have been very short if he had kept himself to the point treated by Charity Mistaken as shall be declared anon But contrarily because the question debated betwixt Charity Mistaken and D. Potter is a point of the highest consequence that can be imagined and in regard that there is not a more pernitious Heresie or rather indeed ground of Atheism than a perswasion that men of different Religions may be saved if otherwise forsooth they lead a kind of civil and moral life I conceive that my chief endeavour was not to be employed in answering D. Potter but that it was necessary to handle the Question it self somewhat at large and not only to prove in geral that both Protestants and Catholiques cannot be saved but to shew also that Salvation cannot be hoped for out of the Catholique Roman Church and yet withall not to omit to answer all the particulars of D. Potter's Book which may any way import To this end I thought it fit to divide my Reply into two Parts in the former whereof the main question is handled by a continued discourse without stepping aside to confute the particulars of D. Potter's Answer though yet so as even that in this first Part I omit not to answer such passages of his as I find directly in my way and naturally belong to the points whereof I treat and in the second Part I answer D. Potter's Treatise Section by Section as they lie in order I here therefore intreat the Reader that if heartily he desire satisfaction in this so important Question he do not content himself with that which I say to D. Potter in my second Part but that he take the First before him either all ot at least so much as may serve most to his purpose of being satisfied in those doubts which press him most For which purpose I have caused a Table of the Chapters of the first Part together with their Titles and Arguments to be prefixed before my Reply 7. This was then a chief reason why I could not be very short But yet there wanted not also divers other causes of the same effect For there are so several kinds of Protestants through the difference of Tenets which they hold as that if a man convince but one kind of them the rest will conceive themselves to be as truly unsatisfied and even unspoken to as if nothing had been said therein at all As for example Some hold a necessity of a perpetual
visible Church and some hold no such necessity Some of them hold it necessary to be able to prove it distinct from ours and others that their business is dispatched when they have proved ours to have been alwayes visible for then they will conceive that theirs hath been so And the like may be truly said of very many other particulars Besides it is D. Potter's fashion wherein as he is very far from being the first so I pray God he prove the last of that humour to touch in a word many trivial old Objections which if they be not all answered it will and must serve the turn to make the ignorant sort of men believe and brag as if some main unanswerable matter had been subtilly and purposely omitted and every body knows that some Objection may be very plausibly made in few words the clear and solid answer whereof will require more leaves of paper than one And in particular D. Potter doth couch his corruption of Authors within the compass of so few lines and with so great confusedness and fraud that it requires much time pains and paper to open them so distinctly as that they may appear to every man's eye It was also necessary to shew what D. Potter omits in Charity Mistaken and the importance of what is omitted and sometimes to set down the very words themselves that are omitted all words themselves that are omitted all which could not but add to the quantity of my Reply And as for the quality thereof I desire thee good Reader to believe that whereas nothing is more necessary than Books for answering of Books yet I was so ill furnished in this kind that I was forced to omit the examination of divers Authors cited by D. Potter meetly upon necessity though I did very well perceive by most apparent circumstances that I must probably have been sure enough so finde them plainly misalledged and much wronged and for the few which are examined there hath not wanted some difficulties to do it For the times are not for all men alike and D. Potter hath much advantage therein But Truth is truth and will ever be able to justifie it self in the midst of all difficulties which may occurr And as for me when I alledge Protestant Writers as well Domestical as Forrain I willingly and thankfully acknowledge my self obliged for divers of them to the Author of the Book entituled The Protestant's Apology for the Romane Church who calls himself John Breerly whose care exactness and fidelity is so extraordinary great as that he doth not only cite the Books but the Editions also with the place and time of their Printing yea and often the very page and line where the words are to be had And if you happen not to finde what he cites yet suspend your judgement till you have read the corrections placed at the end of his Book though it be also true that after all diligence and faithfulness on his behalf it was not in his power to amend all the faults of the Print in which Prints we have difficulty enough for many evident reasons which must needs occurr to any prudent man 8. And forasmuch as concerns the manner of my Reply I have procured to do it without all bitterness or gall of invective words both for as much as may import either Protestants in general or D. Potter's person in particular unless for example he will call it bitterness for me to term a gross impertinency a sleight or a corruption by those very names without which I do not know how to express the things and yet therein I can truly affirm that I have studied how to deliver them in the most moderate way to the end I might give as little offence as possibly I could without betraying the Cause And if any unfit phrase may peradventure have escaped my pen as I hope none hath it was beside and against my intention though I must needs profess that D. Potter gives so many and so just occasions of being round with him as that perhaps some will judge me to have been rather remiss than moderate But since in the very title of my Reply I profess to maintain Charity I conceive that the excess will be more excusable amongst all kinds of men if it fall to be in mildness than if it had appeared in too much zeal And if D. Potter have a mind to charge me with ignorance or any thing of that nature I can and will ease him of that labour by acknowledging in my self as many and more personal defects than he can heap upon me Truth only and sincerity I so much value and profess as that he shall never be able to prove the contrary in any one least passage or particle against me Rules to be observed if D. Potter intend a Rejoynder 9. In the third and last place I have thought fit to express my self thus If D. Potter or any other resolve to answer my Reply I desire that he will observe some things which may tend to his own reputation the saving of my unnecessary pains and especially to the greater advantage of truth I wish then that he would be careful to consider wherein the point of every difficulty consists and not impertinently to shoot at Rovers and affectedly mistake one thing for another As for example to what purpose for as much as conecrns the question between D. Potter and Charity Mistaken doth he so often and seriously labour to prove that Faith is not resolved into the Authority of the Church as into the formal Object and Motive thereof Or that all Points of Faith are contained in Scripture Or that the Church cannot make new Articles of Faith Or that the Church of Rome as it signifies that particular Church or Diocess is not all one with the Universal Church Or that the Pope as a private Doctor may err With many other such points as will easily appear in their proper places It will also be necessary for him not to put certain Doctrines upon us from which he knows we disclaim as much as himself 10. I must in like manner intreat him not to recite my reasons and discourses by halfs but to set them down faithfully and entirely for as much as in very deed concerns the whole substance of the thing in question because the want sometime of one word may chance to make void or lessen the force of the whole Argument And I am the more solicitous about giving this particular caveat because I find how ill he hath complied with the promise which he made in his Preface to the Reader not to omit without answer any one thing of moment in all the discourse of Charity Mistaken Neither will this course be a cause that his Rejoynder grow too large but it will be occasion of brevity to him and free me also from the pains of setting down all the words which he omits and himself of demonstrating that what he omitted was not material Nay I
upon those very Books which they entituled Of the contempt of Glory What then shall we say of D. Potter who in the Title and Text of his whole Book doth so tragically charge Want of Charity on all such Romanists as dare affirm that Protestancy destroyeth Salvation while he himself is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman Catholiques For not satisfied with much uncivil language in affirming the Roman Church many (a) Pag. 11. ways to have plaid the Harlot and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ and detestation of Christians in styling her that proud (b) Ibid. and curst Dame of Rome which takes upon her to revel in the House of God in talking of an Idol (c) Pag. 4. Edit 1. to be worshipped at Rome he comes at length to thunder out this fearful sentence against her For that (d) Pag. 20. Mass of Errors saith he in judgement and practice which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we judge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable And in another place he saith For us who (e) Pag. 81. are convincted in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those Errors By the acerbity of which Censure he doth not only make himself guilty of that which he judgeth to be a hainous offence in others but freeth us also from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination For if Roman Catholiques be likewise convicted in conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must in conformity to the Doctor 's own rule judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable And thus all the Want of Charity so deeply charged on us dissolves it self into this poor wonder Roman Catholiques believe in their conscience that the Religion which they profess is true and the contrary false 2. Nevertheless we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation Far be it from us by way of insultation to apply it against Protestants otherwise than as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true Church of Christ our Lord within the Communion whereof he hath confined salvation Neither do we understand why our most dear Countrymen should be offended if the Universality be particularized under the name of Protestants first given (f) Sleidan l. 6. fol. 84. to certain Lutherans who protesting that they would stand out against the Imperial decrees in defence of the Confession exhibited at Ausburge were termed Protestants in regard of such their protesting which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from and being disclaimed by Calvinists and Zwinglians our naming or exemplifying a general doctrine under the particular name of Protestantism ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England 3. Moreover our meaning is not as mis-informed persons may conceive that we give Protestants over to reprobation that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation that we hold their case desperate God forbid We hope we pray for their Conversion and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires Neither is our Censure immediatly directed to particular persons The Tribunal of particular Judgement is God's alone When any man esteemed a Protestant leaveth to live in this world we do not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not always acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction we do not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist we have no revelation what light might have cleared his errors or Contrition retracted his sins in the last moment before his death In such particular cases we wish more apparent signs of salvation but do not give any dogmatical sentence of perdition How grievous sins Disobedience Schism and Heresie are is well known But to discern how far the natural malignity of those great offences might be checked by Ignorance or by some such lessening circumstance is the office rather of Prudence than of Faith 4. Thus we allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter spares us for whom in the words above mentioned and elsewhere he (g) See P. 39. makes Ignorance the best hope of salvation Much less comfort can we expect from the fierce doctrine of those chief Protestantss who teach that for many Ages before Luther Christ had no visible Church upon earth Not these men alone or such as they but even the 39. Articles to which the English Protestant Clergy subscribes censure our belief so deeply that Ignorance can scarce or rather not at all excuse us from damnation Our Doctrine of Transubstantiation is affirmed to be repugnant to the plain words of (h) Art 28. Scripture our Masses to be blasphemous (i) Art 31. Fabies with much more to be seen in the Articles themselves In a certain Confession of the Christian Faith at the end of their books of Psalms collected into Meâ—ter and printed Cum privlegio Regis Regali they call us Idolaters and limmes of Antichrist and having set down a Catalogue of our doctrins they conclude that for them we shall after the General Resurrection be damned to unquestionable fire 5. But yet lest any man should flatter himself with our charitable Mitigations and thereby wax careless in search of the true Church we desire him to read the Conclusion of the Second Part where this matter is more explained 6. And because we cannot determine what Judgement may be esteemed rash or prudent except by weighing the reasons upon which it was grounded we will here under one aspect present a Summary of those Principles from which we infer that Protestancy in it self unrepented destroyes Salvation intending afterward to prove the truth of every one of the grounds till by a concatenation of sequels we fall upon the Conclusion for which we are charged with Want of Charity 7. Now this is our gradation of reasons Almighty God having ordained Mankind to a supernatural End of eternal felicity hath in his holy Providence setled competent and convenient Means whereby that end may be attained The universal grand Origen of all such means is the Incarnation and Death of our Blessed Saviour whereby he merited internal grace for us and founded an external visible Church provided and stored with all those helps which might be necessary to Salvation From hence it followeth that in this Church among other advantages there must be some effectual means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity to discover and condemn Heresies to appease and reduce Schisms and to determine all Controversies in Religion For without such means the Church should not be furnished with helps sufficient to salvation nor God afford sufficient means to attain that End to which himself ordained Mankind This means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion whether it
would be to end suits if it were given over to the fancy and gloss of every single man 4. This difference betwixt a Judge and a Rule D. Potter perceived when more than once having stiled the Scripture a Judge by way of correcting that term he adds or rather a Rule because he knew that an inanimate writing could not be a Judge From hence also it was that though Protestants in their beginning affirmed Scripture alone to be the Judge of Controversies yet upon a more advised reflection they changed the phrase and said that not Scripture but the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture is Judge in Controversies A difference without a disparity The Holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us than the Scripture in which he speaks as a man speaking only Latin can be no better understood than the tongue wherein he speaketh And therefore to say A Judge is necessary for deciding Controversies about the meaning of Scripture is as much as to say He is necessary to decide what the holy Ghost speaks in Scripture And it were a conceit equally foolish and pernitious if one should seek to take away all Judges in the Kingdom upon this nicety that albeit Laws cannot be Judges yet the Law-maker speaking in the Law may perform that Office as if the Law-maker speaking in the Law were with more perspicuity understood than the Law whereby he speaketh 5. But though some writing were granted to have a priviledge to declare it self upon supposition that it were maintained in being and preserved entire from corruptions yet it is manifest that no writing can conserve it self nor can complain or denounce the falsifier of it and therefore it stands in need of some watchful and not-erring eye to guard it by means of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure 6. And suppose it could defend it self from corruption how could it assure us that it self were Canonical and of infallible verity By saying so Of this very Affirmation there will remain the same Question still how it can prove it self to be infallibly true Neither can there ever be an end of the like multiplyed demands till we rest in the external Authority of some person or persons bearing witness to the world that such or such a Book is Scripture and yet upon this Point according to Protestants all other Controversies in Faith depend 7. That Scripture cannot assure us that it self is Canonical Scripture is acknowledged by some Protestants in express words and by all of them in deeds M. Hooker whom D. Potter ranketh (a) Pag. 131. among men of great Learning and Judgment saith Of things (b) In his first book of Eccles Polity Sect. 14. p. 68. necessary the very chiefest is to know what Books we are to esteem Holy which Point is confessed impossible for the Scripture it self to teach And this he proveth by the same Argument which we lately used saying thus It is not (c) Ibid. l. 2. Sect. 4. p. 102. the Word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think it his Word For if any one Book of Scripture did give testimony of all yet still that Scripture which giveth testimony to the rest would require another Scripture to give credit unto it Neither could we come to any pause whereon to rest unless besides Scripture there were something which might assure us c. And this he acknowledges to be the (d) L. 3. Sect. 8. pag. 1.146 alibi Church By the way If Of things necessary the very chiefest cannot possibly be taught by Scripture as this man of great learning and judgment affirmeth and demonstratively proveth how can the Protestant Clergy of England subscribe to their sixt Article Wherein it is said of the Scripture Whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation and concerning their belief and profession of this Article they are particularly examined when they be ordained Priests and Bishops With Hooker his defendant Covel doth punctually agree Whitaker likewise confesseth that the question about Canonical Scriptures is desined to us not by testimony of the private Spirit which saith he being private and secret is (e) Adv. Stap. l. 2. c. 6. p. 270. to p. 357. unfit to teach and refel others but as he acknowledgeth by the (f) Adv. Stap. l. 2. c. 4. p. 300. Ecclesiastical Tradition An Argument saith he whereby may be argued and convinced what Books be Canonical and what be not Luther saith This (g) L. de cap. Bab. to 2. Witt. f. 88. indeed the Church hath that she can discern the Word of God from the word of men as Augustine confesseth that he believed the Gospel being moved by the Authority of the Church which did preach this to be the Gospel Fulk teacheth that the Church (h) In his Answer to a counterfeit Catholique p. 5. hath judgement to discern true writings from counterfeit and the Word of God from the writing of men and that this judgement she hath not of her self but of the holy Ghost And to the end that you may not be ignorant from what Church you must receive Scriptures hear your first Patriarch Luther speaking against them who as he saith brought in Anabaptism that so they might despight the Pope Verily saith he these (i) Ep. con Anab. ad duos Paroches to 2. Ger. Witt. men build upon a week foundation For by this means they ought to deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For all these we have from the Pope otherwise we must go make a new Scripture 8. But now in deeds they all make good that without the Churches Authority no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical while they cannot agree in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Of the Epistle of S. James Luther hath these words The (k) Praef. in epist Jac. in ed. Jenen Epist of James is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy of an Apostolical Spirit Which censure of Luther Illyricus acknowledgeth and maintaineth Kemnitius teacheth that the second Epistle (l) In Enchirid p. 63. of Peter the second and third of John the Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James the Epistle of Jude and the Apocalyps of John are Apocryphal as not having sufficient Testimony (m) In exam Conc. Trid. part 1. p. 55. of their authority and therefore that nothing in Controversie can be proved out of these (n) Ibid. Books The same is taught by divers other Lutherans and if some other amongst them be of a contrary opinion since Luther's time I wonder what new infallible ground they can alledge why they leave their Master and so many of his prime Schollers I know no better ground than because they may with as much freedom
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 inferre 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 an highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet me-thinks you should not deny but 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 and 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 Scholler 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 doubt in the Church divers Books must be dis-canonized 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 those 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 mysterie 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 ye must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our Side you must do so when we have no reason 42. The Discourse following is but a vain Declamation No man thinks that this Controversie is to be tried by Most Voices but by the Judgement and Testimony of the Ancient Fathers and Churches 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 passe 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 grant 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
must be the Rule to judge of the goodness of ours this is but a vain flourish For to say of our Translations That is the best which comes nearest the Vulgar and yet it is but one man that says so is not to say it is therefore the best because it does so For this may be true by accident and yet the truth of our Translation no way depend upon the truth of yours For had that been their direction they would not only have made a Translation that should come near to yours but such a one which should exactly agree with it and be a Translation of your Translation 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if God's will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submitting unto some Judicial sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand This is very true Neither should you need to perswade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judicial definitive obliging sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to perswade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole world therefore God hath appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best know to Himself not to allow us this convenience 86. D. Field's words which follow I confess are somewhat more pressing and if he had been infallible and the words had not slipt unadvisedly from him they were the best Argument in your Book But yet it is evident out of his Book and so acknowledged by some of your own That he never thought of any one company of Christians invested with such authority from God that all men were bound to receive their Decrees without examination though they seem contrary to Scripture and Reason which the Church of Rome requires And therefore if he have in his Preface strained too high in commendation of the Subject he writes of as Writers very often do in their Prefaces and Dedicatory Epistles what is that to us Besides by all the Societies of the World it is not impossible nor very improbable he might mean all that are or have been in the world and so include even the Primitive Church and her Communion we shall embrace her Direction we shall follow her Judgement we shall rest in if we believe the Scripture endeavour to find the true sense of it and live according to it 87. Ad § 18. That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churche's Interpretation of Scripture is alwayes true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. if you speak of that Church which before you spake of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us we were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us That our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrin to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand any interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe it therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us This or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all ages is one thing and the Authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholique Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the Authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture How can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which
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 perswaded 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 S. Austin's 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 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 God's 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 hypocritical 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 Churche's 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 Youconferr places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrin 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 158. You add not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of God's Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot err damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any error in the Church but only to maintain her impossibility of erring And lastly D. Potter assures himself that your Doctrine and Practices are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei inceriae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will be as an Antidote to you against the errors which you maintain and that your superstruction may burn yet they amongst you qui sequuntur Absalonem in simplicitate cordis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unless you suppose him infallible and if you do Why do you write against him 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholely 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 wel-being of it Irenaeus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine 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
that she must For seeing the Church is a Society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrin of the Romish Church hath freewill in believing it follows that the whole Aggregate hath freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to that succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him Besides let us suppose that neither in this nor in any other place God had promised any more unto them but to lead them into all Truth necessary for their own and other mens salvatition Doth it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is obliged by his Veracity to do all that he hath promised but is there any thing that binds him to do no more May not he be better than his word but you will quarrel at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we have certainty enough that oft-times it doth so God at first did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more than what he askt which was wisdom to govern his people and that he gave him But yet I hope you will not deny that we have certainty enough that he gave him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you do you contradict God himself For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I have done according to thy word Lo I have given thee a Wise and an Understanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour so that there shall not be any among the Kings like unto thee in all thy days God for ought appears never obliged himself by promise to shew S. Paul those Unspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we have certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof that all things necessary shall be added unto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to do no more and if he give them necessaries he hath discharged his obligation Shall we therefore be so injurious to his bounty towards us as to say it is determined by the narrow bounds of meer Necessity So though God had obliged himself by promise to give his Apostles infallibility only in things necessary to salvation nevertheless it is utterly inconsequent that he gave them no more than by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to do or that we can have no assurance of any farther assistance that he gave them especially when he himself both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chain of fearful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily be avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposals 35. Ad § 14. 15 Doubting of a Book received for Canonical may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonical or supposing it to be Canonical whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then again distinguish of the term Received For it may signifie either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Universal or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not true A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Universal Church of this present time whether it be Canonical or no and yet have just reason to believe and no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonical As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. James the Church Rome in Hieromes time of the Epistle to the Hebrews And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to do so If by Received you mean Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book hath as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such Book and yet not of all because it is possible men may do not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confess he that believes such a Book to be Canonical i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible Supposition believes it 〈◊〉 not to be true if he will do according to reason must doubt of all the rest and believe none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true than because God hath said it nor no other reason to believe the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word he that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to believe nothing that he sayes and therefore if he will do according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he sayes And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Universal and not confined to Points Fundamental 36. And this Reason why we should not refuse to believe any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamental you confess to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Universal infallibility of the Church For say you unless She be infallible in all things we cannot believe her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not infallible in all things must not nor cannot believe you in any thing Nay you your self must not believe your self in any thing because you know that you are not infallible in all things Indeed if you had said We could not rationally believe her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my belief in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one and the same in all proposals I should have the same reason to believe all that I have to believe one and therefore must either do unreasonably in believing any
danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written Saint Chrysostom's 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 withall that we are perswaded you 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. Austins 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 ever 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 à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does not follows with good consequence but The Church doth 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 enquire 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 hath 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 doth 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 Saint Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholsom 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 fooot then he that shall bury his soul in drunkenness Of these he sayes That they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councels 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 then that of Christians And therefore he professeth 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 alwayes more prone to superstition 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 scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholique Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after The Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholique Church placed between Chaff and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these servile burdens Our Saviour tels the Scribes and Pharisees That in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrimè praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviour's words The Commandments of God are laid aside And then Tam multis praesumptionibus sic pleana sunt omnia All things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severly censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the earth with his naked feet than he which drowned and buried his soul in drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to worship God in vain as well as the Scribes and Pharises And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers places This is plain from these words of S. Austin concerning them Diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter varià ntur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it Liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholique Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent Spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophecy of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night Besides how these Superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthened by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the Commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep root and spread their branches so far as to pass for Universal
the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your Distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that alwayes hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and today and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleaseth and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ then what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can 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 hinderance 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 judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken 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 al 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 then 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 Doctrin which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old 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 Doctrins 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 Doctrin 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 Doctrins how have they complyed 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 S. Mark and S. John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other profitable things in the larger Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Mark 's 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 and 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 Ephesus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who do now adays that some necessary Doctrins 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 Peter was written by S. Mark and some other
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 Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophistical Pamphler against B. Usher's Sermon hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communiter Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these several Professions of Christianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons the immortality of the Soul c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnifie hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishop's words the denial of the Doctrin of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishop's Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest Objection 46. Now for the foul contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily have espyed in the Bishop's saying he desires your pardon for his oversight sight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set himself to find faults with the Bishop's Sermon yet it seems this he could not find or else questionless we should have heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishop's friend have not been more sharp-sighted than his enemies this he hopes to indifferent Judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much less any foul contradiction in the Bishop's words but as Antipheron's picture which he thought he saw in the air before him was not in the air but in his disturbed phansie so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishop's saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foul contradiction 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 doth 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 doth when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foul contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy Faith with a lewd and wicked Conversation Certainly a lewd Conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy Obedience as a damnable Heresie to necessary Truth What then was the reason that you espyed not this foul contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the Spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrin than holy obedience and think simple error a more capital crime than sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant only to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceive that he might have the same meaning in the former part of the disjunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy Obedience neither poysoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tels us The Catholique 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 dyet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way and 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 confonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in Reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may
thing to any thing 57. Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the Answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter having given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and another which is but something towards a full satisfaction of it That the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple Belief you take no notice of the former and pervert the latter and make him say The Creed contains all Fundamentals of Faith Whereas you know and within six or seven lines after this confess that he never pretended it to contain all simply but all of one sort all necessary Points of simple belief Which assertion because he modestly delivers as very probable being willing to conclude rather less than more than his reasons require hereupon you take occasion to ask Shall I hazzard 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 H. the 8. 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 abnoxious 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 nullity in any Decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Council which he shall confirm Particularly it will be at least any even wager that all the Decrees of the Council of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope If you mislike these Inferences then confess you have injur'd D. Potter in this also that you have confounded and made all one Probabilities and even Wagers Whereas every ordinary Gamester can inform you that though it be a thousand to one that such a thing will happen yet it is not sure but very probable 58. To make the measure of your injustice yet fuller you demand If the Creed contains only points of simple belief how shall you know what points of belief are necessary which direct our practise D. Potter would have answered you in our Saviours words Search the Scriptures But you have a great mind it seems to be dispairing and therefore having proposed your Question will not suffer him to give you Answer but shut your ears and tell him still he chalks out new paths for desperation 59. In the rest of your interlude I cannot but commend one thing in you that you keep a decorum and observe very well the Rule given you by the great Master of your Art Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerat sibi constet One vein of scurrility and dishonesty runs clean through it from the beginning to the end Your next demand then is Are all the Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamental and the Answer I cannot say so Which Answer though it be true D. Potter no where gives it neither hath he occasion but you make it for him to bring in another question and that is How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not Fundamental D. Potter would have answered It is a vain question believe all and you shall be sure to believe all that is Fundamental 60. But what says now his prevaricating Proxy What does he make him say This which follows Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken There you shall find that Fundamental doctrins are such Catholique verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those Grand and Captital Doctrins which make up our Faith that is the Common Faith which is alike pretious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle elsewhere cals The first Principles of the Oracles of God and The form of sound words 61. But in earnest Good Sir doth the Doctor in these places by you quoted make to this question this same sottish answer Or do you think that against an Heretique nothing is unlawful Certainly if he doth answer thus I will make bold to say he is a very fool But if he does not as indeed he does not then But I forbear you and beseech the Reader to consult the places of D. Potter's Book and there he shall find that in the former half of these as you call them varyed words and phrases he declared only what he meant by the word Fundamental which was needful to prevent mistakes and cavilling about the meaning of the word which is metaphorical and therefore ambiguous and that the latter half of them are several places of Scripture imployed by D. Potter to shew that his distinction of Fundamental and not Fundamental hath express ground in it Now of these two places very pertinent unto two very good purposes you have exceeding fairly patcht together a most ridiculous Answer to a Question that D. Potter never dreamed of But the words you will say are in D. Potters Book though in divers places and to other purposes Very true And so the words of Ausonius his obscene Fescennine are taken out of Virgil yet Virgil surely was not the Author of this Poem Besides in D. Potters book there are these words Dreâ—d Soveraign amongst the many excellent vertues which have made your Majesties person so dear unto God c. And why now may you not say as well that in these he made Answer to your former question what Points of the Creed were and what were not Fundamentals 62. But unlâ—ss this question may be answered his doctrin you say serves only either to make men despair or else to have recourse to these whom we call Rapists It seems a little thing will make you despair if you be so sullen as to do so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfie your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as
with you and have so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this Doctrin which you impute to them And though this Errour were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this-parity between you and them might make it more lawful for us to communicate with them than you because what they hold they hold to themselves and refuse not as you do to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41. Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither do these Protestants hold the failing of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the Stars fail every day and the Sun every night Neither is it certain that the doctrin of the Churches failing is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the remission of sins depends not upon the actual remission of any mans sins but upon Gods readiness and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbelief or impenitence should be universal and the Faithful should absolutely fail from the children of men and the Son of Man should find no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sins of all that repent In like manner It is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholique Church depends upon the actual existence of a Catholique Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remains still true that there ought to be a Church and this Church ought to be Catholique For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should be a Church in America the truth of the later depends not upon truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 42. Thirdly if you understand by errors not fundamental such as are not damnable it is not true as I have often told you that we confess your errors not fundamental 43. Lastly for your desire that I should here apply an authority of St. Cyprian alleaged in your next number I would have done so very willingly but indeed I know not how to do it for in my apprehension it hath no more to do with your present business of proving it unlawful to communicate with these men who hold the Church was not alwayes visible than In nova fert animus Besides I am here again to remember you that St. Cyprians words were they never so pertinent yet are by neither of the parts litigant esteemed any rule of faith And therefore the urging of them and such like authorities serves only to make Books great and Controversies endless 44. Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaves delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches external Communion but only her corruptions pretend to do that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches external Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45. Ans But Who are they that pretend they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internal communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the maner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kind of communion with it and he that is not in this internal communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your external communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati Casauâ—um in Eâ— ad Card. Perron as being willing to joyn with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated and constrained to do so because you would not suffer them to do well with you unless they would do ill with you Now to do ill that you may do well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they foâ—sook your corruptions only and not your external communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your Confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the external communion of it was all one in sense and signification I hope by this time you are disabus'd and begin to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custome of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practice of a Church formerly common to himself and others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherin the essence of the Church consists Wheras peradventure this practise may be so involved with the external communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practise and not to leave the Churches external communion 46 You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47. Ans A pretty Sophism and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any error they hold or any vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake Themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Local and a Moral forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may Locally and properly depart from the Accidents
without which there can be no hope of Salvation 30 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must de because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth lose all Divine saith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelical Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether (o) 23 q. â— aâ—â— 3. in corp he who denieth one Article of saith may retain saith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumento sed contra because As deadly sin is opposite to charity so to deny one Article of saith is opposite to saith But charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin Therefore faith doth not remain after the denial of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formal Motive and Object thereof which Motive being taken away the nature of the habit cannot remain But the formal object of saith is the supreme Truth as it is manifesied in Scriptures and in the doctrin of the Church which proceed from the same supreme Verity Whosoever therefore doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church which proceeds from the supreme Verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule he hath not the habit of faith but believes those things which belong to faith by some other means than by faith as if one should remember some conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is clear that he hath not certain Knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that he who relies on the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yield his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not he doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is clear that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of saith is not ready to follow the doctrin of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not faith but a kind of Opinion or his own Will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth believe (q) Ad. 2. all the Articles of faith for one and the self same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrin of the Church and therefore whosoever falls from this reason or motive is totally deprived of saith From this true doctrin we are to infeâ—r that to retain or want the substance oâ— faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against God's divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs eâ—r and that they have no certain rule to know why rather one than another it manifestly follows that none of them have any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confess that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not err in any one point against faith because as we have seen out of S. Thomas every such error destroys the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not err in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants err in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility They want the second Condition of Faith Obscurity 31 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants have Certainly they want Obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or noâ— necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of these Canonical Scriptures is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now thâ—se Principles being once supposed it clearly followeth that what Protestants believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Major in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true But it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example The Trinity Incarnation Original sin c. are contained in these Books Thereâ—ore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by natural discourse but only to the eye of reason cleared by grace as you speak For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more draws and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to caprivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own Their faith wants Prudence 32 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hâ—th been said What wisdom was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other visible Church of Christ upon earth A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Universality of Time and Place A Church which if it be not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetual Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Unity or means to procure it a Church which at Luther's first re-revolt had no larger extent than where his body was a Church without Universality of Place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth a Church void of Succession of Persons or Doctrin What wisdom was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the Visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdom is it to receive from Us a Church Ordination Scriptures
cleer that none of them have any certainty at all Certainly Sir Zeal and the Devil did strangely blind you if you did not see that these horrid impieties were the immediate consequences of your positions if you did see it and yet would set them down you deserve a worse censure Yet such as these are all the arguments wherewith you conceive your self to have prov'd undoubtedly that Protestants have reason at least to doubt in what case they stand Neither am I afraid to venture my life upon it that your self shall not choose so much as one out of all the pack which I will not shew before indifferent Judges either to be impertinent to the question inconsequent in the deduction or grounded upon some false or at least uncertain foundation 14. Your third and fourth argument may be thus put into one Protestants cannot tell what points in particular be fundamental therefore they cannot tell whether they or their brethren do not erre fundamentally and whether their difference be not fundamental Both which deductions I have formerly shewed to be most inconsequent for knowing the Scripture to contain all fundamentals though many more points besides which makes it difficult to say precisely what is fundamental and what not knowing this I say and believing it what can hinder but that I may be well assured that I believe all fundamentals and that all who believe the Scripture sincerely as well as I do not differ from me in any thing fundamental 15. In the close of this Section you say that you omit to add that we want the Sacrament of Repentance instituted for the remission of sins or at least we must confess that we hold it not necessary and yet our own brethren the Century-writers acknowledge that in the times of Cyprian and Tertullian private confession even of thoughts was used and that it was then commanded and thought necessary and then our Ordination you say is very doubtful and all that depends upon it Ans I also omit to answer 1. That your brother Rhenanus acknowledges the contrary and assures us That the confession then required and in use was publique and before the Church and that your auricular Confession was not then in the world for which his mouth is stopped by your Index Expurgatorious 2. That your brother Arcudius acknowledges that the Eucharist was in Cyprians time given to Infants and esteemed necessary or at least profitable for them and the giving it shews no less and now I would know whether you will acknowledge your Church bound to give it and to esteem so of it 3. That it might be then commanded and being commanded be thought necessary and yet be but a Church-Constitution Neither will I deny if the present Church could and would so order it that the abuses of it might be prevented and conceiving it profitable should enjoyn the use of it but that being commanded it would be necessary 4. Concerning our Ordinations besides that I have proved it impossible that they should be so doubtful as yours according to your own principles I answer that experience shews them certainly sufficient to bring men to faith and repentance and consequently to salvation and that if there were any secret defect of any thing necessary which we cannot help God will certainly supply it 16. Ad § 6. In the sixth you say you will not repeat but only put us again in mind that unless the Roman Church were the true Charch there was no visible Church upon earth a thing so manifest that Protestants themselves confesse c. Answ Neither will I repeat but only put you in mind that you have not prov'd that there is any necessity that there should be any true Church in your sense visible nor if there were that there was no other besides the Roman For as for the confession of Protestants which here you insist upon it is evident out of their own words cited by your self that by the whole world they meant only the greatest part of it which is an usual figure of speech and never intended to deny that besides the Church then reigning and triumphing in this world there was an other militant Church other Christians visible enough though persecuted and oppressed Nor thirdly do you here make good so much as with one fallacy that if the Roman Church were then the visible Church it must needs be now the only or the safer way to heaven and yet the connexion of this consequence was very necessary to be shown For for ought I know it was not impossible that it might then be the only visible Church and yet now a very dangerous way to heaven or perhaps none at all 17. Afterwards you vainly pretend that all Roman Catholiques not one excepted profess that protestancy unrepented destroyes salvation From which generality we may except two at least to my knowledge and those are your self and Franciscus de Sancta Clara who assures us that Ignorance and Repentance may excuse a Protestant from damnation though dying in his error And this is all the Charity which by your own confession also the most favourable Protestans allow to Papists and therefore with strange repugnance to your self you subjoyn that these are the men whom we must hold not to erre dumnably unless we will destroy our own Church and Salvation Whereas as I have said before though you were Turks and Pagans we might be good Christians Neither is it necessary for perpetuating of a Church before Luther that your errors even then should not be damnable but only not actually damning to some ignorant souls among you In vain therefore you do make such tragedies as here you do In vain you conjure us with fear and trembling to consider these things We have considered them again and again and lookt upon them on both sides and find neither terror nor truth in them Let Children and Fools be terrified with bug-bears men of understanding will not regard them 18. Ad § 7 8 9 10 11. Your whole discourse in your fiv◠next Paragraphs I have in the beginning of this Chapter fully confuted by saying that it stands altogether upon the false foundation of this affected mistake that we do and must confess the Roman Church free from damnable error which will presently be apparent to any one who considers that the seventh and tenth are nothing but D. Potter's words and that in the other three you obtrude upon us this Crambe no fewer then seven times May you be pleased to look back to your own Book and you shall find it so as I have said and that at least in a hundred other places you make your advantage of this false imputation which when you have observ'd and withal considered that your self plainly intimate that D. Potter's discourses which here you censure would be good and concluding if we did not as we do not free you from damnable error I hope you will acknowledge that my vouchsafing these Sections the honour of any farther
necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to do nay cannot do so upon any firm and sure and infallible foundation THE CONCLVSION AND thus by God's assistance and the advantage of a good cause I am at length through a passage rather tyring than difficult arriv'd at the end of my undertaken Voyage and have as I suppose made appear to all dis-interessed and unprejudicate Readers what in the beginning I undertook that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny runs clean through this first part of your Book wherein though I never thought of the directions you have been pleas'd to give me in your Pamphlet entituled A direction to N. N. yet upon consideration of my Answer I find that I have proceeded as if I had had it alwayes before my eyes and steer'd my course by it as by a card and compass For first I have not proceeded by a meer destructive way as you call it nor objected such difficulties against your Religion as upon examination tend to the overthrow of all Religion but have shewed that the truth of Christianity is cleerly independent upon the truth of Popery and that on the other side the arguments you urge and the courses you take for the maintenance of your Religion do manifestly tend if they be closely and consequently followed to the destruction of all Religion and lead men by the hand to Atheism and Impiety whereof I have given you ocular demonstrations in divers places of my book but especially in my answer to your Direction to N. N. Neither can I discover any repugnance between any one part of my answer and any other though I have used many more judicious and more searching eyes than mine own to make if it were possible such a discovery and therefore am in good hope that though the musick I have made be but dull and flat and even downright plain-song even your curious and critical ears shall discover no discord in it but on the other side I have charg'd you frequently and very justly with manifest contradiction and retractation of your own assertions and not seldom of the main grounds you build upon and the principal conclusions which you endeavour to maintain which I conceive my self to have made apparent even to the eye c. 2. § 5. c. 3. § 88. c. 4. § 14. and 24. c. 5. § 93. c. 6. § 6 7 12 17. c. 7. § 29. and in many other parts of my Answer And though I did never pretend to defend D. Potter absolutely and in all things but only so farre as he defends Truth neither did D. Potter desire me nor any law of God or man oblige me to defend him any farther yet I do not find that I have cause to differ from him in any matter of moment particularly not concerning the infallibility of God's Church which I grant with him to be infallible in fundamentals because if it should erre in fundamentals it were not the Church Nor concerning the supernaturality of Faith which I know and believe as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh and bloud reveal'd it not unto us but our Father which is in heaven But now if it were demanded What defence you can make for deserting Charity Mistaken in the main Question disputed between him and Dr. Potter Whether Protestancy without a particular repentance and dereliction of it destroy Salvation whereof I have convinc'd you I believe your answer would be much like that which Ulysses makes in the Metamorphosis for his running away from his friend Nestor that is none at all For Opposing the Articles of the Church of England the Approbation I presume cleers my Book from this imputation And whereas you give me a Caution that my grounds destroy not the belief of diverse Doctrins which all good Christians believe yea and of all verities that cannot be prov'd by natural reason I profess sincerely that I do not know nor believe that any ground laid by me in my whole Book is any way inconsistent with any one such Doctrin or with any verity revealed in the Word of God though never so improbable or incomprehensible to Natural Reason and if I thought there were I would deal with it as those primitive Converts dealt with their curious Books in the Acts of the Apostles For the Epistle of St. James and those other Books which were anciently controverted and are now received by the Church of England as Canonical I am so far from relying upon any Principles which must to my apprehension bring with them the denial of the authority of them that I my self believe them all to be Canonical For the overthrowing the Infallibility of all Scripture my Book is so innocent of it that the Infallibility of Scripture is the chiefest of all my grounds And lastly for Arguments tending to prove an impossibility of all Divine Supernatural Infallible Faith and Religion I assure my self that if you were ten times more a Spider than you are you could suck no such poyson from them My heart I am sure is innocent of any such intention and the Searcher of all hearts knows that I had no other end in writing this Book but to confirm to the uttermost of my ability the truth of the Divine and Infallible Religion of our dearest Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus which I am ready to seal and confirm not with my Arguments only but my Bloud Now these are the Directions which you have been pleas'd to give me whether out of a fear that I might otherwise deviate from them or out of a desire to make others think so But howsoever I have not to my understanding swarved from them in any thing which puts me in good hope that my Answer to this first Part of your Book will give even to you your self indifferent good satisfaction I have also provided though this were more than I undertook a just and punctual examination and refutation of your second Part But if you will give your consent I am resolv'd to suppress it and that for divers sufficient and reasonable considerations First because the discussion of the Controversies intreated of in the first Part if we shall think fit to proceed in it as I for my part shall so long as I have truth to reply will I conceive be sufficient employment for us though we cast off the burden of those many lesser disputes which remain behind in the Second And perhaps we may do God and his Church more service by exactly discussing and fully clearing the truth in these few â—â—an by handling many after a sleight and perfunctory manner Secondly because the addition of the Second Part whether for your purpose or mine is clearly unnecessary there being no understanding man Papist or Protestant but will confess that for as much as concerns the main question now in agitation about the saveableness of Protestants if the first part of your Book be answered there needs no reply to the Second
patient and long-suffering toward thee hoping that his long-suffering may lead thee to repentance and beseeching thee daily by his Ministers to be reconcil'd unto him And yet thou on the other-side for a distemper'd passionate speech or less shouldst take upon thee to send thy neighbours soul or thine own or likely both clogg'd and oppress'd with all your sins unrepented of for how can repentance possibly consist with such a resolution before the Tribunal seat of God to expect your final sentence utterly depriving thy self of all the blessed means which God has contrived for thy Salvation and putting thy self in such an estate that it shall not be in Gods power almost to do thee any good Pardon I beseech you my earnestness almost intemperateness seeing it hath proceeded from so just so warrantable a ground And since it is in your power to give rules of honour and reputation to the whole Kingdom do not you teach others to be ashamed of this inseparable Badg of your Religion Charity and forgiving of offences give men leave to be Christians without danger or dishonour Or if Religion will not work with you yet let the Laws of that State wherein you live the earnest desires and care of your Righteous Prince prevail with you But I have done and proceed to my last part which is the convenience and gain which shall accrew unto us by friends oblig'd with this Mammon of unrighteousness Namely by them to be reciv'd into everlasting habitations 37. I must here again propose another question Part. III. but when I have done that I must be forced to leave it without an answer unless you will be content to take a conjecture a probability for an answer It is How or after what manner those to whom we have done good here shall hereafter receive us into everlasting habitations Whether this is perform'd only by their Prayers and Intercession with God in the behalf of their Benefactors Or whether they are us'd as Instruments and conductors as it were as our Saviour may probably seem to intimate in the Parable where the Lord speaks to his Servants That they should take away the one Talent from him which had no more and bestow it on him which had ten Talents So uncertain it is whether this task shall be performed by them one of these ways or by some other unknown course that St. Auguistine ingenuously confesses he knows not what to make of it Yet Cardinal Bellarmine says he can easily assoil it and can in these words find out Purgatory and satisfaction for sin after death and a great deal more then I can understand But truly if he be able to spy Purgatory in this Text especially such a one as he fancies to himself in his Books of that Argument he has made use of better glasses than ever Galileo found out And I would to God those of his Party would consider how much the weakness of their cause is argued even from hence that they are forc'd to ground most of the Points controverted between us upon such difficult places as these of so ambiguous and uncertain meanings and therefore equally obnoxious to any mans Interpretation There may yet be found out a convenient sense of this place especially if we will allow an Hebraism in those words which is frequent enough in the Evangelical writings of putting the third person plural to express a passive sense and then the meaning will be That when c. they may receive you i. e. That ye may be receiv'd into everlasting habitations Parallel to a like phrase in Luk. 12.12 Thou Fool this night shall they take away thy soul from thee i. e. Thy soul shall be taken from thee And if this sense be true as it is very likely many of our Romish Adversaries have spent much pains about this Text to no purpose 38. But to leave quarrelling It is no very considerable matter whether we have light upon the true sense of those words or no or whether those to whom we have done good have a share in purchasing for us an admission into these everlasting habitations as long as we may infallibly hence conclude that though it should fall out that Abraham should forget us and Israel become ignorant of us yet certainly God who alone is instead of ten thousand such friends he will keep a Register of all our good actions and will take particular care of us to give us a just proportion of reward and harvest of glory according to our sparingness or liberality in sowing 39. But Obj. Would Almighty God have us such mercenary Servants so careful and projecting for our own advantage that we should not obey him without a compact and bargain Is not He worthy the serving unless we first make our condition with him to be sure to gain and thrive by him Is this a consideration worthy and befitting the ingenuity and nobleness of a Christian mind to have an eye unto the recompence of reward Is Christ also become a School-master unto us as well as the Law was to the Jews that we should have need of Thunder and Blackness of smoke and Voyces to affright us or Promises to win and allure us Nay Have not your ears oftentimes heard from such places as this an Obedience of this nature disgrac'd and branded for a Servile slavish obedience an obedience ordinarily made the mark and badg even of a formal Hypocrite the worst kind of Reprobates 40. I confess Sol. I could shew you a more excellent way then this if men were ordinarily fitted and qualified for the receiving of it And that is St. Pauls more excellent way of Charity the keeping of God's Commandements meerly out of the love of his goodness and consideration of his infinite inconceivable holiness And he that can receive this let him receive it and thrice happy and blessed shall he be of the Lord But in the mean time let him not be forward to judg his fellow-servants if they acknowledg themselves so farr guilty of weakness and imperfections that they have need to receive strength and encouragement in this their painful and laborious race by looking forward unto the glorious prize of their high calling in Jesus Christ 41. Surely God is wise enough to contrive the surest course and to set down the best and likelyest means for perswading us to his service and the obedience of his Commandements He is able to enquire and search into the most retired corners of our wicked deceitful hearts and thereby knowing our temper and disposition he is able best to prescribe us a method and diet suitable to our constitutions Therefore if he out of his infinite wisdom and the consideration of what encouragements we stand in need of hath thought it fit to annex to every Precept almost a promise of happiness or a threatning of unavoidable danger to the transgressours What art thou O man that thou darest take upon thee to calumniate his proceedings and to prescribe better
the state of the Question and the Doctrine of our Church in the words of one who both now is and for ever will worthily be accounted The glory of this Kingdome Bishop Usher's Ans to the Jesuit Cap. of Confession p. 84. Be it known saith he to our adversaries of Rome I add also to our adversaries even of Great Britain who sell their private fancies for the Doctrine of our Church that no kind of Confession either publick or private is disallow'd by our Church that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient Power of the Keys which Christ bestowed upon his Church The thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Conventicle of Trent in the 14. Session 11. And this truth being so evident in Scripture and in the writings of the ancient best times of the Primitive Church the safest interpreters of Scripture I make no question but there will not be found one person amongst you who when he shall be in a calm unpartial disposition that will offer to deny For I beseech you give your selves leave unpartially to examine your own thoughts Can any man be so unreasonable as once to imagine with himself that when our Saviour after his Resurrection having received as himself saith all power in heaven and earth having led captivity captive came then to bestow gifts upon men when he I say in so solemn a manner having first breath'd upon his Disciples thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into their hearts renewed unto them or rather confirm'd and seal'd unto them that glorious Commission which before he had given to Peter sustaining as it were the person of the whole Church whereby he delegated to them an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth with a promise that the proceedings in the Court of Heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs on Earth Can any man I say think so unworthily of our Saviour as to esteem these words of his for no better than complement for nothing but Court-holy-water 12. Yet so impudent have our adversaries of Rome been in their dealings with us that they have dared to lay to our charge as if we had so mean a conceit of our Saviour's gift of the Keys taking advantage indeed from the unwary expressions of some particular Divines who out of too forward a zeal against the Church of Rome have bended the staffe too much the contrary way and in stead of taking away that intolerable burden of a Sacramental necessary universal Confession have seem'd to void and frustrate all use and exercise of the Keys 13. Now that I may apply something of that which hath now been spoken to your hearts and consciences Matters standing as you see they do since Christ for your benefit and comfort hath given such authority to his Ministers upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition to absolve and release you from your sins why should I doubt or be unwilling to exhort and perswade you to make your advantage of thi◠gracious promise of our Saviours why should I envy you the participation of so heavenly a Blessing Truly if I should deal thus with you I should prove my self a malicious unchristian-like malignant Preacher I should wickedly and unjustly against my own conscience seek to defraud you of those glorious Blessings which our Saviour hath intended for you 14. Therefore in obedience to his gracious will and as I am warranted and even enjoyned by my holy Mother the Church of England expresly in the Book of Common-Prayer in the Rubrick of Visiting the Sick which Doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far I beseech you that by your practise and use you will not suffer that Commission which Christ hath given to his Ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them not to be an antiquated exspired Commission of no use nor validity in these daies But whensoever you find your selves charg'd and oppressed especially with such Crimes as they call Peccata vastantia conscientiam such as do lay waste and depopulate the conscience that you would have recourse to your spiritual Physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease that he may be able as the cause shall require to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives or comfort and temper it with oyl And come not to him only with such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienc'd in the Scriptures as one that can speak comfortable quieting words to you but as to one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins If you shall do this Assure your souls that the understanding of man is not able to conceive that transport and excess of joy and comfort which shall accrew to that mans heart that is perswaded that he hath been made partaker of this Blessing orderly and legally according as out Saviour Christ hath prescribed 15. You see I have dealt honestly and freely with you it may be more freely than I shall be thanked for But I should have sinn'd against my own soul if I had done otherwise I should have conspir'd with our adversaries of Rome against our own Church in affording them such an advantage to blaspheme our most holy and undefiled Religion It becomes you now though you will not be perswaded to like of the practise of what out of an honest heart I have exhorted you to yet for your own sakes not to make any uncharitable construction of what hath been spoken And here I will acquit you of this unwelcome subject and from Zacchaeus his confession of his Sin I proceed to my second particular namely the nature and hainousness of the crime confess'd which is here call'd a defrauding another by forged cavillation 16. The crime here confessed is called in Greek Sycophancy Partic. II. for the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the understanding of which word in this place we shall not need so much to be beholden to the Classical Greek Authors as to the Septuagint who are the best Interpreters of the Idiom of the Greek language in the Evangelical writings Two Reasons of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are given the one by Ister in Atticis the other by Philomnestus de Smynthiis Rhodiis both recorded by Athenaeus in that treasury of ancient learning his Deipnosophists in the third Book which because they are of no great use for the interpretation of S. Luke I willingly omit 17. Now there are four several words in the Hebrew which the Seventy Interpreters have rendred in the old Testament by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the verbal thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One whereof signifies to abalienate or wrest any thing from another by fraud and sophistry opposed to another word in the same language which imports